Dis-ease – a poem about love and cancer

I watch her body
fight life, death
fight for breath
and I am
inside her, she
inside me
will always be
since the moment
I was formed
a daughter

she watches me
seeks the mother
the child
the woman
she wishes I’d be

can I
lose myself
inside her
ravished body
for the sake
of mother’s love
of fewer regrets

the monster came
eating away at
extravagant love
radical inclusion
when I was still
a child

came again
to devour her body
after I discovered
declared my purpose
to love
unconventionally
in spite of
her closed door

can it find me now,
reach for me
with dripping claws
deep inside
the me in her —
can I conquer
this disease?

Will she?

AUDIO FILE:

IMAGE CREDIT: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/48/d1/7f/48d17fa73224c9f12218298f6ea43fcd.jpg

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Love and Lovers, Sex and Bisexuality

“I want a life of a million lovers. I want to love you.”

“When I see you we will embrace and hold a hug long enough to glimpse some insight from each other’s heartbeat.”

“When we walk down the street we shall link arms, pause frequently, and turn our toes and noses towards the other to speak directly without modesty.”

“I do not think that our connection is somehow weakened because we do not share our bodies with each other.”

“For love is love is love is love, and that is what I want.”

“I only want us to fall in love.”

~Can We Be Lovers & Not Have Sex? on Elephant Journal by Brentan Schellenbach

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“A bi person has the capacity for romantic and/or sexual attraction to more than one gender.  For most people, that simply means that you can be attracted to both men and women.”

“As a bi person, you do not have to feel the same kind or intensity of attraction to all genders.”

“Understanding and acknowledging your own sexuality is a personal process and is about living with integrity and being true to yourself.”

“A sexual identity is about who you want to romance. Romance does not equal sex. Romance is who you want to hear laugh, who you want to give valentines to and breakfast in bed and comfort when they’re crying.”

~Bisexual.org

I have been falling in love with boys since I was six years old. I know well how to do this. I know what excites me, what intrigues me, what attracts me to men. I know how to flirt with men, how to use my mind and my body to turn them on. I know what works, what gets their attention, what keeps it. I celebrate that power, and try to use it wisely. I am confident in my sexuality when it comes to members of the opposite sex. I’m a sometimes messy, jealous and difficult human. I’m also a sexy, attractive, loving, passionate woman, who builds relationships with men that are fucking amazing. (It helps that I choose some pretty kick-ass men.)

I began to be curious about romantic relationships with women, about fifteen years ago, in my early thirties. Today, you see a lot of media about being bi, and there’s a very strong message about bisexuality not equaling confusion. I agree, people should not be asked to “pick a team”, that’s just silly. But when you set that argument aside, I can say that yes, I am bisexual and I am confused.

I think often about romantic and sexual interactions with women, and I long for that tenderness, that affection and softness, for that sisterhood and connection that don’t come from the men in my life. I have entertained sexual fantasies, and learned to build strong, enduring friendships with just a handful of women. I have even attempted romantic relationships with women in the past.

The most significant attempt was when I fell deeply and vulnerably in love with a woman, about three years ago. It was an awkward situation, as we three, she, our shared male partner and power-dynamic-dominant, and I formed a polyamorous triad, that was terribly imbalanced. There was a great deal of jealousy and comparison… we both had intense relationships with him and our romance with each other was hampered by miscommunication, unmet expectations and insecurity on the part of all three involved.

I can say now that whatever her faults or mistakes, (or mine, or his, for that matter) though my heart was smitten, and I very much adored her, loved kissing her, holding her hand, cuddling and sleeping in her arms — sexually, I always felt like an awkward virgin. I think she interpreted this as rejection, and it became one of several eventually insurmountable issues that led her to calling it quits.

Today, I still long for that feminine heart-closeness, that easy affection. But when I think of trying again to build a relationship with a woman, my head spins and I panic. I still feel like an awkward, nearly fifty year old virgin. Maybe I always will. Though I am at ease with some simple things, like the romantic side of female to female connection, when my mind shifts toward the sexual, or the energy from a female love interest shifts toward the physical, I shut down. I feel the weight of expectations I might not be able to fulfill. I doubt myself.

Maybe I am never going to be fully comfortable being sexual with a woman. Maybe I’m just going to need some time to heal, and a safe place to explore without feeling like I’m a disappointment. Maybe my relationships with women are never going to be as intense as my relationships with men. I can guarantee that they will be different, because both my heart response, and my physical attraction are different, in so many ways. Am I just inexperienced? Am I bisexual in a romantic sense only? I don’t know. I do know that I find myself falling in love with the heart of another girl. I am both captivated, and afraid of disappointing her. This is hard, and I’m a lot more confused and insecure than I’d like to be.