It's All I Have to Bring Today

It’s All I Have to Bring Today
By: Emily Dickinson

It’s all I have to bring today –
This, and my heart beside –
This, and my heart, and all the fields –
And all the meadows wide –
Be sure you count – should I forget
Some one the sum could tell –
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.

I’m giving it everything I have, and somehow- it just doesn’t seem to be enough. But, for whom? For the world? For the stories I dream that remain untold? For the love who’s wounds are still so fresh- bleeding. Perhaps for those who cast judgment like a tree in the sunlight casts shadows? Or am I the only one measuring myself against Aphrodite? Trying desperately to make that fish climb the tree, and breaking a little more each time he falls to the ground- gasping for breath. Maybe it’s all of it. Maybe I am the leader of the bullies against myself. Maybe all I’m bringing...is already enough. Maybe...

Life On An Axis

The time-span of my life is broken now-

interspersed into segments of

“before you”

“during you” and

“after you”.

Dates are never just

dates anymore.

Everything

(oh everything!)

traces lines to you,

turning them to circles

that all lead right back to

the same place.

It should be so familiar,

but somehow- it’s not.

I guess you have to know where

you’ve been,

to remember when you return.

As Yet Untitled

There are so many things
I want to say,
But someone smarter and
far more creative
has already penned them and
put them to a melody-
such a haunting little tune.
Meanwhile, I feel robbed of
my experience to create
something meaningful out of
this disaster I'm enduring.
And it's not beautiful.
It's not beautiful or lovely
or any of those other
bull-shit terms people use to
try and create a false juxtaposition
between love and pain.
No- it's not any of those things.
It's heart-wrenching.
It's destruction.
It's the most complete sense of
being broken
that I've experienced.
And I wait for it to
pass me by,
like a stranger in the night,
whose name I used to know,
but somehow can't recall.
It's not you that I yearn to forget.
Never.
It's not the memories that
leave me fractured.
It's the fact that they are
but mere memories-
instead of moments yet to be lived.
And there's a part of me-
yes a part of me-
that would give all of
those memories for a
life-time of happy moments.
With you.
Yes you.
Who else?

Strange Seeing You Here

Hello, stranger.

It’s been a while-
So good to see your face.
The days have worn you down,
It seems your smile is hard to trace.
Your heart has gotten hardened,
It’s not just your bed that’s cold.
You don’t have to be the brave one,
When the cards aren’t meant to hold.

So, cry a little, let it out.
Don’t be afraid to fall.
Falling isn’t as tragic
As no movement at all.
Just break a little, own your scars.
There’s beauty in the disaster.
‘Cause every bit of you
Can come back from
What’s been shattered.

Quite Myself Again...

Oh, When I Was In Love With You

A.E. Housman

Oh, when I was in love with you,
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.

And now the fancy passes by,
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they’ll say that I
Am quite myself again.

Sometimes, the need to cry is sudden and insatiable. It crawls out from beneath the laughter and happiness that has just started to feel normal, rather than arbitrary, and it grabs hold of you. The worst part is that you never know what exactly triggers its arrival. Those familiar notes, the alto of his voice looming softly. The smell of my shampoo, wondering if it will ever smell as sweet as it did when my head rested beside yours. As I cook your favorite meal, adding each ingredient, and wishing you were standing beside me. Soon, it becomes easier to count the things that don’t remind me of you, but even that seems to leave me shattered- the shards of my own regret, cutting me deeper. It’s an optical illusion of pain that my heart falls for every time. Like those stairs that look so perfect, but really lead to nowhere. And when I was with you, I was perfect. I was prematurely brave and arrogantly presumptuous. Wonder did grow, plentiful and fragrant, like gardenia in the spring. But, the beauty turned blinding and the fragrance left me sick. That much adoration should never be bestowed upon a mortal. Their human nature will only serve to disappoint if it is to be compared to the thralls Eros. What’s to be expected after that? Maybe one day I will be quite myself again. If I can remember who that was…

Plateau of a Week

It’s been a week. And sometimes I thrill myself with how okay I am. Others, I’m a memory away from falling apart. I don’t want to lose you, but I simply don’t know how to be your friend. You called, and the song played, and my heart- involuntarily- skipped a beat. Old habits die hard. I wish my heart followed suit. Days pass, and I wonder if you miss me, like I miss you. Could you possibly? You don’t know how to be my friend either. It always turns to something more. I wish, quietly and much in vain, that today would become the day before and everything would be as it was. But, does that not mean that tomorrow would never come? No- it doesn’t. It is inevitably evident to all others, but my heart. My heart…

It clings to you like a small child wraps around its mother’s legs, possessive and unapologetic. It claims you as its own, as it has been accustomed to your presence for too long now. It molds itself to every memory, every physical trait, every little bit of you that is left within me. I try to fool it- pacify it with warm thoughts of summer and happiness. But all it senses is your absence, not altogether removed, but not in the place you’ve always been. It’s running, full-force, towards something the mind knows is only a mirage. But, that’s the thing about the heart; it doesn’t care about appearing foolish or vulnerable. It just wants what it wants, regardless of the damage that could occur as a result. Maybe we could all take a lesson in love from the part of us that knows it best.

Yellow Flowers

I was waiting for the bottom to fall out from underneath me. I do that a lot- you know? Wait for the inevitable to happen- the proverbial piano to come crashing down or the bus to slam into me when I least expect it. And that’s what happened. Your words echo like ghosts in my mind, haunting my thoughts.


You know I care. But for now-

No sound. No other noise than your voice.

I think it’s best if we’re just friends.

My heart stops. Seriously. Did I just die? No…? Well, it feels like it.

I can hear you talking about timing being off, how you feel bad about not being able to give 100% of yourself. Our lives are just going in two different directions. We’re underwater, now. How did we get here? Your voice is soft and fuzzy- but, my mind is already a thousand thoughts away.

CRASH!
SLAM!!

They hit me at once- a cataclysmic force crushing me whole. And I realize you’re still there, waiting to know that I’m okay. That I’m not falling apart. But, it’s too late. You know I am. I was never able to successfully hide my emotions from you. So, I cry and you listen. You’re so patient, and I know it’s hurting you just as bad as it’s hurting me because in the end it’s just not fair to either of us.

There are all these little pieces of you speckled haphazardly over my life. Everywhere I look, there you are. And I’ve never had to do this before. I don’t know how to do this. Memories float about like fruit flies loitering the air after a picnic. They’re a reminder that something beautiful was once there, but remains no longer. What am I supposed to do with them? Part of me wants to lure them into a jar with golden honey and thick molasses. You know- keep them near and pretend it’s not happening. Another part wants to close them up tight and place them on the highest shelf- protect them from being ripped away, or worse- finding them dead. Little black dots of disappointment and despair.

I have to figure out how to be the me that existed before the us was even a factor. But- how? There are so many steps and somehow I’ve lost my feet. How do I move on without replacing you? How do I wake up every morning and breathe in and out? How do I not break a little more every time I have to explain the status of you and I? Or keep my heart and stomach from lurching as I remove our captured moments from my office wall?

Yellow flowers take the place of our faces on my computer screen. Yellow flowers are nice. They don’t make me smile. Maybe, they never will. But, perhaps, in time- they might make the sadness just a little harder to find.

A World that Once Was- Will Never be Again

Did I know happiness before

you?
Ah, but I did.
Content and Laughter
were acquaintances, too.
There were movies and
sunsets-
landfills and
broken records.
Things went missing,
to be found again.
The Earth spun,
and still it spins
with a slightly skewed
perspective.
The stars reach a little
closer.
The sun feels a little
warmer.
And I feel like a fish with
big eyes, but no gills-
In the place I’ve always
been,
yet not able to breathe.
It’s foreign and menacing
Though beautifully so.
And I know if the world
between us falls
away,
I will not cease to exist.
I will go on.
But, the world that once was-
will never be again.