Mondavi Passions

Ah, yes, the wine is still good... A sweet, dry white, with wet, fruity undertones that I've grown to savor. In my inappropriate wide, over-sized red wine glass, its pure imperfect heaven. An old familiar friend on a rather lonely evening.

The poor bottle lay in wait at the bottom of my fridge for months. Too good it was for cooking, though at times I'd considered it, it seemed too special to end up mere dressing on a poor cut of meat. No, this wine was meant to be loved for itself alone. It meant to spill sensually over the lips, caress the tongue, wash over the mouth until it gently warmed the throat as its after taste tantilized my palette in slow, seductive sips.

This wine is a like a special lover: A lover that knows what it is you desire with you having to utter a word. It knows all the spots that bring me unto easy submission. A lover that spreads it's heat throughout my body with one sweet, succlent taste. It asks for nothing except to be consumed by my senses and it gives all of itself in return.

To have such a lover is priceless.

There is some bittersweetness in this consuming of my old wine. For one, it will be the last bottle of my very own for quite sometime for it was a gift to me and I shall not ask the gifter for a replacement. I am not one to feel entitled to such requests. To the contrary, I find them distasteful. Should my love for this wine and my lack of it come up in covnersation and should that conversation be lead to gift of a new bottle, I shall not refuse. Beyond that, any request or plea is moot in my eyes.

The second and perhaps most bittersweet part of my delicatly bittersweet wine is that it reminds me of my own lover. It remids me painfully of how he used to display his desire to be consumed by my pallette. For whatever reason, passion has become rather mundane for him so he fills his own palette with other endeavors that thrill and inspire it. So much is his passion and taste for me lost, that I sit here alone, craving affection and expression of what has been lost to me.

This is my curse, or rather, passion is my curse and with no outlet for it, I wilt like a flower on a during a spring heat wave. A blossom dying of thirst, watching the ground dry and crack around its roots. My once pert foliage browning aroung the edges and weeping close to the brittle earth, petals clinging fast to life, hoping, praying, wishing for the rain. Passion needs constant attention. Passion needs reciprocation for without that, it can not flourish and risks the misfortune of never coming to  bloom in the next spring. I have never experienced passion that was not crushed by inattention. My roots have always been dug up and planted in another's garden to repeat the same, sad cycle.

I thought with this lover, he would break the curse. He showed me passion and its vigilliance like I had never seen. It continued for quite a span of time, but slowly, it waned. So slowly infact, that it was almost maddening to my senses as I desperately tried to cling to whatever was left. And in my clinging, I sucked the last bit of passion's juice dry. Now all that's left to be seen are tiny droplets of dew on my wilted petals. Even their sight is breif because I drink them in as quickly as they appear so that at times, to me they seem just a fleeting memory, almost surreal.

Reciprocally, my own obvious passion is dwindling. I have less of the desire flowing to my blossom's surface as I had a year ago, though it pains me to admit, and again, I desperately search my secret stores. I find myself unable to give freely in the absence of reciprocation. The reluctance, I know from experience, will soon turn to suspect and suspect always turns to distrust and distrust naturally turns to loss. 

If I can not inspire passion in my lover, then what? That is a question I have not asked until now because the answer is truly frieghtening. Yet, my lover still inspires passion in me and to my dismay, I have been able to find those secret stores and wells of passion. Stores so secret and old that I didn't know I even posessed them. Infact, for the first time ever, these stores seem limitless and it is only a matter of finding them.

And yet, there is a foolishness I feel for having such endless desires when they aren't apparently requited. I simply do not see that desire reflected back at me except in those fleeting moments that I replay in my minds eyes in hopes of restoring them. This is a rather useless endeavor. It is quite enjoyable the instant replayed but after, a sadness washes over me for they are of days lost and effort made to restore them has proved in vain. You simply can't force someone to feel what they don't. There in lies my foolishness.

So let Bacchaus's goods be my lover for this moment for it is tangible, real and pleasure giving. It wants not but my enjoyment for sad is the bottle that lays waiting for consumption. Now there is a sadness I can relate to! Dear, sweet companion of mine. How sorry I am for letting you sit undrunk and chilled in my refridgerator! How sorry I am for neglecting you! How I hope you feel my endearment and passion for you at this moment, because we are sisters in our woes. Sisters of dersirable neglect. Sister's of reflectioness passion.

I promise I shall consume you as you were meant to be consumed; I shall consumer with limitless passion and insastiable desire. You will be my lover tonight. Tomorrow, my lovely wine, you will be gone. This I know. And I will wake with my true lover by my side and with hope in my heart. If and when I don't see that passion reflected back into my eyes, which I am most certain I will not, I will seek somewhere else for that passion...something else, someone else because I've learned long ago that I can not survive without it.

While hope brings me another day to see if passion for me lies within my true lover still, hope does not fulfill... it merely sustains until a wish can be granted. And sustainment is truly not enough... which leads me again to my most dreaded question: If I can not inspire passion in my lover, then what?