I live my life through the words I write
People say all the right things,
make the opportune gestures,
and be everything we want them to be,
ourselves included.
Perfection is attainable,
if we can meet the right person
where everything will fall into place.
That’s the trouble,
and addicting allure,
of daydreaming.
I want to run away, escape,
leave this pain behind
in my rearview mirror
and dust.
I have learned what it sought
to teach me,
know where I still need to grow
and even how pain can help.
I know this. I understand this.
But I want it to go away.
Just look at the trees,
look at their willingness to
embrace change,
let go of what they no longer need
and try again later,
when the Earth warms again in spring.
How easily they can let go
is how I, too, need to let go.
I understand the need to look
for happiness
and that choosing it
is just that: a choice.
Despite this,
I cannot choose it easily
when all I see in front of me
is its opposite.
I settle in on the darkness
it seems,
before I even make a choice.
The darkness chooses for me,
and will not let me go.
You stay through it all
and say you love me.
My mouth knows not what to say,
my ears carefully select what they hear,
my eyes see things that are not there
and my hands remain close to me,
my body all disjointed
and confused.
Still processing
you.
Embrace the space
which has come between us,
growing wider and deeper each day
until now,
our reunion.
Tell me of you, and I’ll you of me,
learning of new and remembering of old
until the space disappears.
Back to the way we were,
two peas back into our pod.
I was lost,
tangled in the seaweed of the deep, dark waters,
praying for a chance
to gasp in oxygen until my lungs burst,
yearning for someone to extend a hand,
until today.
Chase the spaces
that seem too far away,
then observe with wonder
how you can expand
to fill them.
Trying to find the words
I want to say to you,
and nothing but the raw,
honest truth can capture
my thoughts appropriately.
Except,
to say the raw and honest
might destroy both of us.
So instead,
I toss around a few safe and
common words,
but mostly say nothing at all.
I tell myself, ‘it’s better this way’,
but my ruminating thoughts of you
lead me to believe otherwise.
Dreaming of the impossible
the never-happened, never-will-happen.
Dreaming of a past which does not belong to me
and may not belong to anyone.
The sights, sounds, conversations, feelings,
they are too real
to be imaginary.
They must be real.
I want them to be real.
Leaves remaining from last year,
maybe longer,
collect and accumulate in a pile
littering the ground with browns and dull greys.
How many layers are there?
All I see are the new ones on top,
hiding the older ones underneath
likely in varying stages of decomposition.
There they lie.
Rustling ever so slightly in the breeze
are the light, new ones,
settling motionless, heavy with age and water
are the the old ones,
the foundation.
Up through the middle though
lives a tree
growing new bright and green leaves
and blossoms of dark fuschia and cotton white.
So odd it seems
how life can flourish from the base
of death, of decay,
but my eyes do not deceive me.
Perhaps, the leaves offer comfort.
Perhaps, the leaves provide warmth.
Perhaps, the leaves supply nourishment.
But perhaps, the leaves are a hindrance,
keeping the tree in the past,
preventing growth.
Despite the offered comfort,
go the leaves must.
I gathered mine,
will keep gathering as new ones fall,
growing through and beyond
the past.
Dawning Words 