Every time that you are with me,
when we both know that you're not.
It fractionally kills me,
it takes from all we've got.
It strips me till I'm empty,
it tears me to the bone,
it cuts through all my softness,
and steals everything I've known.
And you smile when you do it,
you're looking straight past me,
like you're bored with all you have in this reality.
But you're taken, and excited
with your bright new scenery.
So you check and double check,
making sure you'll never miss,
all the jokes and secret smiles,
in that "what if" world you live.
Next to you I sit here longing,
hoping that this time you'll turn to me,
that you'll see what's right before you,
and not just that little screen.
You'd think by now, it wouldn't hurt me..
that by now, I'd let it be.
Because underneath it all we both know,
that I just can't compete.
Another ding, another light on,
on your phone and in your heart...
Another message from her fills you...
and it's ripping me apart.
Everyday we're fading faster,
moments slipping one by one,
I'm walking slowly into darkness,
and it's familiar old welcome.
So here I am left,
living with the ghost of you....
to far to reach.... to close to leave.
Haunted by the night we met.
---------------
The Night We Met
I am not the only traveler Who has not repaid his debt I've been searching for a trail to follow again Take me back to the night we met
And then I can tell myself What the hell I'm supposed to do And then I can tell myself Not to ride along with you
I had all and then most of you Some and now none of you Take me back to the night we met I don't know what I'm supposed to do Haunted by the ghost of you Oh, take me back to the night we met
When the night was full of terrors And your eyes were filled with tears When you had not touched me yet Oh, take me back to the night we met
I had all and then most of you Some and now none of you Take me back to the night we met I don't know what I'm supposed to do Haunted by the ghost of you Take me back to the night we met
A half smile, a hair toss and I sink...and I'm lost, swimming in your deep end, more than ready to dive in.
Your eyes laugh, and words follow suit.
Why dress it up? Its all fodder to the fuel.
The gauge reads full, and its not wrong.
I'm ready to roll, any way you want go.
All night.... ebb and flow, this tide... its highs and lows, are natural.
As natural as trees when they grow, the way they wave goodbye and hello,
Arms open to every possibilty. Each day, just another ring they wear to mark the moments that matter. So make your mark on me, in me....you're worth the memory. I wouldn't want it any other way.
Carve me so they can read the story of us, years after we are gone.
They will trace our love lines, in trails of kisses left behind,
and maybe even find their way too....down by the banks where I flow into you.
----------------
Blood Bank
Well, I met you at the blood bank
We were looking at the bags
Wondering if any of the colors
Matched any of the names we knew on the tags
You said "see lookit, that's yours
Stacked on top with your brother's
See how they resemble one another
Even in their plastic little covers"
And I said I know it well
That secret that you knew
But don't know how to tell
It fucks with your honor
And it teases your head
But you know that it's good, girl
'Cause its running you with red
So...its Christmas morning, and I'm in love. I'm in the kind of love, that at almost 41 I can honestly say I thought was a fairytale myth. The kind of love that doesn't really exit, outside of a movie. But here I am, and this is my story and I am happy. And it is real. So real in fact that I'm not caught up in the romance of it all, and there is a lot. But its a step further. It also has the loving bits and tender caring kindness of two people who have been together for 50yrs but still hold hands and make each other tea and ask if the other is cold, and need a blanket. It is unlike anything I have ever experienced or thought possible in my life. And yet here I am, on Christmas morning, staring at my tree, thinking of my love and for once, with hope, the future.
There was a girl that I knew who grew flowers,
Carrying them with her wherever she went.
She held them softly right next to her heart...
So that whenever she gave them away,
They would forever smell of loves scent.
------
Waiting I want you more than I need you I need you so bad Are you coming back? Are you coming back? I’m waiting Haven’t had a dream in a long time Haven’t been able to sleep. Are you coming back? Are you coming back? I’m waiting, I’m waiting. I want you more than I need you I need you bad Are you coming back? Are you coming back? I’m waiting, I’m waiting, I’m waiting - Alice Bowman
I'm here again and I just feel so far.. from everyone and I get this moment of total terror when I think for a split second.. what if, just what if this time I can’t find my way back? These horrible sadness's and hollow feelings, brought on by pain are getting longer and longer and harder and harder to bear. I've read books and the articles, all kinds of articles on depression, watched shows and heard stories.. and I think, is this it, I’m I finally past the point of sad or everyday depressed and really actually clinically depressed? Then I think, no, I can’t be because I’m questioning it. So I’m not crazy. But then again, crazy and depressed are not the same thing are they. My trigger is heart break. That is always what wraps its hands around my throat and tries to drown me, pull me down and keep me under. Its fingers slick and powerful on my neck, forever squeezing. Sometimes my vision even goes black. I just blank out. The physical pain too intense and heavy to hold. It simply just crushes you, your voice, your motivation. Your only escape is to sleep. Sleep is comfort. Sleep will hold me. Sleep is the only friend I have in this war, the only refuge. There I feel safe, it’s like that air pocket in the sunken ship at the bottom of the ocean. The only oxygen you have, the only place that you can stick your head out and breathe… slowly, deliberately. Knowing that its all you’ve got standing between you and death.
But is death really so bad? Shame on me for asking, I must really be sick. At this point I say report me. I wouldn’t mind a little medication, a little numbing of the mind, to take the sting out of the heart would be more than welcome. To feel nothing would be a blessing. I think that in the big moments in life, when things are falling apart I jump in, I forgive, I triage, and I try to get the ones I love out alive, with minimal damage and injury to them, to their hearts. My kids I protect at all costs. Even my husband. The man I love and still the man who has crushed my heart time and time and time again, I worry for him… first. Care and forgive him first for fear he won’t be able to deal, that I know the truth and that is that he is weaker than me, but I can't afford to give him the chance to prove it. I cry.. a bit, but then shut off, shut down, from shock, denial, fear. Fear of facing what kind of permanent damage that I may have incurred in all of this. I fear that I will never be able to give to him my heart, myself wholeheartedly, that the complete trust in him I once had won’t return, that we will forever and always be this less than, 80% version of ourselves, because we just can’t get past it. I try to look at him now, as who he is now and only that, not who he was, or who I want him to be, or his mistakes. When I do this part of me softens to him, but part of me also panics, because this is the guy that did these things, this is the stranger that I didn’t know existed in him, and I’m afraid that he'll always be, this stranger. That if this is the him now, then is this the man I love? Most days I think absolutely, but doubt is so powerful. I know, how can she admit this on paper. Why wouldn’t I? Hiding it doesn’t help me, it doesn’t help him. Pretending doesn’t fix anything. I don’t want to pretend. I know that a lot of people will say fake it till you make it. And normally not only would I listen, I would advocate, this has been my motto for years, through all kinds of hell, and trust me when I say I have been to hell and back. But sometimes, in this case, I don’t have it in me to pretend. I want whatever this is to be real and of itself. To be true. I want to begin again... Start over with a new foundation, because that old one is rotten. And if we try to build on it, it will crack and bend and break. It will fall apart from the inside out, and take us both with it. And in the rubble you will find us broken and left for dead. We need a strong foundation…
So is it possible to have that? To build it again. Can we be the architects of our own futures, can we be the footing and foundation of each others lives going forward? It’s not about forgiveness. I forgive. I really and truly do. It’s about trust. Trust and forgiveness are two very different things. I feel walls between us. They go up without effort. Defenses that have gotten more impenetrable with time and hurt. How? Where do I even begin? I want to. I’m tired of holding down this fort alone. I have ALWAYS hated the game of solitaire. I’m not wired that way, despite the countless time that I wish I was, the reality is that I'm just not. I can mimic it really well out of necessity, I can be hard and tough and independent. I know how to get things done and take care of myself, but I don’t WANT that. I have never wanted that. The undeniable truth is that I need him, that I love him, more than I can stand. That my love for him is exactly why he is the one person that can break me. Ruin me. Almost effortlessly, it is also why he is one of the only people in the whole world that scare me, because he walks around everyday with the power to bring me to my knees and destroy me with a few mere words and he doesn’t even know….
And everyday, I just try and make myself ok with the knowledge of that.
The thing is, is that it’s such a paradox… because while I am feeling all of this, there are moments when all he has to do is smile, or touch my back, place his arm around me and I fall for him all over. .. and he whispers he loves me and I forget everything...for a moment. Just a split second, but I am happy again in those moments, and I believe every word. I really BELIEVE it. I fall so easily for him over and over and over again. Maybe what I’m really scared of is me. Maybe its me that I don’t really trust around him, because I’m so quick to fall, to believe...to hope… and there is nothing worse than feeling stupid, and nothing more powerful or dangerous as hope.
I want to give myself to this, to him, to be all in and never doubt it, or look back, but how do you change your instincts once bitten. You keep looking back to make sure, to feel safe.
I just want to love him again, with all of me and feel completely safe. .. maybe that’s why I have such a hard time being happy, because to me happiness doesn’t feel safe anymore. Every time I've started to let myself really be happy and trust again, its been ripped away.. I just want the two to be synonymous once again, with his name, with us.
I’m willing to try because I don't want to give up, on him, on us, our family. ..because I am wired with faith to my own detriment it seems, but what else do I have left if I let go of possibility? Of the ability to BELIEVE in something better? That we all are worth it, we are all possible of redemption? So much of me is him, and him in me, that without him, I’m not whole. Huge chunks of me would be missing. Here is hoping that my faith will not be in vain. That love can really win out in the end...
"Love is patient, love is kind... it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." - 1 Corinthians 13: 4,7-8 Love please don't fail me now. ..I am trying so hard to see the good...
So I'm up ... and it's raining...
And I'm thinking of you.
These thoughts, a trail of a story long cold ... coming to life again.
The thing is, I've never been good at keeping things alive,
but I'm a natural at burying them.
My thumbs only green from crawling on my knees, the earth wet from mourning you ... face turned toward the heavens in hope that God would see that and save us both.
I buried you alongside my heart, and said good-bye to them.
Now here I stand ... on the precipice of their resurrection,
bearing witness to your smile, to the little life in your eyes ...
reminding myself that not all angels have wings,
and that I still believe in miracles.
There are some things we don't talk about, memories sealed in tiny metal coffins marked 'non-exhumable'. We cut the utilities, board up the windows of our hearts, condemn the whole goddam structure.
I was with my daughter when I realized you were gone for real. She saw my face so wet with pain she could have hydroplaned over my eyes. She told me not to cry, that she was still here...
I've moved on from asking why because I've been through this enough times to know by now that it's the one question I'll never have an answer to. But maybe you can help me with these:
The more I think about loss, the more I realize that a part of me was lost with you. A part of me died that day. So who do we become if we keep losing the ones we love? Empty hands and orphaned hearts?
And when we finally meet again, will they even recognize us at all?
How do I bury you six feet under in my frame when I only stand 5'4?"
------
Hold On We're Going Home
I got my eyes on you
You're everything that I see
I want your hot love and emotion endlessly,
I can't get over you
You left your mark on me
I want your hot love and emotion endlessly
Cause you're a good girl and you know it
You act so different around me
Cause you're a good girl and you know it
I know exactly who you could be
Just hold on we're going home
Just hold on we're going home
It's hard to do these things alone
Just hold on we're going home (home)
I got my eyes on you
You're everything that I see
I want your hot love and emotion endlessly,
I can't get over you
You left your mark on me
I want your hot love and emotion endlessly
Cause you're a good girl and you know it (oh yeah)
You act so different around me
Yeah you're a good girl and you know it
I know exactly who you could be
So just hold on we're going home (going home)
Just hold on we're going home (going home)
It's hard to do these things alone (things alone)
Just hold on we're going home (going home, going home)
Under the depth of your glance I crumble.
My head is thick with thoughts of you,
and I don't know how to stop it.
Truthfully I'm not sure that I'm even trying to...
You were my too soon too late,
and now it's exactly that.
Too soon...
to need you like this.
Too late...
to stop my heart from wanting yours...
I feel it speed up and race with the scent of you.
Our hands brush and it pounds in my chest with a calm authority.
Like it's knocking on its cell door asking to be paroled.
It wants to play but I'm scared it'll slip,
that it's slipping.... and falling....for you.
That it'll scrape itself all up again.
Soon all it will be is scars.
"They don't make Band-Aids big enough
for wounds like that", I think to myself,
But as I do your arms wrap around me like a first aid kit
to stop the bleeding before it starts.
That's when it hits me,
That you could take me out and down.
I didn't see it at first, but I see it now.
And even knowing that, I would follow you still.
Your kisses, like warm whispers,
and I, am all ears.
They could make hell look like heaven,
and would have me smiling the whole ride there.
I'll take your demons over your angels any day.
They are so much more fun when we play.
And at least then I know what I'm in for.
Real you is all that interests me.
Like the way you roll your eyes when my mouth says something that gets under your skin.
When all I keep thinking is how much my mouth wants to get under your skin.... and make you roll your eyes again...
This time though I won't waste my breath using words to make my point, when my tongue knows that actions will make you speak louder...
And its thoughts like this that keep me up at night,
that make it impossible to concentrate on anything that doesn't end with your name.
So I let your name pass my lips,
playing with how it feels against them,
and I'll hold you there until the next time
that I can press mine to yours.
------
Falling For You
"What time you coming out?
We started losing light
I’ll never make it right
If you don’t want me ‘round
I’m so excited for the night
All we need’s my bike
And your enormous house
You said someday we might
When I’m closer to your height
Till then we’ll knock around and see
If you’re all I need
Don’t you see me now
I think I’m falling, I’m falling for you
Don’t you need me
I think I’m falling, I’m falling for you
On this night and in this light
I think I’m falling, I’m falling for you
Maybe you’ll change your mind
I think I’m falling
I’m caught on your coat again
You said oh no, it’s fine
I read between the lines
And touched your leg again
I’ll take it one day at a time
Soon you will be mine
Oh but I want you now
When the smoke is in your eyes
You look so alive
Do you fancy sitting down with me
Maybe ‘cos you’re all I need according to your heart
My place is not deliberate
Feeling of your arms
I don’t wanna be your friend, I wanna kiss your neck
I laid my head against your skin and I listened to your heartbeat,
So I could try and time mine to yours.
I needed to be able to take it with me, to feel you anywhere...
The steadiness of it fills my chest,
The same way that holding your hand turns empty space into love.
The way that your eyes turn looks into light...and then into laughter.
A welcoming conduit to someplace else entirely and I am caught staring...
Smiling like a kid that just saw a unicorn kitty...
Awestruck that you were sitting there before me.
Me, having found all of my favourite things wrapped up in Oakley's and a Beaver Canoe.
And you, just eating your fries like it was no big deal.
I don't know what I find more surprising,
The softness of your mouth or the things that fall out of it.
But I'd stick around all day just to listen to what it might say.
Maybe if I wish hard enough it will meet mine halfway again.
You smell like the memories that I want to make. ... Over and over...
So here we are,
two souls crossing paths...they say timing is everything...
I think they're playing our song... Would you dance with me love?
If only for a moment...
------
Sara
"Wait a minute baby... Stay with me awhile Said you'd give me light But you never told be about the fire Drowning in the sea of love Where everyone would love to drown And now it's gone It doesn't matter anymore When you build your house Call me home And he was just like a great dark wing Within the wings of a storm I think I had met my match -- he was singing And undoing the laces Undoing the laces Drowning in the sea of love Where everyone would love to drown And now it's gone It doesn't matter anymore When you build your house Call me home Hold on The night is coming and the starling flew for days I'd stay home at night all the time I'd go anywhere, anywhere Ask me and I'm there because I care Sara, you're the poet in my heart Never change, never stop
And now it's gone It doesn't matter what for When you build your house I'll come by Drowning in the sea of love Where everyone would love to drown And now it's gone It doesn't matter anymore When you build your house Call me home All I ever wanted Was to know that you were dreaming (There's a heartbeat And it never really died)"
