I Covet Perfection in all Its Forms

I hear loneliness when she saunters by
Or she’s blown with a mute’s brittle loss
Senescing gold colours autumn lets fly
Her beauty, wrought in naked perfection.

I covet perfection's myriad forms
The arc of a waist, the crossing
Of limbs athletically honed, but born
Into degeneracy I am flawed.

What questions define my purpose as man?
Those quiet Godlike ones haunting the night,
Silken spectres of a dismal lover’s hands
Or those that probe desired retribution?

These contradictions fill my heart at rest
Attenuate my world, provide respite.
And so diminished, plucked but unstressed
I am left unresolved, a hanging chord.

Where is hope when sensibility dies?
I’d rather longing than stabilised lies.

To write is to err and to err is divine.

I know that you are awake. Your breathing gives you away and it angers me. Although we have become so well known to each other it's paradoxically the small details about you that I despise. Not the casual everyday indiscretions that we all have, immature unhygienic behaviours, willful moments of selfishness. God knows I can be selfish too, but no. These things can and do annoy me but I am perfectly able to put them aside and continue in the charade of togtherness and love that we have tricked into being. Again no, what I despise is your confidence. You're not an overtly arrogant man, you're not prone to bragging, though your tendency to speak a little too forcefully and on subjects about which you know too little embarrasses me but again I have learnt to accept that. Maybe I should say learned as I've had to do it again and again but nevermind. It's the way that your self confidence is tenacious, whatever happens, whatever role you play even if it leads to damage you just sit by and acquiesce without blame or doubt.

I feign sleep to avoid conversation, we have said it all and what is left we know we cannot mention. On these matters we are silent, as we should be after all these years. Yesterday for a while I even thought you attractive again. Not enough to make me want you or even be a dutiful wife but the way you held yourself and conversed causally with people was still acceptable to me. It was a good evening, for a while until I became a bit drunk and aggressive. Slipping in and out of sleep I think about myself. Most days I find myself castigating myself for my lack of control, giving in to temptation. Today I feel good, I am pleased with the amount and quality of food that I have eaten. Portion control and balance are my mantras and it seems to be working. Last night before I had to rush into my pyjamas I'd admired myself in our bedroom mirror. You were coming and I wanted to avoid any advances, with my back slightly arched, one heel flat one raised and my waist tucked-in I felt really happy with my body for the first time in ages, I rubbed my hands across my belly and my waist and stood sideways on to the mirror, hands on hips.

***

Good morning my love I say to myself but I don't touch you or make a sound. I remember back to when we were separated for a while six years ago. I'd gone on holiday alone and was sitting in a café nursing a coffee. I really missed you then and what I missed most was our companionship, before we screwed it up with stress and difficulty I thought we had had such beauty together. I believed that we would have these times again if we could only construct our relationship differently. I felt hurt but I didn't want the pain to drive hasty decisions. I thought about your need for security, I thought we needed each other and that by going through a separation I'd become a better man. But in truth those were your words not mine.

I thought that going away would teach me a lot about myself. I don't think that it did. You had your lover. You asked me if I could cope with the emotions of being a alone while you were sleeping with him, I'd joked that we both swing to the rhythms of different lusts. Sometimes yours for safety, somtimes yours for men to covet and desire you. Other times you need to be loved for your heart and your mind, am I right?

I'd recommended you a song: 'baby, oh baby, you're my drug, come on baby let me get fucked up'. Such a male thing to sing but this is a woman's words. I thought if it came from someone else you'd understand. She understands. Love the high but long to be clean. I hoped that you'd feel some of this too? You wrote to me in explict detail about the things the two of you did to each other and you told me you felt like a whore, giving good value to your affluent older man. I think that it made you feel wonderful to for while, but only once you'd let me in on your secrets, only when you'd linked it to me. I could palpably feel your sexual excitement when you wrote those things.

And then in a flash it hurt you. You didn't want him anymore and the excitement became too much to bear. You spoke of carrying a weight of desire that would crush us if we didn't let it down to the ground. But the exquisite pleasure of being crushed still makes me want to take an extra step. Nothing's changed since. I still wish we could return to that time and for the way that your domination cocooned me to continue. For me you rang the changes much too soon. I didn't get my fantasy. You said that couldn't keep it going until then. It would have hurt me and in a way it always has, even though it didn't happen. I say I love you so much and more all the time. I love the loves of each other's lives, this is us to me.

A Start of Something?

My name is Richard Mutt and I am not yet fifty though I have made substantive progress in attaining that age by believing in good, in right, in love and beauty. As I get older things pivotal to the enjoyment of the remainder of my days oscillate, my weight, my desires, my kindnesses and commitments all in disordered dimensions parallel to the scales of intent and resignation which weigh my contentment. So does purpose for instance and today I cannot get up. The sky today, a winter dawn, somewhere around eight is intense, a cloud low dark long moves from left to right across my bedroom window, a snake in my eye. Framed with dark red curtains foreboding pink high cloud is eclipsed by rapidly moving wisps of black. The sixteen thousand four hundred and thirty seventh day of my life begins. The cheeky boy with the handsome smile is alone beside his wife, she snores softly, somewhere front or back the cat calls to be let in from the night. Today looms large. I stretch myself, feel the sore muscles of my inactive body go as far as they safely will. Right handed my right shoulder and neck are, together with a spot just above my right hip the most unforgiving. They reflect the tension I display, picking, typing, bowing, touching. I don't relax into these things and even when conscious of my rigidity I find it impossible to become physically at peace.It's almost Christmas too, green and red, gaudy and cheap adorns my world for a few weeks. Both my wife and my mistress love this time. Once I chose my mistress because I thought her and my wife so unalike. Now they are as binary stars orbiting each other and I am their invisible centre of gravity, binding them, tracing the groove in time through which they pass, holding it all together. They shop, I shop, my women I cannot stop. It's quite a blissful place really. Quietly and serenely enabling their consumption. I wonder how many people hope that I have gone from their lives and will never return?