Because I Would Not Admit

And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. -William Blake Because I would not admit that I had nurtured an enemy within my breast- a lover who wanted to gnaw my secret rose, a lover who wanted to press me between the covers of a book, then burn it, a lover-usurper who wanted to take my soul- I nearly died, running my car upon rocks like a badly steered sloop, crashing into trees like a hurricane gale, burning my arms in ovens (when I thought I was only baking bread). . . . To admit the betrayal was worse than the fact of betrayal- for I loved him as leaves love sun, turning my face to him, turning my hips, my womb to be filled with a dream of children, a dream of books & babies sprouting like leaves from a spring tree, a dream of trees that leaked blood instead of sap. . . . The dream¹s the thing- the dream we die for, turning our faces to the sun, eyes closed, never seeing it has gone out: dead star, it blazes coldly over a dead planet while we bask in its afterglow, now remembered in the mind. He was fond of stars & telescopes; fond of machines, fond of building the most complex contraptions to scale the clouds. But Icarus flies near the sun with waxen wings, & does not think of gears or motors. Trees rise up at him as he falls; the earth rushes to meet him like a lover raising her writhing hips; the wings weep their waxy tears & fall apart; the sun is hot on his face. But even as he falls he is in ecstasy; his sun has not gone out.