More Than Power

16 February 2026

https://poems.culturing.net/2026/02/more-than-power/

To hear my suit, and perhaps my life's work,
belittled as mere "humiliation" was painful indeed.
But perhaps I misheard you. If the play
is not my work, but this drama we are writing together,
then this dagger becomes half confession. I am open
to this interpretation, but not the other, because
the basis for our connection would be undermined
if you do not consider me serious. No suitor
could bear that much mockery, not when it touches the suit itself.
Without respect, we have nothing, and no love could grow
in such soil. But this other possibility intrigues me.
It is made possible by your question at the end
which undermines your own undermining. Were you mocking yourself?
Are you so full of doubt that you doubt your own doubt? A funny question,
but a serious one too. Is there more here than power,
humiliation, degradation? Is sex ever more than these things?
I say yes, and I intend to prove it.
But you are learning. You sound in this moment like one
who has sat at a table with strangers and struggles to fit in.
You must give yourself room to make mistakes.
I will give you that room. Here it is.