Old Loves

Sigh if it helps
or cry a little
any love is worth something to me
I always blink away a few tears.

I can count them all
even the ones I didn't like
but those I remember too,
because they said they liked me.

Maybe I heard what I wanted to hear
because I needed love.
Either way they all deserve a few tears
in thanks for what I learned
by giving.

*******

The nakedness left it cold.
the sun was gone and the people were gone,
only rain and wind stayed to play games
in the wet sand.

Far back were the benches.
Blanket bundled bodies melted together
like sick chickens searching for heat
and courting death.

But it is only a day.
The lonely time will end
for some people
if there is occasion left to breathe.

*******

It hurts to love someone and have them
ride over your emotions like an elephant
thundering over an ant hill, unconscious
and uncaring except for themselves.

Needs are the essentials of existence
not for money or fame but for the craving
of the soul, the feeling of complete concern
the knowing that someone cares.

The desire to belong to someone else
as only people can.
The compulsion to feel the truth of love,
understanding the food of life, the psychic umbrella
of protection against insecurity, against hopelessness

in the living, the warmth of darkness
when you curl closely against a loved back or belly
content to let it be the only need
for that one precious moment.



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