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Deborah J. Brasket, Duplicity, Love, Marriage, poetry, relationship, Romance
When I first fell in love, it was a hot thing—urgent, possessive, almost feverish at times. I truly saw love as being two souls in one body. We were opposites that complemented each other. He was my missing half, and I his.
But I wasn’t content with that. In some fervent way I wanted to be him, become him, live inside him, feel my heart beating in his body and his in mine. I wanted to meld with him.
Not surprisingly, I discovered this just wasn’t happening. There were times when our love felt like that, when we seemed so close, but then it would slacken and drift away. And when that happened, he seemed almost like a stranger to me, someone I barely knew, and did not understand at all.
That’s when I wrote the following poem.
Love’s Duplicity
I look at you and see
Incredibly
A face at once slighted by closeness, yet
Dimmed by the distance I hold you;
A face overlooked and over known, yet
Laced by fingers, fearful to possess you.
And you look from eyes
Half-halting
Wary that you know me.
I look at you and see
Incredibly,
How the lines forming you
Flow not into my own
But lie separately, falling
On planes apart.
Reasoning makes no clearer,
No nearer
That we lie two, not one.
I look at you and see
Incredibly,
How the brown hollow of your eyes
Will ever haunt mine, and
I cry for me, for all whose heart’s desire
Is held ever at half embrace:
Half wanting, half waiting,
Half knowing
What we’ll never know.
I look at you and see
Incredibly,
How these feelings we are one
Or we should be,
How we are strangers
Never touching,
Lie at odds in me.
Is it odd I reap of love
the bittersweet?
Eventually I realized we weren’t soul mates and probably never would be. And while I still yearned for us to become closer, he was content with the way things were.
While I wanted to know everything about him, there were parts of me—important parts—that he simply had no interest in. Like my passion for the arts, literature, philosophy, religion, writing. He knew I wanted to be a writer—that I wrote poetry and short stories and kept a journal—and he liked that about me. But he had no interest in what I was writing, never asked to read anything. Never seemed interested when I offered to share what I wrote. He wasn’t curious at all.
Finally, I let go trying to become closer, and we drifted away from each other. Our marriage became almost sterile, perfunctory. We shared a house, children, a bed. That was all. I realized that I no longer loved him. At times I barely liked him.
A veil of sadness descended over me, a yearning for something I feared I would never have. I felt my soul mate was still out there somewhere, waiting for me. But I realized I may never find him.
After a while, I knew that I could no longer live like this. It was time for me to leave.
(To be continued)
NOTE: This post was part of a series that originally were supposed to be part of a series of love poems to celebrate April as National Poetry Month. Eventually it morphed into something else–a memoir of our marriage, or an anatomy of love as it evolves over time. Below are all five posts in the series, which seem to cover married love in all of its manifestations: Innocent love, erotic love, disappointed love, love lost, love renewed, and love that lasts. The last one was Freshly Pressed.
Silly Little Love Poems, Unloosed at Last
The Geometry, and Geography, of Love
Silly Little Love Poems, Unloosed at Last
The Geometry, and Geography, of Love
Deborah, that is a beautiful poem. Thanks for sharing this story and your words.
Thank you, Carol!
I so certainly feel you. Thank you for sharing what is so personal and intimate those feelings and circumstances in our lives that push us places where we know not.
Distance.
Thanks so much. Your comment means a lot to me.
It seems the subject of “intimacy” is in the wind…Spring brings more than green leaves and flowers. Who understands the resistance to true intimacy in a marriage? Where eros becomes expedient sex and kindness is saved for clients and strangers.
This is a timely post, Deborah and I’m in awe at your candor and grateful for your presence here.
Both the poem and prose are heartfelt and luminous.
Well…I just re read this and see I’ve inserted my own experience. I admire your gracious reflections, Deborah. Perhaps they’ll temper my own. Peace…
I’m not sure what you mean, but I appreciate your reading and responding to this post. I was so young when all this was happening, it’s almost like looking back at someone else. And I suppose that’s true, we are not who we were. I wonder if the person I was then could exist in today’s world? Do people still believe in soul mates? I know my own daughter was so much more sophisticated than I was at that age, and I’m thankful for it. On the other hand, I still hold a lot of affection for that younger self, and am happy that she continued to grow and learn what was needed to bring her to where we are today.
Soul mates? Couples rarely divorced in my parents generation…with a long life ahead with one person it was romantic survival to believe in the possibility I suppose. Realistically I’ve come to feel that in relationship we pass through each others lives and our souls touch…which does make us soul mates…and maybe only for a time since each day is a conscious decision…and we are responsible for our own maturing. It’s a great deal to ask of a any relationship. This see saw of personal growth. Now I’m beginning to think the ideal time in life to “fall in love” is well past youth!
Still…affection is always the greatest position to hold in reflection and I enjoyed the musings on this topic today!
Yes, it was too much to ask. I know now that love is a shifting thing, it grows and wanes, and sometimes it disappears, and sometimes it returns. This exchange has been fun.
Thanks for sharing this gorgeous poem and for sharing this post! Writing about some things can be so therapeutic.
You are welcome. And you are right. Writing about these things helps me to understand them in a new way, and I feel more compassionate for our younger selves.
Wow, I am pretty sure you have hit a lot of chords for other people in that post!
It appears that way–love is a strong common denominator. So glad you stopped by.
I agree with the commenter above–this post will hit home with many, I’m sure.
Love does wax and wane, this is true. At the same time, sometimes we do ourselves more harm than good trying to hold onto a relationship that will never become what we need it to be. I’ve met many more women, married for twenty years, miserable and despondent with a relationship they should have left before it started, than I have women who left a bad relationship and regretted it.
Very intriguing post. I think the key moment is when you know there’s more out there for you. True, a good marriage is work; but it shouldn’t be a miserable chore.
Yes, I’ve known people like that too–grandparents married 50 unhappy years, who went on to find true loving relationships after they parted.
I’m very interested in the outcome of this story! I’m really loving this love poem series that you are writing. Love has always fascinated me, not just as an emotion, but as a concept. I’m intrigued by long-lasting relationships–the sacrifices, the low points, and the general ebb & flow. Your posts are feeding right into my curiosity. As I said in an earlier comment on a separate post, I’m newly married. I tend to take wisdom from people who have been in long relationships seriously. I feel this helps keep me alert to all the changes that will eventually come. Lovely writing as usual.
Thank you, Katie. I’m glad I’ve sparked some interest to follow this story on marriage and its many stages. This started out as a way to clean my closet, so to speak, to let some love poems I wrote long ago see the light of day. But then it morphed into something else, an anatomy of a marriage, I suppose–what sparks it, what feeds it, what wounds it, what saves it.
Deborah, I found this very moving. Love feels such a personal, idiosyncratic affair that it’s a great help when someone has the power to put their experience into words. The lines I loved – Reasoning makes no clearer,
No nearer
That we lie two, not one.
Thanks for sharing this experience.
That means so much to me Gabriela–thank you.
I don’t think there is a woman alive who has not felt what your so eloquently expressed at least once in her lifetime. I had such romanic notions about love, marriage and they ever after, none of which included mortgage payment, tutors, and stale bread. I wanted, well more than discussing which rose bushes to plant in the spring. Somewhere over the rainbow I realized the key to my happiness lied in my growing and inviting the world in. Writing was my turning point. Anyho, Deborah, your honest reflection and over the shoulder view of the past is both beautiful and rare. I admire this in a writer. To me there is nothing more beautiful than honesty in prose and verse.
Thank you so much for that comment. Writing was a huge help to me too in being able to sort out and express what I was feeling during many turbulent times. My turning point was realizing that what I was looking for in a “soul mate” were qualities that I needed to develop in myself. Once I realized that, all the “longing” for something or someone else disappeared. Then it was just down to the hard work of choosing to stay in this marriage and making it work.
This was a very beautiful poem. An interesting thing for me to read right now, as I consider the relationship I am in currently (going on 4 years andstill very happy with each other). I can understand all of your frustration. My first love was like that–he had no curiosity for my interests, and I found him, at times, directionless, but now things have changed.
My girlfriend, who was my best friend before that, has always said it best. ‘We do not stand still, looking into each other’s eyes, but hold hands, and face the same direction, and make the journey together.’ As I just wrote a dedication to her, to that affect, in a recent short story, this post really hit home.
Very lovely. 🙂
Thank you, Alex! It has been so gratifying to find out how many women relate to this poem. I like what your friend said about holding hands and making the journey together. I’ll have to check out your short story.
Thank you Deborah; I assure you I wasn’t trying to plug!
Unfortunately, it’s a paid story; 99 cents, so please don’t feel obligated. Here’s the link though: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C4QSB1S
I’m looking forward to reading more from you. You have a very distinct voice. 🙂
simply gorgeous. you resonate the feelings of many people which many like me must have felt but may not have been able to word it. thank you for sharing your beautiful words.
following you for more reason but mostly for your love story