Dear…

I don’t even know what to call you. But, already, we are beyond such things, aren’t we? When you wander into my head from time to time and form to form I am left with out a course of action. Mostly because action seems… so… very…very… silly. But this time. I took said action. Here it is.

I am sounding this letter off of the sky as postage. I am licking my lips to seal the envelope and throwing my marbles into the sun. I am lifting you, without strings, with the last of my magic.

I am not sure how the universe will choose to eclipse or supernova our meeting. But I am patient. In the mean time, I will remain so.

But I thought you should know.

I promise you passion.
I promise you fire.
I promise you mood swings, and fights, and making up, and making love.

I promise you an insatiable hunger to touch you. Kiss you. Be with you. To a fault if you wish.

I promise you a less than perfect attention. I promise to get too caught up in my vision of you to notice you, from time to time. I promise to notice you, more often than not.

I promise laughing. Together and at each others expense. But laughing. And laughter. And cause for it.

I promise to be serious. And scowl. And furrow my brow and nod my head at just the right times.

I promise to picture you naked at the most inappropriate times. I promise to paint pictures of your smile on the back of my eyelids while I sleep. I promise to sleep next to you, feeling my body scorch as our temperatures press together in red patches of skin.

I promise you poetry. And wine. And both at once.

I promise you adventure. I promise you distant landscapes and matching our rhythm to the train we find ourselves in, watching the blue, gray, and green streak by our window like an exercise in futility and motion.

I promise you futility and motion.

I promise you faith. I promise you doubt. I promise you a clenched fist and an open hand. I promise you my shoulders to stand on and my frame to drink from. I promise you holding hands on midnight drives from place to place.

I promise you silly.

I promise you gifts and flowers for no reason. I promise you a constant reminder of my awareness of the gift of a woman that I have been blessed with.

I promise you breakfast in bed. I promise you all day in bed.

I promise you discipline. And craft. And becoming a master of loving you.

I promise you truth. And empty promise. I promise you the promise of more.

I promise to be artful. I promise to be delicate. I promise to be crass and a brute. I promise to regret what I have said, over and over. I promise you steadfastness through the changes as we learn to navigate the many tides of the sea we find ourselves drowning in together.

I promise to be your opposite and drive you mad. I promise to be your equal and touch you thusly.

And you. I promise to only allow you entry to my heart if you are what I know I want.

I am faithful. I am loyal. I will not fill your space with less than you.

And I’ll only ask that you be worthy of this.

And here is something shiny.
And red.
For you.
To wear.
As your own.

It is all I have.

My return address is on my palm, out stretched to you. I await the scent of perfume on the letter you will write in me.

Red and Shiny.
And worthy.

All My Love,
Sean

The clock on the wall is God. His hands, sweeping by, reminding us that time is running out. So get to it, boy. The window is my eye. Looking to possibility as a green horizon. And the path is the new vein, running down my arm. Saying, "Blood is compulsory".

These shoes. I have always known I walk around at the expense of my sole. Wearing thin. But my feet feel so much better there.

I breathe in. I am told it is holiday nuts. Cinnamon. And air that is just a little to clean. But I like it just the same.

We let ourselves move the puzzle pieces into place, one by one, knowing what the picture was going to be already. We squeezed the last bit of it out with our hands until the juice ran down our arms and we held the pulp out like offerings to strange gods. We fought and fought to meet at the center and then promptly forgot why we were there.

And I am taken back to my nephews. The smiles. The reminder that blades of grass split our toes and somewhere in that is childhood. And I roll the ball to him and say, "Kick it." and he doesn't. And I say, "Not yet? Okay. I'll roll it slower." And he doesn't. And I smile and say "We'll wait". And he smiles and says, "It's okay. You'll figure it out." And I will.

Our strange adventure will be pushed into one point. Carried away like jasper. And the images of the Apache Dinae, the ears, the cloud we rode through, the ocean, and each of the little things will yellow and crack until it is nostalgic and sweet. Honey. Wine. Thyme and thyme again. Rolling down and creating a glow in the bottom of my stomach. Stoking my fire. Using my ennui as kindling.

Listen. Listen to each click. Listen to it saying, "It.. is.. never... too.. late."

My hands are sticky with possibility. The strange gods have begun to lap at my fingers. And I can see the look on the face of my nephew when he finally kicks the ball.

The clock on my wall is God. His hands are still. My hands are covered in hope. And I have begun to remember something I'd forgotten.

We began bigger than this. Like sun warmed sand and waves. Tidal and furious.

We began like crashing stars into a horizon that thought it could hold us captive.

We began with simple letters forming big complex words and then sentences. Destined for stories.



A call.



And now we stare at ruins. Wondering if we can rebuild.

Wondering whether we can weather the weather.



And through it all, I reclaim my former glory.

Punching at the glass ceiling and shaking my fists at the passers by above.

Warrior. Skin your tattoos from your back and bind them into picture books for children.

Rid your teeth. Give them to the wise man to dangle from his throat.

Turn your shield into a soup bowl and feed the hungry mouths you see.

Make your bow into a cradle and let your youth rest for once.



My fists are polished stone. Monuments to days past.



I am a relic.



This. This is what men of the world fight for.



Bright smiling eyes. And matched heartbeats, linking rhythm until it threatens to burst from our chests.



Playing heart strings in minor chords. Making lyrics out of the words stuck in our throats.

Trusting touch to explain the things we can’t.



And making love like prayer.



We began like laughing children. Laughing in the face of the future.

Reading the great stories on our lips by placing our finger beneath them and moving slowly.. to.. the.. right.



And the hole on the other side of the world can’t be filled.



Just avoided.



Our hands are held to our own mouths now.  Some covering. Some cupped to shout.



And I will bellow. Bellow to stoke the fire.



Warrior. Make your armor into a home. Cover the heads of those dearest to you.

Bring fire to match the one in your heart. And cut your tongue from your mouth before it learns to form the word surrender.



Ask the mountain for faith.

Ask the rock for healing.

Ask the lady for peace.



We began bigger than this.



We can end the same.

Let us go forward then, in full bloom.
Daring to be only what we are, at last.
For in our kiss, we felt the future.
But in our haste, we taste our past.

And all at once, I loved the feel of hands sweeping across my face.

Moving in circles to mark the years I was imagining as we lay still.

The blankets like bark as our roots tangled together sipping wine like rich soil and whispers.

We. The rings. At it’s center. Moving like planets in travel.

Biting our lips shut. Revealing our age, one whispered secret at a time.

Our hearts making rungs to be climbed to our minds. Our minds making light to show the path back to our hearts. And there and back. Again and again.



I loved you the most when you loved me the most.



Had I known the answer to the riddle. I would have bound the hands together when they met. Both facing upward. As if praying to the stars to stop the time and let us live here. When it was best. When it was still before dawn. When you still believed that my shoulders were wide enough to protect us both. Wide enough to carry the world upon.



The weight. It makes my footprints look like canyons in my wake.



Could I have seen that, once again, the falling stars we wished upon were grains of sand passing through the event horizon of our infatuation to fall on us like dust, I would have shouted them back up. Screaming my throat raw.



I have no voice.



There was a time. A time when the titans wished for hearts as large as ours. A time when the moon was brighter as it caught the glow of my hand on your waist. There was a time when our hungry paws found skin and mouths like milk and finger tips like ink and hearts like parchment. And we drank and wrote and laughed so loud the horizon split. The sun coming up as an echo.



There was a time when every answer we’d ever sought could have been written on the palms of our hands and we would not have parted them to read.



A time when we believed that time could stop.



I have read the answers on my palms now.



I wish I had then.

Could I pluck this nights moon from the sky,

I'd tether it to the center of my eye.

That you might see your light reflected back,

If only once, before we die.

My hands are cold from want and salt-heavy air.

The sails are gray like soggy wool against the purple night.

The wind smells of possibility but tastes of regret

And I can only mutter,

"It reminds me of her. It reminds me of home."

My heart is a compass.

You are North.

Be a lighthouse and I will turn my wheel towards you.

I. Am. Not. So. Far. Away...