“I know why the heart gets lonely
Every time you give your love away.” ()

Puts me in mind
Of a man who embodied our eternal, sometimes fruitless search
And why the heart is a lonely hunter.

John Singer, you silently sang,
Of heartbreak and devotion to someone
And the eternal search for those elusive qualities
Those missing puzzle pieces we all look for
Happiness
Acceptance
Love
Always seem out of our grasp
Like a puddle of water
On the sunbaked, summertime highway of our lives
Traveling
Always looking for something
Hunting for anything
To let us know we’re human
We’re loved
But still our lonely hearts search on

“I know why the heart gets lonely
Every time you give your love away.” ()

The heart is a lonely hunter.
Staring out the window of the bus
Thinking about the ones I love
And wondering if it is all worth it.
I wish I could’ve sat down with you, Mr. Singer,
And compared notes through pantomimes
Written words of your struggles
Maybe I could’ve understood you better than others
Deaf and mute, you
Couldn't communicate with words,
Couldn't hear what other said,
Instead you communicated with looks of compassion
Serenity,
Composure
Masking a single-minded devotion to one person
And you let others who lean on you
Attaching what meaning they may
To the nonverbal cues you say to them.
When some of it wasn’t what you really intended.
Believe me, Mr. Singer.
I know all too well the misunderstandings
That come up in the name of simple love
Or the search for it.

“I know why the heart gets lonely
Every time you give your love away.”

You think you have something special
But does the other person really understand you?
And when others need you, and vice versa,
They fail to see behind the wall masking
Your true heart
What you’re really trying to tell them
And even with the powers of speech and hearing
Would you still have made yourself understood?
Misunderstanding, it’s so easy
Words are woefully inadequate
Because people will see what they want to anyway
They attach their own meanings to the words you say

Mister Singer, I can understand why you blew a hole in your chest
Sometimes that gaping hole is more preferable
To the gaping hole left by a broken, misunderstood heart

“I know why the heart gets lonely
Every time you give your love away.
And if you think that you are only
A shadow in the wind
Blowing around but when
You let somebody in
They might fade away.” (*)

TANGLED NECKLACES

Some thing are easier said than undone.

My necklace tangled in your coat buttons
As you held me to you.
My heart tangled in yourself.
Once I tied myself up in your knots, it’s ****** hard for me to unravel.
A complex Celtic knot of emotions
To rival the grandest illustrations in the Book of Kells.

Some things are easier said than undone.

Part of me prayed it’s a sign.
Maybe some higher power sought to bind something of me to you
For love or words of encouragement and healing for you,
I don’t know the purpose
Because it’s ****** hard to extricate myself from this.
And part of me doesn’t want to
Even though you said otherwise
As I untangled my necklace from you.

Some things are easier said than undone.

Slow to warm up to anyone
Quick and fierce to burn for the one
Slow to bank, if ever,
I never give anything less than my whole heart
Once the wheels are set in motion.
Anything less than me, it’s just not in me.

And some things are easier said than undone.

Now maybe it’s not meant to be
But I can’t be
Anything less than 100 percent with you
Honesty and caring with every fiber of my being,
It’s part of me like breathing.
Always in for a lamb, in for a lion
I’d be lying if I didn’t say
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.
But you were honest,
And I thank you for that.

But some things are easier said than undone.

Now, I would rather Chance and Fate
Cut my heart and bone to the marrow,
Than drown in a pit of fire and brimstone
And lost chances and regret over you.
The good little angel that sits on my sleeve
Can heal as easily as it gives itself once the wheels are set in motion.

But still, I’d wait for you, if there would be a chance
Because some things are easier said than undone.

OPEN LETTER TO THOSE WHO SAY GOOD RIDDANCE TO AMY WINEHOUSE

“Good, one less crackhead to deal with.”

“Drugo *****”

“She was a bad influence to all.”

“Why is everyone sad that she is dead?
She never cared about her own life
so why should we care now that she is dead???
She brought this on her self, oh well! “

“Good riddance you Mr. Ed lookin, Lady Gaga wanna be, pill poppin ******.....”

These sad, sad, comments
About a sad, sad life
Full of privilege and God-given gifts
Thrown away on a whim and a dime
Sadden me.

Dear friends,

You know me,
But I suppose, if you say good riddance to Amy Winehouse,
By that same logic, you should say, regarding me,
“Good, one less alcoholic driving our streets.”
If I died in my car accident more than 3 years ago.

Wait, what is that I hear?
You say I’m overreacting?
I’m different because I got the point?
That somehow I’m better than her because I “learned my lesson”?

*******.

I’m no better than Amy or anyone else in that same sinking boat,
**** up a creek without a paddle,
Just because I cleaned up my act.
I’m only luckier than them,
Because statistically only 5 percent
Make it out the other side,
Without backsliding.
The other 95 percent,
**** rolls downhill without stopping.
Ultimately, they only have 3 choices:
Jails, institutions, or death.
And I’ve already made two of them.

Now I have to keep in mind that
Unless you walked in an addict’s shoes,
Or the shoes of an addict’s loved ones,
It might be hard for you wrap your mind around a couple of paradoxes:

“How could she let that slide?  She had everything?”
“Oh, she could’ve quit anytime she wanted, so she chose to continue being a ******.”
“She was only a selfish *****   She didn’t give a **** about what she put her family or anyone else through.”

Let me enlighten you to the plight of the addict.

Yes, I will give that,
We have choice over that first drink, or drug if that’s what’s up.

But chasing that first high is like the search for the holy grail,
Or searching for that *** of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I kept following the path,
But the quest for the gold extended in perpetuity,
And my chalice remained empty.

I guess in a way you could say suffered
From battered wife or Stockholme Syndrome.
Drinking kidnapped me,
And held everything I was hostage,
I had everything, the job, the house, the love, the family,
The art, the poetry
But nothing became more important
Than the man who kidnapped me.

His needs, his wants became my own.
He spoke for me, he spoke through me.
I was him, and he was me,
And everything else bedamned.

I lied for him,
Stole for him,
Tricked my loved ones for him,

And in the increasingly rare moments of lucidity,
Interspersed between run-ins and blackouts and bottles of wine,
I tried to run,
But he would grab me when I made a break for it,
And drag me right back in.
While friends and loved ones who grabbed onto me with everything they had
Stood helplessly by as I willingly walked back to him.

A person has only so much strength,
So much will to resist.
And eventually, you only have enough reserves left to just exist.
It’s all you can do to stay alive,
If you can call it a life.

Yes, I was eventually one of the lucky 5 percent.
But there’s a word I operate by…”yet”.
Nothing is set in stone.
I could wind up right back where I started on that Monopoly board.
Don’t pass start, don’t collect 200 bucks.

So, until you have walked a mile in an addict’s shoes,
Or the shoes of an addict’s loved ones,
Judge not lest ye be judged.
Because the next hammer to fall just might be on you.

By the way, rest in peace, Amy Winehouse.

SCHOOLGIRL

I want to feel
That first blush,
That first flush,
That first rush,
Like a schoolgirl in the throes of first love.

Time under my belt,
New clarity under my belt,
New maturity under my belt,
I want to experience
Love with new eyes and new heart,
To appreciate
What I had before
But didn’t cherish.

New love that
Makes me blush,
Makes me flush,
Makes me rush
Into his arms
Because he’s the best thing
That happened to me
Since I was a schoolgirl in the throes of first love.