Instead of adorning your walls with lavish gifts and hollow gestures, I left them as they were
The most beautiful things aren't that way because of what we give to them
They just are.

It Has Been A Lifetime Of…

It has been a lifetime of, well, meditation:
Meditation/prayer, prayer weaker
(more appeal and supplication
Than an offering without a question).

Not really lifetime, I admit, but,
Years and years of seeking It,
Approaching It, trying to find, bind Arlene
With hope that she’ll become more than a hopeless dope;
Hope and that arcane, otherworldly word
That rhymes with earth and mirth and forth and wraith:

“What can it be?”(said she inscrutably).
Of course, it’s faith!
The hardest of the hard.
(Don’t let them kid you what they say they’ve got it)
Faith both gift and hard, hard practice.
Owning, losing day to day.

It’s been a lifetime – that’s for sure.
But life continues now to now:
Day to day, year to year
And meditation and the prayer
(Each in its place) continue too.
The real me
Still uncompleted
As of our poetic meet
This very heartbeat.

It’s Been A Lifetime Of…7.13.2017
The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Pure Nakedness;
Arlene Corwin

Before you inflame yourself with insecurities
Just be cognizant that there are men out there whom will want to make love to you every night and morning after they get home
And take care of you without thinking about it
Compromising their personal wants and desires
To keep you smiling
Always be mindful of what the real men will do
Instead of the boys
If you ever feel inadequate and you ask him if he loves you
The answer will always be Yes
You'll be his fuel to carry on even when he doesn't want to
There's nothing he wouldn't do to keep that smile on that beautiful face
And there's nothing that would stop me from doing the same
That's partially what I live for

I've never thought this way before
My cynliders are in another direction
I can feel my defection
To my older ways
Now I feel there must be change
To compensate for your well being
And that's a golden feeling
You're working wonders and you never expected it
I am more than happy
To go lovey dovey and sappy
That's who I was and who I will be
Way too much darkness encroaching upon us now
I just hope that you can keep my lights going
And my heart pumping clear oxygen
Your smile already makes me hate the situations I get put in, less.
You make my pain less
You reduce all the worst parts about me.
I think I'll become your dream when you already think I am.

Yes, I've had a kiss before,
But never a kiss like this.
Never a kiss, if you get the jist,
A kiss that gives me bliss.

Yes, I've had a kiss before,
But such a kiss I've missed
That jellies my bones and makes me this.
So, really I've not been kissed

From my chimney to my spout
All my senses steam about.
All the while love is in style,
I know nought but this beguile.
My walls tumble, boundaries crossed,
Wicked wiles, innocence lost.

Yes, I've had a kiss before,
But never a kiss to list
Till I gained from your two lips
A kiss that gives me bliss.

If you ask the question if you're special
You should know the answer
Insecurity should be quelled
By what I do
I think talk is cheap until the actions push the envelope
Your soul is too resplendent for this morbid ending to the story
I felt like you can do better
Than I realize that I am the better
Not because I'm fervently egotistical
But because I cater to your waves of emotions
I do more than I ever thought I would
There's nice things I would do for everyone
Then there's nicer things I would do for you
If you want to ensure my words congeal
Ask away beloved
I'll say Yes II to them all

As long as your ghost towns lose sense of vacancy
And your mind is filled with more red than blue on the X-rays
I have done my part
And never will I part from you
You have echoed something I've never heard before
And I want to dive deeper into it
Forget the repercussions
As long as my soul becomes more opulent
I will forget what it means to be transient
These feelings shall remain forever

The question respirates
the acrylic aperture
behind the eardrum.
A responsive tongue to the palate
taps out the consonant.
But before the note descends
with musts in the glass-
The cathartic statue
refracts the
synapses stretching
continuums
to grant a
minuscule autocracy.
Already charting north,
fingers fluently gather
ego between the
sundered reverb of the vowel.
Already twisting key,
pressing restive feet
to acquiescent gasoline.

16 summers spent at home.
My dark bedrooms tempting me with comfort,
And betraying me with loneliness.
The weeks leading up to school became slow crawls
Through cabin fever.

My favorite word was no.

No to festivals.
No to summer camp and sleepovers.
No to birthday parties and bonfires and beach days.

No is dangerous. The more I said it, the easier it was. No was sad, but misery loved my company. No gave me a pair of jade-colored glasses.

Yes started to look like a barbed-wire fence
One foot off the ground.
If I could only jump over it,
I'd reach the greenery of the other side...

But what if I tripped?

So, when my friend asked if I wanted to go to a bonfire on the last day of school,
I got nervous.
My stomach knotted up
Like the headphones in my bedroom.
My safe, dark bedroom...

I said yes.

Then I said yes to late-night adventures.
Yes to journalism camp 3 hours away.
Yes to grad parties,
And movie nights,
And dates.

Yes is powerful.
'
Yes was meeting people from California.
Yes was laughing in Walmart on a Tuesday.
Yes was a bouncy house,
And dying my hair rainbow at 2 A.M.,
And holding hands with friends
When walking across the street.

Yes was the 17th summer.
The best summer of my life.

The summer that made me believe in yes.

Yes gave me new experiences,
Closer friendships,
Good times.

If I know nothing else,
I know I was happy.

Saying yes is not easy
When all you know
Is no.

But no is a slow,
Comfortable
Death.

I chose life.
And it was the best choice
I've ever made.

Learning to say yes
Was learning about my city,
My friends,
And myself.

I love all of these things dearly.

I believe in saying yes.

Yes to festivals.
Yes to summer camp and sleepovers.
Yes to birthdays and bonfires and beach days.

Yes to my city,
And my friends,
And myself.

Yes to life.