As the Crow Flies

Straight as an arrow.

The arrow of silver, Tiffany spun, you surprised me with, waking me from slumber–

Slipping into my room as I lay sleeping.

Never have I been so delighted.

Moved.

Shook.

I thought of that arrow today, it’s flight suspended between my clavicles, pointing to the stars that spangle my chest.

(Just added another one this past Friday)

Tempted to point out the fresh ink, the pink clementine orange of it, picture it, kiss it, and shoot you a photo of it with a wry smile.

Yet.

I did not.

I blocked you out, off my heart, off my soul, oft without you I have walked so long, why would it be any different now?

The crow flew over Jefferson Square park, a short walk from my house, dogs frolic in the late afternoon sun, and the murder gathered in the eucalyptus trees to spring full into the air twirling against the February sky.

Plum blossoms, pale pink and lavish purple, like bruises against the sky, tears of petals hanging from dark tree limbs.

Like the limbs burning on my back.

More work on the tattoo.

The one you inspired.

Two crows.

One cherry tree.

One heart.

Sometimes I think the pain is like the ghost of your hands on the backs of my shoulders.

Where you would hold me, whilst atop me, pushed in, face buried in my neck, arms under my shoulders, holding me as we became one and inseparable.

Yet.

Separate.

We are.

The crow reminded me of you, I said hello, carry my wishes forward to you upon the wind, but not my calls, my love letters or cards.

I am not sending them anymore.

I deleted you.

I blocked you.

I let you go.

Off into the high sky, like pastel balloons escaping a flower shop on Valentines Day.

Sigh.

Valentines Day.

Last year.

When I reached out to you once more.

That’s why, dearest, sweetest, dreamiest you, I deleted, blocked, and erased you, so I would not set the motion in momentum forward again.

No more.

No more calls.

No more poems.

No more kisses on your sweet face.

No more staring into your eyes.

No more falling in love with you.

Not that I believe I will fall out of love with you.

The love, I sense, does not die.

But it goes, it flings itself in a blue box in a drawer, like the blue sky against the wing of the crow as it flies away from me.

You have flown away from me.

I do not expect your return.

I never knew a love like this.

My exquisite corpse.

The crow in the copse.

My heart in my mouth.

The sky.

The sky.

The sky.

Like your eyes I fell into once upon a time.

In a land far, far away, The Sunset.

The sky is the only blue I will look into anymore.

Good bye my love.

Good bye my crow laughing at a funeral.

Good bye.

Blue Hawaii

And Paris without you.

God damn it.

I’m still pissed at you.

Granted I have my own self to blame for that.

I should not have gone on social media.

I had you blocked.

Not because I was worried about you seeing me, no.

I didn’t want to be looking at your photos.

And I did it anyway.

I looked last night.

I know you’re in Hawaii and I knew you were going to be there and I had to look.

Ugh.

Wrong.

Wrong.

Wrong.

It doesn’t help that I want to go to Hawaii with you and that the trip I have tentatively planned for July has your name written all over it.

Or that I have thoughts about you in the ocean, swimming, your eyes wet and blue.

I’m so angry still and I’m still so damn sad.

Not as much.

Not every day.

And so, of course, the person to be angry with is me, I know better than to go onto social and look up your photos.

It hurts.

No more of that.

Although, why?

I can’t figure it out, a photo of us pops up every day, every day on my computer despite closing the photo app.

Every day your blue, blue, bluest eyes stare out at me as I see us on the red leather couch in the Air BnB we rented in D.C.  My eyes are closed, I’m kissing the side of your face and you have your arm wrapped around me.

Sometimes the photo makes me jump.

Sometimes I forget it’s there.

I have shut down the computer, restarted the computer, closed the app, and it just randomly pops back up.

Can’t get away from it and I use my computer all the time.

I mean.

Fuck.

I am working on a PhD I drag the damn thing around like it’s a security blanket.

And there you are, sweet face and dreamy and I know that we were in front of a fire and the color of your eyes and the shape of my face, and my hair tumbled down around my shoulders.

Ugh.

It hurts.

Not as bad.

I will admit that.

Things haven’t hurt so awful in the day-to-day.

Get me in my therapy sessions and I’m a fucking mess, but hey, that’s therapy and I leave it there in the wet balls of crumpled tissues streaked with mascara.

I joked with my therapist this past session that my tears must be some kind of napalm right now as I have tried three different kinds of waterproof mascara and the shit just slides off my eyelashes when I cry.

I yelled at you tonight.

In the car.

On the way home.

Thinking about you on an island and me here and then I’ll be going to Paris and well, fuck, you’re supposed to be in Paris with me.

Damn it.

We were supposed to do Paris.

You know it.

I know it.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Paris, baby.

You were supposed to go to Paris with me.

I hella splurged too.

I mean.

I got a place to stay, cute, bohemian, arty, obviously someone who was an avid flea market shopper, and I got a great deal, super cheap, $1,000 less than most of the other places I was looking at.

So I booked it.

And alas.

The woman got back to me and said she wasn’t able to let me rent it as she was going to be in Paris for Christmas.

Oh well.

I went back and looked some more and I looked at hotels and I really had to think about where I wanted to stay and why.

I wanted to make sure I was in the Marais, my best friend lives there and it’s my favorite part of the city and very central.

Hotels were not cheap and I went back to looking at Air BnB.

This one place kept calling me back and it was more than I wanted to spend, but then again, I knew I had the money in savings to cover it, I’d have nine months to save up more, I deserve to stay somewhere nice, the last two times I stayed in Paris I stayed with friends and didn’t pay for accommodations and the time before that I stayed in a hella cheap place and regretted it almost immediately.

I kept going back to this listing and then I said, fuck it.

I’m booking it.

It’s where I’m supposed to be and I’m going to let myself stay there.

Gorgeous tapestry wall paper.

Fireplace!

Full kitchen.

Dining area.

Plus red velvet chairs.

Couch with a red velvet throw.

Separate bedroom up this sweet curving stair case.

Big huge bed under the eaves.

Gigantic bathtub in the room!

Bathtubs are a rarity in French apartments, so to get one and it’s big, huge luxury.

It’s super pretty and I’m super grateful I booked it and I paid for the whole thing up front.

Done and done.

I was so excited when I booked it the night before last.

And then.

Tonight.

I wasn’t.

I was hurt and angry and thinking about you and your vacation pictures and I just yelled at you in the car, how we’re supposed to be in Paris together, walking the streets, eating all the food, cheese, chacuterie, drinking all the coffee, snuggling on the red velvet couch, having sex on the red velvet couch, the bed, the floor in front of the fire-place, the bathtub, meeting fellows in church basements, seeing all the sites, making out in public, holding hands.

I wanted to take you to the one cafe I know about in the 11th that’s super good and order food for you in French and then happy and replete I would walk you along the Seine to look at the Eiffel Tower when it lights up with glitter lights.

Damn it.

We were supposed to do Paris together.

I know that the sting will wear off, I mean, my trip is not until December, but right now, I feel hurt and sad and yes, angry at you.

Oh God.

The places I wanted to take you.

A walk in Pere LaChaise cemetary.

And the L’ile des Cygnetes, Island of the Swans, in the middle of the Seine, that has one of Statue of Liberty models on it that the artist did as he worked on the scale for the one sent to Americar.

Oh.

And all the outdoor markets, buying cheese and fruit and bread for you.

I wanted to take you to the amazing restaurant in Belleville that my friend took me to last summer and then go to Le Chat Noir and do the Paris Open Mic and recite you poems I have written about you.

But I won’t.

I won’t be doing any of those things.

I’ll be taking a bath under the eaves of a mansion on Rue de Parc Royale.

A bath with bubbles.

And I will sit in front of the fire and fingers crossed, not be sad to be alone, again, in Paris, without you.

 

Frank Sinatra

Christmas carols.

Laying in your arms in the glow of the blue lights on the tree.

My heart beat syncopated with yours.

Warm, soft tears slide down my face.

I hope you do not notice.

Content and wrapped in your embrace a softening shelter I did not know I needed.

I think about you.

Love.

And.

Our.

Love.

So many kinds.

Blue love.

Joyful love.

Peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie love.

Christmas carol love.

Hanging filigree ornament love.

Pink bunny love.

Walks on the beach at twilight love.

Butterflies in the garden love.

Flowers wrapped in gunny sacks and tied with twine love.

Candlelight love.

Untold love.

1,000 kisses love.

Tears on my pillow love.

Crows passing red berries in the snow, beak to beak, love.

Love letters love.

Poetry love.

Shameless love.

Not sorry love.

Not safe love.

Hands entwined love.

Squish love.

Passionate love.

Chemistry love.

Alchemical love.

Magic love.

Moonlight love.

Star shine love.

Dressing up in my prettiest dress for you love.

Pink glitter lip gloss love.

Baby girl love.

Dearest, sweetest, tenderest love.

Vulnerable love.

Smash love.

Precious love.

Spectacular love.

Cannot wait to see you love.

Miss you all the time love.

Dreamy love.

All the love I have for you, love.

Christmas Eve love.

Wishing you all the joy love.

All the blessings of love.

All the happiest happiness of love.

For you.

My love.

Wishing you it all.

Merry Christmas baby.

I love you.

 

 

When You Feel Heartbroken

And you don’t know what to do.

You write.

You cry a bit.

You put on Wooden Heart’s Listener album and sing along to torch songs.

About crows and whiskey and prayers that aren’t heard.

But God hears the prayers.

He just doesn’t always give you the answers you want to hear.

You think about dying.

But you don’t die.

You put on a brave face and tell yourself that the pain is alright.

That’s how you grow.

Isn’t it.

Pain.

And I don’t want to die.

I still have so much living to do.

Maybe I just want to crawl into bed and cry into my pillows.

Fall asleep with tears rolling down my face and stare at the dark ceiling.

And wonder about the next door neighbor and the piano jazz that sometimes seeps out the windows of the ramshackle house at odd hours.

And maybe while I’m crying I’ll think about integrity and honesty and pain.

Because maybe you forgot what the pain feels like.

Well.

Until you feel the pain again.

And the surprise of it.

As though the past haunting hurt was just a whisper of how it feels now.

And maybe I’m not supposed to remember how it hurts.

Because then maybe I wouldn’t dare to love again.

Or love now.

I know I’m alive.

I know because it hurts.

And every moment of silence sinks me deeper.

The deep blue of Halsman’s Marilyn Monroe.

The old faded blue Christmas tree lights.

The blue ribbon on the package under the boughs.

Sinking me down.

So I write.

To process it all.

To not sink and stay sunk.

And I cry, soft, wicked slow, tears melting and wet.

Crumpled up and bent over and crying.

And maybe that’s ok.

It’s not, not ok.

It’s just a feeling.

It will pass.

Right?

Every season of grief has a meaning.

I just wish it wasn’t at Christmas time.

The baffled cheeriness of my battered heart.

Listening to Charlie Brown Christmas during the afternoon.

Watching the high blue sky and thinking of you.

Driving in my car so alive, so bouyant, so happy, so grateful.

To end the day in tears and confused and forsook.

I forsake myself, haven’t I?

Haunted by the last kiss you placed on my mouth.

Did you really tell me to scotch guard my shoes?

Were those your last words?

Because there’s no more to say, nothing left to say?

We all have the same holes in our heart.

Maybe I’ll just walk down to the sea and watch the meteor shower.

The sea can wash away the pain.

The sea can have it.

I won’t die from a broken heart.

It just feels that way.

That’s all.

 

Cherries In A Bowl

My hair disheveled in the sunlight.

Sound of Chopin in the walls a susurration of hummingbird wings.

Flight of fancy.

Figurative.

Literal.

Light on the face of the moon.

Light in the eye of the blue storm.

Revery.

Summer grass.

Uncut, thick, lush, warm from sunlight.

Kisses like thunder building behind storm clouds.

July skies.

Pressing down.

Burdened with the knowledge of connection.

I sabotage myself.

Cherry flesh on my tongue.

Swallow the pit.

I always swallow the pit.

There in the spot of my stomach.

A fluttering.

And the light slanted down across the road and I am on his motorcycle.

A child.

Girl child.

Wild haired and windblown.

Sitting in front of my father on his motorcycle.

He steers with one arm wrapped around my waist and the other on the handlebar.

We fly like blown dander.

The flotsam and jetsam of cotton tree bloom thick in the air.

The slant of sun.

The press of sky.

The road unfurled underneath the wheels.

This moment.

Always.

Golden.

Memory like a savage at my throat.

Kissed me mercilessly.

Devouring every good intention.

Sentimental journey of devotion to the shrine of the past perfect father.

Welling sorrow on my face.

Heart, as per usual, on my sleeve.

Parting such sweet sorrow.

Abyss of longing.

Flying into that darknight.

The rush of falling only to be caught and pressed back and still and held.

There.

That undoing.

Stars flung out, scattershot like dust motes.

Freckled love on the bridge of my nose.

Asunder.

Lovelorn.

Forlorn.

Trampled by my own heart.

Fledgling girl.

Wet winged with love.

Fly away.

Into that sea of fireflies.

There, in the high grass.

Burgeoning.

Slender necks of snapdragon flowers.

Sweet coral pink and pale creamsicle throats.

The thumb of Eros pressed against the padded

Softness of my tender mouth.

Kisslet.

Kissling.

Kissed foundling.

Buried in the pillow of my cheek.

And.

Just.

There.

In tousled gold.

The sun spray on your face.

And.

The barely soft whispering word.

My longing to be heard.

 

Happy Valentines Day!

I know.

It’s nowhere near Valentines Day.

But.

I finished up writing all my cards today.

I gave everyone in my cohort at school a Valentine last year and it felt so nice to do that and so good for my own heart, that, yes, I decided to do it again.

I am a bit of a dork.

But I think.

Perhaps.

A sweet dork.

I do want people to love me and I’m not past slipping someone a card to get a little bit of love shone back to me.

But.

There is also that little kid in me who wanted desperately to get a paper bag full of cards at school.

I very much remember third and fourth grade and how the decorating the bag was almost as much fun as getting the little cards and the heart-shaped candies and then.

Well.

It changed.

Boys came on the scene.

Paul Ripp.

Fourth grade.

Mad crush.

Maybe my first crush.

A very sweet boy, tall, blushy cheeks, you know, that Nordic white skin that blushes easily, I always remember his ruddy cheeks and soft wavy brown hair.

I had a few other boys I liked, but he made me feel.

Well.

Special.

And so.

I made him a special card in 4th grade but at the last-minute I got super shy and I didn’t sign it, I sent it anonymously.

Then Tammy tattled on me and told him that it was probably me since she had seen me by his desk right before recess.

I never liked Tammy.

Drama queen.

I mean.

I think she just needed some extra attention and she probably had a crush on Paul too, you might have had you seen him, he was lovely.

Many crushes followed.

Some that lasted a few months.

A few that lasted a few years.

One that lasted decades.

I still love him, but I’m not in love with him and we are still friends.

I haven’t seen him in years but we still stay in touch.

It’s funny how things change, but there is still this soft entwining of memories and I am not sad for that girl and her girl crushes.

Or that young woman and her young woman crushes.

I learned something from them all.

I learned about unrequited love and I learned about romance and I learned how to seduce myself into thinking those things were the best things because I was feeling so deeply.

I may not have dressed up like a Goth, but I had my Goth girl feelings.

Yes.

I did.

Today.

Well.

I find the holiday sweet and I like that I can spread a little extra cheer, really any excuse to give some one a card and to play with stickers and stamps and stick some love in an envelope and mail it across country or just across town.

I don’t know what I would do if I actually had a date or a boyfriend on Valentines Day, it’s been years.

Seven years.

I just counted.

I mean.

I have dated in those seven years, but it’s been seven years since I was with someone on Valentines Day.

I hope he’s well.

He had a good heart.

But.

He was an active addict and I had myself convinced, momentarily, that we could date.

I couldn’t, in the end, I couldn’t.

I do find myself thinking about, why, I don’t know, habit, maybe, that this year it might be different, maybe I’ll have a boyfriend or a partner or.

But it’s rather like Lucy and the football.

My heart is Charlie Brown and runs forward to swing and kick.

And this time.

Oh!

This time I’ll kick that damn ball through the goal posts of love.

And.

Nope.

I kick.

Valentines Day pulls the ball away and I’m flat on my back, breath knocked out of me, staring at the wide blue sky above me.

Blue like the watery eyes of rheumatic old man.

Blue like the inner lining of intestines in the bright air of death.

Peridot.

Periwinkle.

The death knell blue of hyacinth dying in the sun on the windowsill and how they smell so, so, so sweet, then, one day, dead.

Rotting blue-veined meat.

Staring into the robin’s egg blue bowl of sky turned over my head.

And instead of crying.

Today.

Well.

I laugh.

There’s nothing wrong with trying.

I can hold my heart’s hand and pull her back up and say, hey, it’s ok, look, you broke yourself wide open.

Let’s cross the river and not drown in the undertow.

The sheltering sky a broad band of periwinkle and seer sucker and the scudding of flat bottom clouds with billowing tops sailing right on by.

I can gather up an apron full of blue cornflowers and wipe clean my blue slate.

I can salt it with love and eat my heart.

Blue black.

Just the way I like it.

Rare.

Buttery.

Seared on the outside.

Tender and juicy and melting on the inside.

And the bluest eye might shed one crystal blue persuasion tear and let loose with a flood of love.

A tsunami of blue capped water.

Aquamarine.

Indigo.

Turquoise.

Love the color of bluing skin above a tourniquet.

Dusted with blue velvet eyeshadow.

And the somnolent smile of sleep at the grey blue crack of dawn when the moon is still pushing through the muddled grey clouds permeating the sky.

My face buried in a Diebenkorn Ocean #5 blue pillow case.

I sigh.

And hold my hand to my heart.

Love.

Right there.

My hand on my own heart.

My country tis of thee.

I pledge allegiance to me.

Be my blue jean blue Valentine.

Be my love so true.

Be my tight blue star skinned tattoo.

Not quite healed.

But stretched tight and taut and smoothed in blue skeined lapis lazuli love.

Tenderfooted.

Dancing shoes blue suede.

A soft shoe shuffle.

Underneath that blue fairy ringed moon.

Love.

Love.

Always here.

Always there.

My paint by number blues.

In the shadows and the hues.

My.

Luminescent.

Blue light district.

My heart.

My love.

My blue valentine.

Always.

And.

Forever.

So.

Very.

Very.

True.

Blue.