Anteros

I'll take what I can get -
I said it myself
Anteros help me
Give me balm for this ragged heart
To sooth and administer some relief from

Love yes it is that
And it is as unconditional as I am strong
Anteros help me
Steady my hand as I shove my heart into its place
(it is too big now, you see, swollen with

love) yes it is that
We all seem to have to live with it
Or not. Shocking how it refuses to dissipate,
What a pain.
(WHERE IS THAT BALM?)

Anteros smite me,
I love him.

Message

I like the intertwining before sleep
When sometimes it is I who wraps arms and legs
Around your form - you are big and solid and I
Can't keep my skin away from yours -
The other times it is your head falling onto
My "wonderful pillowy breasts".

I kiss your shoulder from behind and plant all
My affection into your muscle and bone.
Surely it will stay there forever, long after
(I cannot even write it)

And you will always have this little message of
worship, I hope.

Hollow

I feel bland and hollow today
I ache to push you away
beautiful boy
but what would that do?

You don't mind much what happens so
all my actions are my own bed of thorns.

I ache for some love returned
some deep longing for me
and I want it from you.

Give me love!
I don't have enough for both of us!

Bent

Bent at the waist
hands folded behind my head I rock
and weep
and wail
sometimes silent but for the wet panting:
wet face
wet neck
wet breast
sometimes loud enough to alert all the other flats
that there is a plain, old-fashion broken heart
keening in number four.

Declined

Every rejection is at my own invitation.
There would be nothing to decline
If I would not offer,
If I would stop laying down my unwelcomed heart
Like a beautiful cushion of love.

Nothing wrong with proffering this
Pulsing cobblestone -
Only I place it
Before ignorant feet
That would as soon as step around it
As they march off into their me-free future.

^

Biography

Thea Gilien grew up in Northern California and ran
away from home to live and work in Dublin Ireland.