Vagabondage

I wasn’t so innocent when,
Sleeplessly rapt in the throes of
A virgin
Wanderlust,
I cried out to you
On instinct
From worlds away.

A shameless amateur
In the art of survival,
I confessed my desperate hunger
For the instant when you,
Laid bare of your own volition,
Would thrust me
Past the point of no return so that,
Indelibly marked by your tempestuous
Yesterday,
I could secure tomorrow’s consummate
Salvation.

Recklessly announcing my
Coming,
I pleaded that you impress upon
Your wide-eyed initiate
What only the chosen learn
And that you reveal that
Naked, primal self
I longed to know
With an abandon bordering on the
Predestined.

I came to you in the night,
A pilgrim unwittingly sacrificing
The flesh
To obtain transfiguration through
Your touch,
And you,
Wasting not a minute–
Though I fell damned by their abundance–
Anointed me with unbridled
Authenticity
As there in the fervor of my devotion,
You forced yourself
Ravenously into my
Soul.

Taken down by a spear you shot
Through centuries,
I was pinned
Like all the others who pray
In your bed
That with morning will
Come
Mercy.
Your brazen lust
Drove me to the edge
Of reason when,
Over and over,
You threw me
Breathless
To my knees
In a violent embrace that
My iron will
Refused to unbind.

My God,
You literally shook the ground
Beneath me!
And you rose to meet me at every
Unforgettable peak
Where you taught me
How hard
I could take it,
Satisfied
No less than I had asked for,
And provoked
Far more than I had ever expected.

My love, in truth,
It was not a novitiate but a mystic
Who designed the wager
Against her own self-preservation
That allowed you to
Find me inside,
Crush down upon me ever
Harder,
And press deeper

….Deeper!

Deeper….
Into my memory.

Aventura

Quick!
The future is upon us,
But we can still escape
If we’re already leaving.
Hey, there’s no time to pack!
What do you need anyway?
Just throw on your favorite daydreams,
Cash in your finest scars,
Dig out that old map you left buried
In the back of your soul,
Grab all your lessons,
And sneak through the crack you still see at the window,
Or, hell, it’s all the same–
Just open the door, and swagger on out in triumph.
There’s more than this,
Wake up!

This isn’t child’s play;
The fairytale was that we needed a plan–
Preposterous.
And every itinerary we’ve designed? –
An option,
Not a sentence.
The exotic calls
To what was always there within,
And I’m making my break for the gate.

Don’t drag your feet.
Right here, right now
Is the chance to check your baggage.
Turn in who you’ve become.
Claim who you always were.
Come morning, the alarm clock will sound its victory call,
And again, you’ll only think the battle lost.
Stand your ground.
Surrender yourself.
And run with me.
Novelty is made of forever.
And it starts tonight.

I was inspired to write this immediately after a conversation with a dear friend who just returned from a year in Argentina, no less racked by wanderlust now than before she set out.  As we talked, scheming up all manner of ways to appease our inner nomads, my friend chuckled as she noted, “We’re such romantics!”  Well, I write this in honor of that sentiment, that dream, and that reality.
Aventura (Spanish) serves as multiple conjugations of the verb aventurar — “to venture,” but its cognate, “adventure,” is perhaps the most obvious translation, and it can carry connotations of amorous ventures as well.