Drawing Blood

30 December 2025

https://poems.culturing.net/2025/12/drawing-blood/

Maybe she was right after all
not to trust this fickle heart. But am I to blame?
Doesn't love require cooperation, not a solitary
tending of the flame? It's always the same,
somehow my calls for structure go unheeded,
though without it, without fail, my love grows cold.
I shall grow old, it matters not which way,
whether on my own or in the arms of another.
It is no use. If she has seen me and withdrawn
she knows what she's doing. She knows how to choose.

--

And yet this time something lingers, even when
the fever subsides, a kind of admiration, genuine respect.
She is a woman in the deepest sense, aware of things
no man can know, and she could make me stronger
if she chooses. But I cannot now rely on possible strength,
or else I'd find myself enfeebled when it's withdrawn,
and it can be withdrawn, whenever her fancy chooses. Am I
the fickle one now? Does she not have the power
of retreat, and wield it forcefully, to get her way?
How shall we disagree? As equals, each side speaking plainly?
Or as lovers, tugging each other's strings, the strings
that bind two hearts in the dark of passion, feeling
no remorse? But can I trust her in this darkness,
with these strings? No feeling answers this haunting question,
at least not adequately, without hesitation and fear.
Perhaps one only learns by trying, but of course, by then
it's too late to sever the bond without drawing blood.

Let the waters of time rise and fall
to dilute these libations of blood.
I must stand tall.

--

This then reveals the true pain of the call.
It was never the fear of a sudden failure, but rather
the fear of a long and protracted dissolution, through which
one bleeds out or nearly so. This fear I think
never entirely fades, but the pull of desire, the hope
of two made one and thereby whole, entices lovers
and would-be lovers to forge a bond, or perhaps even
forges it for them, against their wills. They just
find themselves bound, heaven knows, although heaven itself
cannot break these bonds. Only those who are bound
can dissolve them, anchored so deep
that none but the anchoring soul can release them,
and even these souls often spasm and struggle
to do what they will, clenching harder when they would let go.
We do well not to know how we fare,
for this knowledge makes love (and thus life)
such a violent thing, more like nature
than civilization would have us believe.