months late

It's been quite a while! I don't know if anyone will still read this, and I am completely behind on everyone's wonderful blogs I loved to read. I've been busy, distracted, consumed by life- in all positive, right ways! To say the last months brought a lot of change would be an understatement. Each week featured so many occurrences, each week felt like a month, a month felt almost like a year as each month included enough happenings for an eventful year.

I am in the States for a few more days; I am visiting family for the holidays. It's strange; home is here, home is also there. Happiness and comfort are here in my warm house, in the arms of my parents, sisters, brother-in-laws, nephews, and friends. Happiness and excitement, and yes, comfort, too, exist there as well. I spent the first days here waking up in my big bed, wandering around my room in the dark, not sure where I was, looking for my roommate, or missing his embrace around me, our legs wrapped around each other, our hot bodies cooling off together before breaking out in sweat once more.

And when I talk about him, it is not the same 'he' as before. There's no other way to put this but: I no longer love him. He doesn't love me. Today I told my friend, 'it's strange to say this, but it feels so good to not be in love'. We crashed. We yelled at times. We kissed at other times. I cried. We slept without feeling. All things were wrong. When we sat together on my bed and ended it, I tried to force myself to cry- not because I was all that sad, but because I knew that in a situation like this, that is what you're supposed to do.

And then- and then it finally clicked for me. It truly did. I saw who he was- who he hasn't been for a while. I tried so hard to love him, to love the person he was, when that person was gone long ago, that person was not coming back. I no longer recognized him. He changed. That is fine. And I changed, too. I am no longer depressed. I have good days and great days. I am out of this black hole. I wake up in the morning without an overwhelming burden. I find excitement in the every day. I am more open once again with family and friends. I once again began to taste all of life- figuratively and literally- I gained 6 kilos! I feel healthy, I look healthy, I have curves once again and I am no longer underweight. And I can talk about my previous depression openly with my friends, and I told them how wonderful it is to no longer be in the dark place, to enjoy life how I knew I could, but I just needed some time and clarity to do so.

I thought I could never feel that way about someone again. It's not true. I had a great love, and it's over. And I am glad it's over- strange to say, I know, but it's true. If it had stayed, I would have to settle, and settle is not what I want to do. In the last months I flirted, danced my nights away, felt the kiss of new men, made love without love, and all of this- I am glad to have experienced, after the fact. I found someone who shows me passion without us being each other's. It's also odd to have met him- I didn't want to meet someone I like so much, because I don't want to settle any time soon, because I don't want the 'right one' now, because I am free and I don't need commitment, and yet, I want a relationship without the relationship. I know, such a thing doesn't really exist.

I was working on a novel in the past months. I had some 40 pages written. The file is gone from my laptop. The backup is as well. Disappeared to I don't know where. I know I can't write it again- not the same things, not close to the same. I will try once more with the 'internet man' to try to recover it (what did I do with the files?!) because it was important to me, it was a lot of work, but most of all, it was a lot of my heart and veins pouring out, and it was good therapy, and it was a project I wanted to finish, edit, rewrite, and send away. If it can't be recovered, I will start anew. Perhaps a similar topic, but with a new twist.

The first week of classes months ago, one of my teachers asked what is the ending of the love story I am writing. I told her, I don't know, I am still living through it. If I were to finish this story now, I have my ending: I lived through it, I might have suffered before, but now I am born anew, the weight on my shoulders, on my heart, is gone. I am flying even higher than before. I don't fear love. Love will happen sooner or later. I trust in it. And I will welcome it, even if I might be cautious at first. Life is too beautiful for words.

Each time I hear the doorbell or a knock and I open the door and see you there, it is still a surprise, a jolt of happiness that pierces something, inside me. The cold weather has gotten to us, our late nights and destructive indulgences probably had a bigger effect. We are coughing too much and offer each other tissues. The time for tea is now every hour. Our favorite flavor is wild rose and raspberry. It is stacked in my cupboard and now I know in yours as well. You add one spoon of sugar in yours, and now I always have it ready for you. We never greet each other without a smile, and it’s becoming this impossible endeavor not to be happy with you by my side. So we keep smiling at each other, and I guess someone would say we look foolish and ask why we are smiling, and I suppose our answer would have to be something simple such as, it is you here next to me. I look at you a lot, and I know you look at me, and I think I do it sometimes because I still can’t believe it’s you, so I touch your shoulder or run my fingers down your back, and sometimes I poke your hand before giving you a hard squeeze, or a soft one, if I don’t want to disturb you too much when you are sitting facing me. Existing here. It is you. These beds are barely big enough for one body, but I want you here to tangle our legs together and I want to kiss each of your eyelids, and then your nose, before I finally place my lips on yours, and stay there, just being. Kisses on my shoulder in the morning are one of the best feelings I can think of right now. I kept your shirt and slept in it every night because it had the faintest smell of you, but yesterday I forgot this and washed it. It smells of lavender now but it is yours, and I like the feeling of something of you on me. It is not even worthy of a question, what I feel for you. It has been, it is, it will be. Instead of trying to explain it, I just trust in it. We don’t feel the strain of labor when we do things to make it easier, more pleasant for the one we love. In what language will you greet me today? In what language will we say goodbye? To tie it all together, a bundle with no loose ends, a falling string or two allowed, but what I mean is, how do I learn to keep you forever? For now I kiss my index and middle finger, and afterwards tap them gently on your lips. Here, it says, my kiss has traveled far to find you, and now that it has, it is rejoicing, and now that it has, it never wants to leave.

from my balcony

Falling deeper

Whose lips have you kissed since the last time they met mine? I wonder this after you ask me the same. It used to be softer, now we don’t seem to have time for the slower kisses. It’s different this time around. We now have the title of former lovers, old lovers; we’ve been separated and now we fall back into each other’s arms, but not without guilt, complications. Our beginnings were fresh with too much passion that in the end made it hard to simply exist without the other next to you. Our eyes opened to each other’s touches, not expecting to find something that fit so well with what was missing in us, something that broke the rules of love and we fell in it almost instantly. Young love: discovering the remarkable, the new, the other who has not hurt you, not muttered words that would be replayed in your head, that cinched the heart and caused you to have sleepless nights, unconscious days.

This love has fought in many battles. We swore it off before. We looked for others to help us forget. Sometimes, we almost did. We have no control over each other. We decide we can’t see each other for a while, but then we are walking together, hands almost intertwined, exchanging smiles and disappointed frowns. We can’t be trusted, not with each other. It was madness what we had; it is madness that leads us to act this way. You tell me that we don’t think of the consequences of what we do. I say nothing back, but the only consequence I want to believe in is that this is right, it is meant to happen, we have started on yet another road that has sunshine in the end.

We’ve changed- not just in our kisses, and we can’t say that it’s worse because we can’t resist them either. I’ve lost weight; my curves are not as prominent as before. My breasts are no longer full, and last night we took turns in pulling my falling dress up. You’ve lost weight as well and now you look even younger, but the presence of more gray hairs on your head tells me you have aged, or at least that you’ve been under awful stress. I don’t question what your body wants and show I want to give you pleasure with confidence. I don’t even think twice. Perhaps I should have thought twice. Your snoring patterns have changed. I didn’t have to nudge you all throughout the night so I, too, could sleep. When I wake up first I study your face, so calm in a deep sleep. Your eyelashes are long, the envy of any woman, and today one fell out, and I put it on my finger and told you to make a wish before blowing it away. I was counting your every pore, memorizing every scar on your face. In the middle of your left palm you have a small freckle. Your lips are usually dry and darker colored from all the cigarettes you smoke. Your eyebrows are dark, full, and slightly messy. You look at me with your green eyes that turn hazel under certain lights. You’re more confident with your every move, with every person you talk to. You’re becoming more and more the man I knew you would be. I traced your hairline today to see where you might start losing hair. And I saw that I would love your head when it turned gray or white or salt-and-pepper, even if you end up losing most of your hair.

We keep falling deeper and deeper into complications. Instead of finding a solution we add more difficulties to the puzzle. I know this. You know this. And yet we don’t stop. It’s been 42 minutes now since I last saw you, and I don’t want to say this, but I am missing you. It is cold and windy but I would still go outside with you on the balcony and hold you close when you shake and smoke your cigarette. Walking in the park today it was gray and windy, and then a sunshower came. And we stood facing the sun, eyes closed, and let the rays warm our faces, the soft drizzle dripping down our noses. It gave us momentary warmth, but we know the road will still be cold. Things would be so different if I didn’t know you exist in this world. I don’t hold back much of anything now. Things I say might be difficult for you to hear at times but I know no other way: whatever is flowing from my heart I allow it to flow freely, though I know many times there in no reason in what is in my heart, and I know things could be simpler if I didn’t harbor you in there so strongly. I told our friend last night that I don't want to fight for this. I lied. I'm afraid to fight and fail. The truth is I am so afraid to lose you, though I don't even have you fully either.

For so long I began to believe I had dreamed you up, the heart was aching for something that wasn’t truly there. Seeing you, touching you, hearing you, feeling you, I know you are real. This is what your hand feels like with my hand. This is how your eyes look when you look into mine. This is how your body moves when it moves with my body. And this is how hard and long this story will be. There are no promises, conclusions, and too many considerations. What did we get ourselves into? Something in this universe is keeping us close, keeping us in tune and keeping us together though we try at times to separate. So we stay in this hold, whatever this hold is to be named as, and we pass through time unknowing what will happen not even tomorrow, but even in the next hour. It hurts and confuses me and sometimes I feel that I must escape it immediately. Still though, a greater part of me feels that all of this is supposed to happen, for one reason or another. I’m still on board.

Wroclove Beginnings

This week I packed my bags, said goodbye to family and friends, and moved to another continent, to the country I was born in but left as a young girl. Leaving my family was the hardest—many tears were shed and I hated the anticipation leading up to my departure.

Finally when I arrived I struggled with all my suitcases, somehow managed to reach the third floor of the hostel, and soon after met my roommate. Right away she helped me to buy a cell phone to feel more connected. I contemplated. I had his number, written quickly on a city map. I sent a message. Yes, we will meet he replied.

Meeting again has been played in my head so many times, and I knew it wouldn’t be the way I imagined it, and it wasn’t. (How many times did I recite Lord Byron’s “When we two parted” in my head: If I should meet thee after long years, How should I greet thee? With silence and tears) I waited outside my hostel for him to pick me up, looking for the dark-haired man I had missed for so long. The next messages: he’s running a little late, he can’t find the hostel. I wait longer. I see him across the street. I’m not wearing my glasses but I know it’s him. His strut, the way his back stays more stationary and his arms and legs move more wildly. And I watched. And I could have called out his name but I just stood there and it was becoming clearer to me, yes, he is real, you had not dreamed him up, he does exist.

Eventually he made his way back to my street and we found each other. A hug, a kiss on the cheek, he barely gazed at me. And he wouldn’t look at me most of the night, but straight ahead even when we sat next to each other on a couch in a cafe. We walked the town square, he told me names of buildings and churches and pubs, and it was the jet-lag and feeling overwhelmed with my arrival, but I felt like it was all a dream. We didn’t speak of us at all that night. Still tears fell down my face when we said goodbye at my door.

I was wrong about many things. I started to become angry with him because I could no longer take being sad because of him. Within the first day being here, I had understood his situation so much better, and it made so much more sense why we had to part. I was wrong and mistaken on so many things, I admit it, I am sorry. I knew the situation in pieces and from these pieces I made some conclusions and struggled with it. I have more of these puzzle pieces now, and I understand him now. I don’t have anger or resentment towards him, it’s quite the opposite really. Still. There is love still. The smell he has when he smokes too many cigarettes. His laugh. Our laughs. How thankful I am we didn’t lose our laughs.

The situation is uncertain. I don’t know where we will go from here, and our conversation late at night had us both in tears. At one point he was my obsession. At all points he is someone I love. And it’s quite peculiar how this love survives, and our story is atypical and it doesn’t make sense even to us sometimes. And yet. It’s still not over. I can’t say where the story is taking us now, but it’s still going. Today’s talk left me feeling like a deflated balloon. Nothing will be of us…well, I don’t think it will. I suppose I have to decide if we should continue seeing each other every day, if we should keep this friendship going. I don’t think I have all my pieces yet to make that decision. I wish instead of ‘we shall see’, I could just see and know.

I’m still settling in, mentally and physically. Two days ago I finally moved into the dormitory, but soon we have to switch rooms once more and I hate that I can’t unpack and spend so much time rummaging through my suitcases to find my things. No internet as well, but there is a Starbucks that I will have to frequent more often to send e-mails and get in touch with people.

I feel good. I am too tired every day and my eating is off, but I am trying to get back on track. There are many questions in my head still, but things are riding along as they should be. I’m meeting new people, even meeting myself—parts of myself I had not yet visited. I am growing. I will take chances and make hopefully the right decisions, though some wrong ones will make me learn as well. And I will let fate do the rest…but she won’t get to do all the work. I’m here, slightly weak and tired after a late night, but I am here to fight, just call me the little soldier.

I wish my heart was as cold as the morning dew, but it’s as warm as saxophones and honey in the sun for you.




Lord Byron

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow--
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shrudder comes o'er me--
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee so well--
Long, long I shall rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met--
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?--
With silence and tears.

Seeing things 20/20

Over the weekend I’ve been stricken with pink eye. I’m not contagious to others, but only to myself: the infection can spread from my eyes to my nose to my throat, oh noes! The weekend has been a little blurry for me, and I’ve come to refer myself as a ‘pirate’. I haven’t worn make-up in days, and I’ve resorted to wearing glasses. I don’t own contacts, so usually I see things a little blurry (at least those far away). While my 4 year old nephew has taken more than one occasion to say that I look funny in my glasses, I am content in seeing things a little clearer. The infection is clearing up, and more than anything, my perspective on where I am and where I’m going is more apparent to me than it has been in a very long time.

I find myself walking with lighter steps. I wake up in the morning without an overwhelming burden on myself, without an instant anxiety and simultaneous despair to start the day. If I could have, I would have taken myself into my own arms those long hard months, now we can say years, and told myself it really will be okay, you really will be fine. I would have comforted myself and shielded my knees each time I would fall to the floor crying, each time I felt like a branch snapped in half, each new blow the relationship had cost me. Obviously I couldn’t, because I didn’t know all this before. I heard it from others, reassuring words that it is not the end of me, that I have happier days ahead. I heard those words, I tried to listen to them, but I just could not believe them. I went out with friends and tried to make my laughs seem believable. I tried not to be mute and stare into space during family parties, but so many times I failed at this.

It had to come at my own time. No matter what others say and what you might even say to yourself, you will not really believe it and move forward until something registers with you, until you decide how you are to spend these moments of your life. For things I knew I could not change, I let go of the attempt to do so. I hold no power over some things and this I accepted, opened my hands, freed whatever was stirring up my heart, and simply said, it is what it is. Still though, I wasn’t without a choice. I could not continue crying, being upset over, feeling anguish and gloom. I could change some of these things; I would not continue being angry and feeling hopeless over things I could change. And I changed those things; I changed who I will keep contact with, changed what information I need to be tormented with or to let it go. So I broke some ties, some softly and quietly, mostly without looking too far back.

For the longest time I thought there will be no getting over this. Largely this was because he continued to reel me in, and I was always hooked to him, never giving it my all to break free. And what is coming to me as a big relief, even a surprise, excitement is that I am getting over it. I find myself happy meeting new men. I am excited about getting excited over a new man. Of course I meet him a week before I leave for months, and it could end up being nothing, but I can’t explain how good it feels to be happy over the fact that he calls or sends me an SMS.

Perhaps we miss certain people because they still are the same when we had them, knew them so well. But to me, he is not the same person and hasn’t been for a long time. And I don’t find myself missing him now, in fact, he is not someone I want to see or spend time with. He is of the past, a beautiful past, but that did not survive to the present. I am packing my bags and leaving with an open mind and heart. I am excited for all the people I will meet, all the experiences I will have, the lessons I will learn.

You would think after such heartbreak that I would be afraid to love again. For the longest time I thought that I couldn’t do it once more; the thought of being with other men would make me physically sick. And yet, I know I can love again. I know this. And I am not afraid of love, in fact, I feel that I am more adventurous even, more willing and expectant of the good and bad. Ah, yes, it seems that I have learned a lot from this.

My bangs are clipped back out of my face till my next haircut. Today it is rainy and gray, but I am glowing. I have some decisions to make that I know I will face rationally. I have questions that I do not have to answer right now but only when I will live them. I have come a far way, and it feels so good to leave that dark place. I see happy days ahead.

"The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it

and everything you've held dear

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

your throat filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

thickening the air, heavy as water

more fit for gills than lungs;

when grief weights you like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief,

you think, How can a body withstand this?

Then you hold life like a face

between your palms, a plain face,

no charming smile, no violet eyes,

and you say, yes, I will take you

I will love you, again."

— Ellen Bass

While She's Gone

This morning I read that Jim Carroll passed away from a heart attack. His poem, "Whil She's Gone" is one of the most beautiful pieces I've ever read. Each time I read it, I find a new line, passage, word that again amazes me, sends me chills, has me nod in agreement. I never know what to quote from this because the whole poem is worthy of being quoted. He didn't write it for me, but when I encounter such beautiful language that fits so into your life, I just wanted to say...thanks, Jim.

While She's Gone by Jim Carroll

It's too late to change you with language
Your boundaries are always too narrow, and you bury
Yourself beneath a shallow grave of artifice, flesh and perfection

Look up above the mountain, to the right
Of the castle's turret, that's not a gull
That's a heart.
And of course it's tattered
Swooping too low crossing
The Atlantic to find you, its stomach
Was slit open on the horns of a caribou in Greenland.
Many species of birds have feasted on its eyes.

So, having come this far, I can now barely see you

It's two weeks since you've gone
The fragrance you left
Still remains in this apartment
As if it were bracketed to the wall like a shelf

It remains sweet yet somehow stale
The pressuring scent of expedience

How I hunger to devour it to devour you
Slowly, gently, vicious.

I chew on the pubic hairs you left on the sheet
Like a country boy chews a blade of grass as he walks
Near a pond, skimming flat rocks across the water.

If the angels knew, were kind,
That is where I'd be.

Instead, I have been been sitting down by the Hudson
At the end of the Gansevoort St. Pier
Reading Schiller on the sentimental and naive

Melville was a customs clerk there
The streets are still cobblestone

I'm hoping for an experience that pre-dates you.
For example, being chased by a dragonfly.

What is not perfect, you deign to destroy.
When you find your idea of perfection
You relax on well-cut grass leading down to the stream.

You make a stranger a lover and a lover a stranger
You isolate the curve of longing
Then accelerate the flow.

It becomes the curve of binding energy.

Under different circumstances,
I could admire that.

I keep finding your long straight hairs
In the blankets in the carpet on the arm
Of the chair where you were working
Perfecting your calligraphy
The lavish tyranny of words
Now I watch the red in each long strand shine, twisted
Between my thumb and forefinger in the window light
I tied one around the neck of an alabaster bear
The rest I just continue to drape across the roses
In the wine bottle beside the kitchen window
It's beginning to look like a spider's web. It seems
That each symbol possible, in time, finds its way back to me.

I put my faith in I put my I put mine in I put my faith in you

While it rains outside through the night
Through the twilight of the gods
I want to watch the rain falling with you inside
Inside you I want the rain to fall inside you
Lap the drops that drain
Lost, I remain inside you

When I took off to swim the river last week
I left the wine glass on the table beside my bed
The one you drank from here
Near full with bottled water, as you asked

The capricious symbols are turning cliche and wet

When I got home it was five days later, the humidity
In the city heavy that week but still
When I held it up there was something left, just enough drops
To wash down a pill to fall asleep
Then I filled it again and left it to the sun and defiance
There are times I hate you there is no question
But an unforced grace remains. Your generous silence
Listen,
With our tongues we could tie the laces of angels,
Light or fallen, no matter
Your thighs moved smoothly as Latino gangsters

It's hard to walk from a love that never ended
The fury is deadly, as if I were locked forever
In a room with movies of bridges collapsing
Too rigid for the quick wind

You see, your leaving occurred without
The foreplay of anxiety which is essential
Before one flies through the window of a car
Out of control

Unprepared, only a certain yet vague prescience which didn't
Seem to concern me much I left it in your hands
As I took you at your word. Now I see the only means
I had to heal the burn was to replay again and again each permutation
In all its bitterness, and illusion.

It becomes tedious
As the tedious becomes essential apparently

Cassandra: that's you incarnate
Sweating the details of a future bliss
As if you could control it

The angels are more confused than ever

For once they call out, and there is no one to listen

You called from a phone by a lake
Deep in the canopy of black forests
The entire country deciduous, leaves rotting
Among the fresh angel skin a heart flown so far, it's fallen
It's grey among the leaves like a dying frog
And, seeing it, you step away, glad you avoided it
I found another of your hairs on the floor
This time I just threw it away it's becoming old

Gravity
It keeps us from floating away.
yet presses down. We stumble and fall.

I thought dusk was the moment dividing
Night and day, all things possible.
Yet, tonight looking out from this terrace
Twilight is filled only
With red taillights moving away, to bridges or tunnels

Yet always water, above or below, red taillights
And the mercurial sadness of another darkness descending
A thicker gravity. So many lost loves
Your boundaries were too narrow
Everything planned assiduously
Within surgical thin perimeters.

Now and then you would test the borders you defined
But never too far, inside the fear of finding yourself
Even for a moment lost. At times you did
Step beyond, paler slightly from the risk,
To burn in the wilder sun, yet always returning
In time for the mail and the certainty and the phone perhaps

Inside those boundaries assurance and fantasy blur and merge
Inside those boundaries, thought and action become one
Without distinction. Those outside
Get spun, unravel. Your arms shrink in the cause of embrace
What you try to comfort you can no longer reach.

And I've done everything I'm accusing you of.

All the while I was staring straight
Into a wavering blue flame

Among the flaws, I watched
Your necessity bloom

Like careless crawling orchids

So imperceptible
I didn't really notice until the first petal fell
And a strange arboreal wind blew it away

I was always seeing you on the move
As if passing in airport after airport
The smell of jet fuel, vanilla, fancy soap and ambivalence
Without an hour hand, a minute hand emblazoned
On its heat and glow, I could have
Watched the dew in these days reveal you as you opened

Perhaps I could have unveiled my own hesitations, washed the poison
From my lips, held you down by your wrists and watered you
In all resistance. Once again build myself a thirst and drink your overflow

I could have taken you to the dark gods
Still getting us back home on time
To sleep with the anorexic angel
Who I would pin motionless, radiant
Between your breast and my hand
My hand unyielding
Extended outward as light, the light

You learned as you lost it in a single moment

It's months now since you've been gone
And what I feel I'll tell you what it's like
It's like a last glass of Spanish Champagne slipping from my hand
Taking months to reach the carpet

It's like a slow hanging
This city is a scaffold my room's a trapdoor beneath
Not rope but a long red scarf a silk noose
Tightening slightly more day after day

Even now as I type
My feet are dangling a foot or two above the floor
Breathing only through vanity and my fingertips

The time hasn't changed since you left
That moment in front of my building throwing your suitcase
Into the trunk of the cab, a Hindu driver. I check the airport route
He has planned for you. We kiss long and sad and I
Watch you drive slowly off, your head craned back at me
I watched until you turned at 19th St. and were out of sight
Leaning my head to the side and feeling the cool of a marble pillar
Against my cheeks making one last wave one last

I went upstairs, called her, and slept
Forcing myself not to wake until daylight the next day.

You're in Amsterdam.
You know,
If they took those reinforcing beams away
From the old wooden houses along the canals in Holland
They would most likely have fallen into the water by now.

That is your art form
Creating vestiges
Out of lace and lashes.
Everything just fell away.

The bridges over the canal
They're quaint and banal
Tourist boats pass beneath.

I was a tourist

To your body.

Why do you smile so widely in every picture I have of you?
Sometimes it makes me feel like slapping you

In this room everything comes as a whisper.
So what did you say?
Why do I want to know?

Because that's the way it is for me, and always has:
To be amused, bewildered, bemused, and fucked
Without the slightest aspect left out.

I thought I had been floating with the tide easily
These last three years, not looking ahead yet waiting
For some small island
Even a rock would have done
To land on and survey how far I had come
And if it was worth going on

And all the while I now learn you had somehow fixed, shifted the natural flow
And I have been swimming upstream against those vacuumed years.

Salmon are an endangered species
Man, and the paws of black bears

I'm tired too tired for conjunctions.
Having reached land,
Are you worth love in any form?
An old story getting older
You may not possess irony, but you carry it like a silk purse
Now the mute fog rolls in off the river
And I can't speak.
It makes me listen too hard
With an urge to believe.

Why couldn't we find a love in that too-American exhaustion
Melt into each other as the hour that moans

In Europe how you have reached a mountaintop
Whose scent is things dead a thousand years
That is the fragrance of betrayal.
A cologne you took years to create
A chemical pun you mailed me in a white envelope
A white wedding envelope
The chemical wedding of C.R.
Child bride antelope
Collide and elope

This cologne is what you would have me press
In two subtle drops around my neck
Like a noose of splintering tears.

I flew straight through that car window
Without the essential anxiety
And the only way to recover
Is to play it over and over
On a screen too small
For the curve of time in this ward where I have been waiting

It makes everyone a fool, awake and in dreams. I wound up
Loving something I was forced to reinvent, deconstruct
Though I know you so well now
Come to understand your meaning

That's the worth of a lifetime
Everything else collapses
Or repeats often enough to forget

Conscience is no more than the dead speaking to us
It's hard to find comfort
In this world.

You brought that to me
That's hard to let go.
Only you and I know only you & I

See

You have always been so far away
You have always
Been right here

What the absurd and bizarre do

The universe has a sense of humor. No, I didn’t call you when you were in Barcelona. I don’t know who did, but thanks +001 for making him think. Reading your words my heart starts to palpitate, I feel the heat rising in my face, narrow my eyes and think of ways I can be cruel. I think; I don’t do.
You travelled 2500km over the weekend, and tomorrow 600km more!
And now you say you’re so tired you will go die in your bed.

Do you think I don’t remember? Our plans for tapas and sangria, beaches and museums, planning our trip to Barcelona. Our trip. Our plans. Our plans didn’t include her. So you go on your trips, Barcelona and Bordeaux, but keep me out of your excited sharing-- why on earth would I want to know? I don’t make an effort to remember, your promises, your words, so many of your words. I search for times that predate you, yet your existence has all of me fully stained.

You know what my conditions were: an open heart or leave it alone. Yet you decide to contact me, give me dates and times when we should meet. It was a plan to arrive in silence, but now you know when my plane lands via Dusseldorf. And you tell me you can meet me, take me to my new home. I don’t know what my answer is, so all I say is, you’ll probably be at work.

This is where the universe starts the mockery. We’ve never been on even the same continent for too long. And now: it’s the same country, same city, our living quarters are right next door. So thank you for the proximate distance, world, but haven’t you noticed our hearts are farther than ever before? It used to be an ocean, country borders, customs, and now more than ever, a heart grown very cold.

Nothing hurts more than seeing you do our plans, with my role replaced by her. It’s a slap on the face, ten thousand of them. It’s hard to believe how someone can be so oblivious that he has hurt someone dearly. And if you are playing dumb for now, well that is just a cruel, cruel joke.

All that’s been harboring too long inside me, I will tell it to your face. Not to be unkind or embarrass you, but simply because you have to know. Let me free of this, of things I’ve loosened my grip on, and yet they still keep such a strong hold on me. Can you believe I’m crying over this again? Can’t believe I’m still writing this.

What I do believe and what I know: I can free myself from this. I know I can let you go. Who you are and who you’ve been—distant strangers, foreign times. So yes I will meet with you, and I will let all the insides of me spill out.