A Goodbye between the Misogynist and I

Was it just yesterday,
when I woke up in the middle of the night?
Woke to find the Misogynist tapping,
knocking, then pounding outside my window?
I knew my unpleasant friend of years before.
I could not but let him in.
He entered, dragging his abstract body,
through the open window like it was shards of glass.
He pulled me close,
and we spoke.
Spoke of days and the songs we once sang.
Whispered, for Misogynist and I always found union in our silence.

We spoke for time immemorial,
For, Misogynist reminded me, his time for talking is immaterial.
As we spoke, our words became a walk,
a private conversation that became a stroll through the dark.
Our words were the platforms that took us along the nocturnal sky,
and lead us beyond signs of love and star crossed questions of why.
Misogynist and I, we ventured on high, and reached beyond,
The arctic circles, until we found the realm of winds, sharp snow and planes of ice.

There, we paused, and the Misogynist grasped my hand,
looked to my eyes and said:
“This wasteland of snow is a home.
One where we can tread and sing our solitary songs, both equally alone.
Here we can scream, from the fullest desires of our heart.
Here the comfort is that our freezing cold affections turn to our beautiful art.”

His words were shrouded, as they always were,
and yet I knew what he offered, for his eyes were open and fair.
I glanced around and looked at the cold comfort,
that the frozen horizon promised in honest royalty.
Then I glanced at my bare chest and told the Misogynist:
“I want to thank you for your companionship, and your enraged loyalty.
You remain in my life, the strangest, valuable friend,
for you remind me of my own face,
that was at one point, eternally pertinent.
But now, as I see, your home is just a place,
where I feel a threat to the very beating of my heart.
You’ll know this, if only you look around,
Misogynist my dear, you and I are worlds apart.
I wish you the best,
with all your rancour and spite,
for all your blizzards and all your ice,
but please, return me to the tumultuous life where I rest.
For at the moment of choice, I have chosen to love,
even if the choice entails the agony of unrequited love”

By JPV

Copyright February 2006