Hope is dangerous
Perhaps that's why it hangs around on street corners
And in doorways
Waiting to waylay me as I pass through
To get my morning coffee

I've been fighting with Hope
But it doesn't fight fair
It has a shiv that cuts deeply into my heart
And the parry fractures on my ulnae
Say more about its victory over my defenses
Than these inadequate words ever can.

Hope has a rap sheet a mile long
And when it comes knocking,
Part of me knows it would probably be better
To turn out the lights and pretend I'm not home

But I'm recklessly unafraid.
And the danger excites me.
And I climb on the back of Hope's motorcycle
Not caring that he's taking the curves too fast
And I let hope sneak me out of the house in the middle of the night
Running away together into the night
Knowing full well that when the morning comes,
He will be long gone.

Hope has me sitting in this car in an abandoned shipyard
Waiting for the drop
Believing, against all sanity, that you will show up
To make the exchange
To continue the deal.
Hope is reckless and fearless
Hope is the explanation behind every one of these scars

I haven't seen you in a long time, but
Foolishly, I still believe in your promise
And soon, the court date with Hope will come
And my love for you will stand trial
Though it's never been anything but innocent,
I know I would be found guilty, time and again
Hope blasphemously sits in the judges chair
Feet up on the railing
As he waits for you to show up and swear in.

Hope brokers back-door deals with me in the passenger seat
Leads me down dark alleys at 2 in the morning
Making promises nobody could ever keep
He keeps my bank account at an all-time low
He holds the gun to my ribcage in the tattoo parlor and asks, one more time
"Will this save you? Will this make you free?"

Hope is an exercise in flirtation with disaster
Except that Hope doesn't know how to flirt,
Doesn't do anything halfway -
It becomes an exercise in falling in love with disaster
Finding beauty in the broken things.

I'm begging you -
I know Hope is dangerous
But please don't tear him away from me
Dear god, please.
Because if you leave this time
If you fail me now
If you walk away, he walks with you.
Despair becomes my only company

And though dangerous, Hope is exciting
Despair just hands me the bottle of tequila
And shaking his head knowingly, tells me
To drink until it's empty
To say goodbye to you and Hope
The only way I can

Quiet heart
Gray day
Rain falls outside
And the memory
Of the rains
That came on so fast
And lasted so long
Returns

And yet
Peace
So long elusive
Has been returned to me
And I, blessed with solitude
Examine these memories
Of the rain
With my magnifying glass
To find
The rain does not mean anger anymore

There was a past
There will be a future
And both have had – will have – their hurts
There are scars
Real and imaginary
But they paint the picture of the whole
They are my reality
And reality, scraped and bruised as it may be
Is greater than fantasy

The remembrance of old dreams
In moments like these
Once a burden too intense to bear
Now becomes a comfort
Like a cup of coffee
Or an old friend
A favorite sweater
The knowledge that the person I have been
Somehow – is still
The person that I am.
That, despite it all, I have never stopped being
This person, real and flawed and whole.

And to say that there was never pain
Or love – returned and unrequited
Unspoken –
To say that there was never heartbreak
Or longing
Or a moment when I would have given anything
To lead an easier life
Would be a lie

Humanity – I have it.
Life – I’ve lived it.
And there’s still always more to come, but
Perspective
Is something I’ve been needing for so long
And have finally found.

So I sit here
Alone with the memories of the rains
And I listen to the voice of a younger pain
But I don’t return entirely
I never will return again, entirely
To that place where I have been.
Love has been.
Love will someday be.
But the peace comes from knowing
That love is – that love exists
Ephemerally, unknowingly, unwittingly, unconditionally
Now.

As soon as you are gone, my body cries for you to begin again.
My bones remember your weight,
crushing bliss.
Half-spun moments free from thought or care or existing
I am lost, in you.
I am found.

Lover, I do not know whether you are spinning our tale
or unraveling it.
Never has love felt so fragile or unbreakable,
your skillful hands twisting my wishes into ribbons,
leaving them scattered on the floor
next to the denim husks of our discarded selves.

I fear this mistake.
I fear that we will not make it often enough.
Memorizing your outline, I make my provisions for your eventual leave-taking.
Everything must go.

I carry you with me,
escaping into the strange sweetness of your smile.
Poetry is your broad shoulders
turned away from me and feigning sleep.
I do not weep.

Perhaps this is the ending,
slowly fading, credits rolling, riddled with bloopers a casual audience will never see.
Maybe the sum-total of my love for you will be told
in bleary-eyed mornings, wordless hugs on my way out the door.
But Lover, you have forgotten the heart of the one who loves you,
one who knew your soul before your body.
I am gracelessly, unremittingly hopeful
and perhaps this is the darkness that falls just before the phoenix sings,
raising the dawn.

He'd only been gone for a few hours when I started to wonder
if we'd said out last words to one another
"...but you're awesome" still ringing in my ears,
reminding me that I wasn't.

The next time, we said goodbye without words -
tangled, sleepless, uncertain
painful and incomplete.
I boarded an airplane across an ocean
while he walked off
into another life.

Until finally, I know, rather than wondering about
this goodbye, ultimately, probably, unfinished
and yet -
"I hope we can stay friends"
we lied through out teeth
Trying to pretend it didn't hurt so much.

The last words we'd said to one another hung there
suspended by the weight of the ones I hadn't.
Bowled over, suddenly -
I began to remember who I was
Though who I was was no longer who I'd been.

The light was still growing in the morning
My mother gripped her shoulder, rousing with gentle shakes
Her first words, a chorus of moans -
the twisted agony of living.

Holding crepe paper hands, we cared in trivial words
Telling stories, sitting close, trying not to press too hard.
Every piece of her hurt.
Every piece of me hurt too -

"We should sing..." I whispered, as if to speak aloud
would end the spell holding us in that moment.
Choken and throaty with grief, half-remembered melodies emerged.
Birds to the waiting ears of my grandmother,
paper-thin and sponge-watered, crying out in hurt.
Dying is easy - it's living that's hard.
And with every line, I wondered
what my last words to her would be.

As the hour grew near and I rose to leave,
I stepped close
I kissed her papery cheek
I looked into her half-closed eyes and promised,
"I love you".
And through the haze of time and space,
in spite of every other word she'd lost, my grandmother
gasping and starting -
replied "I love you".

And love,
raw and peaceful and vulnerable and frail and desperate love
Holds onto our hands, softly singing
while we die.