Thursday

05262011

another unsent letter


Dear L.,

I’ve decided I must have dreamed talking to you last night. Maybe my spirit was trying to remind me of what it craves and needs in order for it to create. Maybe it was a twisted shard of mind just going off on its own tangents. You got me worked up and excited about something… about an odd sense of openness and rawness. And part of me knew that what I felt was palpable… tangible… real. You set me in motion, as if I were a clock. A clock that kept ticking and ticking, though unpredictably. How can that be? Does it make sense? Because, then, I was thinking all night… thinking about things you’d said… and things you didn’t say.

And thinking… about what sits inside the silence… and waits… and grows.

What would Renoir make of it all? Another brush-stroked depiction of reality, or reality as he perceives it? How would Eliot form it into words? How would he describe me… describe you? How many stanzas would it take… to make… us?

What are you doing right now? What thoughts are brushing against your shoulders, asking to be allowed entry through your hair and beneath your skin? Will you get lost in thoughts and stay there all evening… all night? But… please don’t answer these questions. It would break the silence… so fluid… that we share. Instead, I will sit here and keep thinking… and keep talking to myself… to you.

Yet, I am at a loss for words, I who always seem to find the words to express just what it is I wish to say. Yes… I am… at a loss… utterly. I will keep my lips shut and feel the words inside my head. I will stay silent… and maybe you will come along and draw the words from inside me… where I guard them as one guards a secret… where they sit… waiting.

But… let me say this: You just might turn out to be the purest thing that has happened to me in a while. You are like honey. You smell of… earth… of… spice… of… human emotion. You smell like… original sin. You smell like something that exists inside the imagination… but can never be real.

But you are real.

And so.

I let go the thoughts. I let go the angst. I let go the trap.

I let go…

But you’ve got me caught… between your fingers. And you are molding me… ever so sweetly. And I am bending and folding in the warmth of your hands… my limbs filled with tingles… my heart filled with arrows… my eyes filled with dreams.

With devotion,
N.

Tuesday

05242011

last night, i kept losing the moon
one moment, there… just there
the next, gone
one moment, illuminated
the next, hidden by clouds
black clouds
that started by concealing it
and ended by stealing it
while the leaves of trees
turned in the wind
revealing shades
of light and shadow

there is a missing window
inside this room
the window looking out
upon the moon

there must be
i know it

and how did i hope
to see you, moon
when the window framing you
had vanished from sight?

and how do i hope
to keep you, moon
when the heavens fight over you
and win, always, both battle and war?

Wednesday

05182011

she said to me,
i would have tried harder
if only he had shown me
a sign.

i said to her,
you would have tried harder
if only… if only…
conditionally.

but
we are all
(aren’t we?)
such creatures
of condition
and circumstance.

Monday

05162011

there is nothing
more enchanting
than a late afternoon
in the company of love
listening to beautiful music
sipping fragrant wine
whispering 
quietly
to one another
in the gaps
between
one note and the other
one bar and the other
one touch of lips
and the next


bewitching


touch


of fingertip


to breast

...

Sunday

05152011

i have been writing of angels. angels of darkness. angels of light. and, why angels? i don’t know. i can’t know. let the writing take itself wherever it pleases to go. if i try to make of it something it doesn’t wish to be, it resists. if i try to make it up from something it never was, it resists. i have fought with my writing before. there is no longer a place for that.
if it is angels who are infesting my imagination, let them come, then.
i open the door. i allow them in.
they sit with me. they speak to me.
of me. of you. of them.
they speak. i listen.
and whatever they say
is etched upon my soul.
and i write.
and i write.
and i write.
and
the writing flows
violet ink on white paper
and
the white light of angels
beams inside my words…

Saturday

05142011

i get excited
thinking about tomorrow
because tomorrow
will be beautiful

(do you see how
tomorrow
juts out
in the second line?

do you see how
she announces
herself
so flagrantly?)

Thursday

05122011

yesterday
an alchemy
and today
a storm
a tempest
a disturbance in the sky
an upheaval of the heavens
and their reverse below

and i…

i take
a sadistic pleasure
in…
my home
more embracing
my heart
more warm
my spirit
more vibrant
in the arms of
this…


and this...


and this...


my shuddering tempest
my turbulent sky

Tuesday

05102011

this song...
every time i hear this song
i remember that time
in another life… in another country
when you had to go away
for a very long time

and i was just sitting there
one quiet afternoon
minding my own business
and this song came on the radio

and the tears pricked my eyes
and my soul fell on its knees
fell… so terribly
and i closed my eyes
hoping to trap the tears
trying to escape
from between my lashes

but they fell
unstoppably

and this evening
i was just sitting there
minding my own business
and this song came on
in the middle of a random shuffle

and the tears pricked my eyes
and all that other stuff…
it happened too
though you are here

and i couldn’t find the words
when you asked why
why was i gasping
with such helpless abandon
my lips as mute as my spirit
my breath shunning my heart

but those tears
fell
those tears
that my heart recognized
as the truth of my soul
coming from his lips
the lips of this man
this stranger
who i did see
once upon a time
not in my dreams
but in the flesh
in another life
in another time
this man
who has stripped
so shamelessly
the tar-painted
walls of my heart
            in the absence
the star-painted
walls of my soul
            in the presence
of you, my love

Monday

05092011

the first unsent letter...


Dear P.,

You walked away, that day, thinking I would forget those moments when you had been my anchor. And the saddest thing is you really believed yourself. But, truth is, you believed this because you sorely wanted to believe it. You violently wished to be the victim, the “abandoned” one. As if being abandoned is some sort of honor or trophy to wear and flaunt.

Will we ever recapture that moment of eternity we once shared?

You know, I tried to take a photograph of your last letter to me… because, though you did not declare it, I knew it was your last. But, it was as if my camera was seized by a ghost. Every photograph I took was blurry and foggy to my eyes. Maybe, then, it was not the photographs that were blurred, but rather, perhaps it was my vision? Yes, were my vision truly as perfect as I wish it to be, there would have been no taking of photographs, in the first place. After all, what purpose does a photograph of a letter serve, when I have the true letter in my possession?

Today, as I think of you, I see you there, in that place of yours… that place beside the sea. I see you painted upon the back of my head like an emblazoned image tucked neatly inside the predictability of a fresco. I see you… though you no longer see me. What thoughts linger inside your head as you sit at your kitchen table and sip your warm flavored tea? What memories haunt your eyes by day, your lips by night, sending you into a barrage of nocturnal, slumberous dreaming and story-telling? What secrets do you tell to those who wait to listen… to hear… to learn your deepest thoughts?

And what do you make of loneliness? What do you make of its engulfing arms, winged, and cold, and ready to collapse around you?

And what, my dear, do you make of fear?

I leave you, now. I have questions of my own... begging to be answered.

Yours,
N.

Saturday

05072011

some nights
when dreams come
i hold them down
to the ground
for fear
they will overpower me
with some memory
with some agony
happy or sad

and i tell myself
they are now
imprisoned
helpless
hopeless
chained
by my seamless hands

yet
the truth is
dreams are
fleeting
ethereal
free

and last night
my seamless hands
lost them so quickly

Wednesday

05042011

i want to say…

something feels broken

not cracked
not frayed

broken is broken

there is no sealing it
there is no healing it

instead…

i offer myself
the gift of oblivion

i light a candle
to this magical loss

i sit with it
and beg it
to release me
to rediscover me

in a new and different way

i’ve a restless heart
heavy with the burdens
of others’ stories

stories not mine
stories in search
of being released

i want to say
that other thing

i say, instead…

my hurt is mine

your hurt is yours
and mine

now talk to me
tell me your story

Sunday

05012011

in this white
and silent space
i sometimes hear
the vibrant thud
of heavy stone
the tinkling
of shattering glass
thin and vulnerable
and confused
rocks hurled
to break
life
blood
bone

but i do not shudder
and i do not fall

for the light shines
naked and bright

and after all

we are all
(aren’t we?)
porcelain dolls
living
in glass houses