If I were her and she were me,
perhaps nothing would be different
about that time the two of us met.
We would each assume with a touch of pity
that the other was adorably naive
in her opinion of you and her together.
If I were her and she were me,
she would find three strands of my hair tangled in your sheets
and her chest would sting with regret as she hashed and rehashed
every imagined detail that began to crystallize.
If I were her and she were me,
she would not be able to look at you for very long at all
without the consuming thought of
you looking at me (in an identical or different fashion)
bleeding in.
If I were her and she were me,
she would never touch the subject,
never approach it, never cross it;
instead, she would let her heart fill up with you anyway,
and I would be smart.
May 21, 2014
May 21, 2014 at 12:42 AM UTC
I will confess
that once or twice
while looking into your eyes
or listening to a story
my focus was on the lines of your face
I will admit
that I studied them very carefully
the five minuscule etchings that formed
over your cheeks as you smiled
I will concede
that I committed them to memory
on purpose and with great consciousness
in anticipation of the day
when remembering them would be my only choice
Apr 27, 2014
Apr 27, 2014 at 2:11 AM UTC
"I wish you well."
(but not too well without me)
Apr 27, 2014
Apr 27, 2014 at 1:48 AM UTC
Do not believe what they tell you about Grief:
I will tell you this much because I know him very well.
Grief is an old
and sad
and terrible friend
who clings to you with the heaviness of a freight train
but finds the litheness to spring from you weightless.
He holds your throat in the strength of his hand,
bruises your skin, confuses your body
and lets go only when you've made it clear
that you have surrendered
and settled for a life of him.
He will leave
you will find relief
time will go by
and then you will feel different, gentle, beautiful hands on your arms,
hands that remind you
that humans can be tender
and suddenly you cannot help
but think of how Grief held you so long ago and
by mistake
(what have you done?)
you have allowed his return,
he has taken your reverie
as an ominous invitation
to ever so slowly curl his limbs around your ribcage,
invade your warrior bloodstream
and effortlessly cut off
every molecule of oxygen you had spent so very long breathing in.
Feb 9, 2014
Feb 9, 2014 at 6:49 PM UTC
There was something about her
that stilled a room,
that stopped them dead in their tracks
and pulled them into the eye of her storm,
confused them
so their focus landed on sweaters and hairstyles;
and they never put it together,
never pieced you into her puzzle
and ever acknowledged
that the way she wore you,
the way she draped your gaze across her chest,
proud, like quiet couture,
was what made her startling to watch.
Feb 8, 2014
Feb 8, 2014 at 5:16 PM UTC
The floor of my bedroom
will only ever mean you,
me down on my knees
in front of you like
you were my religion
(and you were)
Feb 1, 2014
Feb 1, 2014 at 3:18 PM UTC
You made me question my beliefs
in atoms and space and the way things were made,
because the Big Bang is not as lovely
to rest my head upon as your chest was.
And to me
you have both been
beautiful and polarizing and destructive;
so strange and so important;
and
Where I Came From.
Jan 21, 2014
Jan 21, 2014 at 9:55 PM UTC
There was a loud silence
where his tenderness belonged
and that should have grabbed you harder
than he ever did.
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 1:22 AM UTC
She spoke in a form
That was exquisitely hers
Then she heard yours
And in you was an accent she spoke with ease
Stretching and pitching her words in your way
Making your cadence hers
Changing her inflections
Manipulating her speech very gradually until
At the end, she was speaking a new Language
Old words strung together in this new way that
No one understood but you
And now that language is shelved
Tucked away and not spoken
Even in her mind she does not use it
And when someone speaks it to her again
It will be all wrong, and
She will stay quiet
Dec 19, 2013
Dec 19, 2013 at 2:39 AM UTC
She loved an earth that held her firm, relentlessly present, a strong & constant landscape whose only inclination was to bear her
She loved a wind from across the world that touched her skin in some unspoken, selfless way that made her know she had any body at all
She loved a wildfire in its blazing and consumptive chaos, sagely conscious that she was burning from within its hungry & narcotic flames
And they loved her in their ways, steadily, sadly; distinct but alike in unequivocally knowing she was opaque, arcane, unfathomable:
In need of a measureless ocean that awed her from each vantage point, that could do nothing but swallow her whole with an all-powerful calm
Dec 19, 2013
Dec 19, 2013 at 2:32 AM UTC