Your life may be full of sparkles and ove-lay but the rest of us sometimes struggle under storm clouds.

Anna (one of my roommates) broke up with her BF of a year. It seemed to happen in agonizing, slow motion. Anna wavered, for almost a week, like a feather caught in contradictory gusts, but finally, she gave him the broom.

Jump ahead four days to Saturday. New Haven was a drizzle-fest of cold rain and my suitemates all stayed in. I had hospital volunteer hours that morning (6am-10am) and then managed to whip through my chemistry homework (3 classes) in 3 quick hours.

When everyone was free, we ordered pizzas and wings. We have to meet deliveries at the front gate, and I was barely able to carry it all. “Pizza!” I announced, as I entered the suite, where I was immediately mobbed.

“Le’ me get to the table!” I whined as I bobbed and weaved through the crush like a prizefighter. As soon as I set it down, the pizzas were claimed, and the girls took their usual seats.

Lisa always sits on floor cushions, by Anna, at the low, white coffee table. After a few bites, she hugged Anna, giving her a ”rawr.“ She hadn’t really seen her since the decoupling.
You iight?” she asked Anna.
Anna waved her hands in the air, like she was sweeping smoke away, because her mouth was full, but she nodded, ‘YES’ emphatically.

“Let's play something,” Leong said, meaning music on the linked Amazon Echos throughout the suite. “Choose!” she said, motioning to Anna.
Anna replied, “Don’t Wanna Fight” (by Alabama Shakes).
“A classic,” Leong agreed, searching it out. “Amen,” Sunny chuckled.
“Love it,” Lisa said, dancing in anticipation while seated on her cushion.
“Mmmm!” I added, because my mouth was full of pizza.
Cue ‘Don’t Wanna Fight.’

Two nights later, we were at one of those dances we jokingly call ‘fashion week events’ and Anna arrived a little late. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Her messy-bunned copper-cherry red hair was highlighted with phosphorescent hair chalk that glowed penny bright in the right light.

She was wearing a red dress that looked painted on, her face sparkled with ‘unicorn snot’ glitter and her lips were a fun phosphorescent green, as if they were dipped in Kool-Aid.

“Look at her,” Sunny said, indicating Anna, “getting back on the horse and trying to arrange her next emotional trauma.”

“They grow up so fast,” I said, fake-dabbing my eyes like a teary parent.

Yesterday was filled with pain,
Yesterday saw so many laughs.
      Today I say goodbye,
      Today I close the door.
            Tomorrow is new,
            Tomorrow I start again!

Was I maudlin over our breakup? For a minute.

If I think of you now, it’s like a slideshow of unflattering images.

At the time, my breakup buddies reminded me you were a bad
choice - like a brand of deodorant that gave me a rash or fashionable shoes that chafed, even after they were stretched.

“Ruca,” my girlfriends would say, “you’re shootin-terrible, they’re a million pork-swords in the sea.”

Finally, I pulled the trigger - double-tapped us.

At first, reminders of you, those siren whispers of nostalgia, were everywhere - like the moon - which, I just had to live with.

You passed from memory though, that’s how memory works. Events fade, like last week’s chemistry test, or yesterday’s lunch.

Now, if someone asks me, “Hey, remember, what’s his name, your big love from high school?”
I say “Nope.”

I chose to laugh, dance - and shoot birds at the moon.

like the Eve is to the snake
like the sun is to the morn

She has gone.
like the path is to the lost.
like the trees are to the roots.

like the kiss is to the cheek.
like the strength is to the weak.
She will stay still as she wakes
and still he sits and looks far out
hoping to remember a magic song
wnose lyrics he forgot
like the river rock he shakes
but no movement will he make
she is gone.
he will bide his time like lakes
she will roll like tides
and take
what is hers and what he left
she is gone.
and time will edge and clip
and she will
dodge and she will wander
allow her have respite in you soul.


sahn12/17/2014

I loved you with all of me and that’s all I could do in the end.

I tried everything I could to make you see my value but you closed your eyes.

So we walked away from each other.
It seemed to be easier for you, as if you weren’t fully there in the first place
While I clung, I clung like I was holding onto a frayed rope
The idea of you, the lifetime I thought we would live together, the future I believed was a reality.

I fell in love with our ideas.
The words we said together through our hot breath.
The sound of the echo of our laughs in a room.

The good times.
I held on to those memories of you even in a **** storm of bad.

For years I called out your name through that same storm
Hoping you would hear my voice and find your way back to me
Believing we would collapse into each other again and everything would be how it was, how you said for so long things would be.
But the thunder was too loud. The clouds covered your face
And the lightening struck the earth hard and severed the ground right between where we stood together.

I loved you like a child loves
Deeply
But doesn’t know how to express.
I loved you with flaws and rough edges and plenty of mistakes
But with kisses and kindness too.

I loved you with poems and songs,
Romance and gestures that were seldom reciprocated.
I felt you on what I believed was a beautifully real level, but it was one sided.
The pain that hides within you I held it and tried to learn how to best kiss it softly.
I understood your intricacies, deeply and tried to sort through the confusion of why you are the way you are. I gave you excuses but I also had expectations.
I tried to be gentle, but I wasn’t always
and for that part of me I apologize.

I am coming to the realization that
A part of me will always be in love with a part of you.
A part of me will always miss the shape of you in my bed and the weight of your hands in mine. How we would giggle like young kids, So in love with love and how you would hold me close in the night.

But I am walking away from the you I thought that you were
And realizing that you weren’t ever really that person to begin with.

I am walking on broken glass away from the idea of us
Every step hurts
But maybe there will be less pain on the other side. Someday.

I still carry the good with me in my pocket
I have to remember you like that too
To remind myself it wasn’t just you,
I was part of the problem too.
Or I won’t be able to make steps away from the same place I’ve been standing in for years.

I have been weighed down by the cinderblock in my throat for as long as I can remember,
The words that never came out
The lead in my feet
My resistance to acknowledge and heal the ugly sharp parts of myself that have cut you.

The weight of the bad
needs to be acknowledged while I hold hands with the good memories too.
that’s the hardest part..

Things were not all bad.
You were not entirely a bad person
nor was I,
There was a time when what we were was beautiful and those versions of us will live in my heart always.
We are just simply two people with
Too much.