Adrift and cloaked in moonlight
two boats bump each other
like teenage hands fumbling blindly
in a darkened theater.
It’s pointless,
it won’t last…
but who listens?
For now,
floating with the current,
they’ll travel together -
sharing stories about the stars,
sharing silences and battle scars.
Soon enough,
they’ll float away,
and the memories will fade
when Time and Fate decide to play.
Once, I said
and you said
the child in me fell in love with the child in you.
We felt destined to meet,
to fall -
faster and faster
spinning out of control
into that moment
in the bitter cold of December
embracing as the wind whipped the flag in the distance,
the clang of the flagpole serenaded a strange moment in Time
and we swore that Something happened in that pause-
Something that meant everything or nothing
or anything….
Why didn’t we stop to wonder about the pause?
The hesitation spoke volumes in our eyes wide with silence.
I think Life flashes before your eyes
not only before death,
but in those moments
where reality and dreaming blend into soft Monet patterns.
A place between asleep and wide awake.
A place of limitless possibilities.
A place usually left untapped
in the drone of our day to day lives.
It was passion and hope,
it was two lost souls desperate for a change in fortune,
and in the end,
it was futile wishing -
sand sliding inescapably through grasping fingertips
that proved intention was merely half the battle.
As you said
time and time again,
actions speak louder than words
and I listened,
even when I looked out the window,
drowning a million miles away.
We learned,
you can not save a drowning man
refusing to relinquish his dead weight,
and you can not combine two souls
carrying the burdens of a lifetime gone wrong.
Pulling away from you
heading toward open skies
my heart is freewheeling,
with loops and death defying dives.
Freed of my blinders,
unfettered by once familiar brakes
anxiously feeling for the ground,
I’m skywriting without a net.
New words scribbled spontaneously
all about me for once
and nothing about you.
Woke up one morning
oddly light and calm.
Bathed in slashes of warm sun beams,
dark hair splayed out across my white pillow,
I lay quite still.
Content.
Still dreaming.
Then-
Sat up so slowly.
Something was different.
Cautious, unsettled, searching,
I went through the motions of a day,
until,
it finally came-
Piercing revelations,
the clearest blue sky,
nearly white with the absence of a single cloud,
I was free!
A symphony of clarity-
an epiphany long awaited-
a year-long cloudy day lifted
to reveal a gorgeous sunrise,
filled with the promise of young dreams reborn.
Letting go the throttle,
breathing a sigh of relief,
I can drift into the unknown now
without needing you.
Staring out the window tonight,
stars swimming in my eyes
she felt the shift in the silence
and simply asked,
“What are you thinking about?”
Pausing, I contemplated evasion…
Settling on full disclosure,
haltingly,
I explained.
The song on the radio reminded me
that I’m still bruised, still quietly wounded.
While absently caressing it’s country melody,
I remembered all that I would do better to forget.
My confession, repressed each and every day,
gathered force,
a hurricane just brewing.
I told her how my heart deeply longed
-if only just tonight-
to come home,
slip into welcoming, waiting arms,
and say quietly, heavily,
“Baby, I had a bad day.”
To cry out and rail against life’s frustrations,
safe in the shelter
of my someone’s embrace,
tears absorbing into that stalwart chest.
To curl up content and
soothed by the sound of a familiar, well-loved heartbeat.
I told her how I longed
for the sleep found in that strong grasp.
I inhaled-
- and she listened.
Then,
I choked out my anger,
whispered my deep resentment,
my bafflement!
that this was all absent
without my consent, without my okay.
(my tears now flowed unchecked and hot)
Once loosed,
my words were a relentless avalanche.
A rushing flood of useless memories and
unanswerable questions tumbled over one another.
Finally I told her that
I was tired.
So tired.
Tired of wondering,
of hurting,
and so absolutely exhausted with being let down
and paying these consequences of misplaced trust.
I dropped my head
and let her wrap her arms around me.
With a sardonic laugh
soaked in painful memories,
I whispered to her.
“I had a bad day.”
She said nothing,
but her embrace strengthened.
My ragged breathing slowed.
After a time,
we talked of other things.
My speech no longer hampered with
sudden stops and heavy halts,
I laughed.
I don’t know when it all began to unravel
I only know that it did so quietly
and ever so slowly
until all that was left
was an absence,
a nothing where there was once something.
Waking up every morning,
to the sun’s intrusion,
blindly aching for all the tiny moments
that made us, us -
was akin to dying from a gut shot wound.
my resentment grew.
Rather than fading away
to become nothing more
than gauzy remnants of a waking nightmare,
you stayed around to haunt me.
Cruel and carefully placed words
designed to linger on after you were gone,
danced sharp knives through the air around me,
shimmering caustically, like copper.
Worse still, words meant to invoke loyalty
whispers of forever, eternity -
words from the heart
stab me further, deeper.
Broken promises are passe,
broken hearts are cliche,
It’s an old story yet so new to me.
The walls I built so early on
protected me – until now.
Hesitant on a precipice,
feet laden with decision,
forgiving you is the step I’ve yet to take.
Once, I dreamt of a day when I’d feel a certain way.
That day, full of unwelcome surprises,
has come and gone
on stormy rollicking waves,
accompanied by the brassy clash of cymbals.
The enormity of missing is a black pit tonight
full of forbidden thoughts and wishes
dreams of such a life no longer on any horizon.
The If, But, Why, If Only’s are plaguing me,
stubbornly shrieking,
“I was WRONGED!”
I sigh and shrug.
What can I tell them?
Life is hard.
Life isn’t fair.
Inadequacy fills me now,
as it has all those who’ve come before-
hands full of explanations,
explanations full of empty words and hot air.
Life is pratfalls and pitfalls,
sometimes devastating periods,
marred by moments of beauty.
Is it what you make of it?
Or just a chaotic mess, without rhyme or reason?
Sleep, a welcome break from here,
awaits me with no answers-
but a promise of forgetting.
New dawn brings new hope.
Maybe therein lies the secret, If Only.
Your head in my lap-
running my long fingers lightly over
your thick, closely cropped hair-
I sighed and murmured
words of whispered love.
Kept my eyes averted from them,
my spirit subdued like a woman in a burka.
yet you still stood bristling guard…
like a snarling lion protecting his kill.
Walked giggling down Crystal Lake Avenue
with “our” girl chattering happily at me
-a baby monkey on my hips-
She learned about caterpillars and butterflies from me.
Ran away from you
down Crystal Lake Avenue.
Everyone else was safe, asleep in their beds
When you finally caught up with me…
Met your eyes across every room
Walked in sync,
To the synchronized beats
Of our different drummers.
Pieces of my shattered cell phone between us-
Breathing hard, like boxers squaring off,
we stood warily in our respective corners,
waiting to see who would be responsible for round 10.
Fell asleep like a child
To the sound of your
Rhythmic breathing, low growling voice
and heavy arm
You blocked my retreat with
broken promises and very real threats.
Backed into a corner
I trembled with silent rage
forced to watch the bottom fall out
of the fantasy we’d created.
a child
bright with hopes and dreams
laughing, sunlight dancing
golden hair
beckons with both arms
her face turned away
running after her
she calls out something
I can’t hear
On this cool, breezy day,
the sun intervened often,
playing out it’s teasing warmth on my soft olive skin,
my dark hair sucked at it hungrily -
it danced through your blond.
Playing chess outside our Starbucks
I leaned heavily into the board,
pursed lips obscured by a clenched hand
enveloped in the worn out sleeve of your old shirt.
Concentrating so hard,
eyes intent on twenty moves ahead to nowhere,
I sang Stevie Wonder softly,
“Do I do, what you do”.
Barely more than a whisper,
as always, the absentminded professor
unaware of any audience…
yet.
No matter.
You were concentrating just as deeply
on something else,
I was no competition for you.
You paused to appreciate a moment in time -
eyes passionately lingering, caressing,
devouring…
I was innocent
until your thoughts reached me.
I looked up, startled,
directly into your intensely dark brown eyes.
Trapped by the depth,
the breadth! of that searing gaze,
I felt again the way I never felt
(will never again)
but in your presence.
I stammered, I smiled,
I blushed, I beamed
Your thoughts could’ve been spoken aloud,
they came across so crystal clear.
Game forgotten,
looking down,
heart spinning out of control,
breath catching in my chest,
the world paused.
Then tentatively, teasingly,
oh so trustingly up through long twilight lashes-
my eyes adored you back.
These memories haunt me.
i often dream
of being more than i am
or have been
or will be
slow, creeping thoughts
threaten to entangle me,
tighten and squeeze
like weeds overcoming lush forgotten gardens
and i stop breathing
there are thoughts of failure
regret
dying alone, so quiet…
empty hotel rooms,
endless nights
with rivers of tears,
running from the unknown
and imagined fears,
hopes and dreams tossed
away,
shaking my head
i quickly kick off these suffocating chains
before they clang shut
and dig furiously
urgently,
to break the surface
free,
panting,
i take a deep breath
before i remember
something that is supposed to be simple
life is short
and only what i make of it.
7/6/05
