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.
Tag: relationships
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.
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.
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.
Overused
It’s the pendulum,
swinging one way
and returns again
Back and forth
gravity keeps its
repeating patterns
oscillating between
doubt and knowing
Kinetic to potential
and back again
until gravity wins
I’m the one receiving
the force
I’m the one asking
for change
and staying the same
Tensions
decide how long
this period
will last.
Swing me,
I want to say.
Do what you
must and do it
until the stillness
feels so empty
I have to
do it again.
Is the metaphor
correct?
Maybe it’s me at the ends
and not in the middle
Maybe I’m both.
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.
D minor
There are only so many
chords and notes
I haven’t learned them
all and I’m not sure if -
Are these enough?
I know rhythms that
we've created
in innocent
moments
then there are the ones
he, of course,
added to
and spontaneously -
it's fluid and changing
and the lyrics do not
fit or seem to end -
Falter.
I’m no braver today
than yesterday.
I want to add to it
but what I have in front
of me can only take me
so far.
You see,
I wrote you a song.
I play it,
wondering
the ways you would
respond
Would you make it your own?
Would you want it to change?
The song starts in minor
the sound of its harmony
fades
into uncertainty.
What would you say
if I asked you to
finish it,
together?
I know the answer.
That’s not even the
right question.
I’m really asking -
Do you hear it in the
same ways
I do?
So far from the keys,
I don’t have the
ability
to write its end.
It’s there, though,
in chords and
notes that only
you know.
it flows, you see,
for you, alone.
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.
Boundaries
He respects the line
the invisible barrier
that cuts and swerves
between
through
what is and what
could be
(The other assures trust)
But my goodness -
There are moments
the craving is insatiable
Let that line
dissolve
Shatter it in
whispered gasps
Just for a night
He is too good
that makes
testing the line
all the more
tempting
And what are boundaries
but lines meant to
guard
the guarded
You know that
all too well
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.
The Restless Crescent 