Season after season, my heart's remained static, parched for something powerful, something deep, something... satisfying.
Darkness has hung his heavy cloak outside my room.
And suddenly, as if the Moon tossed a piece of herself at my window to wake me,
I jerk upright, sticky sweat plastering hair to neck and face, trembling fingers massaging swollen eyes.
This nightmare could not have been more hopeless.
In a long, white lace gown, I stand at the back of the church.
Grief's salty tears rolling soundlessly down my flushed cheeks.
I clutch my breath inside my constricted lungs and watch you and her at the altar.
I am frozen, unable to flee the church, nor am I able to disrupt the ceremony and protest that your vows can't be for forever, that I am meant to be on that altar someday, that this can't be how the story ends!
Eventually, I accept that my attempts are futile, and I lean against the clean, white wooden walls of this church and watch you decide to begin a life without me in it.
The tears fall. They soak my lace and the red velvet under my feet.
And I weep until the Moon takes notice and wakes me.
You did that and my insides were outsides for awhile, but I recovered.
Now I've got the rainbowy hope again.
You're gone and I guess it's OK because we see the same moon.
I'm all feathers and shivers and armor and future.
I'm standing tall, striding proudly towards this victory, whilst my strange little heart lays in the dew-licked grass and whistles about you and me.
I suck at the juiciest mango and my eyes flutter and I recall my head resting snuggly against the mountain of your shoulder and my hair a river cascading down your valleys.
I love you.
I can march onwards, beating my drum and forging my dreams, but one day I'll meet you where the sun caresses the waves and we can dance.
Imagine!
I've discovered that all these ruthless anchors that pulled my veins and tendons towards the earth, are actually tools!
I can use them, not as weapons, but as machines to build my future.
That stone wall that kept me trapped inside?
I expanded it and now it guards against fear.
Those tears that fell every night?
I acknowledged them and they now convene inside to keep me afloat.
This love I have is resilient,
a strain of malicious bacteria,
returning even after I've pulled it out of my core,
stomped upon it, cursed it, and burned it.
I even told it lies: that I wish I'd never had it at all.
It won't leave me alone.
I try to make it jealous, put on opulent shows with stuffy characters,
praying that it might leave on its own.
I want freedom but I fear that there is no cure,
for this painful affliction of my unrequited love.
Here I am, smack dab in the middle of the Eiffel tower, of my lifespan.
A footballer on the edge of a gymnast's springboard,
Squinty, crinkled eyelids, soaring through the air at a target made of sand approximately 5,000 miles away.
Hey you, I am running to...not away.
Barreling down this narrow runway strip, chest up, towards the heavens,
taking off towards the change I can make in the dreams and the lives of the children of tomorrow.
Looking back is, adding chains around my neck.
Praying for your return, bricks onto my chest.
Galloping through the dawns first mist, flaming mane in the wind, over jumps and threats I fly.
No earthly creature can spook me, slow me, stop me now that I've begun.
I don't drift into slumber because I relish the wonders of sleep;
I merely yearn for the fullest sunup and efficient moments of daylight
I might sermonize, and alternately coddle, my guppies in the school;
But when I surface, new skills will replace these weary gills.
Marching my feet against this new path, the packed earth trembles.
Swallowing down stale fear-crumbs, my gut prepares for the unknown.
It began, but never ended,
This mistake, so unintended.
I slide to the floor, wilted,
My heart in turmoil, jilted.
My loss is uncontended,
This pain of mine, extended.
Before sleep I pray it untrue,
But in sleep, I have you.
My shoulders slump, bones parched and creaking.
My legs carry me across another dusty riverbed.
My eyes scan the endless horizon for solace.
In the distance, I spy an abundant haven!
Sprinting forward, I shout dulcet praises to my savior,
but collapse, just a skeleton in the sand.
I've been fooled, pained, and blind, in the time we've been apart,
And I have waited, thirsted, hungered, for the asylum of your heart.
So I raise my weary body and press on my lengthy hajj,
To a day when your embrace is no longer a mirage.
Today I saw myself in crisp white, and you in sharp black, hands held, at the altar.
It wasn't us of course, but I saw a plausible future there, for us, beneath the trellis.
Which means that, I must commit myself to making this fantasy a reality! Or I must pinch myself hard, and commit these high hopes to the fanciful rooms in my mind.
Is this God's will?
A dove has landed on my sill.
An olive branch gently held in his beak,
And yet I stand here, unable to speak.
He brings the tool to provide my heart with peace,
I ask myself, is this the key to my release?
I thought that if my wish came true,
I'd have all the plans in place to start anew.
But here I am swaying in the winds, unsure of what to do.
All I know, is that I want to be with you.
It's all I can do to keep it suppressed,
With chains that sear into my flesh.
This pain is all that I can bare,
Only left, my silent prayer.
My sleep is filled with your solemn voice,
I live to dream, my only choice.
I clutch at memories, us twirling in the snow,
They seem so recent, although from so long ago.
If I had the strength to tell you today,
Of my love for you that hadn't strayed,
Of my unfaltering regret of losing you,
Of my apologies, so long overdue...
Then I'd tell of my dreams of you as King and I as Queen,
Where we lived in blinding bliss, our life serene.
I swear to the skies, if I had another chance!
I'd pull you into our old embrace, ask you to dance,
And promise your eyes would never hold another tear,
For as long as there's love, I will always be here.
Please, God, Give Me One More Chance
At first, it was grief. The searing, burning flesh of grief, that lived in me for months, eating away at my days.
Then, it became regret, which sat heavy on my chest and made me suck air through my teeth, begging for release from my mistakes.
And then, I had hope. Crazy, technicolor hope when I prayed and wished and dreamed for you...although always, from afar.
And then grief would come a-knocking and I would begin again my pathetic cycle of loving you and missing you, always, from afar.
Every day speculating what you might think of this, what you might do with that, remembering every glorious moment with you and then feeling the bitter blade of my own knife slicing into my heart.
Well, I've been in this rainbow-hazy hopefulness for weeks and weeks but it stings like acid down my throat when I steal the words you speak to me because they aren't mine to hear. I don't deserve them. But I do deserve happiness. And not the happiness that comes from the irrational blood vessels that threaten to burst when you walk into the room or from the little bumps that appear on my skin and spread like a Californian wildfire when you glance at me sideways.
After all this time, I can now say that I deserve happiness from a real embrace, from a corporal kiss, not memories. And I can have that. Right now.
But I'm so, damned scared to let go of my love for you and surrender to the arms of another.
I often believe that my love for you is seismic; that it is wild, burrowing through the Earth's core, between other realms, and emerging undiminished to trouble the waters on the other side. I'd like to use this seismic love to shake you, to remind you that we were once amazing.
Haven't found lips that'll waltz with mine,
Nor words whispered that’d warm my spine.
No strong arms like yours to entwine,
No light-touch to make my eyes shine.
Perhaps I've lost you forever.
Years I've been sheltering a part of my heart from the yearning eyes of others.
Palms shield, while abrasive words stave off the nectar seeking bees.
I can sleep comforted knowing that this white flower that I nurture and save for you remains inside me.
But I remain static, rooted, until you take this love of mine back.
Come and rightfully claim it; I won't let them defile what I designed for you.
I awake and the light from your heart, inside my chest, arises with me,
helping me live each day that you aren't at my side.
My hopes to circumvent the mire,
Were only folly thoughts, now deserted.
Marooned in the brackish earth, all thoughts reverted
Plainly to my selfish, eternal desire.
My lips, well they're suffocating, choking,
dying from the scalding desert sands of longing.
These sands cascade, an eroding dune through the glass timer,
the malevolent grains hurrying to the bottom.
I wonder, as my heart begins to mirror my lips, if I'll ever again know--
the middle-of-the-night-union, with our silently-locked-eyes,
or the love-note-on-the-dresser that epitomizes love.
I stand tall, as my feet disappear into the no-so-terra-firma,
and make myself a better woman,
worthy of your love once more.
You once shed sunlight on any dark skies that dared to dim my universe.
You wore a mighty mask to frighten away those that troubled me.
You carried the burden of my turbulent psyche, proudly like a crown.
At night, you would gently quiet the chirping, buzzing, hum of the rainforest of my mind,
And when I awoke each day, you would unfasten for me, the curtained windows, of paradise.
You gifted me immeasurable joy, you did: day after night after day.
Arms entwined, we journeyed across uneven trails and violent seas, traversed sundrenched fields, and star-lighted alleys.
We sang rich earthy notes of heady devotion, hands grasping for our sheltered harbor embrace.
The Gods bent down their almighty heads and shifted the universe to fit cozily around us.
And now I cling to these memories like a tearful child to her china doll, savoring each divine memory as a treasure too important to forget.
Time and time again I implore the Gods for one last chance to hold you to my chest that beats your name like a delirious drum and whisper to your heart that I love you.
