I’m sorry for not hearing
When life was stressful
When your loved ones were hurting
Or when one had hurt you.

I’m sorry for worrying that what you might
or might not choose to do could affect me
more than considering the pain you suffered

I’m sorry for being impatient.
I’m sorry for being needy.

I’m sorry for relating stories--
knives that sliced your heart

I’m sorry for making it all about me.

I’m sorry for not being there
when you looked for a friend;
& for being there too loudly
as I searched for a listening caring ear.

I’m sorry I lack the skill
You apparently acquired through the years
of sealing the past in a photo book
forgotten on a shelf.

I’m sorry for wanting to roll back the tape
then sit wrapped up on the couch with you.

I’m sorry I still haven’t erased your life
from the plethora of "Someday" snapshots.
I’m sorry for wanting a redo
of all those times in the past when
I wasn’t a very good friend.

I know you are different...
but so am I.
I am so very very sorry for all those ways
I hurt you.
I’m trying to grow into a better me.
I just wish we could meet each other
as Who we each are today
I do believe that if we did
we would only be better Friends.

Yes, lost
in the nethermore
of a love-missed future…
which path ended here?
it wasn’t the one with you
the imagined wrong choice, though,
might not have been a choice after all
regardless, the loss is the future for me…
sadly

As the rain falls now past midnight,
and I am wet with satisfaction
contemplations wander:
I know intricacies of desire,
the maps of my pleasure
Yet still wish to learn more of yours
to memorize each line of your body
learn the paths to your finale
to experiment & to find
your harmonies
Pleasures traced along your nerves,
to play the notes of your excitement,
to hold your hardness in my hands
and tease the lingering...
I would know your body as I know my own
then merge our pleasures,
rewriting the sublime
I would ignite the flames of passion shared
Erupting in the night
this erupting heart
but a flickering start
of the fire I’d feed
in the heart of your need

Oh, yes, my Love!
I would memorize your body
as I have mine...
to draw the stories of shared ecstasy
in lines that merge into resounding songs of love
Explosive
Our pleasure perfected
...I WOULD! (if I could)

yet, here & now,
in these silent secret moments
of the silent sleeping midnight rain
I mourn
Alone
that I may never memorize
nor might we yet merge again
our pleasures
perfected

Desire seeking satisfaction failed tonight
(it wasn’t right without echoes of your light)
Famished, now, without
(how can I sleep soaked in this doubt?)

Might you this sinking midnight...
Glimmer me?
Picture your today?
(I pray)

shots of you
showers
alternate realities
holding
being held
wanting while dreaming pleasure
warm breath brushing neck
presence of voice and body
soothing reassurance
strong embrace that cannot say goodbye
gentle kiss that cannot let go
assurance of eternal love
even when perfection is a fading moment faintly remembered
as the pleasure of its presence and the pain of its passing.

As my sun sets elsewhere it glows bright and hot
& in another somewhere  rises fresh and new
in soft pastels or bright blushing hues
Now as this plot seeps into dusk
I whisper a missive along
May the lost sun rays this day
shine and flutter on you
where & whenever you are
May the breezes carry my calming palms
to rest in the stillness with you
To quiet your worries
& sleep in your soul for a second or two
May your warming sun deliver this warming touch I send .

May it carry a kiss as well gently placed
wherever you most desired my lips to dust your skin
& stay however long you need
My lips are still and forever yours
the sunshine knows

Our little star’s brightness shares with you, too,
my mind full of thoughts & the wish to listen for you.

So go outside
Soak in the sun
catch my essences of love.

Some gracefully accept, but not me…
I don’t want to fade, aged, unseen!
hushed, dejectedly as I shrink
‘neath the weight of another’s priorities…

where is the hand I seek
to draw me in glowing ink?
instead I’m gripped so tightly
sketched words overwriting my story
“come now, time to say ‘sorry’”
or shall my ink bottle fall
leave black stain; erase it all?
whatever may be most sane
just…let ME remain

Exhausted
Empty
from trying to hold
all their emotions with love
while mine flow unseen.

Even now, no-one knows
how I paused returning home,
set crutches aside, sat on the curb & cried
safely hidden from spying cameras & eyes.

Since I walked through that door
I’ve absorbed their emotions:
disappointment & blame,
frustration & sadness
irritation & hurt…
‘til now bewildered, exhausted
with no one to hold my heart
and care that I, too, feel…
spent
nothing left but a weary sigh
before I return to pry
the story of why he’d sleep on the couch
tonight

I need you to **** me
& love me
And kiss me,
& hold me
I need you to want me
Always
I need you
Your Everything
For Always
Touch me
Need me
Trust & love me
I need you in me
Surround me
With me
Not just a moment
I need a future with you
Living life with me
I need you still
(and always)

If I could stop, I would
Because it hurts so much to need
something I can never have

Once you were Real, Faded, then Gone…

I have a great imagination &
I don’t feel like missing you so
I’ll play pretend…

Welcome to my life, imaginary friend!
We have a heart-load of **** to share;
it’s been so long.
Tell me of your travels...
Of those new to your life. . . the losses, too.
Share stories of your family
Tell what warms your heart
confide in me the highs and lows, the everything

Then I’ll speak of mine…but. . .

here's the thing about imaginary friends…
I cannot know of you; silence is your truth
Ridiculously I converse, one-sided…

for (imaginary) friendship's sake

Do I live only in the past tense of your mind
(memory of a friend, not to be forgotten;
beloved picture set upon a shelf
to dust once a month)?

YOU live in MY mind as memories never left behind
and desires for you NOW are of the kind
that etch themselves on every canvas they might find—
skin, heart, soul & mind…
Yes! Past & present, wish to alight
as hopes and dreams of future flight

My Love, every tense you are to me!
Yet, stagnant in your past tense I must be?

Now, helpless & sorrowful I mourn
Such immense a pity: I, a history, forlorn

“Will this rabbit’s foot
Bring me good luck?”
Said the bunny to the sheep
Pointing to her tired feet
Having walked too far
In the wrong pair of shoes

“Probably not”
Silenced the sheep,
“It’s all water under the bridge”
(But the bridge had long since
Been washed out)

The animal crossing
Makes for a good story
& traditions are fun
But horoscopes are useless
When fates rest in human hands

Anyway,
“Happy New Year”
whispered a cheery moon.
“Let’s all just enjoy the day”
While the little Leo children,
Laughed to find red envelopes
& danced with the lions.

Two days past, I entered a different world
a world where I am liked, cared for…loved?
a world of warmth—naked, comfortable, warmth.
This soothing world, however,
is missing closeness, touch…
The shared hug must go unfelt,
the kiss of passion, untasted
the feverish chemistry, unfulfilled.
You found me; I found you.
I love you…
Yet, I miss you.
Come! step with me into that world
where we are physically together–
our Alternate Reality.

Even now, hobbling around the house
with crutches…
this evening,
I imagine you on the couch with me again
*******
Inviting you to enter
This house is not my home
You are
I need you inside

Instead, empty
it all feels empty
as I’m missing you again

Receding, returning to me
More space to wish I could be
Caressing your face, brushing the bristle
with fingers gentle, light as thistle
down. Circling your lips before we dip
In. This sin, beloved,
dreaming of love-
ing you.
I want to touch your face
Someday when this pain is erased.
Is that not in a future
rewritten? No
pain…

Were those days real,
The sunshine moments conversing?
Did those precious few nights exist
Blanketed by your breath?
Where do memories end
and visions of desire begin?
Those words of love you spoke—
are they memories or dreams?
Will they yet come back to me?

Frosty greetings on the green outside my door
Icy tracings left by frozen spectres of the night
Mirroring the lonely lines inside my mind
Where chilly ghosts of you remind my reaching arms
That as the summer brown-eyed Susans you have wilted
Gone, those sunny petals of your wistful smile
Left alone the dotted memories of a love forever chained
Yet, I will don my winter coverings
Crunch my searching feet through browning leaves
and frostbitten grassy dreams
Ever seeking through the changing seasons
For your hidden love—somewhere, somehow it beats
A muffled song of your desire persisting
Memories hibernating, not forgotten, our forever passion
Cryopreserved this autumn morning
Awaiting an awakening
of your love

Don’t tell me how ******* lucky I am
How grateful I should be
How I am blessed

You’ve not walked in these shoes
With these broken feet

It ******* hurts!

& it just plain sux
dancing in sparkling pink stilettos
when i really need to run barefoot in the sand

Do you remember how
I’d always catch you gazing?
However sly you tried to be
in sneaking glances from your softly hooded eyes
I somehow knew, would turn to look at you…
I still do… Know, I mean…
When you think of me with your cool blue eyes
gazing filled with tenderness and care.
Like tonight… I sensed your affection
& smiled across the miles in your direction.
Did you catch my twinkling grateful eyes?
Your kind thoughts… they really do make my day.

If I made you feel like just one
of several parentheses in my life,
I am sorry, full of remorse, apologies & change

The truth is I wish you had been the book!
(my heart remains enclosed by your parentheses)

I wish we even yet could build
sentences & paragraphs, pages & chapters...
I wish we could live a book Together?

It seems the pen has dried. . .
I wonder why?

5 months effort to my 20 years
before the mask of kindness dropped

“Speak 7 positives for every negative,”
instructed he who floundered
finding single words of kindness
through my many years of grace & deference.

“was proud of you
renovating…you removed a toilet alone…”
(***?! that was circa ‘04!)
offer rejected!

just fly back to Korea already
spare me the stench of destructive sentiments
marinated in days-old garlic sweat
I’m worth more!
where’s bolt cutter?

This Missing You washes over me
in such varied waves and ways...
Sometimes soft and sweet, yearning, beautiful
Haunted by rich memories nearly relived

Sometimes it is passionate and pounding
strong, intense, awesome,
Unforgettable, rushing as the ocean
Breaking hard and salty on my softened pleading shores…

Then there are the times, like tonight,
when The Missing presses in harsh & steady,
bearing down with a heavy weight,
a frigid fear of loss.
This Missing nearly suffocates my heart
slipping through each crevasse...
So lonely here and now without you

Return me to that sweetest passion.
Miss me, too...
with promises & hope

Did you think of me
When you awoke from sleep
This morning?
Did you hear my voice
Gently whisper,
“I love you”
and catch my lingering gaze
Admiring your resting face?
That heart-flutter you felt—
That was my spirit
Wishing you a perfect day.

I traversed a street overflowed with memories:  
some reminded me of one i longed to see,  
in whose presence i desired most to be…  
time had fashioned fresh new flavors  
to pour into the mix of recollections—  
some when reunited with a friend;
some of me alone, satisfied;
some served as tokens, offering of peace,  
remembrances of fond moments from the past…  
I paused there, offered a prayer
for this– the "now" that would create the future yet to be
I also offered penance for bygone hurts I'd heedlessly inflicted
Hear my prayer here on Memory Lane
May these moments–past, present, future–
be forever held, precious.

His lumbering grey aura
Cloud—thick, dark & heavy—
Crushing joy, rewriting smiles,
stifling laughter in its wake
overtook my peace…
I would know, again I seek,
How to make this seething sinkhole cease?

When I see a rainbow,
He brings the storm.

Home should not Suffocate
I need escape
from this Clouded asphyxiating place
guarded by his disapproving face.

Would you linger with me
Soft lips meeting
Savoring the stolen moments
of red-light kisses Someday?

I’m saving them all for you…

My thoughts will fly your way  
At each red light each & every day
as in dreams I’ll wait

I’d built thick prison bars,
enclosed the corner that you claimed in my heart.
How did your ghost break free
to set up residence in its entirety?
My heart is now too vital,
too wrapped around those tiny fragile ones
to risk a break again (like long ago).
I know it’s not your fault!
‘Twas nothing of your doing that freed this apparition,
ne’er replaced friend & lover
whose conquering flag was never burned,
for whom my love could never be excised.  
The simple fact is:
“Promise me,
no matter what happens,
you’ll always know I love you”
rings true of my love, too—
This heart-home where your ghost resides…
this domain where you are King
I am your palace, you the Royal tenant ever,
My Beloved.
To drive you back into that prison cell,
I will not even try.

Many forms it takes:
Aching, stabbing, numbing, chronic,
dull crescendoing to piercing pang
I shift; it smites, no tonic
for the bone-deep bruise, the sharpened fang.

Mind & body too united
Too in tune to pain
Heart too unrequited
Meds & treatments all in vain

End-of-day: I’m wasted, broken, spent
Snake now coils, flicks its tongue
Injured python slithers to emotions’ scent
Constricts the soul, and I’m undone.

How comforting, those simple words,
“I do that, too.”
Then, I knew I wasn’t alone.
If it makes me broken or crazy,
at least I have company.

Anger, hurt, sorrow
Write my tears
Through oh so many years
Of loving, needing, seeking you
Yes, I’m angry, hurt & sad now
Seeing how
You disappeared
Mournfully I wonder,
Can you truly be a friend
when dealing hurt again & again?
It’s quite simple my desire—
of your words I do not tire
Return…
I ask
Return

Machines of war
Wreckage of more
than cities in their wake
Mothers and daughters *****
Children scarred with horrors
Homes gone
Families broken
People broken
All for…
Why?
The devil doesn’t dwell
In hell
He commands from capitols
He judges generals
He wages war
He deals in destruction
On earth
On children huddling in holes
On women without rights or hope
On mothers and fathers who fight
For life
Can this devil be destroyed?

When I die
Let me be Queen for a day
Let me prepare for death as for a wedding
I don’t want to go Fading
& losing Life inch by inch along the day
until friends & family say
“Her mind is gone
visiting other worlds
mostly of miseries”
I don’t want to cry out in the night Scared
and scaring those
who in sleepless misery bathe my rice-paper skin out of love or duty
Let me not go a Burden
or burdened by pain, insanity, dementia
Let me say good-bye
Lucid and happy
A final farewell party
Before a final sleep of peace

You’re closer now (in my waters?)
Yet, here I am
Lodged
between a rock and a hard place
just a little pebble
ticking away time in wishes
watching as the sun
rises, sets and years progress
Observing ocean tides
rise then gently recede…
Until one frigid night
intense & wild king currents
washed me out to sea
Lost in sand and sea-grass
as waves rock to & fro
watching ***** scuttle by
or snatched as eagles dive from the sky
Now I, like those hapless *****, aimless;
Never to rest on your welcome shores;
Remain, lodged
in these capriciously shifting sands of time
while you catch a connecting flight
Away

I’m trying to find a way back to me,
to undo some choice in my history  
when I took the wrong turn,
propelled down the wrong road.
Somewhere the me that was meant to be  
Turned into an alternate (missing) reality.
Yet, searching the map of my life I’m blind.
Which choice was not right, I can’t find
Or rather I can’t determine
at what point I should have deciphered the way.
When & where was lost
that stronger & happier me,
the “she” who I want to be?

Though, does all this questioning matter?  
It’s been a one-way street for so long.
Reverses & turns could just splatter
the good. Those I love would be gone.
Illusions, delusions, beacons of hope?
They’re all but a fevered dream to cope
Or a glow that spotlights how lonely the day
Yet, I continue this pondering to say:  
Is there hope for THIS life to be true?
(Could I ever find another like you?)

Did it again
repeated my sin
Let those feelings take the wheel
Expectations so unreal
Thunderstorm that stole the sun
****** up wishes come undone
Days wrapped up in a blurring daze
**** is scattered, lost, ablaze
…
As havoc’s ashes settle
passion is lost, no color
life has turned lack-luster
the fire has gone
just dullness on & on
Despair, an eternity
of empty
Wrong

I want you Big, Baby,
Lanky long and strong
Like those arms and legs and torso
Tangled up with mine in my dream…

I’m a Tiger, Baby
Crouching in the recess of your mind
I long to leap & pounce,
to ply your gentle lips with wild raw passion
Feel my red writhing tongue
draw yours into an ****** dance
My hungry mouth tracing every line,
Arousing every hidden nerve
along the edges of your consciousness
until we lose all consciousness, sunk into desire.
Lost in this tingling moment
entrapped by our electric dance

I want you!
Long and strong, Baby!
Teasing me
Driving me to beg for more
More of you
I’m on my knees, Baby!
I’ll awaken, tease & tempt you
on my knees

I want you!
Driven,Baby!
Driven mad,
Wild & lost in me!
Grabbing, grasping, parting
With long strong arms
Hips pressed on hips
Pounding me
With that long strong head
Deeper, Harder, Yes!!
I love you! I Want you! I need you!
Yes!
I need you Again!
I love you Forever!

Would you meet me for lunch (again)?
I still enjoy a meal of sushi…
Especially a sashimi plate
With its bright colors and delicious cuts
Bedded on white sheets of radish shreds.
Please find a day you won’t be rushed.
Let’s take our time to gently grasp
Each melting bite
Held gently twixt our chop-sticks
Pause to dip in salty sauce
with wasabi’s potent burn blended lightly in
We’ll delicately feed ourselves
Slowly let the soft smooth flesh
Rest a moment on the lips and tongue
Feeling every subtle flavor…
Between the mental nourishment
of our shared conversation
(So long it has been missed)
How I hunger to finally revive
such simple moments

You say the day
I’ll tuck the hope away

It’s just a lunch…
only lunch…
…

He suffocates me
Asks me who I want to be
Then snuffs the fire trying to breathe
My birthday wish? I’m trapped!
He demands reply… Set free these wings
Let her phoenix fly.

but what do I know
chained down here below?
what do i really know
of love’s tragic flight..
it’s pointless to fight
so I meekly say, goodnight

I would show you
In tone and word, touch and…
Do words exist sufficient to encapsulate
all the ways and senses?
I would use them all!
you would KNOW
my heart, soul, body…
You would know
the extent of sensation…
How I ache intensely to express
in every way and more
just how deeply
I Love You
Right now
If I could, I would
show you. You would know.