I can never walk away from you. Not by the gods who all looked on as I ran out of reasons to make you stay. Not by the forget-me-nots I willed to die under my pillow. Not by the poems you never knew were yours. Between us, I can never be the first one who leaves because I'm terrified — of you, moving on to a life I'm not a part of. I'm terrified of confronting the choking weight of emptiness in cold mornings.

To walk away from this is something I never learned; that is my downfall and your strength. And I guess the difference between us is when I said that I was terrified of you leaving — when I said that I was terrified of losing you, I meant it.

I meant every word of it, my love — I meant every word that you did not.

You deserve someone who can look pain in the eye — an insignia of heartbreak with your name written all over it; your trembling sighs — like rust, lingering over their rosegold lips, and still, not forget that they love you.

Somewhere in northern New Mexico
a writer claims
that the first two weeks
after a long hiatus
are the hardest.
After all,
scratching the words of the Gods
on to a loose leaf paper
must be arduous for those
out of practice.

The ocean is always deeper than what we can see. Maybe to hold a place for sorrows. No matter, bind me. Hold me down with a stone carved with the words to a funeral song. Sink me into the water until my skin resembles it — a deep, dark place for sorrows. A deep, dark place for a grave.

The ocean is always deeper than what naked eyes can see.

How much more breaking do I have to do until my heart numbs itself? I am sick of this routine — my chest sewing itself just to be ripped apart once more. I wish I can leave it be — an open wound for the flies. And yet, how many more wounds are there until there is no healing scar left to tear? I am sick of this routine. Tonight, I wish my heart would just tear itself into a handful of benumbed pieces. And tomorrow would stare at me — an aftermath of a storm. A heaving curiosity. A girl, lying in pieces and with no heart left to break.

In all ways, I have lined up my scars and written them insincere apologies; each word — a mockery and a transgression carelessly thrown in the night. I have allowed dread to settle deeply between my collar bones: an arrow buried between antlers until it unsettles and chokes. I have sewn sadness into my skin, like a dainty, silk sundress; worn it to church and to the funeral mass of a little girl I had to ****. She'll never know how much I mourned her, how on some nights, I still do. In all ways, I have looked at my skin, my fingers, and calves, and tailbone and saw a body that's never known gentleness or summertime souls or the gentle falling of the rain.

So after all of that, how, then, can I hold my heart now, without ever breaking it?


Tell me — how long can I hold my heart without ever breaking it?

Silent lyrics sung, line by line,

Page by page, movies projected on my mind.

Words that moved me like waves, washed me out to sea.

Words that, like lighthouses, revealed the shore to me.


Sailors of stars, stories in hand,

Of heartbreak and romance, of adventures in distant lands.

Where words can lift you up and make you fly,

And stand with you against demons that darken the sky.


Whether high [on life] and humming happy tunes,

Or maudlin (in my cups) and singing the blues,

This drunken sailor would doff his cap,

Clear his throat, and raise his glass;


To all of the writers in their own little worlds,

To all of the pencils scratching, and all the pen whorls,

To all of the cluttered keyboards clacking,

To all of the rhythmic fingers tapping,


For all of the dreams and even the nightmares,

For all of the times your words let us know that somebody cares,

For all the truth, guiding ship to coast,

I raise my glass in an old Irish toast:


May the dreams you hold dearest,

Be those that come true,

And the kindness you spread,

Keep returning to you.


Slainte!  

Keep writing! <3

__

Where once we met,

Passion stirred breezes for winds to form,

And drenched our hearts in it's growing storm.


Like clashing clouds each enveloped the other,

Releasing energies no depression could smother.


A thunderstorm raining lightning bolts,

Shamelessly shedding light in blinding jolts.


Water and Air, spinning, mixing, churning.

The chaos was music, the eye in a hurricane of yearning.


Oblivious, we destroyed, even as we created,

Endangered life as surely as rain sustains it.


The chaos of our perfect storm turned against us,

No music now, only the raging tempest.


Winds of passion calmed, storm-fronts collapsed within,

And the last teardrops of rain fell unforgiven.


Silence stretched, louder than any thunder,

Broken, after so long, by hope barely uttered.


With care hope grows, uplifts, and inspires,

Then sings of life, and love, and of passion like fire.


Testament to life, though unaware,

A butterfly batting its wings, stirring the smallest breath of air.


Now, a field of butterflies rise from dreams and cocoons,

A thousand tiny gusts of hope, born anew.


Innocent, they move the very sky,

Fledgling winds, breezes learning to fly,


Rising high above the meadow where they were born,

Quietly whispering prayers, of becoming a storm.