You tiptoed away into the forest
the leaves fell sylvan green
branches crossed light filtered through
the specks of light turned shadows
You looked back at me a moment
I thought I felt your hand against mine
it was just the warmth of the sun trickling through the trees.
And when the fog lifted
rubble, boots, rivers
the things you whispered still floating in the air
I realized that it was just me.
It is strange when you can see the ends of things so clearly.
The dust, the fray, the edges of things –
where it all ends.
the walk away – one last time down the hall you knew so well
never to be walked that very same way again.
It was strange to see the turn of the corner.
To watch you disappear into the dark
knowing that was the day you walked out of my life forever.
This is the intersection.
Hang a left, I’ll make a right
And I won’t look back
but you know
you know
while you were here
it was good, it was good
it was so, so good
it was so good to see you smile.
In retrospect it all seemed glossier
Rose faded colored glasses and the tint of sienna haze that formed whenever you said goodbye –
The glow in your warm center and your laughter
your laughter
Holding hands walking up the dark stairwell the petals
trailed behind us and blew away with the wind
They got swept up in the whirlwind and disappeared into the sunlight.
I could see those little specks of light trickling through the dusty corridor whenever I came home,
And the dust would form a shape just like you used to
They were holding your place.
Sometimes I forget who she is.
The girl who loved “Moon River,” the girl who dreamed without daring
Sometimes I forget who she is.
The piano player, the flower picker, the one who always buys way too many cinnamon brooms
come Autumn.
The smiler, the feeler, the midnight dancer
The one who knows that sometimes the best remedy to a rough day is a candle, some Norah Jones, and
someone warm to lay next to
The rainy day dreamer, the walk taker, the nail painting optimist
The night-time romantic
The lover, tea drinker
The “sometimes I need you”
— I have been trying for so long to be so strong. But more than anything, the girl I really am just wants to wake up to the warmth of your arms around her, say “good morning” and smile, knowing I’ll be next to you every morning from now on.
Sometimes it’s hard to stay so strong for so long. Sometimes I just want someone to hold me and to say to me, “Tomorrow’s another day, sweetheart. And I’ll be here with you no matter what.”
6am and the world is still
light barely sifting past windowsills and eyelashes
the glow of your voice and the silence of the morning as
the sparkle in your warm light
illuminates the gray
gently waking sleeping birds and sleeping souls
we’ll dance across the city
skipping stones of notes and verse
the city comes alive
there’s coffee on your doorstep
there’s music in the avenues
there’s grime, there’s history, there’s heartbreak and it wraps around the alleyways
but the cracks in my heart are fading
as the leaves begin to fall
and for a moment
everything else is still
everything else is quiet
everything fades into white and
it’s just me
it’s just you
and the sunrise.
Sometimes life is chaos – static on a television screen. There is so much going on, and we can’t make sense of it all. All we hear is the white noise that the sensory overload of life creates. We are constantly being bombarded – our five senses experience so much at the same time that we couldn’t possibly have the space in our minds to interpret all that is being absorbed. Sight. Touch. Scent. Sound. Taste. To top it all off, our emotions have a way of coloring our world and our senses with all that it touches. The result? A muddled mess of color and craze – the blur and the fury that we call our life experience.
I had the opportunity a few weekends ago to sort through this sensory disarray. I will not reveal the catalyst of the experiencethat left me feeling focused – completely fixated on that one thing for which the world has an insatiable appetite – love. And with that fixation on love, naturally, came a fixation on beauty. The beauty of the world I lived in, the beauty of the girl that I loved, and the beauty of the purest of my emotions. Removed from my experience was the chaos and the confusion that comes from everyday life. I felt no doubt – I felt sure. And there was nothing in the world that I was more sure of than the fact that I loved her.
The world around me was a dream, and I was on an island. The island was our love, and no one else existed. The oceans danced before me, and the earth breathed and hummed with life. The skies were painted with the color of our love, and the sand beneath my feet was saturated with the depth of my feelings. I was a child – in awe of the world and the love that I felt for the only one who mattered. The world around us became only that which I cared about, and all that mattered was that she was next to me, and that I could feel her arms around me. Simplicity filled the world with incomparable beauty. She smiled, and I felt my heart fill with joy and pride. Her arms wrapped around me, and I felt the island close around us. I felt the wind blowing in our hair, removing everyone else from the scene. I could hear only one song, and that song became the soundtrack to our love story.
Me. Her (and that meant so much more than that one word can ever express.) My arms around her tight. The sand around us. The wind in our hair. The waves crashing against the pier. Hours pass. I don’t know where I am. I don’t care where I am. The beauty of that feeling was immeasurable. Our island became the vessel on which I found my escape from the unstoppable train of life.
I felt like a child, and wrapped up in her arms, I was safe and oblivious to the world around us. We were innocent and in love, and the world could not touch us. So much beauty can be found in the rejection of everything but a feeling. And when that feeling becomes the entire world – when we tune into one channel and clear away the static of everyday life, life takes on the feeling of art. That day was the canvas on which all we painted was love. Looking back, I see so much beauty that I can hardly stand it. Sorting through the messy scatterings of my memories, I know one thing is true – that feeling is the most reality I’ve ever felt.
