Total Eclipse

I can’t figure out if it’s the not talking that hurts the most, or the fact that when we do talk there is the constant, lingering reminder that you are no longer mine. I know it’s real this time- it all feels different. The tone. The permanence. The shallow, empty feeling that follows after having once been so full, then ravenous, now numb. You pop up in my life in the most abrupt, unsettling ways. Images that used to be pleasant rabbit trails of thought are now intruders, obscenely infiltrating a lunch break. A good joke. A quiet night. You’re the shadow behind my lips, the strings at the corners of my smile, keeping it from reaching my eyes. Meanwhile, I’m drowning in memories of a time when you were the light that helped me to shine. Perhaps brighter than I ever did, but maybe not as bright as I ever will. Maybe?



I went to the beach, and I stuck my toes in the sand. I smelt the salt air. I felt the sun against my skin, fragments of waves tossing me, gently, in the cool water. But, suddenly- there you were, creeping in and taking me back. We stood together on that beach splashing and smiling, the gray skies ominous above us. The day you just ripped me from was much prettier, but this one had everything the other didn’t. This one had you. So, I lingered a while in the thought, thinking if I just closed my eyes and wanted it bad enough, I could transport back there. The sounds around me, recently engulfing, slipped away; and I was neither here nor there. Stuck between past and present. And I want to cry, saddened by the thought of myself as a voluntary prisoner of a mind and heart that raged against me.


It would be much easier of you were a jerk. Or if you had treated me wrong. But, there was no wrongdoing, no betrayal. Just a guy who was brave enough to say that what he had to give just wasn’t enough. I stood, heart quivering, knowing I would take whatever you offered, and I would make it enough. I would’ve settled for that. But, not you. No, you wanted more, yet I had nothing more to provide. I was spent and exhausted in every sense of the word. So, I watched you walk away, forbidding my feet to follow, still knowing full well that a part of me was going with you.


Finally, it seems the ride is gradually coming to a stop, but I still haven’t gotten permission to free my arms and legs from the confines of the vehicle. Danger still lurks, teeming in the shadows; waiting. Coiled like a serpent- ready to strike, but I’m aware. I’m aware that I can stay in that cart, slowly taking me to no place in particular, afraid of the sting that might come. Or I can stand up and move on, knowing the sting will hurt, but it will not kill me. Now, if I can just find my feet…

Breaking Free

Nothing fits, and I’m railing against my skin. I want out, but you just can’t seem to notice. And, I told you fifteen hundred times that I didn’t want that picture there, but you hung it anyway while my back was turned. You set your footprints over my room, and like a nymph high on Mr. Clean you transformed it from chaotic to pristine. But, I never wanted that. No! Don’t you listen to me anymore? Do you hear the words that come out of my mouth? The ones I’m feeling rest unsaid, seething in the back of my throat. They linger there because I know they’ll serve no purpose here. I’m drowning, my hand raised above the surface that’s slowly drifting away, but you just watch- looking up from your section of the sand momentarily to make sure I’m just drowning, not dying. But, why didn’t you ever think to teach me to swim? And, should I start to drown, you are at my side. My knights in shining armor. Yet, don’t you see? All that metal turns to rust from being in the water. You don’t belong there. It’s my ocean. That’s your land. I’m trying to make it in this scary place, and instead of watching me suffer, and tarnishing your shine, why can’t you just support me enough to release my anchor?