Both Sides Of The Medal

And because you love me     think you you do not hate me?     Ha, since you love me to ecstasy     it follows you hate me to ecstasy.     Because when you hear me     go down the road outside the house     you must come to the window to watch me go,     do you think it is pure worship?     Because, when I sit in the room,     here, in my own house,     and you want to enlarge yourself with this friend of mine,     such a friend as he is,     yet you cannot get beyond your awareness of me     you are held back by my being in the same world with you,     do you think it is bliss alone?     sheer harmony?     No doubt if I were dead, you must     reach into death after me,     but would not your hate reach even more madly than your love?     your impassioned, unfinished hate?     Since you have a passion for me,     as I for you,     does not that passion stand in your way like a Balaam's ass?     and am I not Balaam's ass     golden-mouthed occasionally?     But mostly, do you not detest my bray?     Since you are confined in the orbit of me     do you not loathe the confinement?     Is not even the beauty and peace of an orbit     an intolerable prison to you,     as it is to everybody?     But we will learn to submit     each of us to the balanced, eternal orbit     wherein we circle on our fate     in strange conjunction.     What is chaos, my love?     It is not freedom.     A disarray of falling stars coming to nought.