Friday, July 17, 2009

Boy Seventeen







All my life I wanted to be in love and what in love meant was safe/obsessed/purified/worshiped/destined and the turning of those as well. Seventeen I fell in love and I was safe/obsessed/purified/worshiped/destined to be in love with this seventeen year old blonde haired long haired blue eyed tight jean wearing metal music loving guitar playing miserable abused reduced shadow boy, because he understood The Thing I Could Not Name and because he grew up with and lived inside The Thing I Could Not Name _ and then because I spent my entire life trying to name it _ we fell apart. Because he would not have it named and he would not hear it named and because I insisted on doing so. Because we were in love at the beginning but too damaged to care for it. Because love turned into sickly need so quickly it left me breathless and gutless. Because I still believed life was possible and he did not. We parted, we reunited, we parted again. We tore each other up and stitched each other back together. This boy was Mr. Curry's best friend. Mr. Curry was my best friend. We slept on each other's backs, curled and sweaty and horny and myself lit with a passionate fire for an intellectual and ethical life that was completely and totally out of my reach but not. out. of my dreams. When I think to myself, or let's say someone asked me - Why Mr. Curry and not Boy Seventeen? I know it is for many reasons and for one reason. The one reason sounds like this: Mr. Curry turning the pages of a book. It looks like this: Mr. Curry's eyes meeting and holding my own ( he is not afraid of this and men are often afraid of this or worse they act like they are not afraid by meeting eyes with a false bravado and false masculinity they translate into aggression ). It tastes like this: secret things. It feels like this: Mr. Curry picking me up off the bathroom floor, blood pooling between my legs, and carrying me to the car so I don't deliver our baby on the floor.

What love is and is not fascinates me. I loved Boy Seventeen and he loved me. Yes. Because we were too sick and too sad and ultimately too different to meet in the broken places where the light comes through, we were not meant to be, and because we had any sense, we let go. Because Mr. Curry and I are sick, sad, and smart and brave and ultimately hopeful, we meet in the places where the light gets through, and this is where we hold on, peering through the fog. Boy Seventeen is now a man in his thirties with a beer belly and just out of a long term relationship with a woman ten years or so older than him whom he never married but lived with. Boy Seventeen lost his mother to suicide or overdose when we were- Seventeen- He lost his dad a few years ago in his late 20's to lymphoma. He was an abused child and he has not made shore. Boy Seventeen once helped Mr. Curry clean my car after we had been married a short time, and Mr. Curry says Boy Seventeen sat in my car, rubbing a towel on the wheel, and stopped for a moment, still, before saying sadly ' This car smells like Maggie's perfume '. And I thought to myself when I heard that, we Loved. It was something easily dismissed because we were teenagers and fucked up and broken and all broken things can be easily dismissed by the rest of the world. I don't dismiss or erase it. He was the only other man I've loved. Mr. Curry loved him too. We hope he makes shore.

Mr. Curry has been my best friend turned into my lover turned into my husband turned into my Love. What I thought love was is so much less than what it is.
Leightongirl said...

When you write about love you shine, and when you write about Mr. Curry I am full of happiness for you both, and the love you share. It means so much to be everlasting, and I am so glad you remind us of that truth.

Petunia Face said...

That was stunning. You are so so talented.

michelle said...

More amazing words from Maggie May. I love reading them.

Aya Smith said...

Beautiful! :D

Unknown said...

This was just amazing. Absolutely amazing in every way. So glad you have found your love. Hope your ex love also finds his way some day.

Vodka Mom said...

wow. that was simply amazing.

Woman in a Window said...

Completely fascinating. I found myself looking within to find my own answers. I don't think it works that way.

Ms. Moon said...

I love you and your words. I love your light and your darkness.

DKC said...

I always enjoy your words about love and Mr. Curry. It touches something in me to read about real, flawed, perfect love. Because that's how love is.

Zip n Tizzy said...

It's quite something to be married to your best friend.

Laura Doyle said...

I just found a bunch of old journals which reminded me that I spent my entire girlhood desperately obsessing about love as well. I had a Boy Fifteen, only I was 15 and he was 19. The similarities between our stories mostly end there but then meet back up again at the end. Everything I thought love was is a joke compared to what it is.

nfmgirl said...

Absolutely lovely. The beauty in your heart resonates through all you write.

julochka said...

"What I thought love was is so much less than what it is." --those are the most beautiful, profound words i've read in weeks...

Shaista said...

My father said to me today, what if we lived till we were 500? Then we could have plenty of time to get it right. Get love right... the intensity of our mistakes or seemingly wrong choices and odd and awkward crossroads would smooth themselves out with the long, long, shores ahead of us.
What do you think? Too long?!

AS Novus said...

this is just a beautiful post and so true. Love changes as much as we do.

Lola said...

I think of my Boy Seventeen often. He sounds almost exactly like yours. Great perspective, as always!

Lydia said...

Your expression of love is so open, Maggie, that I'm envisioning it being a raft that will bring Seventeen to shore safely one day. This was so tender and real.

All This Trouble... said...

I had a boy seventeen. He was and is lost. I haven't given up on him. He wasn't then but now he is my husband's good friend. He is still my good friend.

anymommy said...

Incredible writing, Maggie, and you are writing about an incredible love. I adore the whole thing, but especially the last sentence.

Jeanne Estridge said...

Isn't it funny how we're taught to think of love as the mating part of the cycle? But it's the other part, bonding part, the holding together through good, and bad, and like you, and don't like you, and desire you, and don't desire you, and admire you, and don't admire you, and you smell delicious and dear-god-go-take-a-shower-would-you, and we've got some extra cash let's go do something and honey they're threatening to turn the electric off, and I'm so proud of our daughter and what is wrong with your son, and still at the end of every day you crawl into bed together and the best moment is when you curl against him and he kisses your hair and there you are, together, alone, just the two of you, that's really what love is about.

Heidi said...

Beautiful...just beautiful.

Mwa said...

You write so beautifully and full of love.

I'm Katie. said...

It's that funny- love is love is love, but only little bits of it qualify, and never the same bits to different people.

Laura said...

I had a boy seventeen. I still think about him. I am very sad about where he is now and how his life turned out. I am grateful that love is so much more then what I thought it was then.

Unknown said...

Hey, I'm really enjoying your blog. Thanks for stopping by mine. :-)

Brittany

Anonymous said...

"....we meet in the places where the light gets through, and this is where we hold on, peering through the fog." Being able to turn the pages is the key- so glad that you both found each other! So glad that you kept on turning!

Leanne said...

This is an amazing post. You're so right about love being more than you thought it was. Your love is evident not only in the words that you choose to describe it, and Mr. Curry, but just in the way you write. So beautiful.

Diana said...

encouraging and motivating. really beautiful

michellewoo said...

It is refreshing how you do not brush away one love just because it has run dry, but instead acknowledge that yes, you loved and were loved, and can smile about it.
Your words are breathtaking as always, Maggie.

Babe in Babeland said...

BEAUTIFUL. And your last sentence about love--EXACTLY how I feel.

Anonymous said...

I have to read your words and let them settle. They penetrate and stir and finally take purchase in a familiar place. You should receive reward for your words beyond the satisfaction of writing them, which I know is great.

I've moved.
http://culdesacchronicles.wordpress.com/

Sarcastic Bastard said...

This is so beautiful, Maggie. So wise and so mature.

Thank you for sharing your writing with us.

Love,

SB

krista said...

it's nice to come home to your words. it really is.

Taren said...

you are an amazing writer. i could read you all night. i could, and i just might!

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