the desire to be desirable

the title is a quote from the widows voice.

when you feel desirable, you feel beautiful.  You feel alive in a special warm secret way.
like an inside joke
but it isn't a joke
and it is inside your body
your being
every move you make
each laugh and goofy game
each stretch each step

and the odd thing is how sometimes
when you have it
you deny that it is there

at least I did.
there wasn't a moment when he didn't want me
if the energy had been there

and I rejected it, at times,
because I was afraid of my body
afraid it wasn't thin enough, strong enough

and the rub is that now that he is gone, I realize he was honest
he did think I was pretty...and that word that seemed not enough
was everything
he used "beautiful" for the lines of a diver
I always worried he thought his divers
were more beautiful than me

but to him, I was everything else in the world
everything desirable

and I wonder about lust and love and longing and need

how love scares people away
and lust draws them together
and how it should be so different....

I think about how we long for something different
even when we have what we need and what we want
and I wonder about sensation
and history

and I think of the time so long ago when I played with the idea of dreams
and my "little brother" took me to a magical place
in my mind where I could see myself without time
and I saw a wood nymph, felt her limbs as mine
running free and barefoot
dancing on the breeze of youth and hope and everything eternal

and later I became pain wrapped in lust and longing and fear

and later than that I fought to find the hope that comes inside love

and I loved so many of the wrong people

and then he loved me.

and I wonder how to move forward
knowing I have kids, and am not
a kid
and I want to embrace that wood nymph
who laughs and runs free
and doesn't care who sees
special parts
sweet secrets

but secrets are tied to hearts

and how do you hold a heart
when someone else holds the hand
when someone else owns the soul

and really, how do we do anything other than reach
for what we hope for

even when it is nothing
when it is wrong
when it is gone

I feel like it is gone
before it began

eight years with a ring
twelve all together

and I am left with longing and emptiness
even when there isn't pain

and how do you reconcile all that?
the wood nymph, the mother, the teacher
the lover, the intellect, the poet, the fearful shy teen,
the enigmatic ethereal
center of your soul that wants to be strong
that needs to be seen
held
touched
loved

It's all there.  All inside every step
even the mundane ones
like wearing a sexy teddy under dirty jeans and a T that doesn't fit right
or a business suit

Only widows aren't supposed to want the teddy
the sexy, the desire, the love, the touches, the tenderness

but really, when you break it down
we are likely the ones who want it the most.
We know how it feels...we know how it moves
it left when we were in the midst of it all
ready to learn to live while it grew and matured
became something eternal
and was taken

and when something is taken before
you are done,
will you honestly try to tell me
you will be sated and not search for it, long for it, want it
again?  Perhaps in ways, too soon?

and how are you supposed to want and need
on some prescribed schedule?

I want him back.
and I can't have him

and how I crave the quiet want, the need,
the desire to be
desirable

because really there is nothing
wrong with that.

it is healthy
normal
natural

and so hard to find in the right
sort of balance.
too easy to find too much lust
too easy to feel too much love
too easy to fall inside yourself
and feel too little...

or too much