I have passed through the gates of hell
and emerged with a prize beyond compare.
Tenderness is all.
It is not that some people learn the hard way.
For everyone, to learn is hard.
Now I know about the birds and the bees.
Desire and power.
Beauty as strength, clarity, depth,
serenity, health, power.
About the powerful and the weak.
And how the weak are sometimes called strong
because they do not break.
But then they become anything
anyone makes them.
Then they are called creative.
The world wholly split apart.
men vs. women
strong vs. weak
two vs. one.
The companion becomes whore becomes mother becomes
virgin becomes little girl
I break into a thousand pieces
Don’t hold me – let me go.
I’m not man running any more,
but a woman running into myself
and wanting to disappear.
I have been under a spell compounded by
fear, training, nostalgia and revulsion.
I want to watch and observe what is happening around me
with the same classical eye with which I watch within.
I can handle rejection.
The spell is broken.
The function of every quest is the creation of self
from the debris of experience.
