From GreatPoets, With Love And Great Stylistic Appeal

A Lesson

metaphrenic
I. Vocabulary

Soil is for planting in,
otherwise, dirt.
The donor is the third person
in the triangle.
Sty and style are not related;
neither are braid and bread
except in the bakery window
where they twist into temptation.


But some words like river and rival
surprisingly are, and more obviously,
void and avoid.


II. Multiple Choice

The woman on the bus has a ______ around her head.
a. braid b. style c. void

The man who sells his sperm to pay for art school is a ______.
a. river b. donor c. rival

Their child was taught to ______ the oven.
a. rival b. soil c. avoid

She still liked to put her hands in the ______.
a. bread b. dirt c. river

The pigs, meanwhile, seem content in their ______.
a. style b. sty c. void


III. Conversationally Speaking

The river enriches the soil for planting.
The river is the donor of riches. The sty, however,
is full of dirt (the pigs might see this differently—
planting their feet, their snouts). The pig
is the ultimate donor of pork, which is to say
it has no rival. We avoid thinking of it this way.
We avoid the (thought of the) sty; hence the separation
from lunchmeat. We like better the smell
of bread (daily, given, whole) done up in the style
of a braid, pure product of the soil.
It is wise to avoid the void, which is nothing really
like the river, the sty, or the emptied bakery
window (its closest rival). Instead
we could relax by the river, picnic on meat
and bread, or just bread—pigtails are kin
to braids—since eating pork's gone out of style.

Jeanne Marie Beaumont:

Poly Comment Posted

In answer to a question on a poly group, for posterity:

I began practicing poly when I was seventeen or so. I fell in love with someone I met on the internet and told my boyfriend, who said, basically, "I don't mind, I looked that up on the internet, and it's called polyamory. There's a group that meets that's into it, wanna go to a meet with me?" We didn't really ask each other if we would do poly and then agree to terms so much as we just... did it and tried to figure out how it would work. I expected that it would be a way to keep me from tearing in two having to choose between the two of them, and a way to let my boyfriend explore some interests of his since we were each others' first relationship.

Now, though I have poly leanings, I've chosen not to be in a polyamorous relationship currently because in the last nine years of practicing poly I've noticed that I used it as a patch or an escape, and my current relationship is important enough to me that if trouble comes up I'd rather deal with it than escape into a different thing. I'd also been doing it as a default since that original boyfriend, and it's time to switch it up.

My at-the-time primary is now married, with a kid, and I know his wife at least has another partner. I don't know much about their poly style though.

For myself, I've gone from a strong primary-leaning originally though a period of strong self-determination (where it was essentially 'take this relationship style and the way I'm going to do it or leave it, I can bend a little but not much) and out into the strongest partner primacy of all, monogamy.

A lot of things changed my outlook on poly. My first breakup, with someone who I really did love a lot, made me clingy and more likely to push past comfort boundaries in order to stay with someone, for awhile, because I wanted that stability. At the same time, resolving some issues around self-esteem and being able to say 'no' has led to figuring out what I want in a partner, rather than just taking whoever will have me. I have, if you like, a 'real yes' now instead of simply going along with what's available.

Being part of a quad for awhile was a very intense experience, and my first with the amount of work that poly requires (especially everyone's first poly where everyone is working through their stuff).

Working full-time definitely contributes to my decisions about poly, as does anything that effects my amount of spare time and energy. Self-exploration has been the heart of the poly changes in my life, though, and of course the experience that comes from thinking you want something and then trying it to be sure.

The experience of meeting someone who fills enough of my serious relationship needs to allow me to even conceive of trying monogamy has changed things for me a great deal. Those people are very rare for me and I wasn't sure they existed.

The experience of habitually growing absent in a relationship and spending all my time with another partner, over and over, was pretty eye-opening. The first time or two it's just the story of that relationship, but when you realise you've done it a half-dozen times it's cold water in the face.

I'm twenty-six right now.