Willow

ceramic vases stand sentinel
cloying scent of lilies heavy, sweet
petals dropping like tears
loved me, loved you
loved her
forming drifts around
carefully typed words
inadequately embossed on stiff little cards
until the transient well wishes
can be borne no longer
and the detritus is cleared away
the cheerful reminders of death
stowed neatly beneath the sink
counters cleared of
thinking of you
ten tiny fingers, ten perfect toes
suspended in black and white
replaced by a grocery list
as normal begins to smooth broken edges
of life held together by grief
until from a distance
it looks whole again; fractured but solid
save for the space
that fits the shape of her exactly

Borrowing

You've only just gone to the corner, a brief errand that takes you away from me only for a minute, or ten. I am putting laundry into the washing machine, wiping the counter of crumbs from your endless stream of peanut butter sandwiches and singing something stupid and tuneless.

Your key is in the door and we're sitting down to eat things that are not good for us and watching things that will rot our brains and talking about nothing.

And I am happy.

I want to tell you that I am happy. I want to tell you that for just a moment, everything is so heartbreakingly perfect that misery seems to exist only in theory.

But instead I cry.

Baby, you say, what's the matter?

I'm afraid, I tell you. Afraid that something will happen and you'll be lost to me. Afraid that what could be will be so bleak that my heart will at last break entirely.

You pull me close and my head nestles into the crook of your neck and I know that this is enough. One minute of you, is enough.

For now, what is, is perfect.

Here

Here is you and here am I. We are alone, for once. The afternoon is fading behind the drawn shades and I lay in the crook of your arm listening to your heart beat.

Here I am and there you are, sweat drying on our skin when the red glow of sunset turns to street light shine. The scent of you and I together hangs like perfume in the air and I am drunk with it.

There are my clothes and there are yours. Pulled on, they cover the marks that testify our need to consume one another whole. I would eat your heart and serve you my soul to have one more moment connected.

Here you are, at last. Here is my heart, yours. Here is my soul, yours. Here am I, yours; always yours.

Hope

We are in the bed room, long past when we should be. Half dressed in the half light, we are close enough to touch, but only our hands do. The air is heavy with thought of the future and effervescent with its promise.

A single finger traces the line of my cheek. You are so beautiful you say and I half laugh, derisive and unbelieving. No, you say, I mean it. You are so beautiful on the outside, but on the inside, you are so luminous it almost hurts to look at you.

I am quiet for a moment and then lean in to kiss you. I am luminous because you give me hope.

See

I am sitting on the kitchen counter and you stand between my knees. Talk to me you say but I stare over your shoulder. My eyes skip from the worn spot on the cabinet where my hand has opened it a thousand times to the wonky headed black construction paper cat with the yellowed scotch tape tacking it to the door of the cabinet adjacent to it. You get angry because I am ignoring you, but really it's just that I do not want to look at you for fear that I will begin to shout and not be able to stop. There is power in self control that I dare not let slip.

The phone rings and Charley tells me something that doesn't matter and then scolds me for having gotten out of the car the night before to pump the gas as you sat in the drivers seat, ungallant.

How many times have I done that? How many times have I balanced a dozen bags and unlocked front door to bring in the groceries as you sit on the sofa and don't acknowledge me? How many times have I folded the laundry while you complain that I am rolling the socks incorrectly? How many times have I rushed home to do your bidding and how many more times have I called someone other than you when things go pear shaped, because you can not be bothered with me?

This is what I want to say; You don't see me. I know you won't hear me either and so I let my eyes focus on the dust that swirls in the breeze of the fan and say Nothing is wrong even though we both know it's a lie.

Away

We are lying on our backs. There are a million stars around us and the river whispers from just over the crest of the hill as it rushes away to join the Snake just beyond the mountains. Behind us, the car door is open and the scratchy radio buzzes country songs from the 50's.


You roll to your side, head propped on your hand and look at me as I look away. There's Orion, I say; but you don't look.

There is a bottle of cheap wine that will give me a headache tipped over and seeping it's last pink drops onto the corner of the moth eaten wool blanket.


A breeze ripples the edge of my skirt. I hear you sigh and I know you are sighing because I am already gone. Whipped away on the breeze like dandelion fluff, I spiral unable to control my rise, unable to prevent my fall.

Je Regrette Pas

Of the things I should not have done
Of the things I should not have said
Of the things I should not have felt

You are not one

If I could have been other than I am
If I could have known you other than you are
If I could have altered the path time took

What apology would have been needed?

There is no season for lament
There is no occasion for penitence
There is no latitude for despondence


Love does not regret the price it has paid
Love does not regret the tears it has shed
Love does not regret the hours it has waited

I do not regret you

(originally posted Tuesday, August 26, 2008)

Sunday

In the sweet, heavy exhaustion of spent lust

my head pillowed against your chest

your arm laid careless across my waist

the rush of your breath whispers your love

for a moment our bed is

the whole world

and I have nothing left to wish for

Thirst

I crave you

like air

like water

like sun

you are my heart

in your absence

I am lost

Revelation

in the still moment after
with your head heavy on my chest
you asked me when I knew
I said it was sometime
once upon a time
another time
but it was the first time
when your arms circled me
and the summer sun warmed your teeshirt
so that the heady smell of you
became the only thought in my head
that I knew
it was always, always you
I just didn't know it
yet

Unsaid

The truth is that I don't know what to think any longer. I hear the words you say to me and I believe them. I see too, the actions that you take and I believe them as well.

What speaks the loudest are the words that you don't say; the things that you don't do.

The choked back words ring in my ears and the withheld kisses linger on my lips.

You wonder what is wrong.

I tell you. I told you. I've said it until the words no longer make sense. What, then, is the point any longer of saying them? Either you believe me or you don't. My actions and my words are true. I promised you the truth of my heart and you have it.

I don't have yours.

I am beginning to believe it's no longer worth wanting.

Little Words

If I tell you every day, two, three, four times, that you are my heart, that you make me feel safe, that I would spend every minute of every day of forever with you, that I love you, does it make you feel trapped? Do three words become your prison or do they set you free?

If I never told you that the smell of your neck is like a drug, that your smile makes my heart skip a beat or that every time I hear your voice I smile, would you forget that I love you?

I wish you knew that each day that passes with out I love you I drift a bit farther down the stream of happily ever after headed to the ocean of what used to be. Your silence speaks louder than you know.

Does I love you get stronger or weaker each time it's said? I wish I knew, because the answer may be the only thing that brings us back to us.