When you say “I know ___”…

I don’t agree with your fortune-telling. It is extremely inhibiting and oppressive. If you have doubts, that is fine, but do not pretend to know. Temper your hopes, but do not pretend to know what your life will bring you or what you may learn or find. At best, to say you know is only the path to a self-fulfilling prophesy. You do not have the data to create a real hypothesis, yet you say you know. You don’t know. To say something about your future as though it is the truth is to lie. It places the temptation to misconstrue or even sabotage things as you go along, because you might seek only to prove your assertions, you will be blinded by your bias and prejudice.

Not knowing what will come,
may you live free of the burden
of false fortune and find hope 
that life can, in fact, bring you
what you desire.
~PseudoLove

I AM THE WIND;  

take comfort in my caresses
that glide across your cheek;
lean into me or shield yourself
for I may be strong for you,
cold, warm or dry as bone;
let me lift you, unburden your feet
and make you feel that you do fly;
let me dry away your tears or
blame me for your stinging eyes,

but above all,
remember me.
     I am with you;
     I am the wind.

     —PseudoLove


(Audio is BBX SFX Library, 1999, Weather, Polar Wind)

by Walt Whitman

Passing Stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

Don’t keep things from me. Don’t hide. Tell me your secrets, hand me your fears. If you can’t give me what weighs you down, I will have to carry you altogether.

      ~PL

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If thou must love me, let it be for nought  
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say,
“I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry:
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.

When you come to me in tears, don’t tell me not to worry.

     ~PL

Though your eyes in tears be beautiful,
I would rather your eyelashes adorned
by gentle snowflakes, while you dance.

When winter comes, I hope your sorrow
may freeze for but a moment, if only
enough to feel a chill that is not inside.

I wish the cold wind may lift you a little,
invigorate your senses, and my words be
a small fire in your lonely heart(h).

     ~PseudoLove

by Walt Whitman

Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams,
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands;
Even now, your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true Soul and Body appear before me,
They stand forth out of affairs—out of commerce, shops, law, science, work, forms, clothes, the house, medicine, print, buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem;
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.

O I have been dilatory and dumb;
I should have made my way straight to you long ago;
I should have blabb’d nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you.

I will leave all, and come and make the hymns of you;
None have understood you, but I understand you;
None have done justice to you—you have not done justice to yourself;
None but have found you imperfect—I only find no imperfection in you;
None but would subordinate you—I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you;
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.

Painters have painted their swarming groups, and the centre figure of all;
From the head of the centre figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color’d light;
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus of gold-color’d light;
From my hand, from the brain of every man and woman it streams, effulgently flowing forever.

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are—you have slumber’d upon yourself all your life;
Your eye-lids have been the same as closed most of the time;
What you have done returns already in mockeries;
(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what is their return?)

The mockeries are not you;
Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk;
I pursue you where none else has pursued you;
Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom’d routine, if these conceal you from others, or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me;
The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these balk others, they do not balk me,
The pert apparel, the deform’d attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature death, all these I part aside.

There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you;
There is no virtue, no beauty, in man or woman, but as good is in you;
No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you;
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you.

As for me, I give nothing to any one, except I give the like carefully to you;
I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing the songs of the glory of you.

Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!
These shows of the east and west are tame, compared to you;
These immense meadows—these interminable rivers—you are immense and interminable as they;
These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent dissolution—you are he or she who is master or mistress over them,
Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain, passion, dissolution.

The hopples fall from your ankles—you find an unfailing sufficiency;
Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever you are promulges itself;
Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted;
Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way.

Today I was sitting here and I thought what if I just said “I love you,” what if I said that? Do I need to say it? Why lie with words when actions speak louder? I might be a lie, but I’ll be the greatest damned lie you ever had. Even though I can’t love, I’ll make you feel loved. I’ll make you feel more loved than you’ve ever felt before. Does it matter that I don’t feel it inside?

     ~PseudoLove