if his love danced in romantic tones and heartfelt song he has no language no words to describe beyond survival and necessity the love he holds in his worn and worried heart - I've had to sense it uncover it It had to be felt. I found meaning outside of the literal interpretations of abrupt speech and long silences. There were no words used wastefully, in spurts of emotional wind he uses no breath excessively. Perhaps romance is for those who have time. He speaks of his first and last love as if she was born of his heart Inseparable intolerable one and the same it is confluence without codependence. I had to learn love in actions in crinkled smiles in lasting impacts of fleeting, fragile emotion. Love existed because they made it so in ways permanent and necessary as the food and drink they offered freely. In his recliner next to her bed they sleep and will sleep because rest escapes him when she is not there.
Tag: poem of the day
Chamomile
He tells me its name in his native tongue. I do not understand, at first until I smell its fragrance floral and sweet; subtle. Chamomile. He directs me upstairs in broken English; I pray I understand enough. "Grab a bunch, wrapped in newspaper." There in the attic of the duplex that two brothers made homes, I find the dried stems and flower - Grown in the garden that's fed family for 70 years. I bring down a bundle and she, before she lost herself, stands at the stove, boils a pot of water and places a handful into the simmering water. She makes tea. She makes tea for her and I. I take a sip as her cup sits she will not drink. She watches me and smiles. Now years later chamomile will remind me of them; their home and their garden. How fitting This flower holds many salves it is simple yet honored Its humble and enduring. Chamomile becomes the symbol of my roots.
on regrets
I didn’t believe them when they said I’d regret; I’d build and we'll grow into twisted and tiny fragments of what came before. When I sit in pause they come to me in bursts and breezes I can regret and accept all in one breath.
or so they say
Isn't it often
told that love
finds us when we
are least expecting it
Like a crash landing
both expected and
surprising
they'll
stretch and look around
in both relief
and gratitude
Left with lingering
anxiety
intertwined with
excitement
I think of this narrative
with a half smile,
a small chuckle.
You see,
I know better than
to allow
or embrace
this serendipitous
storyline
Baby,
I carefully
and backbreakingly
built this ground
for years.
Horizon
Should I leave us
on that shore
with the imperfect shells
under our hardened feet
your hope matching
the aquamarine of
the gentle waves
mine hollow,
hidden
like the sun below
the separation
of sky and sea
(we jumped to
see its final rays
below)
In letting you go
I fear losing
healthy and
consistent
experiences
of love, perceived
(this loss feels paralyzing)
but if we
keep
on that
shore
jumping to see the
sun's descent
If I hold us
in that water
with the steady waves
and unfiltered sun
Perhaps it won't
be a loss at all.
Maybe its
always been
a gain
I'm not there, yet
the finality of
the goodbye
I still hold on
to memories like
they're fallible
like they are
at risk of
slipping away
if I don't focus
hard enough
But soon I know
it's coming;
the sun is setting
behind its
horizon line
and this time
I won't jump
to watch it
fall.
Temporary
I so badly wanted it
to be you.
It was temporary.
We were, that is.
That made it
no less real.
I sure did
like to pretend,
though.
I held on
just in case
i was proven
wrong.
Royale (clarity)
you consistently took pictures of me and of us and I'd smile and you'd lean your head towards my own I look at the ones from the Cove and the summer before your eyes are the clearest blue I always thought they would reveal, open I thought they'd let me in Opaque we are together and not in every photograph and I held on waiting for the clear imagining the moment you'd love me enough The clarity was never in the blue of your eyes or in our tent on the Isle it was always here in my knowing that we were temporary fleeting it's why i worked tirelessly to resist it to make us permanent but this wasn't some challenge or journey of worth this was simply two people intertwined in timing and love you were satisfied, content and I couldn't handle the truth in the opaqueness the reality that was right in front of me
enough
I am always somewhere else not in one place on to the next back there and even further on. Tell me, when will the waxing crescent above the setting sun be enough
Hands
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.
Fireworks
I wanted to
write
in biting
verse
Asking about
your party
and my friends
in attendance
I’d make some
metaphor about
Independence Day
I wanted to
lash out
and ask
how the space
felt as you
hosted.
I’m still angry -
I’m still grateful.
I’m not going
to maneuver my
schedule around
your’s, anymore.
And I won’t
reach for you
in drunken texts
or in venomous
poems.
In the end
all it is
is missing you
and us
and the summer
before
And if I can’t
let go
I hope you can.
I hope you find
better
I hope it’s
more than
fireworks.
Oh,
didn’t I tell you?
I repel
the explosions
and the smoke
Sometimes
I hate them.
The empty sky
and hidden stars
once the show
ends.
But you’re
not them
and you’re
no performance
You’re sun
in February
and lightning
in June.
You are joy.
“How was your party?”
I’ll ask, pointedly.
“Did you see fireworks?”
And if you ask if I
saw them, too,
I’ll nod and smile
in the same
restrained way
you smile at me, now.
“Sure, I saw them,”
knowing damn well
I didn’t even look.
The Restless Crescent 