Blood Connections

Together.

From distance.

Moving carefully nearer to touch.

Being apart to being a part, of you, merged, connected.

Melting of the edge, the resistance. For this is the dangerous place, the life exchange. This is the meeting and the merging, the place of blood flow. The open petals, the secret flower revealed. The giving the receiving. The laughter the tears. The enfolding and enfolded. The return of trust. The precious place of renewal.

And so with you I am once more connected. Beyond the moments of merged bodies, of loving wetness, into the subtle joining of nerve endings, of veins, of being. Underneath the common day, where even thoughts are shared. Into the twilight zone of each other’s yesterdays and tomorrows. This is the jungle where we were slain. The cave where we were born. It is the earth where things are buried, perhaps still with life, not merging with the soil. It is the temple of Possibility.

So newly met. So freshly coupled. Then suddenly the tenuous link stretched across miles. From the shadow jungle I hear a child crying. And far away my married life bides with another who called her across the land with attachments formed long past. Is that attachment still alive?

I wait, as I have learned to wait long years, even beyond time. The tenuous link aches. I feel the old scars. Strange how once cut, new blades precisely find the mark. Is this the circle of my life that I must dance again, aching to know I have not been abandoned? Fearing old links are stronger than the new?

A few words are all I need. An assurance I am not left. No call. No assurance. Can old links be so absorbing? The link begins to bleed. Pain troubles sleep. Is something so life giving forgotten so soon? The days become long troubled feelings. No call. What have the movements of the planets got to do with this? How does the rising price of petrol explain it? I have no answer.

The nerve endings rip apart. The veins are torn. The subtle body breached in painful sundering. What life has joined together does not part easily. Life screams that each partner should need each other equally. I hope and I hope and I hope she will hurry home. The evening comes, the house is empty. Old links have been too strong in giving satisfaction.

I cannot help but think that if I visited a lover from my past, it would be cruel to withhold assurance. I wonder why?

Survival is all I know. It is a life lesson. Distance the balm that heals. I must go.

The madness has gone from old wounds. They no longer leave me crouched in the corner unable to eat or sleep. But the skin is thin on those scars. I must learn to stand away from care-less-ness.

Strangely awful that with such love for each other we are such tormentors – I for she, and she for me. This is the dangerous place. Blood connection.

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Tony Crisp

Copyright ©2001 Tony Crisp