Defeats Reason

Author’s Note

This poem explores desire as disturbance rather than comfort. It is interested in what happens when composure, discipline and self-knowledge are undone by attraction, and how power shifts when longing becomes conscious of its own excess. The speaker is not confused about the imbalance; they are unsettled by it, and speak from within that awareness.

You never really do realise

how long it takes to find a path

that does not just lead to the proposed destination,

but to a person in that destination

to find the trail that they have left behind

and liken it to the marks on your thighs,

to be unsettled by them.

You unsettle me.

It is not a word I use lightly,

for I call myself the calmest of waters.

I have stood upon raging storms

and had them question their authority.

But you disturb me,

quite plainly

and rather frequently.

It’s the way I search for your perfume,

how your kerchief always happens

to sneak into my pocket,

how I’m ensnared by your clavicle

the most unexpected of things.

It’s utterly confusing

and ridiculously demeaning,

but I am your bond slave.

Tell me, what did you do

to make me gaze at you so?

To ignore my teachings and fortitude,

to be plagued by thoughts of you?

I am not one without control,

but here I am, calling you master.

How faintly you must laugh.

There is no other logical explanation.

This surely defeats reason and form.

I have to have you.

I have to keep you.

I have to sentence you to my courtyard,

where you wait for me

day and night,

solely for my pleasure.

In this, I want to defeat you.

This is most unreasonable, after all

the gunning man seeking a flower.

__ Laurel