You invoke from within my depths the spark of a flame,
The flickering of love’s first thought
Spoken from the lips without shame,
What the heart hath never fought.

From your soul pours the everlasting breath
That awakens within me the desire for life,
The eternal escape from a loveless death
A pathway forged for the sake of love’s internal strife.

I see within you my mate
For eternity’s unpredictable flight
Clearing my flawed slate
With your God given light.

I love you from the depths of the ocean
And never fathom ever going back,
You keep within me forever’s notion
Tighten the rope that once hung slack.

If ever you question the love that we share
And feel the desperate need to clear the air,
My love, my dearest and closest friend
There’s not a sliver, not a bit, not  nothing we can’t mend.
For you’re my love and my life
You’re my never ending, my true to the end lover, and I, your wife.

Even in the dark I can see you smile
warm against my eyelids.

It smells faintly of change in this city
with its need to keep up.
I miss the slow growth and the comfort in being "that" place.
The place you go to shake off the dust,
the place where boulders roll off your shoulders
and incandesent happiness is achievable.

The storms here get worse every year
and I think the lightening is a gift from God.
A reminder that even in the midst of the bleak greys of life
we can always choose to harness our energy and break through the mundane.
It smells of wet earth and asphalt rivers.
Mud stained cars and rain stained umbrellas
I walk, hair dripping at the ends embracing the storms of God.

Even in the dark...
Your light has caught me on fire,
chosen to release me from my prison
a lifetime of desperation.
I feel my own smile, just as yours,
Even in the dark.

For the left handers,
whose ink gets smudged every time they think to put thought on paper-
I don't have that problem but I've seen first hand the devastation.
This is for the stuttering stutterers,
whose ideas fall on deaf ears because it takes too long to speak the thoughts to those too impatient to hear the words behind the frustrated stuttering.
For sadly brokenhearted fools-we've all been there-
whose chest aches every second from when they wake til sleep finally knocks them cold from their pain.

This all is for you. The frustrated, the hopeless, the midnight make it down the stairs to annihilate an unexpecting bowl of cereal, the drink-to-supress-the-pain-ers... for all of us who may or may not understand what the hell the point is.

This is for you.

Growing up. No thank you.
My house was littered with red solo cups, empty potato chip bags, barbies and romance novels. My mother got my sisters hooked in 5th grade, a bandwagon I never jumped on. It rode past and I waved my no thank you's, mocking their simple minds and codependency.

Then he bought me a Kindle.
Oh has a fire ever been kindled in my life, a spark deep in my gut. Not the ****** pirate books filled with ***** bosoms and ***** flexing muscles. No, and not the cliche millionaire with mommy issues falling for the average, helpless, clumsy but persistent "Jane". No, I mean the normal pretty cute girl fallen for the best friend of 10 years who saved her everyday from the memories of her childhood loss. I mean the steamy love scenes and the dramatic losses only to found again in the end.

I'm a sucker.
A straight sucker for the 99 cent heart pounding dramatizations of a life that's a roller coaster revolving around a fiery misplaced love. Gosh, we're talking lunch break, city bus rides, leaned up against the computer at work in between guests. Bundled on the couch with Chai and my kindle diving head first into a tragic love affair.

It gets me through the annoying sound of her Boston accent Wednesday through Friday. It tears me away from the less desirable moments of a real love affair called marriage. It takes me up and down with the thundering pulse of the characters involved.  

Then comes the guilt.
The looking over my shoulder while I ride the city bus in the middle of a hot and steamy love making session, slightly tucking my kindle into my body, not wanting to put it down. It's the guilt that my gut knows how to react to a book a little too well. It's the heat in my veins and the pounding in my chest.

Dear lord, I'm a sinner.
I find no true guilt in the pleasure.

What do I know? As this bed holds me because you won't-
does the couch comfort you better than I? all over a predicament you walked yourself right into.
I cried at work today, again. I wish
but wishing never got me anywhere.
Nothing's changed... I wish it would
but sometimes things do- like a plane ticket to Seattle and new arms- a new life.
I can't.
I won't.
But God put his hands on my shoulders as I fell apart,  the pieces are his to swallow so that maybe I can be close to his heart, a place to dull the ache..

I took a break from trying, because all of the words sounded the same and nothing new came out. It was all the old feelings I've already felt and old tears I've already wept. I was tired of beating the horse, it was already pulp beneath my feet.
So I let it go and I dropped the pen. I settled angst and let the winds run wild through the valleys of my mind. Tornadoes formed and storms brewed. I felt the cold grip of a 45 in my hand the other night held tight against my temple. I couldn't pull the trigger.
I'm glad I didn't, because that burning cold against my clammy skin awoke something deep inside. Feeling.
So I'm taking a break from taking a break because finally there's something to write about that isn't that **** pulpy horse beneath me. It's a new beast of fear and irrationality, but it's something. I've been so tired and scared that I haven't known what to do with myself.
Let go.
We thought I had ten little fingers and toes inside me. We thought that my stomach had a heart beat. I'm not sure why I felt so disappointed when that stick said no. We aren't ready for a kid, let's be honest.... are we?
Love is something we bathe ourselves in, what flows through our veins and stirs the dust within us. But I'm not so sure about a little us roaming around on ten little toes.... am I?

The storm has settle and these keys feel comfortable beneath my fingers. I just wish I didn't need to feel the burn on a 45 to know what comfort is.