Memories

Missing you out in this field of separation

All the things so jumbled.

Both of us boasting our indifference.

The clutter of emotion and memory.

 

Your deafening arms across my roadmap skin.

Oh, the fires you light there, and speak guttural languages to my bones

How can I survive the heat, kilns igniting my heart?

Every faith, sewn upon your hands with determined fingertips

 

When every movement is the sound of your voice

When every thought is borne of your happiness

When the caress of your skin is branded upon my body

When the taste of your tongue is a maze upon mine

 

Oh memory, oh the sweet longings of love

The hope that broke me in two, my soul a victim

How starved you must have been to feed upon my tender heart

What a hurricane I have become

 

Red Poppy

How sad it was.

I grew into the woods, a silent form among the trees. I belonged there, so straight and still.
I threw my love into a million pieces. I gave it away. And my heart cried for them back, as the struggle spoke of the difficulty of finding love returned. For, they killed me with it, dearest. My heart frozen into shards and sent burrowing back into my veins. They killed me with my love.

The wind in my winter found my face. Bitterness and burnt cheeks from kissing Requiem. How my love burned inside my body, like icy waters lapping at my sternum and burrowing into my eyelids while sleep availed me.
And so I stood on that embankment of my soul, a harrowed ship in a grey sea. And I closed my eyes to my despair to breathe in my future, but the salt burned my lungs.
Perhaps that is the price of soul, to burn with such intensity. To feel lit up in a room of black particles, landing on your shoulders like ash.
Burn Burn Burn.
Oh light of love.
Red poppy rise from the ashes.

Given Dreams

Preparing everyday for you to go

Hopes taking shape of a lie

While I fall deeper into your ocean

With the passing of suns

 

Summer drew up like water into a sponge

Fall settling like dust again. While the

Whisper of your name withered upon

My crimson lips, my teeth biting down on its form

 

In my mind, you must see me, miss me

In my mind, I was a golden treasure you hoarded

I was a blaze you need to warm your bones

Let the forest burn, your decision worthy

 

But instead, I felt forgotten. Like the fog

Lost and thick among the branches of ghosts

Eerie and quiet and strange with music

Messages too old for you to understand

 

And yet, I sent my dreams to you, oh fox

Wanderer of histories, rogue of tomorrow

The dreams I kept in a box in my cage heart

The skin of my soul

 

I gave to you my red cloak, a desert wide

A sail boat washed ashore long ago

The fierce deafening wind, and my strange eyes

My perseverance.

 

I gave to you my golden wolf eyes,

My clever mouth and sharp ears

The stillness of the forest, the bugle of the hunt

My wildness

 

I gave to you my long dark hair, waves upon my back

My white dress among the mazes of trunks,

Just out of your reach, out of sight. A house in the wood

My innocence

 

But I woke to find my bed cold and large

When suddenly you were a stranger that held all

My secrets. And having given you my dreams

I sat empty and alone, wishing for tomorrow.

 

What more is there for my arms now, but time

Once filled with your smile and broad back

Now just the ticking of a clock too loud

Every moment turned from waiting for you, to hiding.

 

I’m supposed to ignore the ache of agony in my chest

I’m supposed to let go, since I knew it would come

Since I am a girl practiced at being grown up. No longer

Peter Pan, just wishing for the hook to slip between ribs.

 

And so the day goes on, it does not miss you as I

It knows nothing of the emptiness

What shall I fill with it? The quiet seconds of pretend?

What will fit in that space of sorrow for lost things?

 

You were never mine, so what rite do I have?

But losing you broke my heart, while I held

My breath, because the dead do not cry.

And I was just a hollow shell, full of the brine.

 

The absence of you became the pull before

The tidal wave, that crashed down on my heart.

But the pain was dull, for I had known that you

Were nothing but a distraction for my wandering eye.

 

I’ll get over you, perhaps tomorrow. But until then

I am stuck here in this longing. A longing so deep

For something I don’t understand. Why the wind

Keeps blowing people away but not me

 

 

 

What of tomorrow? What of today?

When my emotions are things I wished away?

And the terrible truth of my existence

Was something I created with persistence?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leaving

What will come of tomorrow?

When you’re gone and I have nothing but your scent on the breeze to hold?

What will cause my heart to leap up with elation and hope?

What small token may I take from it all?

 

The moment draws close.

Like the looming autumn rain

I look up at the inky sky and whisper your name to myself.

Wishing to be warm in the fire of your eyes.

 

When every word is about you

And every kiss I kiss tells a story.

But more so for when I don’t kiss your boyish mouth

For that is when I want to the most.

 

Across the room, your eyes trickle down me

Standing still like alabaster symmetry.

Can you hear my forest eyes whisper your name?

Deeper into the wood. Deeper into the dusk.

 

My feet dance through our asphalt jungle

Light and soundless as the hanging moon

The beating drum of your hips on mine,

Caterpillar-shivers up your spine.

 

Oh, the music between us. Our voices, our admission

The guitar in my hair, and your smooth flute lips

Gnawing cello played on my neck, with the piano,

pressing, upon your shoulders. Symphony and harmony.

 

 

Red waves drowning your sweet expression, breathing

The ecstasy into our lungs.

All sound forgotten, just touch

a hundred etchings of release.

 

The quiet that comes, breathing heavy and deep

Skin the only barrier, between heaven and hell

Limbo absolving us for a brief moment

Our warmth starting fires in the sky

 

I have drawn lines around my heart.

The cursive wrongs that fit so perfectly

In the confines of your arms

Among the scent of muffled emotions.

 

Your battle-scarred back, is some reminder

To you of days that passed in the wilds.

But to me you have earned every measure

Of the stripes you bare. Warrior of the sun.

 

Your solitude comes, unbidden. A strong

Wind to take you away from the night you love.

What bronze left in your bones, must keep you safe

Among the jackals teeth, and the desert storm.

 

The sound of your leaving is so loud

Like a siren blare in my mind, eating at the edges

Of the books that hold my adoration

Burning me like a fire.

 

I have felt quiet leaving, which dies a slow death

I have felt the leaving of dreams, which slips

Out from under your feet in a crash

I have felt suddenness, which takes your breath

 

But this.

What is this leaving?

Such a burning in my stomach

The slow decay of my sanity.

 

Why must you go, leaving behind my trail of feigned acceptance?

When everyone leaves, but I wished that someone might have

Decided to stay. The need in their eyes as great as mine

I wished too hard for wings to fly.

 

 

Darkness

The Night came closer.

And asked me why I loved you.

As it does every day.

 

It asked me about my fears

And the things that haunted me.

About what made you beautiful in my eyes.

 

I told it of my absence.

How you always loved another.

And like the fall, my colors would blow away in the wind.

 

But more than that I spoke of your wonder.

Of the sweet things I saw in your face

While the dawn threatened me with tomorrow.

 

I told him,

“His eyes are the deep abyss that I swim in. Black waters at night, in the ocean I float. Finding forever in the cool water, making my limbs light.

His eyes are the hunger of the tiger in the tall grass, begging my surrender, begging for the sweet lapping of water. Making me cry out in the night.

Universes hide in his eyes, the dawn of creation. the twisting of galaxies, sparking the dust of suns.So quiet and deep and brimming with a thousand lives and a thousand implosions.

A hollow made for the hoarding of gold, mountains of caverns lit up with fire. The singing of ages bellowing in its depths.

Obsidian inking, writing the shouts of warriors coming home upon the scroll hearts of history. Sweet words of lovers reunited, and another tomorrow to hold.

His eyes are the coat of the black wolf in the wood, feet light among the moonlit leaves. A whisper of journey on the ache of it’s voice, bounding out among the hills and calling me in.

A smooth stone in my hand, a treasure. Pulled from those swift waters of life, beating their path down the mountain, like the feet of time.

A raven on the wind, rising high on intelligent eyes. Piercing the darkness with his sharp wit and laughing call.

His eyes are the dark side of the moon, mystery and loneliness. A wisp of the coming light that the soul seeks to bathe in. The light of the impossible, waiting to breathe again.

Memory, how deep and dark that place is within him. That blackness his eyes behold and cradle. Laying curled in the confines of his mind.

The combining of color. The voiding of thought. The surprise of light. The haven of Home.”

 

And the night sat back on it’s heels

and blew a sweet southern wind.

And warned me of my inklings.

 

Because playing with fire was never safe

But playing with the dark.

That was from which some never returned.

 

And I looked up at the stars in wonder

How the light could love the black so much

That they froze themselves in his arms.

 

Even though with the coming dawn

They too would fade with him

Until nothing remained but the sound of their laughter.

.

B.C.

Black coal eyes,  mimicking the night.

Lights within,  drawing me close.

 

Deeper.  Deeper.

 

Vines of your fingers, deftly entwining in mine.

Spindles to the web of my capture.

 

You stare, hypnotizing me and casting your spell.

Words like burglars out into the dawn, stealing my sanity.

 

How i fear the light that takes me from you.

Dissipating in the beams like fog that clouds your mind.

 

Your rich skin,  a silk coating,  slippery and soft.

The waters of your ocean spring up between us.

 

Droplets on the flesh,  the rush of a breath in and out.

Harsh rasping and crying,  like waves against the beach,  the dock,  the cliffs.

 

The expanse of your back.

How etched is your skin, riddled with promises of tomorrow.

 

Furrows of pain and fear,  healed over in survival.

Little lines of adrenaline, you breathe sharply into your lungs.

 

Oh, how sleep engulfs me.  Your sweet bed of fern, a haven.

Oh,  how i have become a creature of the night once more.

 

The knives of your hips carving lullabies into my skin.

Of passion and beauty and gold.

 

The branches of your ribs,  a place to hold my hummingbird heart.

An anchor for my hungry claws and my warm mouth.

 

The steady motion of the waves,  pulling me in and out.

The shore is but a distant memory.  A whisper of safety reborn in the dark.

 

Your lips open me up, curling around my desires like slither and shade.

They are wild and wry and wet.   Like cliff stones.

 

Those hours are ours,  darkness eating shadow, birthing the howling hour.

The carpet rough against my baying flesh.

 

The midnight sky,  black like your eyes,  my legs.  Palate of forever.

Absolving my heart and eating worries; forgetting the aimless woods.

 

A labyrinth of your mind,  i wander into it.

Caressing the walls with my fingertips,  begging for them to whisper their truth.

 

You taught that Morse code to my heartbeat.

The one that the stars keep their secrets within. The secrets they hold for you.

 

Winking. Ghosting.

 

What a strange web this is, made of heartstrings.

I hold my breath, waiting for the exhale of rumor.

Winter in July

Winter has yet begun again.

That crispness in the air, the bite of the wind, the scent of wood burning off the chill.

I sit in front of the stove, pushing the stubborn logs into the mouth of the flame, and think of you. I think about these walls, how we built them together. How we laid and stained the trim. How we cut and nailed boards together. I think of how resilient it is, the caressing warmth from the hearth. It does not escape, it doesn’t leave as you do.

Mostly, I remember. I remember some closeness, some strange endeavor of the heart. Walking in that cold wind, the snow drifting and filling, measuring time like delicate frozen grains of sand in the world that was just ours. So far from everything, from our beds and our lies. It seemed more real somehow. More real than those sweltering summer days that followed.

But you’re gone now. Perhaps that’s for the best. Perhaps it was all just a fantasy. A world of snow trapped in a globe. Perhaps I will find something more real than you. More real than my thoughts of you. You pace. You walk away with a whistle on your lips, singing some song that I can’t hear, or don’t recognize.

Off with your tail in the air once again.

But I think this time, I’ll let you go.

 

The Window

As she passed, the brightness of her eyes took in the window scene. She stood, frozen, looking into the depths, breathing in a heart ache.
It was tangible and real in her eyes, but the cool glass protected it from her. Fingers imprinted onto the smoothness, the etching spiriting away as the pads left them.
This was every wish in her heart. This barrier like a net.
How mocking, how cruel.
So she passed on, broadening her shoulders for what was ahead. Every movement, an ‘if only’. Every step, toward a stone. Every word, breathing out. Every touch, toward oblivion.

She passed and thought it all a lie. That beautiful lie in your eyes.

The Romantics’

The carousel keeps singing, the longing of goodbye.

A childhood spent spinning, left a dizzy dragonfly.

*

Time may fly, but we made attempt to cut off its tender wings.

To stop the future coming, a youth drawn up on strings.

Oh what a twisted puppet show we all try to perform.

Convinced that it’s our freedom, for which we’ve gone to war.

*

Fight fire with whiskey, try to douse melancholy of the soul.

And pray the heat absolves you, and somehow makes you whole.

The wickedness of broken hearts, the shallowness of depth.

To give my all to something until there’s nothing left.

*

When desert sun burns skin, to which no one gives shade.

The same for those who love alone, filled up with weary shame.

But still it keeps on spinning, that tinny mobile circus.

I hold my head back, dreaming, a beginning with no purpose.

*

I’m back again, sweet lion, your mouth in frozen triumph.

The horses brightly dressed, beside the tiger are defiant.

Unicorns and elephants, all a handsome roux.

We foundlings, distracted by color, ignorant and new.

*

Why does the alcohol not wash my memories away?

Why do I stand objective, unto its power play?

Perhaps it’s memory too strong, and loves lost along the way.

If only someone had turned around and decided that they’d stay.

*

All you need, it may be love, but a sinister of sorts.

To make me choose between the air and a love that hurts.

But it’s a phantom pain, a limb long ago severed.

Like the singing carousel, a mirage of things remembered.

*

Perhaps the heart misunderstands our diligent rebuilding.

Lost in the field in scrutiny, dirty with the searching.

Behold and take these broken hands, these nails abrupt and wanton.

They worked at love and begged for freedom, but were left forgotten.

*

Their only use remains upon the grasping of the frame.

Of the metal menagerie and the memories that remained.

Around. Around. Around. On autumn winds we spin.

While the pain glows ever brighter and the light grows ever dim.

*

Wishes are just lady bugs, swept on a wistful breeze.

Little delicate emotions that hide among the leaves.

Now comes the part where we pretend to not notice each other.

While the fire burns at one end, and we play poker on the other.

*

Meanwhile, my heart won’t quiet so my thoughts can gather round.

So they come out in my smile when thoughts of you abound.

What a strange contradiction that the joy upon my face

Is not quite reflected in that dark and hidden place.

*

For I am just a passenger, upon this dizzy parade.

For hopeless romantics, was the art of dreaming made.

 

Entry for A Snowy February

So, stepping away for a moment from the more creative aspect of my writing, I’m just going to vent a moment.

Naturally, as things get to going in forward direction, something happens that causes me to gather the blue back around me. For my family, I’m sorry. You don’t deserve my frustration, and at times I find it hard to control.

Things are going great really. I am fulfilling my dream of sight with an appointment for a Visian implant to fix my vision. I am about to start my practicum and not only get experience, but see the halfway mark in my journey to possibly incredible happiness (or at least a really fun, new adventure). And I have taken matters into my own hands in order to continue the line of my beloved dog through puppies. So many dreams coming to a culmination. And yet, I find myself in a hizzy last night. As cool and collected as I am at work, and as much as I pretend I have everything together, I can be a mess at times.

And why, you ask? I suppose it’s very similar to where I was almost seven years ago. Desperate for a way out of my lovely life because I was feeling so lost and alone and misunderstood that I was willing to end that life altogether. The difference now being that I’ve grown out of that time when I thought death would fix things. Doing things fixes things, not giving up. And doing things has done me a great service in growing myself and getting me to this point in my life. But that bleak feeling is a beast I still haven’t conquered all the time.

So, I went to a concert this past Friday. Andy Grammar. BEST concert I have ever been to. I’ve seen the lights and the fireworks and the even the acoustics of Red Rocks. But I have never seen an artist so in love with his work. The venue was perfect, and very intimate in a way because it was smaller than normal venues. I watched in blatant awe as he played a selection of instruments and even did a little beatbox, singing in perfect tune and interacting with us like he had been here countless times before. But more than that, why he was really good, was the way he sang. I have his music. He’s on the radio and when I first heard his voice on that download years ago, I loved the sound. He’s grown since then, as have I. But watching him do it, being there in person, was…magic. The fun songs are full of energy and you can’t help but get excited. But his deeper songs, my God. You can FEEL them. Every emotion, every strand of hurt or wonder or love. It made you wish every song was about you. That you could make someone feel and sing and express himself like that because of you. His voice penetrates in such a beautiful and daring way that you perk up and listen. I can’t explain it. It went into me. It was amazing and invigorating. A true artist. A legend in his own right.

That night was like an adrenaline rush. I felt so invigorated after the performance and happy as if anything was possible. And then something twisted, like when you bend the wrong way and strain yourself. That thought, unbidden, returned. It didn’t even voice itself really, I just felt something was wrong. Unable to let things go, I sat and tried to analyze it. By the time I figured it out I was full blown mad at myself for letting the blue back in and the weak feelings return after a while being fine. I guess it’s a learning process and I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. But I can’t help but feeling badly for feeling like I might need something when I have so much.  I want love. Not just any love but the right love. I’ve been alone for almost two years now. Not even a sniff of anything real. I want someone who sings those songs about me. Who can feel so deeply that his voice might carry it. I long for someone to share myself with and build a life with and speak to about my secret feelings. My family is so amazing and we are building in our own future together. But there’s that hole there. Little, like a snag in a sweater. Some little thing you keep messing with and is at the back of your mind all the time. Do I need to fix the tiny hole? Need is a big word. I do need it in a way, but I’m good alone too. Strong and capable and good. I want to fix it. I want to feel like my sweater is seamless and stronger than it had been.

The closer I get to thirty, the more I feel as if the tick of a clock is getting louder. I feel my life becoming a Lifetime special, or else I’m becoming a confirmation of a societal stereotype about the modern woman who breaks the secret code of life’s order. Everyone keeps talking about freedom as the kids get older. That I’ll only be in my early forties by the time they’re grown. But to me, that seems so far away. That seems so much older than I want to be when I have time to find someone special. But what’s your option when you have your kids alone and young? I’m not finding someone for just me. I’m finding US a special someone. And that worry is very real.

There’s a worry for single mothers. About finding the right someone to not only be a partner but a model for children. That the love you find will be the example for how they pick their own partners. And how can we accomplish this? How can we bridge the Grand Canyon?

I wonder where God is in all this. I feel so alone sometimes, yelling up in vain on a silent tongue. I feel at times as if I let him down. I had a ton of potential and I squandered it on men, and got responsibility as my reward. It was what I needed at the time though. I needed something to make me make decisions and get up out of bed when I just wanted to die. I probably wouldn’t be where I am today if it hadn’t been for birthing two little responsibilities. I would have taken longer to wake up, to fight for what was right, to ask for what I needed. He knew what I needed. Those kids saved my life.

At this point, I suppose it’s a waiting game. I need to grow myself and learn as much as I can in the interim. I will have to try to not find myself down, and if I do get down then to pick myself up more quickly every time. Waiting is no easy task. But if I can find the kind of love hiding in Grammar’s voice, then it will be worth it. It hurts so badly some nights, but many woman have it worse. I was one of them once.

On the bright side, this venting helps. And the darkness has faded to blue. Back to the drawing board. And the bed so I can forget it all for a few hours.

Goodnight all.

 

 

Dear you,

I am sitting here and wishing it wasn’t without you. I’m sitting here and wishing I could turn to you and get your opinion, your comfort, or show you something funny. I wish I could tell you how much you mean to me. How much I need you here to understand me. I want to talk to you about my crazy theories about the stars or books or the spectrums of the mind. I want to hear your darkest secret or about that time you felt the dark creeping up against you. I want to hear how much you love pasta or ravens or first person shooter games. I want to laugh about that time we fixed the sink together and got all wet and laid on the bathroom floor joking about the gnomes in the pipes. I need your touch. I need you to tell me that everything will be okay and that it’s alright that I ate cream puffs for dinner simply because I didn’t feel good. I need you to tell me I’m beautiful when I need a shower. I need you just to talk to me about nothing or rub my back. I’m sorry I’m so emotional during certain times, when the memories return and I can’t stop the tears. I’m sorry I hate washing dishes. I’m sorry I don’t know how to act when it comes to a “normal” relationship, I’ve had to be the “man” so long I don’t know how to do anything else.

But most of all. I love you. And I miss you. And I am praying everyday for the man you are and the man you need to be. I’m doing my best to grow everyday to become the woman you need for us to be just as great as we are in my head. I want to be capable of doing whatever it takes, and I know I am. I am waiting for you. And I’ll be looking out the window for you to come.