I Would Follow You

To Wisconsin.

He said, underneath the heat lamp at the outdoor cafe.

On our first date.

There have now been four dates.

Tomorrow will be number five.

And that is all you need to know about him.

I would like to spill all the words and looks and the synchronicities and the eyes, oh, the eyes.

But.

I am not going to.

I spill so much of my heart on these pages.

“You wear your heart on your sleeve,” an old lover once told me, “I could never write about the things you do, share the things you do, it’s what makes you a good writer.”

I don’t know about that necessarily.

I think a good writer is just one that writes.

I still write every day.

In the mornings.

Three to four pages, sometimes just one or two, but I always write.

I don’t show up here as often, sometimes I think it might be time to hang up the blog, but I just keep holding onto it.

There is something here still for me.
I am not sure that there is anything here for you though.

I just keep letting you go.

I don’t know who shows up to read these ramblings any more.

I don’t know who you are.

I do know that you still read the words.

Sometimes you search me out.

Sometimes you find me on some old social media post I thought I had scrubbed away.

Sometimes you find me with esoteric search engine terms.

You keep finding me.

And I keep writing for ghosts.

This time.

This time though, I am writing for me.

About a month ago I sat down in front of my computer with too much eye make up on and a bushel of glitter and my hair wild and I did my dissertation presentation for a friend who is a film maker.

It was not as good as when I defended my dissertation and was awarded my PhD, that feeling of being so in the moment and not even realizing the camera was on was not with me when I did it for my friend.

But.

He got the gist of it and he liked it and he said, yeah, we can make this into a film.

It had been suggested to me by one of my former supervisor’s that I make the dissertation into something, a one woman show, a documentary, a film.

He said I had it, that he could watch me present the work all over again, would pay for it and that it was better than a lot of what he’s seen on Netflix.

I mean.

Fuck.

What a great compliment.

And also.

Fuck.

Scary and wonderful and am I really going to do this?

I mean.

I just finished my PhD.

I have a full time therapy practice.

Shouldn’t I just be taking long walks on my days off?

Just looking at the sky and the city and breathing without the pressure of a writing project on my shoulders.

Just walking around and watching the birds wheel in the sky.

Just listening to music on my Airpods and smiling that I don’t have to go anywhere, don’t have a deadline, don’t have to do another draft or edit or more research.

I can put away the research.

I have shelved the books.

I can let it go.

Or can I?

There is something here.

There is a story and I do think there is a movie and so does my friend.

When I started writing my blog, twelve years ago now, I would sometimes get a line of words in my head or a phrase and I would know, that’s my blog.

That’s the line.

That’s my way in.

I don’t actually need anything more than that.

Just the line.

What follows after that line I never know.

I just have a feeling for what has to be written in the next moment, the next breath, the next beat of time.

And I kept thinking about how my friend sent me the info about how to write a screen play and how it should be a certain kind of way and I was like, well, damn, I don’t have the “ending” you’re supposed to have.

But who ever does have the ending that they’re supposed to have?

What if it wasn’t bad timing lover, friend, soul mate, what if it was just that we weren’t meant to be, not really, not ever and we stole something, took away light from the moon and carved out a tiny moment in the soul of the world and hid our love.

But it couldn’t stay.

We weren’t meant to be together.

We never were.

Because we aren’t.

So I let it go again.

Let you go again and choose something else, I look up at the stars, the moon be damned, and find a new way forward.

It is dark and it is new and I don’t know where it’s going.

But when I put my hand on his back last night I thought I might just find a new way through.

And I might just have an ending to my story that has hope.

It may not be the fairy tale ending.

I have had my heart broken too many times by the fairy tale.

It will be a different story.

A new story.

And yes.

It will be a love story.

My love story, though.

My way through.

My way out.

When I chose to walk out the door to my apartment and take a right and not a left and meet him at the corner of the street and take a deep breath and say.

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you.”

And really, really mean it.

It really has been so nice to meet you.

I don’t know if we’ll ever go to Wisconsin.

But that you would follow me there.

Well.

That is one hell of a way to start something.

Something that begins with hope.

Love Bird

I don’t remember when you called me that.

but it sticks.

Like ink under my skin.

A foreshadow of a tattoo to come.

Lovebird in script across my left hip.

On the backside, where I am inexplicably ticklish.

The only place on my body.

I expect the pain will be.

Excruciating.

Anything, I have learned, that brings such pleasure

Also brings.

Such pain.

Like the fire on my arms tonight.

I should not be typing.

I am healing.

Another kind of transformation.

This body of mine undergoes them it seems

All the time.

This, I sense, is a practice.

How can I say I miss you?

In some evocative way that will sing down, once again, into my arms

The moon.

A moon I no longer hunt for.

A moon I no longer sing to.

There is no moon without you.

There will be, a crow moon, a cherry blossom moon, a blue moon

But it will only be the moon tattooed on my back silhouetted

By the wings of a crow.

The one that carries my heart in its claws.

The sharp needle will poke my pain out again.

Again.

And.

Again.

And.

Again.

This moon I will never see, not with my own eyes, except

Perhaps in photographs.

Like the pictures I pulled from the drawer a few nights back.

Along with a scattering of blue boxes tied up in ribbons.

The tickets to the ferris wheel.

The room card to the hotel in D.C.

A paper wrapper that once held a bouquet of flowers.

Cards with butterflies and glitter.

You know how much I like things that sparkle.

A tag from a Christmas ornament–“New York is always ours.”

And letters.

All the letters.

I think I made it through two?

Before the grief swallowed me once more in its maw.

The pain it sings in my arms.

This time.

The bottoms.

Not the tops.

My dragons rest on top, one for each arm.

This pain has not healed yet.

But it will.

And the inky blue tattooed there will be the sky.

The same color of your eyes the day I fell into them.

Fell into you.

Fell for you.

Fell in love with you.

Soul sky eyes of blue.

There will be clouds that drift in that sky.

And my dragons will fly me through.

The pain will pass.

My heart will heal.

And every once in a while.

I may catch a glimpse of you in the echo of a song.

Or in the backward glance I throw at the mirror.

Where I will see just a glimpse of that word.

Lovebird.

Above my left hip.

Where you once so causally caressed me.

Undressed me.

And left me.

I will brush my hand over the calligraphy, wistful and soft,

Like unexpected snow in spring

And then I will fly,

Fly.

Fly.

Fly.

Away.

Free.

Gutted

It’s been a day.

It’s been a god damn hard day.

It’s been three months to the day since the last time I saw you lover.

It was so hard, so unbelievably, excruciatingly hard to not reach out to you.

I wanted to all day long.

All day.

All.

Damn.

Day.

And I didn’t and I’m not proud of that, I feel too exhausted to feel proud of anything.

I am happy I made it through the discomfort though.  I literally prayed time and time again today to just be ok with being uncomfortable.

I looked at photos last night.

BAD IDEA.

I wept like no one’s business.

Especially looking at a photo of me kissing your cheek the last day I saw you.

You look so heartbroken.

I know how heartbroken I was.

Seeing that photo was like getting gut punched.

Smashed.

I wept so bitterly.

Every night for the past week or so I have literally fallen asleep crying.

Weeping with a mouth guard in is not sexy.

The moon in my window.

You in my heart.

The three months of not seeing your face.

The sad poetry I keep writing.

The tattoos I want to get but haven’t yet gotten.

I really haven’t had time.

But the idea is there.

Two crows, one on each side of my back, each holding a broken piece of heart.

I can’t stand how painful this has been.

Today at the laundry mat I thought I was going to lose it.

LOVE SONGS.

Too many fucking love songs.

Enough already.

Speaking of songs.

I made you a playlist.

No, I didn’t send it.

Yes, it’s on my Spotify.

You can find it should you look.

Like I did.

I looked I did.

I saw you had updated the playlist you made me.

Except.

Well.

Damn.

That song you put on the playlist.

Fuck.

That hurt.

That hurt a lot.

I can’t stop hearing it in my head.

I listened to it twice.

Once in horror and then once with tears streaming down my face on my drive home from my office.

Then I made myself stop listening and I drove home too fast listening to 2ManyDjs cranked up ridiculously loud on my stereo.

And.

I saw that you took it off the playlist.

But I saw it baby.

It was up long enough.

Shame on me for looking at your Spotify.

I know better.

Don’t I?

I take full responsibility for that.

But having seen it, having heard it, I can’t erase that experience out of my mind and I keep hearing that line, “what’s cooler than cool?  Ice cold”.

You think I’m ice cold don’t you?

That hurts so much.

I figure you’re angry.

And underneath that I figure you are sad.

Very sad.

I mean.

I know how sad I am and I was the one who said no more, it wasn’t your choice, you didn’t drive that one, although you certainly played a part.

I wouldn’t change a thing.

I still love you and I want only for your happiness and I get scared, terrified really, that one day you’ll just be over me, done with me, kaput.

You’ll move on.

And I will never see you again.

That really does hurt my heart.

So you can imagine how fucking hard it was today.

It felt like your hands were in my body, I could, I can still, feel you in my arms and in my back.   Like you literally have your hooks in me.

It’s painful darling.

It hurts a lot.

I feel you.

I really, really, really feel you.

So much I want to tell you, so much.

And it all just goes in my notebook.

I won’t text, I won’t call.

I will leave you alone.

Even though it’s the last thing in the world I want.

I don’t want to leave you at all.

And I don’t want to live in horrifying sadness, which I have to remember that I had.

I couldn’t shake that sadness of not being able to be with you completely.

So.

I just wrote you another card and this time I even put a stamp on it like I might send it.

I didn’t though, just like the other cards.

I just put them in my little metal heart box on my desk and know that they are there.

They are there if you’re ever free.

They are there if you ever decide to chose me.

They are there.

And know this.

There is no one else, no one else, no not at all.

Just you in the hollow skies of the night riding the moon with my heart in your hand.

Please be gentle with it baby.

I still have a lot of life to live yet.

Love always,

Your.

Baby girl.

No Bandwidth

I mean.

Ok.

Maybe a tiny bit.

There is some.

But it is small and slight and I chose to write a blog instead of using it for homework.

Don’t worry.

Shh.

Anxiety be gone.

I will work the homework is a serious manner tomorrow.

I promise.

I had one client cancellation, there will be homework done then.

And after I finish with my last client at 2p.m., aside from lunch, I have no plans except to bury myself in the work.

My fucking god.

There is a lot of work.

And I have been doing some over the week, don’t get me wrong, I have attended to it.

JESUS FUCK.

I am so grateful I just caught that, I had an assignment due.

I actually don’t know if I would have caught that if I hadn’t been writing this.

I stopped and popped into my online classroom and saw correctly that I had something due.

Good grief.

I am so glad I caught that!

I already had done the work, I just hadn’t formatted it to turn in.

Whew.

It’s turned in and now I can go back to whining about how much work this all is and when the fuck and am I going to have the time to do all the reading.

All the reading.

So much reading.

So much.

I have seven, seven, new books that have arrived in the mail this week.

I’m going to say that again.

SEVEN.

Ugh.

I keep reminding myself that I just have to do what’s in front of me today.

It really becomes impossible if I look at that stack of books, like maybe if I just sleep at my desk and never leave it and never move I might, might, get through the stack by the end of the semester.

But.

I have a life.

A big life.

A full life.

I also have a private practice I am trying to fill since, well, that’s like my income.

Not fully.

But soon.

Today, yes, today.

Today was my last Friday as a nanny.

I am still nannying, but I am reducing my hours down to three days a week as opposed to the five days a week I’ve been working for like, forever.

Thirteen years, give or take a few other odd jobs here and there, I have been nannying for thirteen years.

There is an end in sight.

And maybe that’s why I needed to write tonight.

To mark this.

It’s a big step.

Next week I work two days less a week as a nanny.

And soon, by the end of the year, by February at the latest, I am hopeful that I will be done completely as a nanny and be fully self-supporting as a therapist.

It’s a big freaking deal.

I have been working so long and so hard to get here.

I remember when I turned ten years sober how I was putting the finishing touches on my application to my Master’s in Psychology program.

That was four and a half years ago.

It’s been a long road, but I have been on it, working and working and working and the working, well, it does seem to be paying off.

I reflected this morning while I was doing my morning pages (I still do that, I may not be blogging every day like I used to, but I am still committed to that practice, I can’t not write, I would die) that I have really come far since last year.

I moved into my new place September 15th of last year, I started my first year of a PhD program, I was hired in August to work for Grateful Heart as an Associate MFT to establish my practice.

I left my other internship where I was not paid to transition to Grateful Heart in October.

I had four clients.

Now.

I have eighteen.

That’s a pretty damn big deal.

To make it through a year of a PhD program, work full time and set up a private practice therapy business.

I don’t know that I held down the fort in all areas all that well.

Oh.

And yeah.

I broke up with my soul mate, the love of my life, the one.

The fucking one.

I have been grieving that a lot lately.

It’s been a lot of sadness and tough at times and I don’t write much about it here.

Aside from the odd poetry post that I happen to throw up.

Tonight’s full harvest moon is also not helping.

It’s been excruciating when I think about the language of love that we spoke to each other through the moon.

How many text messages and phone calls looking at the moon wishing for him?

So many.

Crying for the moon in the sky, crying for him.

Crying all the time.

I still cry.

It catches me off-guard sometimes.

I think this last time it’s been different, more final, more ending.

Hopeless and heartbroken.

And still thriving.

Still alive.

My therapist reflected that to me this week after I shared some things about the current issues I have around the ending of the relationship and how I am still affected by it.

She said, “you can be heartbroken and thrive too.”

Heartbroken.

And.

Thriving.

And overwhelmed by the work, but up to it and ready for it and grateful for the lessening of nanny hours so that I can work more on my dissertation and my course work.

So that I may cultivate more clients for my therapy practice so that I may, sooner, oh please, rather than later, stop nannying altogether.

I don’t know how it will look or when it will happen, but I sense it is out there just around the corner.

Just there.

Under the shadow of the moon.

Like my love for you, my love.

Always just there.

Lit by the moon.

 

Sun Burst

They left their car behind in the Pan Handle of Florida.

Broken down along the side of the road.

Tin can from a Chunky’s Chicken Corn Chowder soup barely holding

Together the rotten muffler.

Love.

Flashes like heat waves rolling up from asphalt

Pavement, as smoke eddies and drifts from a lit

Pall Mall filter Gold Light 100, grasped like a lifeline into

Another time where glorious naivety

Flexed in her 19 year old calve muscles.

Feet strong and unweary, propped on the dashboard watching the

Moss dipped trees roll along outside the window while Jethro Tull blasts from the radio.

These stories written in the power of youth and the glory of

Summers wandered through decades ago.

Her skin tattooed now with narratives and bygone memorabilia.

Literally.

She, her, I, wears her heart on her sleeve.

(Left side inside wrist wreathed with cherry blossoms)

She, her, I, has not forgotten the sunshine splash of freckles

Constellating his face and the desire badgering her heart to kiss each one.

Love rises like mist in a swimming pool at night in

Saint Augustine awash in humidity and the susurration of wind in palm leaves.

Song of flash pan memories born on the wings of cicadas,

Bark of a worried dog, crackle of fire on the edge of night,

Embers glowing on her (my) face, fronting strength under the curious

Gaze of heroin junkies and good ol’ boys with running mates and prostitute

Companions holding bent Budweiser can carburetor crack pipes.

She, her, I, will dance, never the less, none the less, dance now, dance then

Beneath the swelter of stars, amid the whispers of sexy, sexy, sexy

Spilling from the mouths of men unable to grasp her, attain her, hold her (me).

Love, lost like a plasticine slipper in the dusky playa at sunset.

Burnished with desire to kiss the bottom lip of his mouth and vanish into the

Streets of the Mission District, oh my sweet San Francisco how unexpected

Summer night strewn me with ghost kisses of fog being sucked in over Twin Peaks.

She, her, I will climb the hills back towards the sea, remember her (me) her face

Aswirl in dark curls, your face writ with awe, once again in her (my) hands.

Oh bluest eyes

Peering back into mine, this blissful fantasy a phantasmagoric feeling all

Ephemeral and moon washed will haunt you, I, me no more.

For yes, oh yes,

My darling.

This too shall pass.

All The Beautiful Things

The sound of the robins in the trees.

The slant of early evening sun bathing the tall grass along Fulton Ave, park side.

The sound of you voice in my ear.

I love you.

Missing you all over again.

And again.

And again.

I’m not supposed to be holding a torch.

And I am.

And that’s ok.

It’s all ok.

The glory of you, the poetry in my blood, the fresh tattoo that I kissed with my lips on the inside of your arm.

I can feel the fever still on my mouth.

You were here.

Then gone.

The time went so fast.

In your arms again at last.

The longest 88 days of my life.

I suppose there are still long days ahead.

The long days of summer.

The long moments of wistful memories that enfold me.

How you look etched into my mind.

“You have my heart, be careful with it,” you said with tears in your throat.

So careful.

Baby.

So careful.

I wrote you a card the day before yesterday.

I hope you still check your mailbox once in a while for missives from me.

I don’t know how many to send.

I want to flood you with love letters.

You are my love letter.

I hope I am your love song.

I don’t know when I will see you again.

I know I will see you again.

I know the moon will keep you.

I know God will carry you.

I know you will be ok.

And one day you will be back and the window will be open.

You promised I would be the first person you would call.

I am holding you to that.

Don’t be too long my love.

My bones ache for you.

Boy turns to girl and says, “I love you so”

Boy turns to girl and says, “I love you so”

Boy turns to girl and says, “I love you so”

I love you too.

So much.

You laugh, you eyes, the song of you on my lips.

Gone once again for you.

Not caring who knows.

Fine with however it goes.

As long as you get your happiness my love.

Please.

Do.

Get happy.

I have never known anyone who deserves it more than you.

Love.

That is.

All the love in the world for you.

To the moon and back.

1,000 times infinity plus 2.

I adore you.

I love you.

Come for me my love.

Please do.

I wait with bated breath.

I always have.

I always will.

The Opacity of Love

I really should be doing homework.

Really.

But I am not.

I’m just going to sit and type and see what comes up and let it out and let myself take a moment to just process and just keep being sad.

“You’re really sad,” my friend said to me tonight about my break up.

Fifteen days now, but who’s counting?

I am sad.

It seems surreal that it is over and done and there’s been no contact, although there’s been thoughts, let me tell you.

I haven’t though and I won’t.

I keep telling myself if and when I’m supposed to see him is not up to me, it’s up to God.

I had a thought today.

What if I never see him again?

Ever.

I just about lost it.

There was a small murder of crows in the sky over the valley today as I looked out from high in Glen Park at work eating my salad at lunch, and I felt as though there were throwing my heart around out there.

I have taken down all the pictures and deleted all the texts in my phone as well as the phone history.

Man.

We talked a lot.

His number, his name, his face, all through my things.

All through my heart.

In my soul.

In my body.

I went to a workshop over the weekend, just another thing to keep me endlessly busy so that I get through this patch.

I don’t know how long it’s going to last, but I’m socked in with the busy to help it pass.

Though I still cry at night when I got to bed.

The slip of golden moon through my back window the other night had me utterly in tears.

I suppose at sometime the tears will stop and I will move forward with some modicum of grace and hopefully with serenity and ease.

I’m not sloppy.

I’m not always losing it.

Only once really badly in the car.

I am not even sure what night that was, maybe Saturday night?

I don’t know.

It was bad and I should have pulled over, but I pulled it together enough to get home.

I felt like if I stopped I’d just be on the side of the road sobbing for hours.

An exaggeration I suppose, but it hurts.

It really does.

Physically too.

My reflux is back with a vengeance.

I remember when my ex told me he thought he might be the reason for my reflux and I waved it off.

Now.

Well, let’s just say that it’s not only plausible I totally believe it.

I suppressed a lot of things to be in the relationship.

I figured he was worth it.

True love was worth it.

In some ways I think it still was and I have no regrets.

But you know, my body was screaming at me that it wasn’t working and I just pushed it aside for a long time.

I’m hoping once the grieving passes the reflux will too and I’ll go back to my normal self.

I also know that reflux is caused by stress.

My food as been really good and I have been under stress.

I’ve been heartbroken, seeing clients, holding space for others, nannying, and doing my PhD coursework.

I’m stressed.

So.

Blogging tonight.

Because that helps

Even if it hurts, whenever I write about it, it hurts, but I figure the more I write the more hurt gets out and the easier it will be to bear until one day I won’t notice it anymore and there is no more to bear.

I’m doing the best I can.

“You have so much love to give,” my friend assured me and that I was sensitive.

I am.

Things hit me hard.

Music moves me.

Love.

Magic.

Living.

I am alive.

I keep reminding myself of that.

I don’t want to hurt myself or use or act out.

I’m not calling up old lovers letting them know I’m on the market.

That just sounds awful right now.

I cannot imagine being with anyone else right now.

But I am not going to stop loving and I’m going to put my sensitive, vulnerable, tender heart back out there.

If anything I have learned that I am lovable and worthy of love in the deepest truest sense of the world.

To have experienced what I did, the passion, the love, the validation and how he saw me, I have that experience to grow from and to cultivate more love with.

I keep writing I forgive myself.

I forgive him.

I love myself.

I love him, I let him go, it wasn’t working, I had to get out, and it still hurts and the fire is extreme and I want to cut off all my hair.

I even talked to my hairdresser about it.

“You can come in and try on short-haired wigs and think about it,” she said, sweet as pie.

I might.

I might not.

I focus on something else.

(I have a lot of hair and it’s nice so if I’m going to cut it off I’m going to make sure it’s the right thing to do)

I think about the tattoo I want.

There’s two that have been haunting my thoughts.

One a tiger dragon graffiti that I took a picture of one night when he and I were walking around China Town headed to a late night dinner.

The other from a card I gave him.

I bought it on my birthday at a little bookshop close to Zuni where I met friends for dinner.

It was a picture of a little girl tugging on the moon and trying to pull it towards her with a rope.

That was us.

Me, the little girl, crying for the moon I could never have.

I could never really have you baby and I have to forgive myself for hoping that one day that wouldn’t be true.

But it never was.

I’m still just a little girl wishing for something she cannot have.

A fairytale.

A fantasy

My sweet fantasy man.

I miss you so much.

So very much.

The moon will wax.

It will wane.

And one day.

Perhaps.

I won’t think of you when I see it.

Perhaps.

 

 

You Can Take It Easy

Holy crap.

That was not the gist of the conversation I was thinking was going to happen today with my professor.

I had been having some trouble registering for a certain elective for my spring semester and had reached out to my professor, who also happens to be my advisor to ask for assistance.

We had a scheduled phone call for today.

Of course.

I figured out what the issue was before the phone call, but only just barely  before, so I decided to call my professor anyway and just check in about the final project I have to do for the class.

“You have gone above and beyond, just great work this semester, I was just talking to Jen (my TA in the class) about your writing, and she agrees, really great work,” he said.

I was so touched and moved.

I thanked him and we chatted a little about the school and the semester and about the registration process and if I had any questions to be sure and reach out over the holiday.

It was such a nice conversation to have with him.

Then he asked if I had any other questions and I did say, yes, about the final project…

“Oh, you can do anything you want, literally anything, do whatever you want, you’ve done so much work this semester, take it easy, relax, turn in whatever makes you happy,” he finished.

I was silently jumping up and down with glee.

I hadn’t gotten as much time the last few days at work to focus on my homework.

I have gotten some done, posted my last big discussion post, but the work I had really wanted to do wasn’t able to get done.  The baby’s been a little under the weather at my nanny gig and his nap schedule’s been way off.

Today, for instance, he was sleeping when I showed up, which is highly unusual and meant basically that he wasn’t going to be taking his regular afternoon nap.

The regular afternoon nap I rely on to do homework in.

In fact, he only slept a bare thirty minutes into my shift, so the little time I did have before he woke up was devoted to household odds and ends and I didn’t crack the paper I had been hoping to address.

So when this professor told me to take it easy and that I could literally turn in anything for the final project, I was so overwhelmingly happy, yeah, I did feel like dancing a jig on the sidewalk pushing the stroller up to the Noe Valley Rec Center.

Interestingly enough.

I have had some inspirations as to what to do for the final project for this class, it doesn’t have to be a paper, although it could be, and I floated my idea past my professor.

“Would it be ok to record myself reciting a poem I wrote during the semester and send that to you?”

“Yes!  I love that, fantastic, and take as much time as you need,” he said.

I let him know I’d have it in by the deadline.

I have turned in all my papers so far on time and I have no desire to start turning in anything late at this point.

I feel like I pretty much got the A for the class, so might as well send it out with a little fanfare and a poem.

A Year of Tears

You pointed out to me

Every time I see you I cry.

I thought about that for a moment.

Then I cried.

Tears slipped down my face.

Do they carve soft channels in my skin?

Do they leave a trace mineral history writ upon my cheeks?

The certainly, the tears, they do, affect my eyes.

Oh.

I could well argue that it is my new phone with its very good camera that shows all those lines around my eyes.

But it shows, those tears, in my eyes.

I have cried over you for over a year.

Yes.

You were right.

I have cried every time I have seen you for a long while now.

Perhaps even a little more than a year.

Though, not that much longer since we have been together.

Apart.

Together.

Apart.

Together for only so much time.

SO MUCH TIME.

A year and  a half.

Oh!

The moon.

I raise my bruised eyes to the sky.

I sing your praises to the moon.

Like a child, I cry for that which I (think) I cannot have.

Longing for you, the moon in my sky.

You say the same to me, that I am your moon.

Your stars.

You talk to me when you are afar.

We talk to each other through the music of the spheres.

The crows carry our conversations to us.

The wind in the trees, a susseration of our words of love.

Each to each.

The avocado tree at work sends my love.

The oak trees where you are pick up the vibrations.

I see you in the beauty of the sunset, in the rise of the moon, in the wind blowing the leaves.

The moon waxes.

Wanes.

We talk to each other from new moon to full moon.

Underneath the Harvest moon.

Through on to the Strawberry moon.

There are many moons, but to me they are all the same, no matter the month.

They are all the Lovers Moon.

And oh.

I love you.

I do.

A secret.

Shhhh.

You may already suspect.

But I will tell you now in all truth, from the bottoms of my feet on up through all the bones of my body, I don’t mind the tears.

Not really.

No.

For they mean I have lived and loved you fierce.

Passionate.

Unrestrained.

With my whole being.

I have loved you.

I love you.

I will love you.

The tears tell me how important you are to me.

So important.

And.

Last night.

Oh.

You held me in your arms.

Such arms, may I always have the fortune to recline in them.

You shining eyes on mine, your kisses showering me.

I knew then.

As I know now.

Every damn day of tears was worth it.

To be, once again, in your embrace

Acceptance this.

Powerful knowing.

The love that matters between the black and white lines of our story.

That is all.

That love.

Surrendered I am to the situation.

For just the being with you my sweet moon brought it all home.

The sea salt tsunami of my love for you shall be the waters I sail my boat upon.

So dear, dear, dear, Dread Pirate Roberts.

I do expect that you will always come back to me.

For true love never dies.

Not ever.

Not now.

Not then.

Not really.

Not until the moon fails to rise and set, to wax and wane.

That moon which blushes with secret admiration for the words we float up to it.

The conduit for our missives to each other.

Telling all our stories of love and adoration, awe and tribulation.

The moon sees us my love.

The moon approves.

 

Tattoos and Tears

I just want to write you poetry tonight.

I just want to talk to crows and croon love songs to the full moon.

I keep thinking about adding to my Coup de Foudre tattoo.

Hearts and lightning bolts.

More hearts.

An explosion of hearts.

I think about you.

I cry.

Sometimes I yell at you in the car.

“Don’t give up on me, don’t stop chasing me, this is it, this is the push, don’t stop.”

I want you to come for me.

I want to be the one.

I think about not having you for years.

I still dream about being with you for all my years.

I think about my impending PhD.

I ponder the thinking and reading and writing I will have to do.

And maybe you won’t be a distraction.

And maybe you will.

And maybe you will be the carrot I use to get through the program.

He’ll come back to me when I am a doctor.

He’ll come for me.

As though you’re the reward for doing the work.

I want to grow old with you and be stupid and silly and mad.

I want to have dumb arguments with you and then have make up sex.

God.

I haven’t really thought too much about the sex.

I think I am afraid to.

I will get lost in the glory of the memories and beat my heart harder on the wall around you.

I long for you.

I dream about you.

The moon full in the sky beckons me to you.

I think about you walking outside.

I think about you sleeping.

I wish to be wrapped up in your arms.

I long to not be heartbroken.

Heart broke open.

Heart in the mouth of crow flying across the miles to you.

That’s the tattoo I keep thinking about.

A crow on my back flying with a heart in its mouth.

An anatomical heart.

With wild daisies growing out from it.

I feel hollowed out.

I miss you baby.

I miss you much.

This isn’t even a poem.

This isn’t even a blog.

This is just a list, a litany, a compilations of thoughts about you.

I can’t stop thinking about you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I can’t go on without you.

And yet I keep going on.

I have changed and I can’t tell where it is leading me.

I just fervently hope.

Pray.

Wish.

That it leads me back to you.

I just want to be your Buttercup.

I just want to be your baby.

Baby.

I just want to be yours.

Always.

Forever.

Your.

Baby Girl.

One Week Later

There is a buttery cowslip of a moon in the sky floating over the beach.

I looked at it.

I thought of you.

“You will always have the moon,” you told me a week ago as we lay together our last time.

Maybe not our last time.

But for this time, this chapter, this experience, it was the last time.

Whatever comes next is new and unknown and I do not know when we will meet again.

But I will always have the moon.

So too.

Conversely.

Shall you.

I looked up at the curl of cream yellow in the darkened sky.

My heart ached in my chest.

I wished you well.

I wished you  love.

I wished for you to be kind to yourself.

It was not the first time today that I thought of you.

I thought of you so often.

How could I not?

It’s been a week.

And like I said.

Wednesdays, well, lucky for me, they will always be yours.

So many things are yours.

That damn car wash on Lincoln Ave at 19th.

The one we made out in like hormone fueled teenagers.

I don’t know that I have ever, ever, ever had such an intense make out session.

I drive past that damn car wash all the time.

And.

Thoughts of you.

Or the park on the hill where we made out sitting on a bench overlooking the city.

Yeah.

That one.

The one I drive past every morning on my way to work.

You are everywhere.

You are in the avocado tree in the back yard that overhangs the porch at work.

The one the two nesting crows like to fly in and out of.

They are young.

They have not been there long, but I noticed.

You and I have an affinity for some things dark.

Crows being one.

I noticed when the young pair started flying through the yard.

They have a nest in the tree to the left of the house.

Crows mate for life.

And I think of you.

You the one I want to be mated to for life.

You who are gone now.

Far away.

And yet.

Ever present in my body, the ache in my chest, the tears pulling at my eyes.

Tonight, driving home.

You again.

A surprising gasp of pain when I saw the sunlight reflecting on the ocean water.

There was something to the juxtaposition of telephone poles and wires crisscrossed over the sea in the background and the glitter of light bouncing back towards my eyes.

The beauty of it struck me and it was all you.

All about you.

All in my heart and my soul and I almost had to pull over and sob in my car.

But I drove on.

To what I knew might be the worst.

The early evening sun setting in the back door windows of my room.

The light slanting in across my bed.

The bed that you last lay in a week ago today.

I miss you.

Your smell.

Your laugh.

The way you look at me.

The text messages and phone calls and the poetry of my name in your mouth.

All the silly sweet endearing nicknames you had for me.

I sat quietly in a five-minute meditation tonight, in a room you and I have sat together in so many times, so many Wednesdays, for this past year and change.

Sat in the dark, with my eyes closed.

Thought of you, far away, in another time zone, most likely in bed.

I imagined curling up next to you and holding you and smelling you.

The other night.

I cried out.

My duvet cover smelled of you.

How?

How!?

I washed everything.

Nothing should smell like you.

And yet.

It did.

And I cried into my pillow and looked out between the bamboo slats in the window shade and thought about when the time will come that the moon will be full and shine through and wake me up.

Insistent that I think of you in the dead of night, pulled from dreams by the bright shine pouring into the window.

You were the bright shine pouring into my life.

I miss you bunny.

I miss you.

So.

Damn.

Much.