Still Something

Even as she typed the words, she knew she shouldn’t. She knew she only perpetuated her heartbreak in doing so. Even after everything that happened, after all the tactless words, after all the countless tears, there was still something hiding just beneath the surface. Still that feeling of loss. Still the idea that he might be the one that got away. Why she continued this pattern she was quite unaware. Surely she had moved on. He certainly wasn’t the one occupying her thoughts as of late. But some how she still needed him. She needed to hear his voice. She needed to see his face. She needed to know that he was ok. And so every once in a while, when she saw a Whitman poem, or heard a song he loved, she would think of him. She would remember the cool November air the day they ruled the world. She would recount the conversations held in the dark hours of morn. She would remember the way his eyes look the night he kissed her. And then she would send him a message to inquire about his life and patiently await his delayed response. On the inside, her heart would fracture just a touch as she tried to memorize the feelings they had surely lost. A knot would form in her throat as she remembered the night they traveled to Italy and Spain from the comfort of her den. And then, as if to represent her solitude, a single tear might form, to remind her of the day things changed. Even after all this time, there was still something she couldn't release.

If

If I could write like Whitman

If I had the words of Frost

I'd tell you how I felt in prose

Lest it all be lost

If I could speak like Shakespeare

If I had the mind of Donne

I'd have let my heart run wild

Before it all begun

If I could see the world as Auden

If I had the heart of Yeats

I'd choose to fall for your blue eyes

Before I fell for Fate

Where are you?

Where are you love? Where are you? You must be out there somewhere, waiting just like me. Counting down the minutes until we finally meet. Or maybe you are out there just as I am, with a book upon your pillow and a pen within your hand. Perhaps I've even met you but it was simply not the time for our eyes to meet in sequence as you place your hand in mine. Oh, but my impatience, how it haunts me so. I wait around in silence, pacing to and fro. I listen to the rhythmic beats of my heart dancing in my chest. Where are you love? Where are you? Without you I can't rest.

All we really want

The days, they pass with swift goodbyes

As I find myself staring into your blue eyes

Ever wondering what your thinking

Preventing my whimsical heart from sinking

For the words that choke me and steal my breathe

lie just beneath the surface

They keep me from speaking, they swell in my mind

All the while, we're wasting time

Stuck on rules and regulations

In hopes of avoiding a bad situation

When all we really need is each other

A warm hand to hold, a light to guide the way

A loving embrace, a reason to stay

All we really need is something simple

To love and be loved in return

He is...

He is the type of man all others aspire to be; a true leader. His eyes, gentle and honest, mimic the altruism in his soul. His hands are soft and rounded and represent the kind of strength every woman looks for. His arms hold the security of the Roman Empire at its peak. Everything about him is unique yet accessible. He has seen much pain in his life and is stronger for it. Life lessons were not something he failed to grasp or to share with others. He is grounded and stable and understands the ways of the world. His smile is genuine as that of child. He is the type of man any woman would be lucky to call her own.

"Awesome"

“Has anyone told you how awesome you are?” She read the sentence with immediate irony. “Awesome” you say? Oh, how she missed the simplicity of such a word. There were no complications with “awesome,” nothing to read into, no implications. Everyone knew just what it meant to be “awesome.” While the word was seldom in her vocabulary as of late, it still made its way to the front line every now and again. Someone once told her she was far better than the insipid nature of “awesome” and he was completely right. It was a rather colorless word for a vocabulary such as hers. But she liked it. She liked the essence of something being “awesome.” It reminded her of Mark Twain. “My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.” That was how she viewed the word “awesome,” it was the water of her vocabulary and one can’t make wine without it. “Has anyone told you how awesome you are?” They have now she said with a smile, they have now.

Three Small Words

Three small words, said all too much
And they meant nothing to you
And even if I felt it
With every fiber of my soul
It wasn't enough to tell
Not enough for you to know
The wind, it twists and turns
And clock just keeps on ticking
As I play the situation in my head
All the things that could have happened
All the things I should have said
Repeat like a broken record
Reminding me its through

The bittersweet taste
Of your words on my tongue
Everything we left behind
And all we could become
They circle me in torment as I constantly forget
That everything we ever were is lost in regret
And nothing makes it worth it
And nothing makes it less
And nothing makes it better
And nothing makes it rest
And what should I expect
For love is always blind
And now there's nothing I can do
To get you off my mind

Amory Blane

She had once called him the Walt Whitman of his generation, save his impatience with pens and paper. His words seemed to follow as if from a divine force and he was but the medium. She realized now, he was less the Whitman type and more so the Fitzgerald; more specifically his self manifestation in Amory Blane. Every pain he felt was surely the first of its kind. His love was the purest of this dimension. Each word he spoke was infinately more orignial than its predicessor. Of these things he was sure. Convinced only of his humble superiority, he journeys through life alone and feeble. He thurst for someone to connect with on a deeper level yet seeks only the vanities of the world. Well liked by most, or so he believes, his pride is easily hurt yet. Indeed, he and Amory would have been the best of friends; true mirrors of the other. She remineses of the days she still saw Walt Whitman. It is times like these she wishes he was still here.

The Bar

Her hair was frizzy and dried out, held back by her fake designer shades. Her laugh, almost as fake as her sunglasses, created a cacophony in the bar. She bought a round of drinks for everyone as though we all still ran in the same circle; as though we were all still friends. No one drank. Her fake laugh, tight jeans and baby gap shirt disgusted me. There wasn't a stranger in the bar she didn't brush against. Not a single man at which she didn't bat her eyes. This was her style. And while quite uncomprehensable to me, it was the way of the world for people like her. In this day and age, sex sells and she was fully stocked and loaded.

Losing Him

She lay there in the dark crying. She hated pretending she was better off with out him. There was no reset button for her heart. One can not simply forget to love another. Even after the pain has become too much to bare, it is still impossible to ignore the feelings. A battered women still goes home every night, not in fear, but in love. Even covered in blood, her sanguine heart still loves him in ways she won't soon forget. Any amount of pain is better than the idea of losing him. It wasn't even her heart so much that missed him, but her mind. Rarely does one find such a like minded soul with which he or she might share a view on the world. The comfort of understanding, the freedom with which they spoke, the closeness of it all; that was the hardest to lose.

Tired

She was tired. Tired of hoping, tired of dreaming, tired of wishing. Tired. She didn't want to pick up the pieces and start over again. She didn't want to figure out a new course of action. For once she just wanted everything to fall in line. For something to be easy. But her life had never been that way and she knew better than to be hopeful of it now. Nothing ever went according to plan; it never even went close to plan. Even when the plan was a simple one, it was sure to incure a detour or two. She could see the life she wanted right in front of her eyes. The people who would be her friends, the places she would drink her coffee, the roads upon which she would travel. All of these came to mind so vividly that it was impossible to believe there were any other options and yet in a moments notice it would surely crumble leaving her devastated and lost. Time for a new plan she told herself all the while realizing nothing would ever make her as happy as her original dream. Perhaps that's all she was in this world; a dreamer. A dreamer whose visions would always lie just out of her reach. And it was with this idea in mind and this agony in heart, that she one again began to formulate a new plan.

Ballerina

Oh prima ballerina, why are you dancing so
spinning in your circles, putting on your show
for no one here is watching
the eyes they do digress
and the movement of your arms
flowing from your chest
seems all too lost in translation
with each turn of your dress

Breathe

She sat there mindlessly playing her matching game and could think of nothing other than him. “Why” she thought. “Why can’t I just let him go?” She pondered this for over an hour. She remembered all the good times, the phone calls, the poetry, the honesty. One day in particular came racing to her mind. He had called her, mid-afternoon as she was going to work and the excitement in his voice was uncontainable. He had just left counseling, and had the most amazing story to tell her. “So I was in counseling right, and you had sent me a message and I looked at it and sent you one back and when I was done, he looked at me and asked who that was. I told him it was you and he said ‘You better hang on to that one, your face lit up like a Christmas tree when you got that message.’ Isn’t that amazing?” Yea, she thought, it was awesome. Awesome, now there is a word he hates! She noticed recently that she didn’t use it any more; she lost the habit. He told her she was way too smart to use words as ambiguous and insipid an ‘awesome.’ She missed him. She felt her face warming and tears fighting her eyes. What happened? Things were so right this time, and then out of no where it was gone. She felt such a loss over him, unlike any other she knew and she did not know why. Did he feel it? she wondered. Did he miss her? Did he think of her often? She tried so hard to be ok without him, not to think of him; she tried to let him go. She knew that all things happened just as they were meant to, but she really wanted this to be the one. She couldn’t breathe without him.

Mirror Mirror

Mirror mirror on my vanity
Help me decipher all this insanity
For the tables have turned
And the mighty have fallen
And those who once left me
Are now the ones calling
Your confidants now confide in me
For your true colors they now see
And how funny I find it that they show their affection
Since now they’re alone and without your attention
I was here all along when your interest they wanted
But you tossed them aside and now they are haunted
You used them and left them alone by the sea
And just as I called it they ran back to me
And soon enough your small army will fall
Leaving you alone, once and for all

The Letter

She laid the letter on his desk, accompanied by his favorite sugar coated candies, and walked out. “He’ll be back” she said to herself, “they always come back.” It was true. Everyone who had ever hurt her, been dishonest, or left her life for any reason, all of them at some point had come back begging forgiveness and drenched in excuses. An email, a text message, a phone call, even a Facebook message; it was inevitable. Even people in high school who had stopped speaking to her at random had lost their ways in college and came crawling back. The message was always the same.
“Dear Friend, What an idiot I have been, your friendship was the best I ever had and times without you have been quite sad, please forgive my foolish ways, please remember the better days, I pledge to be a better friend, I pledge to tell the truth, I pledge that I am different, I swear I really need you.”
And she always forgave them. Her one vice was kindness; loyal to the point of liability, forgiving to a fault. She refused to see anything but the best in people and as such was often disappointed. She didn’t see people for who they were; she saw them for who she knew they would become; for who they could be. But that wasn’t who they were now, and to expect that of them was unfair. She was a pusher; she pushed people to their potential even when they didn’t want it, even when they could get there yet. She wanted everyone to be the absolute best they could be. It was because of this, that so many people came and went; the weak never made it. The strong ones saw this quality in her and thrived from it, always reaching for more. But the weak ones, they weren’t ready yet, not now, but they always came back. “He’ll be back” she told herself. “They always come back.”

One Stone at a Time

The red from the napkins stared her in the eyes as she diligently yet mindlessly rolled silverware. If he was half as special as she thought he was, then she had surely lost something great. When her alarm sounded in the morning, she merely laid there accepting the diatribe. She lost the will to move. She wanted to fall into the deep abyss of her pillows and never be found. She wanted to get so lost in her feelings that she might eventually become numb again for this pain was too much for her feeble heart to bear. Every ounce of her being ached. Her soul was screaming in agony yet few could hear her. Her eyes had lost the light that kept them alive. Her words were half hearted and whispered. Her smile was no where to be found. The world around her grew silent as she lost herself in the world of her broken spirit. She had never felt this kind of pain before. She felt as though she had lost part of herself. It was as if her legs had been removed yet she could still feel their pain as present as ever. She looked at the wreckage that had become her once organized life and fell apart. The ivory tower had crumbled beneath her and she stood amongst the rubble dumbfounded. To rebuild such a monument was impracticable and to forget it impossible. But how does one leave such a space empty? How does one start over from such a disaster? One stone at time, she told herself. You start one stone at a time until eventually you could start to rebuild. She reached down, with a slow and steady hand, and picked up a stone. She studied it, turned it over in her hand, closed her fist around it and felt its power. And so she began to clear the rubble, slowly but surely, one stone at a time.

Trophy Girl

Her eyes burned, her muscles hurt. It was five in the morning and she hadn’t slept that night. Thoughts of them kept her awake and she lay there crying. She couldn’t sleep knowing he was there, just one room away, hidden the silence of broken promises and shattered relationships. She was anxious, tense, almost manic at the moment. She wanted to get up and run, or scream or move. Anything to release what was welling up inside her. But she couldn't move. Every breathe she took was labored. Her body had no will left, no energy with which to continue running.
“I wouldn’t call it cheating; we’ll just say I was leading her on…” The song blared from the speakers and yet so eloquently reflected her life. He wanted his trophy girl and he got her. A shiny prize to place upon the mantel and show your friends. But like the trophy, she was beautiful and empty and so was the relationship they were staging. Empty. He couldn’t talk to her about politics or literature. She didn’t understand his poetry or prose. Their feelings for one another were shallow but easy and that’s just what they wanted. The McDonalds of relationships; fast, easy, cheap and ultimately something you regret buying later. It leaves you unsatisfied and longing for something substantial. I yearned for the day it would all fall apart, the day I could watch the stage lights dim and the actors take their final bows.

Dressed in Black

She was dressed in all black, as if there would be a funeral. Black shoes, black shirt, black pants. All black. Much like her life things seemed to come in darker shades these days. The people she thought were important had betrayed her; she was invisible to them now. A half smile, a fake wave; that’s what she was worth. She could trust no one. Everyone’s eyes were hiding something. Everyone’s words were insincere. In a way, her attire was quite appropriate. There would be a funeral. A funeral for all those she held dear who were no longer with her. They had replaced her with the fake illusions of a life they knew they didn’t want. But it was easier to have this fake life than to have a real one and risk part of themselves to be part of something greater. People didn’t want great things anymore. People wanted what was easy. But easy was fake and unrewarding; just like they were. Everyone was fake. She was alone in her own reality and suddenly realized why no one took the leap. It was lonely on the other side of things. Reality was a lonely place. So she sits in her reality looking attentively at all the faces once familiar to her, waiting, so patiently waiting, for the day someone would join her. But some how she knew that day would never come. They loved their fake lives, they were blind to their own true feelings and they always would be. She would spend eternity alone in her own reality; but at least it was honest here.

Running

35…40…46…49…52…56…63…67…72…75! A steady 75 strides a minute, second level resistance and 24 stride length. She had to run. To run as fast as her body would let her; She had to get away. She wanted to run faster than her emotions could keep up with her. She wanted to run so fast all she could feel was the burning of her calves as she forced them in elliptical motions until her lungs finally gave way and she would collapse. She imagined him watching her run. What would he say? Would he see her power, would he feel it and think how heroically determined she was? Or would he, as he so often did, look right through her and see that she was simply running. Running away from all the emotions she tried so hard not to have anymore. She gave up emotions years ago and after a mild sabbatical in counseling, forced herself to feel again. The only problem was that she seemed to forget how to control her emotions; to not be consumed by them. He had done this to her and she knew he could see it, feel it just as she did and that scared her. Why couldn’t she just let him go?

Trapped

She hadn’t showered in two days and she turned the water up about twelve degrees above her comfort. The cascade of heat burned the sensitive skin of her face and she was grateful for it. It was comforting to feel something stronger than the rage of emotions exploding inside her. Mindlessly she began the routine. Shampoo, front right corner on the left; pour one ounce, close bottle, replace on tub, lather hair, let sit. Face wash; she could feel the dead skin eroding her face and reached for the exfoliating scrub on the right in contrast to the micro foamer on the left. Scrub, scrub until it bleeds, remove the death from your face she told herself as her face began to burn in the combination of salicylic acid and overly hot water. Rinse the death and lather away. Conditioner, front beside the shampoo, quarter size squeeze, close bottle, replace, cover scalp, let sit. Loffa, body wash, lather, wash away the pain. Let the drain carry all her sorrow to the seas, let her start over. This had become her life; mere steps in a process. She was a routine and she couldn’t break it. She wanted so much to escape from conformity of her life but she was trapped.

Right Again

She watched them walk through the archway of the door into the hallways where they would wait for the elevator. She watched them painfully as only a few days ago this would have been her. She always walked him to his car. But tonight, his interest lie elsewhere and she would never again be the girl waiting with him for the elevator. He didn’t call her anymore; they didn’t share their ideas and dreams. She had been replaced ever so easily and no one even noticed. With a slow release of breathe she had swiftly become the third wheel in their entourage of two; the entourage that once was hers. She had lost him without warning or explanation and he didn’t even acknowledge the swap. He still smiled as he had before and presented himself as nothing had changed. Just like a man to be an asshole and not even know it she thought. It was integrated into their nature, they didn’t even notice when it happened. He had turned out just like everyone else, just like he promised he wouldn’t. “I’m different” he use to plead “I’m real, genuine even” and she had been dumb enough to believe him knowing that at some point he would surely prove her right. But she wanted so much to be wrong this time, for him to really be who he said he was. She hated always being right about them. She hated herself for being foolish enough to ever believe differently. But mostly she hated him for giving her hope.

A Shot in the Dark

I felt like shit and his shot in the dark book wasn’t helping. Not only was the story line about a depressed drug addict who at this point in the story was turning her life around but the idea of the book made me think of him. Every turn of the page reminded me that at some point not too long ago he had walked into a book store and whether it was his sole purpose or not, he had bought me a book of which he knew nothing but one in which he saw promise; a shot in the dark he called it. So with every line I envision him in a book store some where in Concord MA diving through hundreds of books looking for the perfect shot in the dark just for me. Perhaps I made it more than it was; may be he just walked in and said “sure, this one has a nice cover” but some how I knew that wasn’t true. The way in which he had described it to me as the book, along with two others, were passed to my hands made me believe it meant more to him. He had asked me twice before I had a chance to start reading it how it was. I hadn’t talked to him in days and it was starting to get to me. He use to call me everyday and with the exception of a short two days over winter break when he didn’t call, I had talked to him for hours everyday since November. Now here in the chill of mid-January, I sat on a friends couch reading a shot in the dark obsessing over the fact that it was Saturday morning and he hadn’t called me since Tuesday night. I saw him Wednesday at my apartment with my roommate who threw herself at him in such an obvious manner it made me physically ill. Then, on Thursday, I was going to see a friend after class and he walked with us. But it wasn’t the same. I missed him, his voice, his ideas, the way we talked until two in the morning about how the universe was created and how small we were. In our last conversation, he told me he felt we should have met at Harvard. I would have been three rows back vigorously typing, and would have absent mindedly commented very insightfully on what the professor had said and he would have been so intrigued that he would have waited to meet me after class. He knew that an amazing relationship would have sparked right then and never ended. Perhaps his subconscious realization had scared him and now he was hiding from me. At any rate, I miss him and I wish he’d call me.

Poisoned

I’ve been poisoned
Poisoned by your thoughts and fears
Poisoned by your anger
Your inhibitions consume me until I feel sick to my stomach
Your fears have made me paranoid and I can’t trust anyone
You have poisoned my spirit and polluted my mind
My heart is weary and weak
I’m angry with my self for allowing this
For drinking your vile wine
I lost control of my own thoughts and will and you took advantage
You made me untrusting, unforgiving, and afraid
I began to question everyone, everyone but you
But I see now that it’s been you all along

Distance

Distance, all this distance, always distant in your heart
Silence, all this silence, always silent in your mind
Believe what you wish and say what you will
I am always questioning what is real
I can’t tell when you’re lying
Or when the answer is true
I can’t understand what’s going on with you
It’s one thing to my face
And another when you’re gone
And I can’t help but wonder
How long it’s been going on
It’s all smoke and mirrors
All masks and facades
All twist and turns and fakeness
I CAN’T TAKE THIS
I’m done!
I wish things were different
I wish things didn’t change
But thats the way of life
Things never stay the same
So I’m letting go, I’ve lost control
I don’t have time for this
I don’t have time to make memories that I’ll never miss