coming around to reason
despite all the emotion
all the emotive talking.

How selfish of me,
to crave a happy ever after,
when I have already tasted forever
in a fleeting moment with you.

It was enough
to carve your name into my bones,
to make the world without you
feel smaller, emptier, colourless.

And yet…
if once was all I was given,
if forever was just a heartbeat,
then I would choose it again.
And again.
And again.

Because even as a wound…
our love was still the sweetest eternity.

Patience
Cause you know without a doubt
they can't break you
You'll never ask for help that's how they
take you
Can't shake you
Won't change you

You're being pushed into the deep end
Sinking to the bottom
Running out of air
Is it ever gonna stop
You'll never know for certain
If your lungs give out
So you fight with all your might
And **** your doubt
Go without

All clarity
The dark that grows inside
It's a masterpiece
It turns you inside out
And you have no relief
And it's hard to see
Or too far to see

You're being pushed into the deep end
Sinking to the bottom
Running out of air
Is it ever gonna stop
You'll never know for certain
If your lungs give out
So you fight with all your might
Knowing without a doubt
You'll get out

Your breath
Is catching in your throat
Your vision starts to blur
So easy just to go- whoa
You tried
But can you really make it
You're counting down the seconds
Your freedom, it beckons
Just hold on

You're being pushed into the deep end
Sinking to the bottom
Running out of air
Is it ever gonna stop
You'll never know for certain
If your lungs give out
So you fight with all your might
You'll survive, still alive
You got out

Welcome and remarkable, the heat.
To penetrate the flesh,
And comfort the brain.

Weathers and remodels many tired hearts.
Makes the old seem fresh.
Soothes the ache of lingering pain.

Giving lots of warmth, surrounded.
Light of comfort.
Light of hope.

Getting lost, open winter’s story.
Pull up a chair,
And tell a joke.

Cleaning off my forlorn, old, radiating tears,
To embrace new day’s eventful rendering.
Noticed embers, still sheer.

Alert, fever’s favour embraces cold-tickled, inspired, open noses.
Releasing all dilemmas in amazing torched exposure.

With a real mesmerizing thought held.
A flame that enchants and haunts.

Worries are removed, melted through heat.
And the warmth is all that we want.

Stacked green crates by the futon,
records quiet as buried letters,
each sleeve longing
to be drawn out into daylight
by her small, thoughtful hands.

I just want to play that Nick Cave again
teenager’s resolve in her voice,
she drops the needle on "Tupelo",
traces Peter Murphy with her thumb,
holds Kate Bush to the light
like stained glass.

She laughs
at the ****** box on the speaker.
I tell her it’s never going to happen.
She grins, unbothered,
says she only came for the vinyl.

I watch her tilt each sleeve,
never touching the grooves,
brush the dust,
lay the needle like a secret,
slide the disc back without a wrinkle.
Each time I’m surprised
by her precision.
It’s the third time
she’s dropped by.

She makes mixtapes.
Pressing pause, pressing record,
stitching songs into a spine of hiss.
Once, to me, or to herself,
she said her father wanted a tape.
She’d mail it when
he had somewhere to send it.

She follows me across the bridge,
talking about her brother,
an ex-best friend,
mimicking her professor,
how he wags his tongue
when he writes on the chalkboard.

I haul a duffel:
apron, uniform, boots heavy with grease.
She skips in the rain,
strumming cables, humming
the last song played, still floating.

I unlock the door,
steeped in garlic and kitchen sweat,
boots leaving grime on the boards.
She isn’t there-
only the crates, stacked neater,
jackets squared, spines aligned,
as if her care was meant for me.
The room settles with her absence,
yet holds me upright
in its small, thoughtful hands.

One of my classes has theater seating with little desks that two people share. I’m sitting by this huge man, who really should have a little desk all to himself. I don’t want to seem ungenerous but he just sprawls out like I’m not there.

So in a profoundly machismo gesture, this morning, I marked my territory with a pencil. It was carnal, feral, aggressive, and distinctly unfeminine gesture - more than a mere assertion of "First come, first serve" etiquette.

I’m familiar with life’s overlapping territories, like sidewalks, movie armrests and overhead bins and the subtle, shared space social negotiations when someone, say, introduces a laptop to a crowded library table and we all must  shuffle our stuff around or when someone desperately needs the only charger.

THEN, Friday morning big-guy starts this SUPER awkward conversation. To be clear - up until then - our ‘relationship’ had been blessedly non-verbal.

Let me tell it poetically..

He said he saw me signing in and timed it so I sat by him
he hoped to get to know me, and perhaps to ask me out.
They pass around these student info sheets, so we can form study cliques
and after a little bit, he smirkingly mentioned that he’d memorized my number.

Now, I’d barely even noticed him, I thought seating was left up to whim
before he could ask me out - I pointedly told him all about my boyfriend.
Now I’m sitting by a refrigerator-size guy who’s subtly giving me the eye
and as for his excessive use of space, I think he’s being passive possessive.

Monday morning before class, I’m going to catch the TA with her coffee and ask,
to change my seat to somewhere, anywhere, with someone, less transgressive.
I’ve been in classes, for years on end, I’ve been hit on and I’m not against making friends
but you have to know how to begin and not be so open, sneaky and aggressive.

I feel no enmity, just an awful awkward-ity and I don’t want him next to me.
Like the air-head I can pretend to be, I took a pic of him, disguised as a selfie of me.
If I’m ever concerned or slightly alarmed, I always manage to send a selfie to Charles.
.
.
Songs for this:
Messy by Lola Young
Every Breath You Take by Committed
Walk Like an Egyptian by Awaken A Cappella
.
.
Charles, a 55-year-old 6'4" retired NYC cop, has been my escort, driver, security and surrogate parent since I was 9 years old.

the night whispers the black water fall of ashes
that bloom into the sparrows of sorrow...


the sorrow sparrows are back again
sitting in the tangled woods of twisted trees.

Van Gogh heard their voices
bouncing off love's walls.

the sorrow sparrows are leaning into me.
my sad eyes, dream of you brother.

I lean into the soft lit room
searching for love's quiet hours,
with sunlight flickering through willow trees.

"don't cry, darlin," my wife whispers.