Sensual Longing

There is a longing in me to connect with those I love on a level that I can feel but not always touch. The process of getting there is the most beautiful of all adventures. Both parties must be committed to it, for as indescribably beautiful as the path is, it can be very challenging, stressing the relationship.

If I err on this journey, it is usually from pushing too hard, from wanting it too much, from not allowing others to come with me in their own time and in their own way. Sometimes the passion of my appetite for this connection blinds me to delicacy of our mutual exploration. I will learn patience, temperance, acceptance, and many other lessons, whilst keeping the intense fire, the burning desire, alive. The growth and depth of intimacy between me and a loved one is strongly connected to the expansion of our consciousness. My consciousness. Your consciuosness. And the consciousness of our unique and precious relationship.

 - Clint Piatelli

Power Tool Poetry

       Writing poetry is sometimes like calligraphy; a sensitive and expressive instrument gently flowing over a piece of soft, textured paper. And sometimes, writing poetry is like wielding a power tool; aggressively using a big, heavy, loud, mayhem machine to get the job done, no matter what. My best poetry writing is often a bit of both.
       When I write my best poetry, I’m passionately and emotively using a custom made, highly sensitive, deceptively delicate chainsaw to powerfully carve my feelings into a slab of concrete. Preserving, for all time, how I felt in that moment.
       Over the past six months or so, I’ve written some beautiful poetry. A lot of it about a woman I was madly in love with. I’ve been reluctant to post those poems, because I wanted to give them to her, in some grand fashion, when the time was right, if we ever reconciled. Well, that’s not going to happen. So now there’s no reason not to share them. There's no reason not to expose the concrete slab of emotion that I created.....

Risk your desire
My beloved
And throw yourself into this fire

If we go together
We can not get burned
For the flames will not consume us
But fuel the engine of our appetite

Our tender flesh will not be scorched
But glow
Our hearts ignite
When we touch
Our souls tremble

Do not be afraid
I am in this fire with you
And I will never let you go
No matter what

If you ever cry out in pain
I will absorb your agony
And let you breathe again

If you should shudder in fear
I will embrace you
And steady your discontent

If you recoil from the heat
I will not hide
But open myself to you even more
I will spread my arms
Bathe in the warmth
And hold a space
So that you may move towards me again

And when you laugh from the boundless joy of our union
I will laugh with you
And amplify our sound so loudly
That we become deaf to everything
Except the music of you and I

Together in this fire
My beloved
We Crackle and Dance and Burn Brightly
To a colorful symphony of our own creation

                                          - Clint Piatelli

©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

Love So Much It Hurts

“Do you know what it’s like to love a piece of music, or a band, so much that it hurts?”
                                   - paraphrased from Almost Famous

“I do. And if you don’t, you’re really missing out.”
                                   - not paraphrased at all, Clint Piatelli


       I have longed to express, in a single sentence, the totality of my intense connection to music. Probably too tall of an order, given the vast scope and cavernous depth of that connection. But if my reach exceeds my grasp, so be it.
       If you don’t have a torrid love affair with music, loving it so much it hurts may be something you’ll have trouble understanding. And my follow up quote confounds things further. How the hell, you may ask, can you be missing out by not hurting? A contradiction? Only, as I said in my post Contrasting The Contrast, if you don’t know what’s behind the door.
       Well I’m here to tell you what’s behind the door. At least what’s behind my door. Through that, maybe you’ll understand me, and all intensely passionate music lovers, a little more. And if you are one of those intensely passionate music lovers yourself, maybe you’ll glean something about what’s behind your own door.
       Before I begin my internal expose, it’s worth noting that my objective in this post perfectly reflects why I write in the first place. Namely, by sharing what’s deep within me, I desire to create connections. Between you and me; between you and someone else; between you and you.
       Maybe you’ll even share your personal experience of music with me, in a comment or an email. I would love that. Because ultimately what I’m looking for with my audience is a dialogue. Not a monologue.
       Loving music, or anything else, so much that it hurts, means giving into its rapture and passion so completely that you surrender to its power and give up control. Not control of yourself, but control over what it does to you; over how much it means to you. You give up control, at least for a while, over how that something touches you. You don’t try to limit its impact on you. You’re not afraid to let it reach all the way into you and work its magic. Even if that magic makes you cry, or saddens you, or creates an unfathomable longing. Even if that magic rips out your heart.
       There is indeed magic in the music. And that magic feeds us, enriches us, adds to our lives in immeasurable ways. Magic is mysterious and ethereal, but it’s real just the same. Hardcore scientists, hear this loud and clear: just because we don’t understand magic doesn’t mean it’s not as real as the stuff we do understand. And let’s face it, as Thomas Edison, one of the most brilliant minds in history said, “We don’t know one-millionth of once percent about anything”.
       Becoming vulnerable to music is just like becoming vulnerable to anything; nature, paintings, the written word, another person. It means letting down your guard, and saying; “Okay. Move me”. Maybe it will and maybe it won’t. But, either way, you have to have your armor off. The less armor you’re wearing, the more vulnerable you become, the more you create the possibility for deep and powerful impact. Ultimately, to let it all the way in, you have to stand naked before it. At least figuratively. Although I’m certainly not going to tell you what to wear, if anything, whilst you to listen to music or read a book.
       This nakedness, this vulnerability, is what makes it possible for us to experience true love, with anything, or with anybody. You have to be willing to be hurt, to your core, or you will never experience the full power of love; love of music, love of life, love of another human being. The elation of that love can send you soaring. The pain can hurt so bad it’s almost unbearable. That’s the risk we take when we love with everything we have, with everything we are, with everything we want to be.


©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

SuperHighway To Hell

       The Road to Hell may be paved with Good Intentions, but the Highway to Hell is paved with Being Right.
       When I come from my head in matters of the heart, I can get into big trouble. Because my head is full of itself. It believes it can run my life all by itself. Even in matters of the heart, my head thinks it can handle everything on its own. It can’t. It’s a fish out of water. Actually, it’s worse. It’s a fish out of water that thinks it can fly. And it’s actually surprised when it plummets to the ground like a bowling ball with a pair of paper wings.
       It’s actually my mind that digs the holes I end up having to crawl out of, not my heart. For example, when I get emotionally hurt, my head wants to rush to the rescue, right the wrong, call it like he sees it, confront the problem, and fix it. That’s what heads do. Sometimes, my head even thinks it can fix you.
       My mind can be too smart for its own good. With emotional challenges, from a clinical standpoint, my mind is often right about what the issues are. I have a therapists acumen. My mind is highly insightful, highly analytical, and very well self educated in psychology. When I’m sizing up an emotionally disruptive situation, my mind is often correct about a lot of what’s going on under the surface, on a deeper level, beneath the waves. My mind can break it all down and get to some of what’s driving the behavior. My mind acts like an emotional mechanic, analyzing and diagnosing what’s going on under the hood.
       That’s wonderful. But that knowledge, that insight, that analysis, even if it's correct, can not be delivered from the head. By the head. That information, if it’s delivered at all, must be delivered from the heart. By the heart. And that is where I sometimes fail. That has been one of my biggest blind spots.
       And, just because I may have figured something out, that doesn’t mean it matters. Because the mind is all about being right. The heart is all about being love. The mind is about giving and receiving information. The heart is about giving and receiving love. When I choose being right over being love, I’m on the wrong road. I’m on the Highway to Hell. I have never seen or felt that more clearly than I have in this very moment.
       I don’t always choose the Highway to Hell. But when I do, man, does it create chaos. In my life, and, more importantly, in the lives of people I care about.
       And, even when the mind isn’t spot on, it can create the illusion that it is. So no matter how you slice it, it’s a slippery slope, to say the least.  
       My Highway to Hell may be paved with Being Right , but my SuperHighway to Hell is paved with the phrase “I Fucked Up”. “I Fucked Up” is my own personal demonic colloquialism that really means “I made a mistake so big, so awful and unforgivable, that I caused irreparable damage, changing my life as I know it, forever.” The physical equivalent would be falling out of a tree, severing my spinal cord, and becoming a paraplegic. This is my fastest, roughest, most painful way to Hell. Even the Hell itself is different. It’s Super Hell. At the end of The SuperHighway to it.
       Super Hell and the SuperHighway to it reside in a very special place, deep within me. Deep within many of us. Super Hell is in the very bowels of Perfectionism Land. Perfectionism Land is where you have to be perfect, all of the time, at everything. I know. Fuckin’ insane, isn’t it? But it’s a place I have inside of me. A lot of us do.
       Perfectionism is especially problematic in relationships. If both of you don’t have the leeway to make mistakes, lots of them in fact, then you are both potentially headed down the SuperHighway To Super Hell. The paradox is that when we attempt to be perfect in a relationship, we actually create more problems. Perfectionism is ironically very destructive, and it sabotages relationships; it doesn’t assist them. Because nothing is perfect, all the time, and perfectionism demands that it is. So there you go. Instant napalm. Just add.....well, virtually anything.
       I can be so merciless on myself that it boggles even my own mind. And if I am too hard on myself, I am ultimately, in some way, going to be too hard on you.
       I keep learning that lesson. The hard way. Over and over again.



©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

Just Because

There’s something about her
I don’t know what it was
I’ve gone into my head
I’ve mined my heart
And the answer to why I loved her so very madly is
“Just Because.......”

                        -Clint Piatelli 

©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, & Red F Publishing. All Rights Reserved.