Sylvie Hill

March 19 (Bond fire)

Of solid mind
And even temperament
Of joyful gratitude
Dare I say, happiness
I thought tonight
As I prepared for bed
That the two impediments
To true love you might find
are insecurity
and consumption.

Feeling not fit for love
Or being – drunk
Wanting to consume
And assume you
Not thinking positive
Disaster mode infinite
Not letting it breathe
Soaking a liver in disease
Using the other for your own needs
Not seeing them, nor letting them be.

Happy Birthday with a smile on.
My only crime, man, was appreciation.
Every day care when it was strong
I felt responsible when it went wrong.
I’d tell her live and fuck!
Meet people, YOU MUST!
For if you’re shielding
It’ll all be revealed:
Your inexperience
And desperation.
Get a leg over and up
To forget the last one.

Of solid mind
And even temperament
Of joyful gratitude
Dare I say, happiness
I thought tonight
As I prepared for bed
That the two impediments
To true love you might find
Are not being secure enough
And wanting to eat the fire

Instead of airing (not erring) the bond.

© Sylvie Hill 2018

Like A Son

Oh my God, when I woke up
I had been dreaming of you, my last love.
I nearly forgot what I was made of
— but I could feel it; there it was.
My lover, but I loved you like my son.

Or like my Self when I was young
Insecure, scarred, and 21
Fully accepted and cared for by Jordan
Roles reversed, it was like I was him now
The Understander, the rock foundation?

But it is odd to fuck one’s son
Or a grown man with such muscles at 31.

I missed you as a body companion
A gorgeous physique: absolute perfection.
Brilliant guitarist, in talk tho: dull.
Often depressed, not a lot of fun.
Yet the most talented, bar none.

That day to Damien, your slip of the tongue:
You mentioned your friend-girl’s name once.
You wanted your girl like her: innocent and nun.
I was that; but loud-mouthed and ravenous.
I wasn’t that, experienced and haunted.

And that is why I reached out in 2011 or 12 around eleven.
A gig up near Herne Hill, searching for something with anyone.

He had never been a thought
Just a symbol in a book far off.
He was an email at night, and why not?
Bringing me back to two thousand and one
when my life had magic trans-Atlantic connection
and music, music, music until dawn.

Ah, London town.
An era, bygone.

We each found the other after our relationships:
Healing, regretting, and trying to not give a shit.
He poured himself into music, I pored over my written.
Unlike Muse 1 and me on the search, we were co-pilots.
Not bothered to go out, we shared drinks on the Internet.

Many men come to me: a safe place off the sea.
I welcome them with care, lovingly.
I shield them warmly from the storms and debris.
I feed them, compliment them, I give them tea.
I am used to exchanging, and the camaraderie.

All the stimulation in your tracks, words he gave me
I didn’t have with my last love: I was starving!
So: intellect, debate with a Londoner, conspiring!
Igniting me compared to my last love, so meek!
But each to each, we were just loveless filling…

Filling in for daily care.
Filling in as supporter.
Filling in during the despair.
Filling in as protectors …

Oh my God, when I woke up
I had been dreaming of you, my last love.
I nearly forgot what I was made of
— but I could feel it; there it was.
My lover, but I loved you like my son.

And thought:

I loved the first fierce eternal like an equal, but wanted him fiercer.
I liked a lot the second London-leaving, but he was kinda queer.
I loved the third when he wasn’t drunk; he’ll always feel like family.
I loved the fourth for a few months, his place in Chelsea; he was funny.
I loved the fifth as you do a friend, meh: we had lots of sex on Elm Street.
I loved the sixth as I did in my dream last night: rebound, self-mirroring.

Love One is married to a girl who looks like me, prettier, Lighter, always smiling.
Love Two is married in London to an Asian girl. So he does all the talking.
Love Three is not married, and down the street, still drinking and still my family.
Love Four is married to a Chelsea mum as she is to him and his random offspring.
Love Five is married to his first love, centre of attention, kids, showboat-impressing.
Love Six is still single last I checked, like me, since we broke off in 2012 and counting.

Oh my God, when I woke up
I had been dreaming of you, my last love.
I nearly forgot what I was made of
— but I could feel it; there it was.
My lover, but I loved you like my son.

My, how our love for another depends so much upon
knowing ourselves first to recognize what we got
or to know what we’re attracting, why we are sought
to form faiths around if we’ll ever find the right love –

— or not.

Are we awake with a feeling, though, of something we dreamed of?
Or are we semi-conscious living a reality that is done, done, done?

I have loved all kinds and I have been loved.
And I will not be ruled by convention.
My loving does not lead to a life, suburban.
And it is shaped by being abandoned — and abandon.
Which is why I mused trans-Atlantic:
you can’t be left when you’re already gone.

Give me the smell of saw dust.
The slight scent of a man’s cologne or musk.
The sound of a radial arm saw.
And piano hands, or paws.
And out of place comments, vulgar. Raw.

And you will know my Father.

So is it any wonder as discarded Daughter,
I loved my last love like a son?

Is it any wonder I sit still from last making love
with a connection after which I stopped ‘our’ creation of one?

©Sylvie Hill 2018

In The Shower Five Years Later

In the shower five years later
Having watched vids about London pickpocketers
I remembered I lost my keys on the side street
But I had checked on them earlier when I went to the lavatory.

I had been using my phone to hear a message from Kelly
Then lost it minutes later at my knees, dropped on your things
I said “My photos!!!” and you laughed at me
Said Patel got away with a phone and some kissing.

That became the name of the man who took me down the alley
And when you re-fetched me and I said “I LOST MY KEYS”
In the shower five years later
A thought: did you stay that night to protect me?

Stealers can take keys then rob the tourist’s room of their things.
Did you stay the night for fear that Patel would come calling?
Staying was cheaper than a taxi home, yes I do see
Safety, protection and you just wanted to sleep.

Sheep?
Or the deviled wolf in sleek clothing, chic?

In the shower five years later
Was that your then-girlfriend came to spy on me at Camden?
Why do some moments stick out for others and not others?
Pathological poetess, a distant memory or why bother?

When it’s said truth is beauty and beauty is what we seek
It’s that: I will have never have my answers, so I facelift the ugly
Truths loosen as time sags a Sage and ages her memories
Recollections work like a nip there and a tuck here

Desperately reconstructing most everything

And it is not sexy.

Sylvie Hill 2018

The Relief Thief

In the dark of a London night
With only the Gower Street light
Alit on your beard, glint in your eyes
I bent you soft to put you inside.

In the late of the early dawning
We finished up, without finishing
You said we made love “briefly.”
Did you just whisper something?

“I will love you when no one is looking…”

In the bright of a London morning
With the Bloomsbury gloom glowing
I moved from the bed to the couch, slowly
To lay beside you, still; searching.

In the early of the before-noon timing
Moving, touching and still dreaming
I was not thinking, only feeling and not leading.
Did your body there just do something?

“I will rob you when no one is looking…”

Digging, you bury a bone and steal.
Best keep hearts hidden: conceal!
The Relief Thief strikes a very mean deal:
Hide, block the bitch so she doesn’t seek or squeal.

Sylvie Hill (2015)

****

“They need to appear strong, to show no weakness, but inside they are exceedingly vulnerable and afraid of being hurt. Often there is a history of a broken relationship, a love disappointment. Since that time they have never permitted anyone to get too close to them emotionally. They will even avoid getting into a position where someone might get attached to them. It is not the attachment that they fear, but the outcome, which they anticipate with dread: the end of the relationship, the betrayal, the disappointment, the terrible loss, the grieving and the humiliation. In this we can fully understand the symbolic significance of the “fear of robbers” in the psychology of Nat mur. Their deepest fear is the violation and theft of their emotional trust and happiness; by constantly “looking back” and by hanging on to the past they seek to protect themselves from the present.” Source

All This

If I should seem desperate
HUNGRY for a relationship
I will be honest:
It is only to fast-track immediate sex
with someone respectful, decent.

If I should seem intense
STARVING for conversation
I will be honest:
No one brings me brains like him
no one as quick as him, dissects.

If I should appear random
FLIGHTY in my lack of commitment
I will be honest:
Nothing you say catches my interest,
I find you tiring, you are dim.

If I should seem retreating
RUDE, snobby, or dismissing
I will be honest:
I am quite busy solely surviving
And you do nothing but suck my energy.

Give me good, shameless, confident sex
Give me intriguing banter and reflex
Give me intrigue: be a magnet
Give me a hand, and I will give you…

all this.

Sylvie Hill 2018

Image: Milly Parkes, “Coffee Stained Girl” via deviantArt

HIGH MAINTENANCE (aka “Bacon”)

“Your high-maintenance,”
he typo-wrote in an email
after I typed my insecurity
and a dozen questions
of if what I said was offensive
if I had been annoying
Your reaction was funny.

“You can’t offend me.”
And I liked his resilience.
He proved to be the most offensive.
“You’re not a downer at all,”
bravely, inviting me to share
ups and downs and in-betweens;
It was endearing.

I laughed out loud at a recent exchange
with a man with whom I am neighbourly.
Complicating an invite for simple bacon
By conjuring a drunk text as suggestive meaning.

But no, it really was sober and innocent!
Yes, he thought it would be nice to have breakfast!
No, this is not dating or amorous!
Like us, just a fun Canadian – British connection
(But you’re from New Zealand).

“Poor guy,”
is what I think you’d say.
“Does he know what he’s getting into?”
“Slow down, he’s in a couple!” I would tell you right away
“Double the torture” you’d add, in your way.

Do you remember all the energy you’d spend
sorting out shit I would miscomprehend?
You’d use bold font and sex analogies so I’d get it!
You never, ever gave up until I’d grasp it.

“Get a grip”
this neighbor Brit said joking over something to me.
Said comically, it made me smile
I recalled some memory.

My sincere fear
Of my control and contriving
Is that I’m doing it to push away
Gents who I find alluring.
Hopeless and dead, but fired inside
Giving up notions of possibility
Thinking eunuch and that my role
Now is limited to friendship, fleeting.

Because what do you do after you wrote a book about a dude
When the story you’ve lived, you created and it came true?
How do you shelve the safety of a tale
Full of coincidences, support, fun times and betrayal
To make room for something completely Unknown
When your best work, Woman, was to write your own tune.

I know the beautiful music of love
How men can adore, share and become
One, a unit, a together-forever union
What support looks like
What great sex feels like
And what a solid couple means and presumes.

But “soul mate” works for devilish duos too.
Not just for the healthy union’s swoon.
Connected fierce in trigger, doomed
I wanted your wild, mad, raging ruin.

Why?

Because it was a direct invitation into you.
My own life but a lazy suggestion for a thing or two.
And the fierce and ferocious of your clear and sharp
Sliced off the fatty bits, went straight to the heart.

The first wrote:
“I’ve found someone to love the
‘Dare You To Love Me’ girl” it read.
The second said nothing in his bold
way, knew he could handle my head.
They all said “You need someone established
With a good job to care of you,” they wrote
I do it all myself I confessed.
So, maybe just someone who fights back
when I poke?

Sylvie Hill 2018

Today, I deleted my Facebook page. While it will take 14 days to complete, I will resist being so easily lured back — a simple sign-in re-activates your account, sucking you back in.

I’ve got my own reasons, but they are absolutely not unlike these.

If you’re here because you noticed I wasn’t on Facebook, and wanted to keep in touch, I will be only too happy to connect with you! Find me on Twitter.

Do You Believe?

In the past,
On a summer night
A Friday you might
Head down round the pub
Like your back porch
But paying for your drinks
Without a bbq
And the vast expanse
In front of your life
Was wide
But only in age could you see
It clearly how limitless it may have felt
But in time
Is really a capped ceiling
Based on your parents
Their economics
Your social demographics
Whether your dad raised horses for polo
If your mom was an intellect
Or worked as a civil servant
And would spend retirement
Playing bingo.

How is it in religion
They are all believing fiercely
In sky fairies?
Is it the buildings
And the monuments
And the stain-glass window things
The anointments and the process
Around which they structure
The fables and stories
About how you’re loved eternally
Will be saved in death
And why you should live morally
And be kind to humans
So I ask, then
What world do you construct
To allow yourself to look up
And believe that your tough luck
Will get better if you pray
To some entity that is made
Real and significantly
Because of the scaffolding
You’ve allowed be constructed around you
So neatly?

Put simply, I should like to know
How we continue to dream
When realities are simple break downs
Of the need to make a living
To pay rent or a mortgage
To secure funds enough for sick health
To acknowledge dementia
And future needs to care for our ailing and unwell
selves.

Put simply, I should like to know
How we expect to fall in love after 40
Without settling on on/off former familiarities
When patterns are so deeply ingrained
And they tire us out and they’re draining
And how to lift this with energy
To go out and try meeting
A soul not desperate – or worse: traumatized
By the need for release.

Sylvie Hill 2018

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