Compass

I had a dream that I was out to sea
Tossed by the waves, the salty air was heavy in my lungs
No matter what I did, what buttons I pushed, the engine wouldn’t turn
I was just drifting. Letting the waves take me.
I became listless and bedraggled- My vessel was no longer under my control.
I wanted so badly to get to shore with the earth beneath my feet.
Back to the land of the living.
I had lost all hope and I lay, limbs heavy and weakened, fixated on the sky.
The stars seemed to dance just for me and the longer I stayed,
The more I forgot what home really meant.

A light in the distance shone my way after many endless nights
To rescue me from this stalled-out, drawn-on, helpless situation
A familiar figure after all this time truly felt like fiction.
Propeller breaking waves while the waters churned beneath
Then stopping just to my right, the east, where the first glimmer of light comes at the dawn.
You took my hand and your eyes lit up
Like a child looking at their birthday present.
You pulled me aboard, held me close, and said that we were going home.
I watched as we pulled away, the cursed craft getting smaller and smaller
Then was out of sight.

You and I aboard, the crashing waves, the dancing stars
Our hands intertwining
“How did you find me?” I asked
“I followed the stars” You replied
"They have always led me to you."

Dear Universe

Dear Universe,

I’m ready to not feel this way anymore. This hanging on is breaking me- my fingers and my heart.
I want to be whole again, want to want to love. It all seems so pale since he’s been gone. I’ve walked miles and told stories, I’ve bled my truth through my fingertips and denied all the signs.
This love, if this is really even love- is so one sided.

I’m so tired of being the one who cares- when I need a shoulder there is nobody there.
My heart must be made of paper- it slips right through the cracks in the facade.
I have told him a thousand times, in a thousand different ways that I would do anything.
That with my last breath on my last day I will still care for him.
But to him, that’s not enough. I’m over feeling like I’m not enough.

My countenance is measured in moon cycles these days
Trying to sync with something that has more of a hold on me than he does.
I may appear stern but inside I’m stunned.

My life has been a study in waiting.
Waiting rooms, waiting for rides, waiting for the dawn, waiting on love.
I can predict time down to the second- but I can’t predict his next move.

He is troubled. His eyes are like the sea before a storm.
Calm on the outside with tidal waves in his mind.
He isolates for fear of feeling while he’s in the presence of others
He’s been alone so long he’s forgotten how to speak.

My hands connect to so many things, so many worlds, and people.
His hands are immobile unless there is something safe to touch
Like that night he wrapped them around my waist
and told me he would be there for me.
That he loved me.

It’s taken me this long to figure out that love isn’t permanent
That circumstance can change minds
Right now, I’m so tired of being broken- of wasting more time
That I implore you
Speed along this process of companionship or ruin
I can’t hold out much longer in the in between
This part of him is killing me.

Mirror Images

I guess he reminded me of the good parts of them that I wanted so desperately to save.
In that dusty attic of memory, he pulled out small trinkets
Creating an avalanche of recollection
Of those times that were buried beneath the auto pilot day-to-day.

Words fell out of his mouth and into my heart like it was deja vu
Like maybe they weren’t gone, just hiding
In the quiet spaces of this person who I attached so much to.
Who I was so attached to already.

He made me feel like I was the only person alive in the world that mattered
That our love meant more than all other things.
When he left, he made me feel like I would never be whole again
That what we had was a blessing and I had wasted it.

In the in between
He made me think that by saving him
That somehow I was saving the parts of them that were truly worthy
In him, I felt like I wasn’t alone in the world without them.

I am an alien now
Floating through space without fuel
My copilots have deserted me through the escape hatch
Yet here I sit, waiting to be rescued by figments of my imagination

The similarities are boundless.

Behind the Curtain...

Several times throughout the day
I look to my left, wide-eyed.
As if to say "are you fucking kidding me?"
to you- when things get too ridiculous.
You might have a good perspective on whatever is happening
Might appreciate the irony
The gallows humor of it all.
I've done this my whole life
Since before I met you
But I never had a face to the spirit
Never named that ghost
When you came into my life
It was like the wizard of oz
All fantasies and technicolor.
Your face was all I could see
From that moment on
I didn't feel as alone.
Just like the wizard of oz
It was all a falsehood.
Now when I see your face
It makes me feel like a fool
As if I've been duped by the universe
I talk to the ghosts now
But they do not respond
That face is fading now
My memories becoming jokes.
I suppose
I have always been alone.

Fallacy

I was always told that when I really fell in love
that all the pieces would fall into place
and despite everything else, we'd be we
I guess sometimes you fall further than the other
and they recover
while you nurse an injury
that may never heal

How many more of these stories
will we tell
lying to ourselves
lying to those kids who grow up
believing in this fairy tale
We're merely perpetuating disappointment

We should be saying that when you really find yourself
When you are a whole person
The pieces will fall into place
And falling in love might be simple
and if you're hurt, you're strong enough
to lick your wounds
and shake it off

Heart Matters

I still look for your car sometimes

I know it's stupid, I know you're so far

I wake up in the night and reach for you

and sometimes in that moment between awake and asleep

where you're here in my dreams

I can smell you.

Feel the bed shift beneath the weight of you

I fight that moment with all of me,

willing myself to stay asleep

Because then maybe I wasn't only dreaming.

Sometimes I dream of a journey. A 2000 mile hike.

I wake up with sore feet

Awakening just as the door opens- a cruel joke.

We both have our problems, hurdles to overcome.

I know that I act crazy and I make things too hard sometimes

But I also know I'm right in feeling how I feel

You may still feel guilt, but the time for that is long gone.

I know there is something here. I feel it and I see it.

Try as I might, I can't get past it- instead, I'll just own it.

My love, for you is unrelenting, it is mine to feel and to give.

That is all I can do.

As long as I live.

Solitary

When I was four years old, the phone rang.
Nonchalantly, being a silly child, I answered it.
The person on the other end asked to speak to my father.
It was his cousin, calling to say that their grandmother had died.
I was never nonchalant about a phone call after that.

When I was thirteen, I dated a boy.
He was popular and cute and well liked at school.
Alone, he was angry and controlling.
He lost his temper and wound up with his hands wrapped around my throat
He left my tiny body lifeless on the ground
It was then that I learned how to walk on eggshells.

When I was fourteen, the bank foreclosed on the house.
The place with all of the perfect nooks and crannies,
As an only child, it was a small corner of the world that fwas just for me.
Walls and rooms, doors and dormers. It was more than brick and wood.
It was a true home, a sanctuary, my point A.
I have searched for a home ever since.

When I was eighteen, the towers fell
We watched from atop the school, across the harbor.
Too many parents never made it home that day.
The shock, rage, heartache and fear gave way to cynicism,
It was then that I lost my innocence.

When I was twenty, I woke up to coffee brewing.
Got dressed, and made my way into the living room
My father had been taking a nap when his heart stopped beating
He went gently into that good night, while my mother and I were lost.
He was our provider, and that burden then fell on me.
It was then that I learned what it really means to grow up.

The next year, at twenty-one, My mother wasted away
The cancer had spread throughout her body so quickly.
I signed the do not resuscitate order, held her hand and told her I loved her
She really couldn't live without him, I suppose.
I have felt alone in the world ever since.

I was married at twenty-three to a man who loved me enough
To feel obligated not to leave.
We went through the motions and when that failed, we realized our mistakes,
Five years married and we went our separate ways.
All those picket fence dreams went down the drain.
It was then that I came to terms with the fact that in some way, I will always be alone.
The last of my kind.

Now, I feel as an old maid, fragile and lonely.
I know heartbreak and love, betrayal and creation.
My hands that were once so full of possibility and purpose- now shake.
Most days my eyes cannot find the beauty in the ordinary
I look to the broken, to the possibility, and there between the cracks
I can hope- that everything I have learned, has not been in vain