Sleeping with Gwen

The soft sad song plays out from the speaker beside my bed,
I lie there awake the refrain repeating inside of my head,
the wait is long, a sweet, endurable, pain, the delay allowed
for the dream to enter my brain. The night comes creeping
silently onto my sheets, warming the blankets, pressing
the pillows, filling the space I vacate underneath.
I feel her press her head against shoulder, entwining
our fingers, tickling my palms, she is there as the darkness
grows colder. She is more of a woman than I ever dreamed
she would be, I wonder- not for the last time what she sees
in me, is this all illusions of dreams that never come true?
Am I going crazy living alone, hoping without a clue?

I wake with her still clasped inside my arms, do I open my
eyes or just ignore the alarms sounding off in my brain?
She is more of a presence that a wad of bedding could allow
her heart beats against mine, I would remain here forever
in the now. If I wake up and she is gone, how can I go on
knowing that reality has won, that I am still sleeping alone
doubting that she ever was real, that she was flesh and bone.
Can I go on believing, or just stay her knowing that one way
or another I am still deceiving myself that its truly her I feel
and not just another lie lying with Gwen making all my fears
delay, hoping that is not sunlight telling us that all good things
must end at the breaking of day.

12 Things About Being A Woman That They Could've or Should've Told Me.

1. No Mumbling, did she say something or am I imagining that she even wants to talk with me, should I be funny, or kind or both? Should I try to kiss her, tenderly? She should just say what she wants instead of looking like she's digging her fork into her leg, in order to close her lips to the sarcastic eventuality. She rolls her eyes, bites her lip while I struggle to take the moment seriously, it's just that I find lip biting so appealing that I find myself in mimicry. Then she blows out a sigh saying something under she breath as she tries to smile sweetly. We're filling the awkward silence without saying much yet telling it all if you can read it in our mediocrity
2. The Man. Not men or you or anyone other than the invisible presence that makes itself known but without consequence or conscience. it is more likely we would both be happier to leave the reference in quotations instead of reentering mindful renegotiations, the mind field of socially impassable situations in which she feels repressed, depressed, and forbidden to even acknowledge that I am only guilty in the broadest definitions of gawking like a penguin at a funeral for all my true intentions misplaced, replaced by what we both think HE wants from she and really, unavoidably me.
3.  Periods. I am lost between sympathy, empathy and wanting to flee. It's not much easier to run than remain giving her space without entertaining the elephant in the room as she cringes at her sudden yet expected uncomfortability which is to say "No, I have no idea" then wait to find out if I am dead, forgiven, or was it something more than a misfortunate misinterpretation of irony.
4. Abortion..... no winning here, unless you think that the decision is ever fair, that yes or no is not damnation enough without being directly involved as I try to think of someway to change the subject without appearing to because the thought of explaining myself terrifies me and then as if I am staring into the mirror I get it and say "Oh" and I will walk you in while the world rages chaotically.
5. Talking, should be easy enough, just keep telling yourself "Don't just talk about me" and then take a breath sit back and wait and see if she will understand she is expected to put in 50 percent between cups of coffee, pointedly ingoring the cell phones on the table between us while I remind myself that her eyes are more appealing then the idea of her breasts, she takes a peek at my chest, our eyes meet, guiltily about to confess all that went amiss and then she brings up Firefly and just like that our conversation is saved, we can admit our mutual attraction, without a sexual distraction or the pressure to conform to some rules of social interaction written by a lost generation, I find myself grinning like a fool with no real explanation needed to be given as long as we both feel equally numb without either one of us feeling dumb.
6. Fear, the creeping doom, the sneaking suspicion that only a few men can share, that sense that the worst is about to happen and that she'll be blamed for dressing that way, that she was really asking for it, and despite all of the damage that she really liked being treated like garbage, a rag doll, an object, a commercial ad, a robot, a toy, a thing that only other men are expected to enjoy, that she is now unwanted, unappealing, unchanged by the experience that comes with walking alone in a parking lot after dark, or a car garage surrounded by the rest of us willfully mute and deaf and ignorant as she lives in the fear that she cannot avoid what might be coming since there is no agreement what will keep her innocent as if the rest of us can define the words that would make her feel safer without the ever constant need for the pack, the herd, the strong manly defender who won't be there when all the fear comes to fruition and she is all alone lacking the words that could make all the difference. No gun or weapon can change what the price will be, what she must endure without anything happening except what that the fear separates us eventually.
7. Tired, so tired of all the cliched redundancy, the expectations that end in rage-quiting because some ignoramus refuses to see what is so obviously there and blames it all on her period as if that explains away the pain, the evident shame, the destruction of her good name because she's just a woman without respectability that is not earned  or given but can be taken away mercilessly. 
8. Wanking. Yep, I said it since I am hoping it will rhyme with something easier than masturbating could, I am not inebriating or self congratulating since this is not about where she is up for dating anymore than I am making plans for porn hub, during the night or day, ah there, there is the rub, not really having anything to doing with love unless we are tlaking about self love then pass the oils, praise the heavens that it's not just men who need to get the junk in line, that a woman can be driven insane with desire, chunk by chunk, while she desperating thinks of something more boring than baseball or golf, feverish for release in her brain, everyone does not find the need to abstain or deny that imagination and or books and porn perform the same function as the bodies into which you were born, What can I say, but God has a sense of humor or that would leave the world without the satisfaction of the post orgasmic grin. Let us both admit that sex is really about win win,  whether you admit it or not, scrambling about in our lives of quiet desperation, screaming that wanking is not even a sin.
9. Clothes, no I am not going into the science of "does this make me look fat?" Rather it is just another way the woman must pause in front of her mirror (if she has one) to decide which mask she will take on today or that her clothes will judge her or will those jeans make potential sex and awkward jumble of struggling limbs flailing to stay upright while looking appealing without the obvious moment of clownish despair since, like the fear that never goes away, will she be able to fight in this one, or is that one better for flight, do the shoes match, men claim that their wardrobe choices are simpler, but mostly they refuse any similarity as they sniff their jeans to determine if it's still clean enough to wear, then swiftly arrange all their carefully purchased gear cause you never know when it will happen this year.
10. Male Feminists, despite what they tell you we do exist, it's not a women's only club unless you are going to deny that you believe in empathy, wanting the world to be an equal opportunity place, we might not make it as the feminists purists want us to be, but having patience as we stumble along fighting centuries of genetic training, cultural stagnation with only the stars to guide us as some women scoffs at all our attempts for equality in favor of her denial that I will ever understand what it is to really be a woman while missing my point of same that we are sharing the same humanity. It's not obscenity that separates us, just as it is not that only a few can join or succeed, it's not the marines, you don't want it to really be about the few, the proud, but everyone stopping once in their lives to say I get it, a head slap then glorious unity.
11. Carbs and by carbs she means diet, and by diet she means all she really wants is someone who will amuse her, love her, and understands that relationships are more about being there than what you think she should say or wear. So go relax on the couch, take another look and say is it just the sex or can I get beyond it to reruns of Friends, Seinfeld, Buffy or Mad Men, a joke, a friendly poke and a compliment that has nothing to do with my waistline just make me feel that everything I am is doing fine. Now pass the wine.
12.  Trainers, or to be clearer old shoes, yes they might be comfortable but they stink so much that they squelch her desire, then she must come up with some miraculous story to explain why some shoes and habits should be committed to the eternal fire, or as I should quantly put it, don't blame me dor this entirely, I read it all in Esquire.

I dedicate this one to 

Caitlin Moran, who made me think this through 2 blogs, some moments of wholly uncatholic confession followed by the thought it's probably that I am single, likely condemned for life,

here's is my otimal source material

http://ow.ly/ZJC8A

Playing with Fire

The small of her back, the rise of her rump, sends shivers through
me, I am the wanderer lost in this soft muscle, behold the shoulder
observe the deltoideus slope, it gives me goose bumps, I am agog,
I am aghast, is this my fate, am I at home at last?
The arch of her eyebrow as she turns to find my roaming fingers
tracing the lines of her laterals down the valley of her spine,
the cliffs of our desire, the soft sweat, the musk of dandelion wine.
I am filled with so many words, the verbatim of fire, the angst
of longing to touch the palm of her left hand, flicking her
fingertips gently like blades of tanned grass, worn yet still
feminine grace, her whimsical smile at my naivety, the enduring
wrinkles that make her my immortal love creasing the corners of her
lovely face,
She breathes in shallow breaths, wisps of mint dreams, raising her
pectoralis major rolling her biceps, triceps, resoundingly  familiar
intimately respectful memory where all her virtues would be, she
is laughing softly up at me, should I be this fortunate, are we still
all that we wanted to be?
No expectations, no reservations, no enunciation can capture all
that I wish to think she is as we lie there in her bed, waiting for the
inevitable interruption that will drive us apart from such musings
out into the world, away from this clarity of thought, sight and sound,
back down into the mire of sexual misfires that are so infinitely confusing.
I am a man or a woman or someone who just wants to remember that
moment when she woke up to the sensual situation locked somewhere
between biological configuration and my misplaced need for imagination.
Are we not all we want each other to be? Am I this lucky or is she just
happy enough to sleep next to me?