Paper Narcissist

I begin this homage, well anti-homage to you, by acknowledging the fact I am probably least qualified to write about your limitations. That I, myself, question the effectiveness and validity of sharing revelations by a person (me) who was clearly caught up in the same spell that captivates you. Yourself.

I was taught the danger of buying into the idea that a man's worth is equivalent to his attractiveness or that attractiveness is all about imagery. Yet what drew me to you was never your surface, it was your real talent; creating an impression that there is substance behind the packaging. Packaging is great, it should provide you with a better understanding of what is inside once you have opened the box, or pealed back the layers. And your packaging is dope; in fact if you put as much effort into what you have on the inside as you do on the thinnest veneer of your surface, you might actually have a product worth having...

I do not mean my comments as digs or cruelly, well maybe I am a tiny bit peeved. That is what happens when you screw over someone who has a blog... oops. But these are my true thoughts - that your main focus in relationships waivers between creating the sturdiest platform for your own soap box so you can shout your story from the mountain tops, and attempting to find a sympathetic, panting, silent audience. Your desires seem more about feeding your ravenous, continuously, repetitive historical, monologue than providing nourishment to the women who might actually be interested in your current state of being. Trust me, while walking down memory lane may be useful to understand your motivations and help you make better choices in your future... living and reliving memory lane is apt to make you feel lonely and frustrated.

Not to seem unduly, condescending but you seem to be confusing the lessons about understanding history to avoid repeating it with espousing your own history so you can relive and re-write it. There is no lesson when you lie to yourself as constantly as you do to those around you. Maturity is about dealing with the reality of your actual life, candid assessment of your present status, and making choices that lead you in one direction or another. Your accountability for the consequences resulting from your own actions makes you a man, your ability to learn from prior experiences and make progressively better choices makes you an intelligent man. Your desire and ability to shield those you care for from your poor choices makes you a good man. Your inability to do any of the above makes you an asshole. Your frequent attempts to use, lie and harm people who only want to help you be a stronger, better person seems juvenile and heartless. Your attempts at running your "game" on women seems like a child trying to be Machiavellian, don't worry I will pause here while you pop over to dictionary.com or wikipedia... to grapple with understanding the concept.

You said that your last relationship failed because lied about who you were and by the time you were finally ready to reveal your true self she didn't give a flying fig. Yet, you still find limitless reasons to lie about yourself, not only who you are, but what you want and whom you want. You say you had a difficult childhood and it prepared you to help others. Yet the help you can actually offer is nebulous at best, unless watching you screw up your own life is intended to be the sacrifice you offer to your audience. In reality you would benefit from therapy (and lots of it) in the absence of that your untreated oedipal complex, combined with the abandonment issues and your pathological narcissism make you the person least equipped to contribute more than confusion and compound the suffering of those who are ill fated enough to seek out your vapid, counsel.

Clearly, I still need time to heal...

REFERENCE:
Narcissus or Narkissos (Greek: Νάρκισσος), possibly derived from ναρκη (narke) meaning "sleep, numbness," in Greek mythology was a hero from the territory of Thespiae in Boeotia who was renowned for his beauty. In the various stories he is exceptionally cruel, in that he disdains those who love him. As divine punishment he falls in love with a reflection in a pool, not realizing it was his own, and perishes there, not being able to leave the beauty of his own reflection. Several versions of his myth have survived: one found among the Oxyrhynchus papyri and ascribed to Parthenius; Conon, Narrations, 24, dated to sometime between 39 BC and 17 AD; Ovid's, from his Metamorphoses;[1] Pausanias', from his Guide to Greece, (9.31.7).

Mars and Venus and New Relationships

The beginning of a new relationship is a complex thing, almost like an organism that is born, and lives in its own tiny universe. The atmosphere must be rigorously nurturing and protective or it may not survive. When you are young, and all you have to focus on is classes, your parents, perhaps siblings and friends, a new relationship can easily take center stage. Like a first born child the care and feeding of it is matched by importance and priority of everything else going on in your life. The fact that relationships themselves are new to you adds to the mystique and your enthusiasm.


By the time you have several relationships under your belt the novelty wears thin, as your life becomes more diverse and you acquire the competing priorities of children, career, financial burdens and your own hobbies and interests, cultivating a new relationship can almost seem like an impossible dream. Similar to retiring at 35 or taking a trip around the world, or quitting your job and starting your own business a new relationship may seem like a great idea that is more of a fantasy and a dream than a goal you can actually achieve.

Men and women think about relationships differently. As your feelings evolve and deepen from merely dating to becoming committed to one another a shift takes place. It is a subtle one, and if you are not careful, you can miss it entirely. But this tipping point can mean the difference between moving toward a relationship or moving toward separation. If you have been involved with several people and cannot seem to move to the next phase perhaps that tipping point is where you fail to demonstrate sufficient awareness of what is needed or that you see what is needed but are not capable of delivering what your partner requires from the person they invite into there lives.

The presumption is that once you have moved beyond the initial phases of chemistry, attraction and dating; superficial interest in each other has been established. On a deeper level than what each unique individual needs to be physically attracted to their partner, men and women generally are motivated by different things when beginning and maintaining relationships. Men need to know that you believe in them and have faith in their ability to protect, nurture, care and provide for the women in their lives. They need to feel revered. Women must feel that the men in their lives cherish them, are interested in their thoughts, hopes and dreams and feel proud to be with them. The absence of these feelings creates a vacuum in a relationship making it easy for doubts, anxieties, frustrations and confusion to chip away at a new relationship before it has had a chance to take root. If the couple has communication challenges it's almost hopeless because the hurdles may seem more significant than the value of a new relationship that has not yet been tested and proven.

It is said that women enter into relationships anxious to change the man in their lives, to "fix" him so that he can finally be a perfect version of the prince charming about which they have always dreamed. Conversely, men find a woman they adore and desperately hope that she will never change anything about herself from their first initial dates. The reality is that both are destined to be disappointed.

I have a number of female friends who amaze me by dating a man for months sometimes years and constantly lament his bad habits, "I hate that he always puts his friends before me, or he takes all of his frustrations out on me and I hate it". Then they marry the same man and are angry, frustrated and shocked to find he continues to do the very same things he did throughout the dating relationship. As though there is some unspoken expectation that moving a relationship forward automatically changes a person exactly the way you wanted them to change.

When a man ceases to feel appreciated and revered, he will seek that satisfaction elsewhere, because the need for it is great in the male psyche. If you meet a man and he drinks, lies, cheats, or smokes... don't assume your love is going to change that. Find a man that you can love and adore exactly as he is whether he changes or not. If he has bad habits and finds a way to improve himself, that should be done for his own personal betterment, not for you or your relationship.

By the same token, I have male friends that don't understand there is not a woman alive who can live up to the expectations a man develops during the first several months of dating. The grooming, the sexual excitement and experiences, the doe eyed adoration a woman has for a man in a new relationship begins to wane, in the face of washing his dirty clothes, cooking, shopping, going to work, having children. Women have to believe they can mature and still be attractive to the men in their lives or they will find new men who make them feel attractive.

The goal of the new relationship is to use the dating period to explore each persons desires, hopes, behaviors, habits and determine if there is compatibility. Compatibility means you fit, in spite of everything that is happening, and may happen to the best of your abilities to forecast your future. If you can only see yourself with that person if they quit smoking, or stop hanging out with their best friends from childhood, or if she never gains another pound and her hair continues to touch her bum, you might want to question the staying power of a potential relationship. But if you can see yourself with the person, in spite of the fact that his clothing and shoes drive you crazy, whether she gains some extra weight, or may not want to dress like your high school English teacher three times a week; because to be without them makes you feel like you can't breath. You might be ready to move forward. One of the best things you can do for your new relationship is go into it with your eyes wide open and realistic expectations. Give yourself a fighting chance for happiness and stop wasting time on fairie tales and fantasies. You deserve it.

I love it when you call me baby

i love it
when you call me baby
love the fire
your sexy voice inspires
promises of safety
i have made to my tattered heart
you have made me a liar



love it when you say
what you want
how you want it
and "it" is me

everything you
do, say, write
is moving me forward
to where i know not

you are advancing me
when others have tried and failed
your strong, gentle confidence moves me
makes me want to
peek
around corners,
take baby steps
take giant leaps

my fear is still here and there
but when you call me
baby
your voice beats it back
parting the black emptiness
letting a ray of light
come inside
making it so difficult
for me to hide

i love it when you call me
baby

Knowing

still wishing every day
that i might awaken with the forgetfulness that plagues me on the one hand
and mocks me on the other
wishing for one single day of peace
the peace of not knowing you exist

of not knowing your voice moves me like no other
its rich velvet timbers racing along my spine
not knowing your golden eyes, so beautiful when alight with humor,
can casually caress my body with your gaze
and without intent or awareness,
of the power you have over me,
can, literally, cause my heart to miss beats

knowing your power, barely contained, under that fine muscled surface
could hold me fiercely, protect me,

tenderly, cherish me,

passionately, consume me,

knowing that your full lipped mouth

could whisper words that transport me

or caress my body sensuously, if you would only choose to do so

knowing that you would rather fear me than use me

knowing that you would rather eat cotton candy than peaches

knowing that i have a lifetime of warm sultry summer nights without you

knowing that it seems impossible for any other to touch the core of me

because you own it; even without desiring it, you placed your mark upon my soul

knowing that even in the midst of unending, sometimes unendurable pain and longing

my haunting desire for you is preferable to not knowing

Made for Him

souls split in half
each searching through timeless dimensions
as the gods and goddesses laugh
at the futility of finding the one
special person destined to make you feel
whole, complete, replete, resplendent
the aching answer
to the perennial question
why am i here?

for his hands to hold
his eyes to behold

as though his rib was taken
and shaped to create me especially
to fit around his body
his hands perfectly sized
to gently to cup my face
his tongue to lave, nip and lick at
my sweet, tangy essence
and remind me
from where i came
my lips to slide against his mouth
awash in the flavors of him
to taste and remember
to whom i belong
for whom i was made

and so it begins...

It is not often I can feel myself at this point; at the exact moment - when I am not quite walking toward the cliff, not falling off into the weightless air, but standing right on the precipice. Poised to leap and take flight or run with all of my might away from the edge. The decision is sometimes made with eyes wide open, and others eyes wide shut, but to imagine I can control my response to the magnetism, the curiosity, the lure, drawing me nearer with the softest gentlest web of silk, the sheer dangerousness of it is foolish.

What is it about this feeling of longing that causes two otherwise rational, well educated, emotionally stable people to do something so fool hearty? To have imagined that he was somehow "safe". That while he certainly had his charms, surely my defective heart made me somehow immune to them. That simply the act of being in pain, broken created a feeling of protection and isolation and gave me a feeling of haughty superiority. To have begun with mild, amused interest and have him slowly stoke the fire until I cannot wait until the flames are licking at my toes and arms and nakedness because it means that I will know. Know that it is real, that is is more than even my mind could fathom.

How then have the tables turned? How did I lose my grasp on the situation and find myself ready, willing and able to move heaven and earth to hear his voice just on air and feel his breath against my face while he talked about his day. Unencumbered now, able to speak transparently, anxiously about every nuance of the experiences that made up his daily successes and tiny failures. How can the sound of his voice instill such a feeling in me that I ache with the wanting of him - an emptiness longing to be filled by his hands all over my body, his mouth tasting my lips, my cheeks, his eyes seeing parts of my soul that I have long since forgotten even existed. Breasts waiting their turn to be noticed and appreciated and the exquisite feelings along the nerve endings as he pulls his head back and stares at me as though I was the last vision his eyes would ever see, the look in eyes taking in my panting, glistening form and licking his lips in anticipation of the hours ahead that the cool, dark night has to offer.

Making love again sometimes forcefully and sometimes with an aching tenderness that is like a balm on my heart that opens up my very being so he can climb inside. Lovemaking from the inside out, when even exhaustion is no match for the passion. Falling asleep still linked together, fragrant, and damp.

Purity

pure thoughts
pure joy
pure love
is what i feel when i look upon you
my eyes resting on your
sweet face

your beauty is breathtaking
yet you are the air i breath
your laughter stirs my passions
yet reminds me of the innocence of a child
your eyes see every part of me
and i welcome the chance to reveal
untold parts of myself to you

my thoughts
always seeming to zip by at the speed of light
slow down and rest when i am with you
your influence upon me
like a calming, warm light
in the darkness

my heart
forever protected
sheathed in its careful
unbreakable shell
was yours for the taking
in an instant
one glance at you
and i saw your compassionate, generous heart
as though it was my own

i happily give my love, soul and devotion to you
knowing that your guileless, sweetness
will treat it with love and care
that my life, my children, our future
will be filled with peace, love and joy
because you are forever a part of me
and i of you

for sha and shazia

Joined

loving is easy when you are young and beautiful
passion and emotions run through you like liquid fire
helping the highs reach pinnacles never dreamed
and the lows seem like an abyss of darkness

somehow just being intensely in love
carries you both forward on its own momentum
and it pushes you forward toward ecstasy
but joining your life with another is not only about the fire
the fire just helps keep you connected like a dowel
when otherwise logical people might pull away

recently, i have learned so much about true love
it's the sharing, the compromise, the sacrifice
it's wanting and needing that special someone to be happy, peaceful and content
or it's impossible to enjoy yourself
it's the knowledge that you only need to look forward

because he or she always has your back
and it's the intimacy you share
when you can stand before each other without guile
and acknowledge, Ne, shout your feelings
secure that the greater pain is in the silence

as you both prepare for a life joined together
travel light
remember to let go of the burden of past disappointments
know that joy is not a weight but an emotion that lifts the spirits
you will never be sorry for always giving each other the benefit of the doubt
but the pain of blaming each other can divide over time
remember that true love is whatever you each need it to be
it cannot be defined by friends and family or books
it is in your hearts waiting for your lives together to truly begin
so it can reveal itself in all its wonderful complexity

try to avoid comparing your love to anyone or anything else,
it is beautiful, special, and one of a kind,
like each of you individually
and the two of you collectively
live in the present and the future
use the past only to learn from and then let it's burdens blow away
like the winds of change

most importantly, keep the power of your love within the circle of the two of you
don't let well meaning and not so well meaning friends and family
define what you want your lives together to be
your lives are a clean slate,
you will always grow and evolve
try to not leave each other behind - "if you go we all go" - fireman's mantra
remember the most beautiful words are not always, i love you
but sometimes, i am sorry, or i forgive you, or i need you.

for mike and jessica -

Enigma

what a puzzle you are,
to me.
like a rich, delicious book
i cannot put down
each page filled with
page turning adventure
you compel me to finish your story

your raspy voice
slides along my senses
pouring out words of your
daily and nightly occurrences
and your historical context

most times your thoughtful caring sweetness
overwhelms me
i get lost wondering
are what you appear to be?
can an alpha be that kind?
what am i missing in your story?
what are "you" capable of...

iceman.
can you be cruel, cold, distant?
your utter politeness whispers at the certainty
that when properly provoked
the answer is yes

but what about that other part of you
the heat that emanates from your every cell
intertwined in your dna
fire and ice

the fire within your eyes
as your passion awakens
stirred briefly
it erupts suddenly
and is white-hot and consuming

or was that merely
my imagination?
it has been a while.
perhaps it was but a blip
an anomaly
never to be seen again

i have no idea
whether you are
that passionate, soulful man
whose eyes consumed
and filled me with unbridled lust

or the polite jester
satisfied with turning words
inside out
for sport and amusement

what a conundrum you are
to me
and you know how i love a puzzle
enjoy noodling on the
whys and wherefores

but instead of sitting on the sidelines
sorting you out
i want to jump in a pool
of you
and let the solving and unraveling
sort out itself
while you turn me
inside out
 
for tahir - muse extrordinaire

Tying Myself Up

Why do we drive ourselves crazy for love? Is it the love itself or are we simply addicted to the thrill of falling. Perhaps it's possibility of finally giving someone all of those things we've kept safe for so long. Passing on the joys and the burdens of our lives, and accepting someone elses means that we are not alone, and finally, being connected to another person, our lives have more meaning.

It would be wonderful if love was this perfect gift you could give and receive to those who wanted it as badly as you wanted to share it. Yet, even in it's purest form, love is not without its strings and heartache. They don't call it falling for nothing, and the truth is that at some point you have to hit the ground.

It seems, to me, that at some point we all make choices about love. Whether conscious or not those choices create a blueprint for the people you will love, the way you will share and receive love and how much you will be willing to suffer, sacrifice and endure for love.

One of the challenges is understanding what motivates us to make those choices and if those motivations are healthy and productive or stem from dark and confusing places. Recently, I met a man and in spite of every good intention, we both had, we had constant misunderstandings and the overall relationship was frustrating and bewildering. Though both highly educated and verbose, our communications never yielded satisfactory results. I was always second guessing myself. My confidence was rarely reinforced, rather it seemed as though nothing was good enough, my motives constantly questioned, my good moods torpedoed, never had I allowed another person make me feel like such a failure.

Now many women might wonder what would cause a man to want to be with a woman who so obviously rubbed him the wrong way and failed to make him happy. But I feel the more important question, and certainly the one I am more equipped to answer, is why would a smart, attractive, intelligent, sexy woman want to be with a man that made her feel so unworthy. Why would she constantly try to scale such an insurmountable object? Is it the challenge of finally reaching the "top"? And what would the "top" look like or be like? A lifetime of being with a man who deigned to let you be a part of a life that made you feel as though you were a second class citizen; never measuring up to whatever it is that he wanted. Wow, what a prize a life like that would be.

So what did we learn through this experience? What is the lesson, because this much heartache must have a lesson...

People (and by people, i mean me), when love hurts or feels sad and confusing, emotionally, phyically, spiritually - pause. Take a moment to ask yourself if you are invititing or even creating an environment that is unhealthy, remind yourself what you want for yourself...it's not about merely having a partner to witness your life. It's about finding a compatible lover to share it, to truly be a part of your life and who wants you to be a vital component of theirs as well. Don't sacrifice yourself to a moment or series of moments that limit your ability to be a better, stronger, happier person. If you feel those knots in your stomach more than butterflies don't let your autopilot kick in and convince you that those warning signs don't mean what you KNOW they mean.

We deserve happiness, hell we deserve joy! I am not suggesting that love is all wine and roses, but it cannot be all thorns either. As you are getting to know a person make sure you understand the value you have in this world, to your family, your friends and yourself. Only allow people inside of your heart that want the best for you, it may not mean you always have a partner in your life, but it will ensure that when you do have someone special to spend your time and your life with they truly are special. Get the love you deserve, trade in the knots for butterflies and save your offerings for God.