The jasmine trying and failing to cover that orange note... I hate that my brain went straight to a room where even the air has evidence on it, like... Sir, please let me breathe normally for two seconds.
Reading this feels less like watching a memory and more like watching someone slowly dissolve into one, where the intimacy is so heavy it almost tastes claustrophobic ✨
There’s a real sensual intelligence in this piece because it never explains desire psychologically. It lets sensation carry the meaning: smell entering the lungs, light not falling, saliva circling, darkness becoming spatial rather than symbolic.
“The light in the room didn’t fall. / We were remembering / what had never learned / to separate.”
That passage shifts the poem from erotic atmosphere into something deeper and more primal. Not performance, not seduction, but recognition through dissolution.
At the same time, I think the text works best when it stays closest to the body. Some of the abstract phrases (“permission,” “what we had known all along”) are slightly more familiar conceptually than the sensory sections around them. The strongest moments are where experience arrives physically before interpretation has time to form.
That’s where the poem becomes genuinely immersive rather than simply aesthetic.
Thank you, Antonio. I love you caught the sensory and sensual elements to this, and how that tracks down into something else that maybe wasn’t expected and as you say, maybe dissolution. A very close reading. Thanks!
What unsettles me here is how completely the poem dissolves the illusion of separation. This does not feel like seduction so much as recognition, as though the body remembers something the mind never learned how to name. “We were remembering / what had never learned / to separate” becomes the quiet center of the piece, where intimacy stops being performance and turns into return. And the sensory language is extraordinary because it is not describing desire but absorbing it: scent entering through the lungs, darkness holding rather than hiding, permission replacing worship. “Already / where it began” lands like a truth the body knew long before language arrived.
Hi Mark. I'm very glad I found you. I've been looking for writers with your kind of sensibility and focus on clarity of language and finding truth within and in the space between words. I am also looking for connection around my own writing work, so would you be open to me sharing some of my work with you?
Thank you so much for your reading @WritingWithWater. It really feels you entered the piece and the threadlines I wanted to be found there. The jasmine was an interesting choice to make to as nothing else seemed to fit as well.
The jasmine trying and failing to cover that orange note... I hate that my brain went straight to a room where even the air has evidence on it, like... Sir, please let me breathe normally for two seconds.
Hehe! It's a classic combo Asuka! Jasmine and orange and a little...
Thank you!
Right?!?
Reading this feels less like watching a memory and more like watching someone slowly dissolve into one, where the intimacy is so heavy it almost tastes claustrophobic ✨
Thank you Brandi! That's such a lovely reading of the piece, and gives me ideas for more!
There’s a real sensual intelligence in this piece because it never explains desire psychologically. It lets sensation carry the meaning: smell entering the lungs, light not falling, saliva circling, darkness becoming spatial rather than symbolic.
“The light in the room didn’t fall. / We were remembering / what had never learned / to separate.”
That passage shifts the poem from erotic atmosphere into something deeper and more primal. Not performance, not seduction, but recognition through dissolution.
At the same time, I think the text works best when it stays closest to the body. Some of the abstract phrases (“permission,” “what we had known all along”) are slightly more familiar conceptually than the sensory sections around them. The strongest moments are where experience arrives physically before interpretation has time to form.
That’s where the poem becomes genuinely immersive rather than simply aesthetic.
Thank you, Antonio. I love you caught the sensory and sensual elements to this, and how that tracks down into something else that maybe wasn’t expected and as you say, maybe dissolution. A very close reading. Thanks!
What unsettles me here is how completely the poem dissolves the illusion of separation. This does not feel like seduction so much as recognition, as though the body remembers something the mind never learned how to name. “We were remembering / what had never learned / to separate” becomes the quiet center of the piece, where intimacy stops being performance and turns into return. And the sensory language is extraordinary because it is not describing desire but absorbing it: scent entering through the lungs, darkness holding rather than hiding, permission replacing worship. “Already / where it began” lands like a truth the body knew long before language arrived.
Dipit, you’ve caught the throughline so well. What happends when the illusion dissolves and we’re only left with one and intimacy.
This is my minor reference or nod to the cave, and a feeling of how we can change and release.
Thank you for such a close reading.
Thank you for offering up this pause to notice the trickle down our throats.
Thank you Jamie! that line took me a while to get right! 💛
I felt this one in a way I could never have put into such beautiful poetic words 🧡
Thank you so much, dear @From Tender Ground 💛 🌿 💛
You’re welcome 🧡
Hi Mark. I'm very glad I found you. I've been looking for writers with your kind of sensibility and focus on clarity of language and finding truth within and in the space between words. I am also looking for connection around my own writing work, so would you be open to me sharing some of my work with you?
Hey Dilip,
Thanks for your kind words and most definitley.
Feel free to tag me on something you’d like me to read in the comments or ping me a link. I’ll take a look through your homepage later too!
Thanks Mark. I’ve tagged a couple of my pieces in a separate comment and am grateful for your interest:)
Always looking to connect and refine my writing through collaboration.
Totally intertwined. Senses merged. No permission required. Hot without being obvious. Lovely squeezed orange x
Totally intertwined and squeezing oranges sounds like an interesting juicing experiment MoTy!
Must try it!
Love the thoughts, reading and comments as always, x
My pleasure, as always x
Absolutely stunning! Bravo Mark!
Thank you, Dorie! ♥️
Hmm, interesting
Hehe!
i like the way this one moves..the quiet discoveries in the darkness...the image....the suffering and the being held..becoming the jasmine....
Thank you so much for your reading @WritingWithWater. It really feels you entered the piece and the threadlines I wanted to be found there. The jasmine was an interesting choice to make to as nothing else seemed to fit as well.
Thank you! ♥️ ♥️ ♥️
yes..it was the way the jasmine became you…not just a scent..something more..that intertwined with you…. i loved that
thank you, and I think that’s exactly it :)
Intimacy captured.
Thank you Christopher!
Beautiful Mark, as usual 💜
Thank you Kasu ♥️
There’s so much thought that goes into this one. Beautiful just beautiful.
Thank you so much Ethereal! ♥️ ♥️ ♥️