Sonnet Cycle

I.

There is a rugged apex where one turns
from gazing at a withheld thing with lust
to finding that it fills one with disgust.
The tongue is bitten hard; the stomach churns.
And I have been too hungry with concerns
for far too long; I’ve learned to stay robust
by eating only atmosphere and dust.
I marvel as the flesh no longer burns.

For I no longer wish to share my soul
with you or any other I revile,
and I no longer wish to desecrate
myself by knowing you in part or whole.
So your forlorn attempt to reconcile
is simply meaningless; it comes too late.


II.

I’m sickened by my own debauchery,
but I must never stop allowing drink
to pass my sated lips, must never think,
for pain is in my eyelids, and I see
that glee and self-indulgent revelry
are opiates that keep me from the brink
of memory and tutor me to blink
when bitterness becomes too real to me.

If manufactured meaninglessness roils
around me in a sleepless, soothing balm,
then everything that wants to hurt my heart—
that outside meaninglessness that despoils
my sanity—can’t get me. Never calm,
I tear another fiction-world apart.


III.

You may laugh your laughter of derision
at my well-constructed affectation
of dependent, yielding adoration—
when the time is full, whose cold decision
tells you to go home, girl, with a vision
toward protecting your untainted station,
warning you to take your sweet elation
and get out with terrible precision?

I’m the one who keeps the midnight watches,
half an eye turned toward the unseen Bible,
tempering my joyfulness, critiquing
any peg that slips too many notches,
guarding well my charge against their libel.
See—I know the enemy is seeking.


IV.

I trust nobody with my soul, for none
who cares for me is strong enough to fight—
here only I am strong, and my poor might
is far too weak to see the task is done.
The heated onslaught has again begun
before our souls were ready, and despite
my efforts to protect our souls last night,
the enemy inside us almost won.

So rest and I are strangers as I do
what no one else around me ever can:
protect your heart and mine until they’re gone.
And all the while I long to run to you,
to hide inside your arms, to let you span
that distance—but you’re weaker; I go on.


V.

I know what I am doing very well—
exactly what I’m doing—that is why
I pull my hand away, define, deny.
She knows the motions, the advance, the swell,
instinctively as far as I can tell,
but meanings are a mystery; they sigh
and whisper in her ear the ancient lie:
there is no danger—but I know; I fell.

Although I long to throw my knowledge down
and follow as she leads into the dark,
descending with delight into the myrrh
of newborn joy, I will resist her frown
and pull my hand away and not embark,
because I am, in truth, in love with her.


VI.
I do not think my husband really heard
when I confessed my feelings for my friend.
I was unclear—I don’t think I intend
for him to ever know—because I’m blurred
by wonder, half-enraptured by a word
of secret joy. Enamored, I transcend
the earth, and telling anyone would end
the secret, make my love absurd.

Besides, I didn’t know if I should stress
the guilt (I’m married, and the girl is young)
or innocence, because it’s not my fault,
entirely, anyway, for my distress
was great, and I was powerless among
the soft effusions of her fierce assault.