So I am part of a little club called The Raptus Regaliter Society, which translated means Royally Screwed. It’s a small society, there only four of us. We write, and then meet once a month and read what we have written to the other members. We write about the emotional and psychological damage inflicted upon us by lovers; horror stories one and all. Although we are all finding it pretty cathartic there is far more to our joining; we plan to publish a book constructed of these stories. You see, in some (to use a tired old phrase) weird and wonderful way, our lives and stories are intertwined, inextricably linked.
Anyway the reason I bring this up is because our society met on Christmas Day to spend some time with each other. This is indicative of the very real bond that is growing between us as we share our harrowing tales and work toward our shared goal. I received a poetry book as a gift from one of the ladies, and quite naturally, almost instinctively, we began selecting poems from it and reading them out aloud. What was interesting about this I found, was how the poems selected by each member struck a very personal note, and reflected our psyches and inner turmoil and hurt. The poems took on an added dimension and meaning as well as a terrible poignancy. We all had tears in our eyes and sobs in our throats. I highly recommend you try this one day: get a group of friends together, have a couple drinks and get a decent book of poetry. It is an eye-opener and really something quite special.
I would like to share the poem I selected with you, dear reader, as I put that heartache behind me, my Los Angeles heartbreak, and race on towards my next. Ha ha, as bleak as that sounds it’s not really. I have survived a truly traumatic breakup and, what is more, am still able to feel without being all bitter and twisted. I have decided that I will not let my ex take anything else from me, nor have any further influence nor effect on my life. So I will love again, love too much, too deeply, too honestly, I have no doubt, it is what I do. And I will be hurt again. But I know I can survive it, and if it is a choice between living a bland life armoured against feelings or experiencing the raw, vibrancy of overwhelming emotion, I will choose emotion every time!
Tonight I Can Write
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, “The night is shattered
And the blue stars shiver in the distance.”
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another’s. She will be another’s. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
And these the last verses that I write for her.
Pablo Neruda (translated by W.S. Merwin)