[Trying to see the proportional relation]

Trying to see the proportional relation Of one memory to another One is so strange, and then To try and see what looms And doesn’t for the other person Who was there, it gets stranger, Especially when you’ve read His email. I don’t know how people Understand their lives, measure Their sensations against “objective” Or so-to-speak democratic estimations, Whether people accept the externality Of events, “events,” as things That happen to them. I refuse To accept some coagulate Of other people’s Impressions in exchange for this Privacy, no matter how flawed it is. This is lyric poetry. It has to be. It has No other hope. What was it About you and me that made whatever Happen to us. In New York Everything fell apart. What I dreaded And expected. But still. Tonight It is dark and the weather is cooler Than it’s been. It has taken A while for Fall to break; the global Warming kept me in summer Love with you like I was under a Fermata. Now that the times Are changing, I feel Even more for you; or I feel nothing. I can’t tell; it’s kind Of scary. I was sick of thinking About you this morning but I was listening to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen in order to think about You for literary purposes. When I feel nothing for a person I get scared I’m losing my humanity And that turning cold means My heart’s been botoxed: we’re All fucked. I watched a movie on YouTube Called Ladies and Gentlemen, Mister Leonard Cohen that was made when He was still just a poet and only Famous in Canada. He’s a pretentious little nerd In it, self-important, teacher’s pet wit. I think that, making music, he became So much nakeder, much more desperate. The talent, real, even pure, even Natural, had to ripen in The artificial man. Alain Badiou, on the day Of his class, said, “Because an event Is pure rapture, an event disappears Immediately: it does not exist Objectively, but only by appearing And disappearing.” This is both Precise and vague; it is attractive I guess. I guess since you and me did not Disappear immediately, it was Not pure rapture, not in these Terms, but my smile Was real each time I swallowed Your cum. Getting Fucked by you was great; I could Feel it in my organs, but You didn’t make me go insane Except for maybe once Or twice. Actually maybe I am Being unfair. Maybe the fucking really Was that great. In this moment I Can’t remember. I just read a poetry Review in which the reviewer States that a certain book Made his cock feel as though It were tall as a tree. That’s Nice. I have no idea What it feels like to have A cock. Sometimes I feel As though I’m getting close To understanding and then Something happens to make Me have no clue again. When Sinan Fucks me, we lose our individuality So severely it’s like we’re both Gasping after an animal that’s his Cock that is beyond us and I lose All sense of the world. His cock’s Not even him, and he’s not him either And we aren’t anything. It’s strange, the possessive. Didn’t Thomas Mann write a book called Herr Und Hund or something like that? Man’s best friend. What belongs To him. Me and Sunder Talked about how scary and arousing It is to watch men masturbate, cos Everyone relates differently to his. Like dicks are always almost but never Quite another.Je est un autre, Said that brat Arthur Rimbaud. I am definitely in love with you As I write this. You are so petty And superfluous I cannot stand You. Sinan is definitely In love with me. I know, because I saw him tonight. I love Him too. You are gracious To accord me the space and time In which to develop, or to elaborate Upon, as the French say, these Extreme emotions I am, despite The odds and certain lapses, So capable of feeling. It was good to slap Your face and to admit That your asshole Made me nervous. Your eyes had a way Of going soft and shiny When you said the really Tender things. We admitted It was intimidating For us both to hear each other describe People we’ve fucked and been In love with. I’m proud of what We accomplished together. Alain Badiou Ended his class with a reading Of “Ariane et Barbe-Bleue” which Is an opera by Paul Dukas. You And me had gone pretty far By the time this day came, and Something very fragile in me breaks When somebody says my name, or Even a variant of it. I was tired. I think Badiou discusses “Ariane” In Being and Event which I have not read. In class he said That the story of the opera is About the relationship between law And freedom, and that it shows That the desire for freedom is not So simple. Ariane experiences an Event That causes her to demand freedom, Badiou Said, but she is unable to convince anybody Else,any other women to want freedom; she ends up alone. She genuinely falls in love with the wicked Bluebeard at the beginning. Bluebeard Who previously got women by having a castle To lock them in. This woman Ariane Does not have to be taken By force. When she enters His castle he hands Her seven keys, six Of which he gives her permission To use, and leaves. She hears the cries Of his other, imprisoned wives, Coming from behind a door. So she uses The forbidden key, releasing them. Meanwhile Bluebeard is assaulted By the local peasants, who want To free Ariane, fearing her fate will turn out like That of the women who came before her. But Ariane is already free In herself, and proves this freedom By bringing the wounded Bluebeard Home, caring tenderly for him, and then Declaring that she’s leaving him for good. By the end Bluebeard’s shattered, sobbing, Bleeding. Ariane Invites the other wives to leave with her In a wrenching aria, pleading With them one by one to taste With her the freedom awaiting Them,The World. But they all prefer confinement Even though they had longed For freedom before Ariane opened Their door. Once liberty arrived they were no Longer capable of it, preferring to serve; even a gutted, Hollowed-out power. Ariane exits Alone. The end. Badiou narrated This with emotion and I cried. Maybe cos I was tired and That thing about my name or because I am not heroic or free. I had missed half of Alain Badiou’s Lectures messing around with you On the couch by the fire; in the women’s Toilets; up on the hill. If this were a suitable parable, And it isn’t, I would try to tell myself That those very early mornings in Brooklyn when I sat Up in your bed feeling wrong and Got dressed and walked away, I should Have stayed away cos I don’t need you. Maybe I don’t need you. But I want You. Maybe I don’t love you. But I am getting to know you. Maybe What made me cry in class was how tired I was and how sad and hard It is, and how rare, to undertake an act That’s truly free, and not just a response To a confused surge of drives and  fears.