What I Want

Posted on September 18, 2010 by Ruth Weal

This poem was written at a time when I realised I couldn’t have the man that I was in love with, but also that I wasn’t sure that I’d ever meet someone who would be able to accept me for who I was. I really like this poem, it’s a strong recognition of what I wanted in a partner and also the begins of acceptance and letting go of the man I couldn’t keep. It remains a favourite with me as in essence it still represents the deeper passions that drive me.

WHAT I WANT

What I want I cannot have
What I need I do not think exists
What I crave I’m not sure I can keep
What I lost I cannot continue for to weep

I want a man, not a boy
Who’ll worship all that is womanly and feminine in me
I want a god, not a toy
Who will call forth undying devotion and won’t be coy

I want an equal, who’ll walk beside me through this life
Who understands I care not for the trappings of marriage, of being a wife
I want a partner who knows I cannot be caged
Someone who will run besides me and be my eternal rock, my wise sage

I want a lover who will let me pin him to the wall
And I want his eyes to shine with feral anticipation not fear at all
Even as he contemplates holding me bound and stripping me down
A man who will treat me like the priceless jewel in the crown

I want the battle of wills that ends in smiles
I want the debates and the frenzy that makes me feel so alive
I want strong, enraptured flesh made to match mine
I want the joining of sweet ecstasy divine

I want a man who when I get difficult won’t run and hide
A man with courage, who when I’m right will set aside his pride
I want that individual, the only one that truly fits
I want someone whose name will be forever on my lips

I want a companion who can see through my eyes
Who won’t always understand me, but he’ll always try
I want tenacity matched only by sensitivity
I want steel overlaid with delicate vulnerability

I want a man desperate from my well to sip
I want perfection as we meet hip to hip
I want love that will hold me through anything life throws at me
I want the chance to see if I can be what I know I could be

I want a mate who understands I cannot be tamed
I want a lover who with a single touch has me inflamed
I want consuming passion that matches mine
I want what I truly cannot fully define

I want a man who wants as much as me
I want a lover who craves what only I can free
I want a mate who shares his thoughts and life with me
I want a lover who wants to be the other half of me

What I want I cannot have
What I need I do not think exists
What I crave I’m not sure I can keep
What I lost I cannot continue for to weep

But what I want will always be

This entry was posted in My Art, Poetry and Prose and tagged passion, passions, poetic, poetry, poetry and prose, ruth weal, symbol, symbolic, symbolism, wealie, what I want. Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to What I Want

Rehan Qayoom on October 2, 2010 at 1:04 am

I don’t believe in the ‘Somebody for everyone’ maxim. There is nobody for me.. in the end we are all alone. Mir Says

Although the heart is a flame for the grieved person
It has been somewhat put out since the eventide

The Urdu, Mughal court poet Ghalib writes

We agree you will not be negligent however
We will have become dust till you are informed

With me, it’s not a case of having left undone the things I ought to have done, I’ve left undone the things I ought not to have done too.

(Untold Stories. Alan Bennett. Faber & Faber, 2005).

I did not pursue what never came for 30 years. So that now I have stopped pursuing the thing that will not come. I am a mere mortal and can only try to follow the patience of prophets. I doubt I can emulate it. My life is wasted upon me. My sister recently phoned me on my birthday (which I do not celebrate) and when she asked my age and I confirmed it she said “What a waste!” There is an old Chinese proverb ‘ If you want to be happy for a short time; get drunk. Happy for a long time; fall in love. Happy for ever, take up gardening.’ I am one of those on whom the Muses have sprinkled their gifts no more. I wasted away my life reading and writing, doing nothing else, ever, zombie-like! My life-blood sucked out by books got me here which is nowhere. As Rumi says ‘He that brought me here can take me out of it.’

I can only suppose that somewhere along the line my mirrors are distorted as I do not witness it in my own life. I do not enter this decade with any dreams or ambitious illusions. I have long forgot what it is to desire something. If time has not wiped me out by the end of what is just another Low Dishonest decade in which I will still read books, watch films, attend poetry sessions occasionally. People will still say the same things about me, it will still be raining. Nothing ever happens here – As Alan Bennett said ‘Life is generally something that happens elsewhere.’ At least, I know that mine is. And that which happens to other people. And there is the Larkin line ‘Something like nothing, happens anywhere.’ Today I am back where I was in 2000, snobbish, selfish, whatever else I am labelled, none the richer and none the wiser. I tend to the neorealist view of history being cyclical. A continual movement, as Antoine Lavoisier said ‘Rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée, tout se transforme.’