Dream Kiss

Dream Kiss

As I wake with your dream kiss

wet upon my lips,

still warm and embodied,

deeply received within my heart,

upon the skin of my opened mouth,

this one kiss a quenching

of a life time of thirsting,

I wonder.....what if?

What if, worn and weathered as I am,

I could turn towards my own face

and resting it gently

between my palms,

love it like it was the night sky,

filled with mysteries unknown and untold, 

every line a journey towards belonging,

or the exile which carries us home,

every blemish and spot a landmark

of trial or tribulation,

received and overcome,

or at least survived?

Every wayward discrepancy

to the projected and expected ideal,

a triumph of wild wolfishness

over tame complicity,

in order that I could arrive here now,

to this loving of myself,

finally,

so exquisitely.

What if I could, with my own awareness,

behold the preciousness

of my own perfect body,

with all its wayward landmasses

and engraved tributaries,

and worship the sacredness of every cell,

no place unworthy of my devotion,

no other body to know but this one,

no thing to compare it to,

just this beautiful, flawed,

homely, safe, ecstatic,

imperfect body

that tells a story of how it has lived,

how it has withheld,

what it has given,

what it has carried,

what it has managed to put down

to be here now,

ready for this love.

Ready, not because it has finally

somehow become worthy,

but ready because this has always been

what we have each deserved.

What if I could know

beyond a shadow of a doubt

that I was the one

that I was always meant to love,

to be the one who I choose,

beyond all others,

to be the one through which

all women become loved,

because this one is chosen

as the one to receive the love

of the All Woman

through the one?

What if each and every one of us

became the one

most worthy of love,

as each of us are?

What if we allowed ourselves

that much magnificence?

What if I could love myself like this?

So that I could know at last,

the brevity of perfection

that lies within each one of us,

that rises to the surface,

like a fresh pink bloom

when met with devotion

and attunement to what is,

the glory of our flawed embodiedness.

What if now there was no one else to love

but this one,

this rejected, shamed,

objectified, compared,

criticised one,

this purity of flesh and blood,

just as it is,

just for what it is,

a life-giving creature

of experience and love,

a shade-offering garden

of belonging

and spacious accommodation

of existence,

longing to just be,

to be beheld,

by this magnanimous gaze

of loving acceptance

and erotic celebration,

without the filters of comparison,

without the brutal gaze

of not enoughness,

no shaming for what is not,

when really what is here

is all there is,

a microcosm of the universe,

radiant and dangerous,

damaged and pure,

keening to know oneself as love

in the gaze of a holy eternity.

What if I could curl up

with this purity of love

for long enough that the world

within me would die,

and I could be born again

in the gaze of my own perfection.

My body unchanged

but the beholding made new,

intimate and innocent,

like a newborn star,

as yet unperturbed

by the ravages

of space and time,

and vast in it’s capacity.

So much time spent

on my knees in the dust,

taught by my culture

to ponder the shortcomings

of my facade,

berating the cracks and crevices

in the temple walls,

when all along there was 

a sensuous feast laid out for me,

awaiting,

within,

and all the Gods

and all of the mysteries

dancing their wild

and sacred songs

inside.

How little they care

for the brittle surface

that houses their divinity?

Could this be enough?

The completeness of your dream kiss

and this devotional turning in,

towards the immaculate love

within my own body,

the temple which houses,

and through which I can know

the spirit of woman,

fierce and fertile,

unashamedly generous,

and the spirit of man,

implacably tender

and immeasurably pure,

in union as God

within me.

Maybe then,

and only then,

when I no longer need you,

might you come

and offer me

your mouth

in such a way.

Text and image © Lucy Pierce 2018