Nargis

"In your light I learn how to love,
In your beauty, how to make poems,

You dance inside my chest,
where no one sees you,

but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art."

There is something truly terrifying about a beautiful woman to me. Something alien and deadly and enigmatic and cold. Her ability to snare my every sense and leave it twitching and snarling and trapped. The way every sound she makes to me seems like a call to prayer. And the smiles, Goddess preserve me, the smiles...

Sounds like bullshit doesn't it? All of it. I've been trying to write this piece since I spoke to her, and all that seems right and proper is the poem by Rumi at the top. I think it's god-damned ridiculous that at my age, a single glance from a single girl can leave me unsettled, pensive and moody for almost two days now.


Was she beautiful? Of course she was. Was she intelligent? Of course she was. Was I charming? Of course I was not. I was like a bull trying to ski on one foot while memorizing the lyrics to a James Brown song and knit myself a scarf at the same time. You'd think at least I would have known to never go up to a beautiful woman and tell her I thought her beautiful. After all these years, you'd think I'd remember. That and to make sure my tongue wasn't moistening my shirt just above the belly button. But you friggin try counting to ten in front of this girl.

Rumi could write a poem like the one above, and all I can write is...But I understand now, Rumi, truly I do. My impulsive lurch towards her is what separates me from you. I'm still mired in the superficial. That poem above will never be true for me unless I stop looking with my eyes. I see only her smile because I am a child, reminded of why I write bad poetry and stared into coffee cups.

There are oceans
we must cross simply to say hello.
Where fears, loneliness, and failure
Are the waves that ever flow.
She sat across a shadowed room,
In a liquid pool of heartless light.
A lodestone for my chaos,
The bloody towel to my every fight.
Across from me and over that sea.
How could she know
what had happened to me
here, on this night?
When she smiled up at me
She broke my spirit and cast it away
Before I sat down beside her
Before I asked her her name
I went to her like a killer to a church,
Hoping to confess, maybe even to pray.
But she broke my spirit in style today.
And took my entire week in her purse
She smiled at me like a child today
And made my charm seem like my curse.

This last piece is mine. See what I mean about bad poetry? Sigh...Goddess bring her before me again, so I might write you another song like this, and make you giggle at your foolish child.