The Lovers = ALLIANCES: “Best Friends”
Becoming a lover forges an alliance for the future. We’re not talking of two raindrops crashing into each other for sex, but a mutual declaration of interest and benefit. Spend today thinking about past alliances; not just love relationships but all alliances dreamed of, suggested, made and broken.
What hopes, plans and fears did we enter (and exit) with? What mistakes were made? The first thing that jumps out to us is that power differentials create more problems than they solve. An alliance needs to be a two-way street; any hint of “exploitation” turns it into a different kind of relationship entirely.
Alliances must be freely chosen, with consequences fully appreciated and maturely understood. How often in life is this even possible for us? Sometimes we are limited by the power of our imaginations as well as the resilience of our hearts. Alliances should also be freely exited but how often does THAT happen? How often do our passions (and perceived needs) fall short of our principles and how much shame does this knowledge engender? And then there are issues of temperament: to what extent can introverts/extroverts hope to change their stripes?
Think about your deepest and most rewarding friendships. You’re looking for a special kind of Best Friend, after all, so it only makes sense that most of the components appearing in your friendships will be found in your soulmate as well. Will you appreciate some of the same things? Speak the same language? Have the same values? Laugh at the same jokes? Share fears and dreams? Expose your worst/best? You still want all that! Because you need an Ally. An ally reliably comes to your defense, as you fearlessly come to theirs.
An ally is someone you can rely on. It means you must be honest with that person, and we all know how hard that is, especially when you can’t figure out the truth, yourself. You’re feeling your way and you need a sympathetic ear. You know you will have to be their sympathetic ear as well because otherwise what you have isn’t a partnership, it’s an autocracy. Autocrats are lied to and cheated on and they die alone. That’s not what gratifies the soul. You are looking for someone who holds the key to You and by astonishing coincidence, you will hold the key to them, as well.
The Duel
Europe without you
Was a funeral feast.
I recall the procession of your letters
Far better than
The stream of luckless suitors
Trying to distract me.
Virgins aren’t distractible.
Your seductive missives stalked me.
Your fatal ploy was that nude picture
Adam lonely in his garden.
I came right home.
I well recall the ceremonies
Of that night!
Your shyness
My perfume
Our ignorance
Your penis
Soft as a
Messenger dove that folds
To a familiar hand –
Then wild and hard as
A riderless horse.
I did cry out as the candles burned.
I swear there were some moments when
We actually saw each other.
But if this magic sword cuts both ways
Why was I the only bleeder?
They peeled me off
Dropping me down miles
Of antiseptic hallway –
A princess in a bucket.
It could have ended there
But at your school I haunted you
A chilly-breasted demon.
My daytime incarnation seemed mature:
I fooled you;
We chatted as you prepared the skin.
I bit down hard and
Tasted only
Suture wire.
You wrote and broke off
Our association.
The years groaned by
Like convicts chained
We served our terms with no time off
For bad behavior.
Lust had luster,
Excrement had ecstasy.
The castaways the whirlwind
Flung upon the sand
Were calm, polite –
We knew our way around.
That look you gave me!
Our unborn children shivered
In their sausage skins
Suddenly aware
Their time had come.
The tale was done
The frog-mask
Shivered off
We saw:
The you of you
The me of me –
Masks
Unmirrored –
Scars
Unscored
Virgins not but
Innocence
Restored.
Alysse Aallyn 