Tag: relationships

Moon.

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A 4 am parkway visit to see a blood moon made me think of you.

We never took late night trips to the parkway,
but you were always so excited about the stars.

It was beautiful up there, and the stars,
the stars shined so brightly that it felt like they wanted to mark the occasion.
Did you know, this was the longest partial lunar eclipse in 580 years?

I wanted to invite you,
but knew doing so would be from a place of love and longing,
and I am working so hard to move forward from you.

I went with friends, and as we shivered in the early morning,
wrapped in car blankets, I thought of you and I,
and how happy I was to be there,
watching Earth cast a shadow across the moon,
humming songs from our moon playlist.

Blame.

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Society has taught me that, in order to heal, I need to blame someone;
I need to justify my mental havoc externally.

But society never told me that blame doesn’t soothe; it doesn’t bring contentment.
It drips like a wet blanket draped around shoulders, chilling to the bone and ruining all that it touches.

Blame perpetuates the mental skirmishes. Weeks have felt like days as I’ve come to realize a month has passed.
How I wish to be righteous in my pain; how I wish society’s lesson on placing fault stuck.

Except, I’m no more right than you, and this lesson doesn’t apply.
If it was as easy as sliding on two-toned glasses to view the world in terms of right and wrong,
I’d be able to fit through the square hole designed by society.
I wouldn’t be out here, soft and awkward to hold, incapable of heeding society’s standards.

I see a reflection of myself in your eyes, and a reflection of you in each person you’ve touched.
I know that my pain is shared and taken and given in an ever-changing form.
My desire to blame is really a desire to heal, but society never prepared me for that.

I guess this is all to say,
I don’t blame you.

Me.

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Signs of you exist everywhere.
My walls, my shelves, my music —
each physical and intangible characterization of me —
feel tarnished. Blighted.

If only these walls could speak;
they’d tell of the laughter
that emanated from us
as sweet sleep eluded our racing minds
and cold feet never warmed.

The windowsills, adorned with momentos,
carry the weight of my heart,
the power of the Nantahala river,
and the sweetness of a friend.

My sanctuary,
the metaphorical holy ground on which I spend
more time than I do with any human,
feels cluttered. So much of this place
I shared with you.
Too many songs remind me of you,
and too many favorites you introduced,
each one woeful in it’s own right, but even more so now.

I’ve cleaned but have not decluttered.
I don’t want to change the space,
but falling asleep to only dream of you
makes me wonder if a part of you
has never left this place.

Did you feel my pulse through the water yesterday?
A blue heron did, revealing herself to me, slowly.
Her mere existence gave proof of my ponderings,
and the truth rooted me to the rock I perched upon.

Maneuvering through this world
on legs that feel like twigs
and feet as heavy as cinder blocks,
I’m trying to see more and spin less.

Separation.

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I’ve nestled myself under the boughs of a tree,
each foot rooted in the dirt,
back resting gently on rough bark.

The sun is shining today,
warming my skin from an intense cold
that had penetrated through layers of
cloth-fear-grime-loneliness
to leave me heartbroken.

Right now,
the pain exists,
but I’m not trying to run from it.

Tomorrow, even 1 hour from now,
may be a different story,
but in this moment,
I’m sitting with the uncomfortableness.

My back is sore, eyes are puffy,
heart pumps out an unlikely rhythm,
but I feel the detachment.

It’s minor, so miniscule
that I have to focus to find it,
but it brings me solitude.

This line, the slightest degree of separation
between self and emotion,
reminds me that it is okay.

There is no running from pain.
It folds and unfolds,
hides and seeks.

My pain is akin to that of others.
I feel as they feel
across time and space,
outside human constructs.

I aim to turn my pain into compassion —
an acknowledgement of the past and future,
a placeholder for what comes next.

Act.

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I’ve stumbled upon a familiar pain.
While previously distant,
it’s become an intimate friend.

I’ve wished things were different
on every shooting star and every
11:11 clock reading.

Foolish games, I suppose —
the acts of a child in distress
trying to find peace
in the hypothetical-verse.

Yet, I watched the clock tonight
and did the same thing.

I knew it would change nothing;
you are you,
and I am me.

We are worlds apart
when all I want is to hold you.

We are not a ‘we’ now,
even though I long to be.

We were short — fleeting.
A beginning that never began.

I didn’t think it would end,
but I guess that’s what happens
when someone puts on an act.

The show ends, the players bow,
and the theatre empties.

Only, I am left in my seat,
laden with anguish,
forgotten.

I hear the doors lock,
and the aching in my head
reverberates through the room.

Entangled.

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The woods turned from yellow to red
as I rounded the curve of a path
we once walked down together.

All I wanted was to share that moment
with you. The snapshot continues to
float across my vision, pesky as a fruit fly.

I’m so entangled with you
(even just the thought of you)
that I fear, to detangle,
I will lose a bit of myself to you,
to the situation, to the atmosphere.
As I breathe out,
love-concern-grief drips from my mouth
to dampen the collar of my shirt.

If only it was as easy as it was
that one day, (you know the one)
where we walked and talked —
laughed even.

I miss the rain and the wet grass;
I miss the tilt of your head;
I miss the quickness of your smile.

I want to tell you these things and more,
but I fear hurting further and loving less.
So, I exist in this complexity of human emotion,
trying to let self bleed through
in each action I take.

Distance.

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Everyday,
we actively decide who
we want to be with.

Sometimes,
it’s not even a question.

Other times,
one jumps through hoops
to make sense of their relationships.

I’m not a fan of jumping.
I’d rather walk or run or bike.
Maybe that’s why I’m struggling.

I’m unsure of how much is too much.
I want to put you first, in many ways,
but I also intend to be front-and-center.
Is it self-led to want connection?

My dilemma isn’t unique,
but maybe different on some level.
So here I sit, thinking
and listening to one song
on repeat.

October 11th.

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It would be dramatic to say I feel lost,
but I do, in a way.
I feel and feel and feel and feel
until my bones go numb.

All I want is what was.
I shared my truth
after you did yours.

(As scary as it was,
I never understood how easy it would be.
That’s because of you. You
make it easy.)

I hate this impasse we’ve stumbled upon.
I’m struggling to find the right words.

(Could I have said more?)

I have a list, featuring
all of the things I would have shared
with you, in the last 24 hours, haunting my mind.

(It’s 22 items long. Funny coincidence, no?)

This is why I stepped back as much as I did,
because all of *this* might be too much,
even if you do not agree.

We talked about algebraic equations last week,
remember 2398 + sqrt(739)/42.133354?
I finally solved it.
2398.65
Isn’t it funny how it ended up nearly the same as the start?

Maybe that’s our path.
Maybe we are simply an algebraic expression
that brings us back to our beginning.

(Part of me hopes this is not true. I want to go forward,
forward at a crawl, walk, stumble, run — anything.
It isn’t entirely the same though,
maybe we are the 0.65.)

Our start,
was the day we stared at bugs and flowers,
ate wild blueberries,
and I quickly learned I wanted to know more.

I can’t say what will happen from here,
but I wait and think and feel.
Maybe, just maybe,
what you recognize in yourself,
is something so new, so beautiful,
that it will take time to understand.

(If you let me,
I’ll be there to help you understand.)