My life was a blur, all the days have gone past,
and I lived with the thought that nothing would last.
I was lost in the dark, finding my way through,
until the day that I met you.

You set my soul on fire, with crimson glow,
and all the light in me continued to flow.
We were a perfect match, and so they would say,
but maybe that's why we burned out, one day.

You planted wings on my heart, and as it set out to fly,
that's when I found out it's all just a lie.
Your lies were bullets, and your mouth was a gun,
and all of it felt like I was too close to the sun.

We were just two different people, nothing more, nothing less,
and maybe you leaving me, is for the best.
You had my heart in your hands, yet you dropped it to the floor,
then you acted like nothing happened, and just closed the door.

Remember the day your friends were comparing scars? On their arms and upper thighs
They asked you where yours were and you said,
"Inside."
Did they know then, that your scars still burn when you touch them? That if you think about them for too long, you are right there again?
They asked you if they could see yours and you said,
"Sure."

I am finished trying to draw water to satisfy my soul,
from holes that cannot quench my thirst.
I try to draw water from holes of different names.
From friends and family.
From the words and approval of men.
From temporal pleasures and materialism.
But they cannot quench the longing for Love
in my thirsty soul.
I am like the Woman at the Well.
Tired of going to holes that I think are wells.
Trying to draw water.
Walking away still thirsty.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Then...
My Saviour and the Lover of my soul
comes to me.
And I drink from Him.
My thirst is finally quenched,
and I will never be thirsty again.
For He is the Living Water.
He is not an empty hole which dries up,
sending me away still thirsty.
He is the Love which my parched soul needs.
He is...
the WELL.

Uninspiringly a soft black snake slips across the path
Flicks its pink forked tongue in the damp Florida air
And disappears into the myriad of green ferns
As if you to say “Your existence is inconsequential”
And perhaps footsteps in the mud is all the hammock
Will remember of us (like memories of the dead).

So the zebra long-wing floats on an embankment of breeze
Stops to rest on an orchid high atop an oak tree
Covered in a vague blanket of whiskery purple plants
Hanging over the reflection of a speechless sinkhole
The gaping mouth of death where an alligator basks lazily
Stirring centuries in the silver swirl of his tail
Echoes outward from the beginning of time.

And your eyes begin to open widely
(Before now you have just been sleepwalking)
To the soft reflection of white wispy clouds
To the unbounded blue black of time, the sky
To the slow bend of emerald palms in the breeze
To the white flutter of egret wings rising up and over
Disappearing into the opacity of the jungle.

So the afternoon wanes in overwhelming branches
Colors blending delicately into mountains of azure
Lilac, plum, auburn, cherry, salmon
Whispering to you “Hold on to this moment”
Reverberating in the smooth glaze of reflections
(The first colors you have ever truly seen)
Dripping from the dusky tropical Florida sky
Melting into the expanding darkness of the night.

I will tell you a secret.
I haven’t moved a bit from where you left me
Loving you is the cancer I chose not to treat
So let me tell you why:
I have loved you all along and I will love you until I have strings in my heart that move to the sound of your footsteps
I will love you until my deathbed is an altar of withered feelings and candles tired of watching tears dry up in the ground
I will love you until love is sick of being love, hearing my whimpers, screaming your name like holy verses praying for salvation
And you will die with me
Your life inside me will die with me.

| h.s.

I used to be convinced that we were made for one person.
I used to believe that one love was so powerful that it would keep someone investing more and more of their heart until there was nothing left to give.
But now, after 18 years of life I see that love is not constricted to one person.
One heart can be made for more than one person.
In the past four years,
love has found me in three different vessels.
Three different vessels have taken and given me nameless things that I would not have been given from anyone else.
So now I wonder,
how much of my heart will be left once I meet the love meant for the rest of time?
Or will I actually meet a long lasting love or continue to find love in different people?
How many vessels are my heart made for?