Forever Again

You were my love whenever I would dream.

Before I met you, I knew you
and I will spend all of my breath and years

to love you forever again.

Some of You

Unless I am with you, I feel like I am treading time--seconds, minutes, hours. 

Days go by. Sometimes weeks. 

And I find I am ready to quit time all together. 

Then you call. I answer even though I am unsure where you have been. 

I come even though you have measured time with faces, hands, 

and lips other than mine--because 

I would rather have some of you than none at all. 

I hear your voice and my heart beats again. 

You move your mouth next to mine, breathing life back into my body. 

I feel your skin warming me from the inside. 

In any moment spent with you, time stops. 

Bare and beautiful before me, there is no one but you. 

There is always only you. There was always only you. 

There will always only ever be you. 

So when others speak, their voices make no sound for me. 

When their eyes look at me, I am looking for you. 

And they must know they will never hold me. Because... 

I would rather have just a little of you than all of anyone else. 

Memories Here

There was a memory stirring beneath my breath—

the ancient people singing here,

songs our Fathers put to death,

their bones rise up with the morning tide

the haunting echoes of their past,

so near my heart beats to the pounding drums of their dance,

these worlds we’ve shattered like violent glass.

He is Gone

 

Love stole a kiss from me and buried me in the deep.

I went to find you resting there, but no one was at home.

Love took my life from me and bound it to his own.

I cannot find myself, now, here

and he is forever gone.

Water and Sun, Balloon and String...

 Alexander Calder, Balloons

lithograph-paper, 1973

http://www.cantonart.org/ArtGateway/collection/c/calder-balloons.html

Water Beneath the Sun

I am the ocean and you are the sun, water and fire undone

by one another…

I am a restless wave, you the steady flame

Dark and deep and cold

Light and transparent and warm…I feel your heat

Above me, below me, through me…you make me evaporate

turning into steam just to be near you.

Why are you the only one

with so much power over me?

With so much burning desire that I dance ……under your eye, at the touch of your hand,

begging you to notice me?

You rise and fall at my body’s horizon, encircling me like I am your end game, and also the 

beginning,

making me believe, if only for a second, that you want to dive into me,

to fall from your place in the sky and let me catch you

but you are afraid you will sink again,

Even though I’ve promised you that won’t happen with me,

I will make sure you swim,

floating on the sure current of my unchanging heartbeat.

A String For My Balloon

My mother used to tell me that I was like a balloon—a dreamer, a wonderer, a see-er of possibilities—and that I needed a string (the perfect kind of string) who would let me soar into my imagination, my “head in the clouds” space, but would balance me with his practicality (because it’s always good to have something to hold onto); a string who would keep me from floating too far from reality without pulling me all the way down.  Because even though I can be logical and practice common sense for the most part, I think we can all agree, I am mostly a right-brained girl who feels better at ease thinking with my heart more than my head, hoping that all that is best will unfold in time. But we all know balloons that fly too far away eventually burst, so having a string to give them just enough freedom, to make sure they don’t dissolve in thin air and that keep them attached to the land of the living is paramount for the survival of the balloon, and also gives life to the string. Anyway, when I look at Calder’s “Balloons” lithograph, I am always reminded of her telling me this; even though I’m sure Calder didn’t necessarily place such implications on his balloons and strings, or even on the sun and the water below.I am the water beneath the sun.I am just a balloon looking for her string.

Speaking Glass

I wish I had courage to give an audible voice to the words I write.
I mean, I put myself into their arrangement, I give them a voice as I hear myself speak them from my mind through my hands and onto the page. And I hope it resonates from them clearly.

I can let other people's words fill my body and sound out of my mouth like they were part of me.

Shakespeare, David Mamet, Dr. Seuss, Leo Lionni, Leah.
On a stage, in a classroom, reading for somebody.

But my own words lie there like pieces of glass. Speaking them aloud would be like picking them up and swallowing them. They would cut me. Leave me vulnerable. Show you what I am not yet willing to yield.

I Run...

I run…

as the morning light glimmers into being

cars passing on their way to work or school or just leaving someone behind

I run…

through clouds of color and wind and rain and prayers part my lips trailing toward heaven

I run…

up the hill, through the wet grass around the people walking in the opposite direction, past the kids on the playground—where I used to swing and climb and find a secret hideout among overgrown branches—the laughter of their play still unburdened by the weight life can sometimes be

I run…

the afternoon sun both cruel and kind with its light and heat

my feet hitting the sidewalks, the pavement, the horseshoe drives whose brick buildings hold echoes of my childhood memory

I run…

through the shade under the branches of trees that have been here as long as the people whose language remains in the name of this town— river of blood—even if their tears leave a trail away from it…my ancestors, whose blood stirs in me 

I run…

like I am some wild thing, like I am a river of blood, wondering if my feet are touching any of the same paths theirs once traveled

I run…

until crickets start to sing

through all the songs that can manage it in any tense run, running, ran…

“I run with you…”   “I run to you…”   “I run from you…”

I run. And Buddy Holly’s friend sings “Runaway”

I run…

into the night, the stars lace the sky, Orion standing among them in the east above, always the hunter among Jupiter and Mars, but Someone is still working on me

a police car is in a driveway, no blue lights, only the soft glow of his flashlight in the side yard patting someone down. I wonder what he has done, but on

I run…

I hear the noises of a wedding—music, the soft chatter of new beginnings—before passing the Mansion, black tie maybe white, definitely white, my too short green shorts and hot pink shoes sent no RSVP for the occasion

I run…

past a lady with a grocery bag (has my exhaustion made me indifferent?), past two men walking, past an angel, past a woman with her dog

the smell of smoke in autumn (it smells different in every season), a fire burning somewhere, fills my lungs
the cool air on the sweat of my skin makes me even colder, my sides begging to split open so I can breathe, but I won’t stop

I run…

and I will run forever 

unless…until...someone can catch me