the wind, pushed forward by the waves of the sea
(as if propelled)
moves across the sand,
gracefully
surprisingly gracefully.
so that when it reaches me
it’s a soft exhale
that moves the fine unkempt hairs
horizontally
over my closed eye lids.
who knew that even when
the wind makes us ticklish
we can contemplate
the world.
The fiery sun of my passions
evaporates the love lakes of my soul
Clouds my thoughts
and reigns you into existence
-saul williams
i am everyone
and at the same time
i am also no one.
fear grips
as i wait for the blow
that inflicts
irrevocable suffering
but
i am untouched.
invisible.
a mere bystander
powerless to change
anything.
where are you,
oh magician in the sky?
where are you,
oh crusader of some righteous cause,
defender of the weak?
where were you?
like the man
after your heart,
like the man
who was also
painfully aware
i too,
weep in the dark.
we are not so
resilient.
and so we cry
to the one who does not slumber,
who sends Comfort
to the very ones
who wait for
desperation
before asking
where are you?
you are there
powerful
powerless
invisible,
you wait for the blow
because you too
are everyone.
and at the same time,
no one.
i regret
that we did not
together
rise early
and watch the ocean
alone
i let the mist
rest on my face
and cling to the fine strands of hair
that are being tossed back and forth
covering my eyes, nose mouth.
blown by the wind.
the waves explode
in rhythm
collapsing onto the
soaked sand;
draining back to their source
they drag my thoughts out to sea.
i consider the fact
that i am incredibly small
in the scheme of things
the scheme of
the ocean
distance
sadness
people
you
and the position of
myself
in the midst of it all.
i regret
that we did not
together
rise early
and watch the ocean
there is awe here
and i wonder if this place
could have also
dragged your
hopeless thoughts
out to sea.
you were merely
you
and i was merely
i
and the meager mereness
of our
nearness
billowing,
we.
you
and
me.
last night
i again found myself
tossing and turning,
considering, deliberating
the endless thoughts
and implications-
that keep me awake,
but eventually
become dreams
while i sleep.
i was
ruminating
you, You, him
and
the duct tape that is
scarcely
holding the binding of my
textbook together.
i couldn’t differentiate
which was of most importance
at the moment.
they all intersected at some point
weaving and connecting
even if they are
unrelated.
and so it was:
questions of death and dying
security
the lack of it,
love,
and then.
not love
?
and the unknown function of the appendix
you four frustrate me
keeping me up at night
with questions
that cannot be answered,
but only asked
yet
despite much coffee and confusion
all of you, I love.
yes, even the book
that is held together
by that amazing
grey sticky stuff.
anatomy and physiology book… you are BEAT!
life was so….
(please insert 5 synonyms for “busy”)
but now it’s seems as if it’s not.
.
feeling minor displacement
i find myself awkwardly still
but this time i can’t fight it
and i know it’s time to test these quiet waters
of the mundane.
.
painfully silent in my own little
rowboat
i watch the symmetrical pattern that ripples make.
that’s You.
i feel the intense heat from the sun that beats down.
that’s more of You.
((i’ll try not to shield myself too much))
.
my little rowboat gently rocks
as if tapped by Your gentle wind
.
in these new and clam waters
i listen
i
breathe You in
exhale me out
and somewhat gracefully
fall
.
to envelop myself
in this refreshing sea of You
with
me.
this morning,
half awake and heavy-eyed
i pulled back my curtain
exposing
a radiant, practically luminous
cloudless ocean of
happiness.
pausing
i wondered if it was a trick
this bright welcoming sun,
was it merely 9º?
…sneaky blue sky
i have been counting to
three hundred and sixty five.
it looms
like a dark cloud
to engulf me
it was fifteen months ago
when i penned the first words
to her
so I could begin to fill the
empty space of
memories never made.
and i never imagined
that only four months later
i would pen the first words
to you.
grieving the memories
we can no longer make
i hate these days
these grey days
where white covers everything
like a secret
hidden beneath the
guise of such beauty.
toothy smiles to veil
the ugly truth
too unbearable to face
the arrant permanency of
your absence.
in the frigid air
my breath is a
wisp that fades before me
cruelly dissipating.
like
your voice
your laugh
(they are now leaving me also)
and i can not bear the
thought
of how
i am left here with
a void t0o deep to fill,
the deafening silence that i fear
no melody will ever
drown out
i feel at a loss for words
not for a lack of them
but because I am searching
for the right
ones…
i was going to write a witty little thing
that would make you laugh
about the snow
about the cold
about the inevitably
clumsy situations
i often find myself
in
however,
(and there is almost always a however)
it seems we learn to hide behind
the things that make us laugh
so it was after I almost slipped on the ice
for the third time that day
or after
i stood in awe of the icicles
that attach themselves to the
gutters
when I made unnecessary tracks
in the drifts of snow
piled carelessly on the side of the road.
i exhaled out the bitter air.
somehow, in my own way
embracing the
numbing chill that filled my lungs
and stung my skin
i thought about how i
enjoy
the sound of silence
that snowflakes make
when they fall
navigating through
convoluted thoughts
i wondered
at the concept of
remorse
and asked myself if it can
negate the pains inflicted
can such a response
elicit
a lonely satisfaction
that stems from your guilt?
because anger has given way
to loss.
(though understanding
still evades me)
is this
acceptance
of the deeds
that have been done?
or is this what the beginning of
what forgiveness looks like?
i am ambivalent
for the twenty first time this week,
which is three times today,
at least.
.
i am pondering options
again.
and the choices
that lie always
before me
.
this muddled mess of
privilege and
passion.
talent,
tangled
with the
felt truth
that i have everyone
but myself
to Please
.
makes me wish
i could take it all apart
unravel this
mass of confusion
separate the pieces of
displaced motives
and
misplaced time.
.
i would like to
lay it all out into
neat
organized piles
of maturity
and
commitment
.
but the choices
that are so
impressively
structured
tidy
and sure
.
i find
often make it difficult
to drift off to
sleep at night
.
because the answers
that never seem to come
with the questions
that never seem to stop
and the worries
that i stubbornly
hold onto.
play over and
over
and over
in my mind
.
this knot
that can not be so easily undone,
formed from my own
reluctance
and
formed in
the pit of my stomach
is slowly undoing me.
it lingers heavy in the air
the melancholy thickness
wrapped around
grey and green
that attaches itself to
these reminders
these markers of time.
.
on the outskirts
around the perimeter
and onto the threads
of your old blue sweater
i cling
.
i breathe
and remember
.
but
with my hand moving dirt
into little piles
adjacent to
you
.
i bury it
in this
shallow void
.
the things too hard to feel
but are felt anyway.
the face that is too hard to see
but is seared into my mind’s
eye
.
i look up
through the
cold and empty blur
and wonder
how it is
that i feel
you hold the world,
but not
me.
“If you ask me, the most obvious thing that happened after the Fall was that people started wearing all kinds of clothes. Just go to the store and look around and you will see people wearing clothes. Everywhere you go you see people wearing clothes. Even as I type these words I am wearing clothes. I mean, evolution may explain how we came from apes, but does nothing to explain why we wear clothes.”
oi. donald miller. you crack me up to no end.
remember that little comment i wrote a few months back?
“i anticipate this summer to be quite telling for me, ending with a reemergence of clarity for my life. expect a blog near or on that date which will divulge my plans for the immediate future.”
i am laughing and rolling my eyes at myself.
oh, me.
here i sit
the end of summer has arrived
the plans are made
but they are set in clay.
i’ve thought the thoughts
in this process of
mine
the purchases are purchased
the schedules are scheduled
they are settled.
and i am not.
because
as time keeps moving forward
my awareness
that I must once again
check another bag
remove my shoes as I walk through security
and turn around that one last time
to catch a glimpse
and
wave goodbye
to someone I love
is drawing near
and
i hate to have to bear it again.
will the clay harden to stone?
or
will a fateful call,
which forever rings in my ears
always loom
close behind?
only time can tell.
so while i sit here wishing i could
turn back time
slow it down
speed it up
or
put it on pause
so i can catch my breath.
my tangled and confused thoughts
rise to you
and i wonder
are you still proud of me?
o my summer.
my summer of wandering;
sometimes lost, sometimes not,
sometimes roaming seemingly aimlessly through this maddening world
looking for a safe place to land
and sometimes finding it.
bold, and undaunted you are my courageous summer
you never allow the mishaps, and tragedies, and just plain
bullshit
to fetter you
or keep you from
literally doing the cliché:
taking the road which is almost never traveled
the one that will take you to the places you
know you must fly through
squinting
as i peek at you through the condensation forming on the glass of this
mohillo
i find myself perplexed and intrigued by this beautiful season,
which somehow alighted upon my shoulder
and whispered in my ear
sharing
laughter, the complexities of life, the tragedy of love, the evolution of faith, secret fears, the flash of the camera, the love handles that hug our hips, and the doctors that piss us off,
but most of all
randomness.
you are most definitely
my summer of beauty,
my summer of safety
my summer in israel
not Yours
damn you.
today i thought,
“it doesn’t feel like sunday.”
then i realized
i don’t know what sunday feels like anymore.
i think it is important for you to know
that this revelation i had,
while sitting there in the woods,
as i looked up at the light pouring through the cracks in those
dense green branches;
was intensely profound for me.
as i basked in Beauty
i pondered what it meant that i didn’t feel a void
like i thought i should
shouldn’t i feel shame or remorse?
i had not previously considered
the implications of the death of a day of the week.
an extra day to not set my alarm; a day of carefree
laziness
and
sleeping in.
no more masks, pedestals, expectations
or love that comes with condition
if i feel any guilt at all, it only comes from my lack of it
because in all honesty
i don’t really miss you.
so may you rest in peace sunday.
i grieve
for what you
could have been
what you should have been
maybe someday i will discover that you have
returned from the dead.
and that you are not what you once were…
but for now
i’ll turn over and burrow further down into my
safe and warm blankets
to dream of better days.
i’m supposed to be reading a poem for my friend’s wedding next month, and omigosh- is it ridiculously difficult to find a good love poem!
her taste is a lot like mine so here are the perimeters:
*no cheese.
*not something everyone else has heard.
*preferably something from this era.
I probably won’t be reading this one, it might be too off the wall, even for her, but 1 love it.
Billy Collins people.
You’re welcome.
LitanY.
You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.
However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way you are the pine-scented air.
It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general’s head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.
And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.
It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.
I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley,
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.
I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman’s tea cup.
But don’t worry, I am not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and–somehow– the wine.
the happy couple
it seems unfathomable
that the days keep
passing
the sun rises
then dips behind the clouds at night
the earth keeps revolving
and
all around me
the people are steadily
changing.
laughing, touching, looking at,
and talking to
one another
all around me
everything is moving
and nobody
stops
not for you
and certainly
not for
me.
i am here
unmoving, silent
not forward, not backward.
just still,
yet at the same time
i am sinking
and i think
that it would comfort me
much
if there was someone
who could observe with me
that the world is moving way too fast
the hands on the clock won’t stop ticking by
you are not here with me
and nothing is
okay
if you could read me
all the intricate pieces of my heart
carefully turning the pages
not scanning.
no cliff notes.
but pouring over every word
studying.
analyzing.
trying to understand every complicated chapter of my life
piecing together how it has shaped who i am
i would want you to never stop reading
this novel
that is me
and when you found out
who i am
who i really am
when you realized that there is not one
paragraph
phrase
word
or punctuation mark that you would change
then the pages of my tattered heart
might begin to be repaired
because someone will have finally read me
from cover to cover
and found that they could love me
for me.
happiness is a journey, not a destination…
“for a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin- real life. but there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. at last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. this perspective has helped meto see there is no way to happiness. happiness is the way. so treasure every moment you have and remember that time waits for no one.”
- souza
