I left you in July, started again in August. I’ll spend September wondering how you are. You sat there holding my hands, “I don’t want to let you go,” You implored, as if you could not see that I no longer knew the hands in my own. I knew you no more or no less than I had the July before or the one before that. “I miss that special bond,” He said to me, a week after. What bond is silent, I wanted to ask. What bond exists only in two laptop screens and a tv monitor a late night cuddle, a quick- paced walk. Perhaps you did know me more than I knew you. Maybe I let you know me. The me that left and rose from your bedroom floor knows not of how or why two years from the day I asked for promises changed everything I thought I wanted.
Tag: endings
picture
I walked the stairs to your place using the key i let myself in like nothing had changed. I dropped some things off in what feels like a final exchange I walked through the rooms and saw the picture of us taken off the wall A part of me knew that would happen, eventually and I'm not sure how I would have felt if you'd left it hanging I moved to your cupboard noticed a card I had given you 7 months in I read the promise I made that at the time you could not return I turned around and noticed the picture of us on the floor. The same floor that held us the night we ended It feels more final, now solidified here in this image on the floor and the empty wall I now know that my first time in Amsterdam with you will be my last the picture is the last piece of the puzzle that we never finished because I didn't have all of the pieces and neither did you - at least, not ones that fit my own but we tried. I know we did. Those two people in that picture did their best and grew apart loved deeply and tried again I hope you take the picture off the floor, store it in a place where one day you can look back and smile and know that on that balcony we laughed we had hope we loved.
Split
“Stay present,”
He advises.
Lovingly;
Selflessly
“I don’t want
you split between
two places.”
I want to laugh
You see,
you’ve been with
me, in the
mountains of
West Virginia.
Along the shores
of the
Great Lakes.
I saw you in
the mouth of
Mammoth Cave.
When the fireworks
reflected in
the D.C. waters.
I haven’t left
your hometown
in weeks.
“I’ll do my best,”
I assure him.
I’ve been trying
to untangle my
feet
wrestle them into
one place
For over a year.
Choice
Does it always
come to this?
fire and ice
Blue springs or
Rainy canals
the dancing flames
blue reflections
they revel in
their changing
views
Let the answer exist
in the ampersand.
Until then
I’ll find my
joy
in long walks
coffee after dinner
I’ll pick
mulberries
and
listen to his
singing
I’ll run, steady
until the answer
reveals itself.
You see -
Both
forces
have the capacity
to burn.
loves
and in the end
or the beginning
which ever end
you start to
untangle or
string together
it's in loving them
both
that will
restore
or
renew
which ever
frame you
choose
it’ll be the
same picture
It’s not one
or the other
I keep trying to
picture either
course
and they begin
with loose ends
and finish
in tight knots
I’d rather hold
both
if they let me.
living room floor
I kept my winter coat wrapped
around me
like it would
be ripped
from me
Like I had
something to lose.
Walking into your house,
I could taste the lingering
cigarette smoke
When silence felt suffocating,
we tried humor.
Finally you asked for
what we both knew
I would not,
perhaps could not,
give.
My feeling of resolve
demanded our attention.
I became aware that this time,
this meeting,
could not be kept afloat
from half of myself
given to you
I could not offer pieces
and call that love.
In that moment on the
floor of the room
where we both built
and collapsed
it was decided there would
be no last time.
I took responsibility for my
own feelings.
I took my healing seriously.
As if planned,
memories of the last
2 years played before us
in the realization
that I would no longer fit,
these were patterns
I could not sustain.
I remembered the day
you bought this house
and we stained the floor
installed a new rug
that we now baptize
with the remnants of grief.
We opened the door,
gutted the house and
attempted to restore
what we could.
As I went to leave,
I did not look back
in your direction.
I left the key on the kitchen table
I left us on the living room floor
I’ll look to the south
You are
your favorite authors
your beloved
literary characters.
I dive to understand
your mind
and come up
breathless and more confused.
I seek refuge among
the clues you’ve given me
in memories a decade old.
I review the
drunken truths you let
slip that evening.
I only get you
when your guard is down,
broken in with substances
meant to numb you.
I just hope I find you
before you meet the same fate
as the characters you look to
to fill your lonely heart.
After
You approached me after my set
in the way I knew you would.
Head down, quiet.
Timid.
You complimented my writing.
Described the ways you
liked my first piece,
the one with the numbers.
I wrote it knowing you would.
I wanted to know what it felt like
to sit and watch
as I stood in the light
reading words meant
for your ears alone.
You didn't offer me
feelings and
you didn't describe
your experience of
hearing poetry
clearly written
for you.
I looked to you
as I
read my last piece
and observe your reaction.
You looked sad
and serious
and you were leaning
into
each word.
You got the message.
As quickly as you leaned in,
you pulled away.
Perhaps in the only way you could.
I still hoped.
I hoped you'd feel
inspired
to make space
for the feelings between us.
I hoped
you’d say something to
challenge my perspective
on what happened
and did not happen
between us.
I offered the chance,
multiple opportunities.
I hung around until you left.
I made myself available
as I did from the moment
I introduced myself to you.
“Your writing is beautiful,”
you said.
I know. I know it is.
My mind is, too.
you were what I called home
I often wonder if you
remember the falling.
It felt like coming home to me.
Until the inevitable
came like the change of seasons,
we turned
unrecognizable.
The memory of what was
comes to me in flashbacks.
We grew up together in
hushed,
private moments
navigating the wax and wane
of an intimacy too mature
for what we could know of it.
I was 13 the first time you
threatened it.
I was 14 when you really tried.
The in between is what I remember most.
The scent of your
black Pink Floyd hoodie,
smelling of your mom's cigarette smoke
and Tide detergent.
Like something out of our control
what was once supportive and pure
turned toxic.
Expectations became chains.
You told our friends stories.
They called me a whore.
I learned to lie and manipulate.
Dishonesty
felt safer than
truth-telling.
The alternative
lead to an abuse
I still hear my own
voice use against me
13 years later.
Slowly I
lost myself in the sensation
of becoming nothing
beyond the pleasing
and the apologies.
Love and safety became
foreign and unattainable.
I sometimes avoid turning my
phone on ring
it reminds me of the time you called
so I’d hear every sound
of what you said I led you to do.
Now I exist in nights
that come
after a day of supporting others
and I wonder if love
is something
only other people can experience.
You tried to escape life
and left me holding the responsibility
in hands that I still
wash raw trying
to make peace with the shame.
I try to find new ways
in relating to others
and still find myself
staring into
hands
that do what they can
with what they know.
Now they aim to heal
rather than defend,
to absorb love
and yet
I was taught to swallow whole
the blame
to hold the responsibility
to jump to conclusions
before I am surprised with
another blow.
I'm now just beginning to
understand
that my home is meant to be
stable
and consistent in its
giving and receiving.
My home is meant to
grow rather than deplete.
What am I to do
when home
crumbles
from the very touch
of my own hands
scratching
at the surface
of love?
Avoidance
I stay busy
so I don’t think of
your empty touches,
your silence.
I fill my time
to learn what
healthy means.
There are some mornings
I turn off my alarm
because I can’t
sustain the busyness.
I succumb to thoughts of you
and I think of how to
be busy again.
The Restless Crescent 