the ache within the ache

I found you

2010-01-08T13:59:00.000-08:00

Remember when you had

such a slight way of keeping my attention turned just perfectly in your direction at all times?

Remember when you had

the idea to climb to the top of the Tate Modern when the fire escape door was ajar?

Remember when you had

so many people surrounding you for your time and attention and to fill their holes?

Remember when you had

only two minutes to talk and we ended up discussing the whole wide world in those two minutes?

I remember when you had my full and total attention

I remember when the door shut behind us and the wind was blowing and we had to yell for help to get back inside

I remember when you came across the room and sought me out leaving your other world behind you for me

I remember when the entire days and nights of my life were you, and two minutes was a lifetime to hear you breathe into me

I found you, how did you lose me?

2009-09-17T14:25:00.000-07:00

(This is for you, Sweet Mama)

This is for you to come and rest your head on my shoulder.

For you to find a safe place, warm in my beating heart.

A small escape from yesterday's mourning.

That tiny place you can curl into me and know today will end.

A new moment and memory will begin.

You have the wisdom of the ages and the beauty of the sages.

You wrap yourself in your dreams of seaweed and grace.

You see out of stained glass eyes and touch with pierced heart and fingers.

The cross on your wall serves to keep you on this earth.

Your head and mind and toes soar far far above.

Hands and feet planted firmly upon the roof top of your dream.

You ask when this pain will pass and when you will be able to breathe again.

You heart is on fire and Leonard Cohen is knocking on your door.

You light a cigarette off of the stove and step back to watch yourself
open the window and climb out to your own ledge
and throw your head back and scream
"my day has just begun"...as you spread your giant wings and cross the sea
to home.

april 1992

2009-08-18T22:14:00.000-07:00

In the sheets
my feet and leg wrapped tight around them

Staring at ceiling, counting car lights that pass
Hopeful for you to drive by, slowly, pull near to the fence
Turn off the car, slide back your seat
Open your window, your ears, your heart
Feel the breeze and me within it

I imagine your cold hand on my face
How you bite at your bottom lip
What it feels like when your palm puts pressure on my forehead
and you ask me if it is okay you are here

Holding on to the sheets I make room for you on the bed
Can taste beauty in your kiss
You hold me close to you, my nightgown twisted up around my hips
your hand like an envelope around mine.

I hear the porch light go off and the door lock
I heard that they sold your car today
to pay for the funeral and the arrangements
I wrap tighter into my bed
Hopeful my breath will catch in the night
and you will take me with both hands
and pull me into you.

2009-04-15T09:38:00.000-07:00

I look out and down, as though I will see you coming toward me,
your hand extended as you pull me toward you on your cloud

What madness there is inside of me
what terrible burning lines my skin
from my cells and my nerves to my mouth
Every part of me is pinched tight
Closed off to my thoughts
my blood feels cool to the touch
My hand is unsteady, my cigarette no longer lit
my spirit, no longer is burning

Take my time down the winding stairs
making every step a lifetime of waiting
a moment that I seize from myself
a pause that keeps me balanced, assured,
tilting toward the sun I light my cigarette

I leave to go to dinner, taking myself by the hand.

2009-03-22T17:39:00.000-07:00

You leave me starved,

deprived of those things one must be provided
with to keep their pulse and their heart from falling
inward upon itself.

Your hands are white, pale like a breed of horse I once saw,
in a child's picture book. Drawn with the same pale hand.

Your veins are wise and thick, cutting through your arm
like a deep cut through you, a river
fast and full and rushing.

Pushing and pulling with it all the grief it stores
below its fierce and blinded water.

Reach up, take the branch that guides you
toward the bank that is filled with mud and weeds
and dead thoughts
hibernating from your soul.

You lead me to a place that I am able to hold onto,
not for my dear life
but for the life that left me long ago
passed me by
like a reed drawn downward to your sand and
to my dark beneath.

You give me a golden apple to suck juice and life from,
a snake to make a harness from,
a grain of your sand that you promise me a pearl from.
You tell me that I am starved no more.

It is you, you say, you who has no arms to touch with
you who has no teeth to sink life into or slip through
streets and gutters with,
you who cannot but wade through your own fits and stir
upon your own madness.

A gift in kind
for the ones left behind
and we make our way
so we may leave a space
for those who are blessed with living.

2009-02-27T12:24:00.000-08:00

why did I wait to hear you on the steps
I felt as though I could not move,
imbalanced and unsteady
and holding on to a past that you have sworn to me of tides and secrecy

I feel the distance growing
through my chest and the cold place where my shoulders meet
and bend into my back
where the bones touch together into a wide ache

I walk along and hold the wall
supporting me as though an extension of my skeleton
I feel my breath change, shallow now, weak

You hand holds the elevator door open
you look through the hall,
there is nothing,
this spirit has left me
only with love do we linger on

2009-02-25T15:39:00.000-08:00

I am watching you now,
watching you as though you are a house on fire.

Full on sirens and burning up to the sky.
Taking my last violent coughs of your smoke.

My eyes and face are hot and burn.
The house collapses on me.

I reach out, to try and catch it
and hold it to my chest.

2009-02-23T15:51:00.000-08:00

You have grown on me,
a far away smell
a cigarette on a train
an early morning walk through the mist
something gone forever
and sticking to my bones

baring myself into you, your hands
firmly around my wrists
slowly lowering me into the earth
onto my back like an offering
like making peace with our past
[like pieces of a past]

I hold onto you like light,
a single droplet of blood
in the smallest palm of my heart
stretching into your ache
and you, into me, awe watch the sun
take its long strides across us
pinned to the earth
a pulse left unattended
left unattached
left to bathe in side eachother

2009-02-20T10:34:00.000-08:00

The sick sting of you stays with me, your words like little forks into my shoulder blades

why did I turn away

and not face you

would you have said it any more quietly, or would you have been prompted to look further into me, to burn me deep inside

with your cries and hurts and aches

everyone looked at me, not even past me, to you

as if waiting for my response to you would put things back into motion again

taking us into another scene in our film

I heard your hands come down hard, to your sides
and imagined you shaking your head, a little to the left, just enough so that your hair now covered both of your eyes,

and then you turned, not toward me as I would have done toward you,
but to the side, to choose your next destination,

while I looked down at my boots, hoping they would choose for me,
which way that I would go.

2009-02-19T13:14:00.000-08:00

Don't expect me to love you like this forever...

I know that you already do

you think I will wear my heart unlocked and open for you to peek into whenever you wish

and you will be able to see me bend and break like a branch on a cold, cold night

You may never know how deeply someone felt for you

or know the pain of release ~ but I have this knowledge, I have lived this death

and this is only the start of how I unwind my heart from your bones

and take in oxygen again for myself

and listen to the raven, as it picks apart the remains of my heart's ache.

2009-02-18T08:19:00.000-08:00

I hold on and hold back.

What I want to tell you, it drips from my lips,
saturates itself in me.

But there is nothing to tell
nothing to hear it coming from my body to the air to be carried to you by the wind
of my breath.

You delight on the small things.

Baby birds, hatchlings.
Tangerines in season, in Spain.
Snow on your eyelashes.
Pennyroyal tea from the container your mother left for you.
A spoon you took from a cafe,
where you left your umbrella in exchange.
The slowness when the train begins its journey,
the stillness you need to hear it as it comes fully into itself.
The ache when rising to meet the night
when you begin to steal me from my dream.

2009-02-18T07:53:00.000-08:00

Reaching through,
to find a quiet place where you once drew in so much love,
and warmth into this space
where to find myself in this
and how
to restrain this love this ache this panic that forms in my hands and
thirsts in my lungs, of you, for you?
what now
reaches through to you in the night, and holds you high above them?
take your time to answer
I have a thousand lifetimes to wait for you.

2009-02-17T10:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we laughed, and life felt light and alive within again.
Like we were taking small movements forward without being so frightened of one another.

~I forgot how it felt to be pulled in by you, tight to your chest
~I forgot what your mouth looks like when you turn back around and say "Cheerio".
~I forgot the way my hand feels, so small in yours, fingers tight together.
~I forgot when we kissed how the world drained quiet, like that first moment when you discover you have hurt yourself, and there is a death moment, of silence complete.
~I forgot that holding onto you is the same as wading into quick sand, and allowing it to cover me, filling up my eyes, my mouth, my ears with this love.

There is no way out of this now, the panic and the low tide has set in.
Do we dare to create what has been tarnished by years of mistrust and being alone?
Or do I now concentrate on those things that were once forgotten and now made anew?
Why does our love not bring with it alone peace, of mind and body, and things made whole...but a rushing in of waves far too high for me to pull my thoughts over, whiling away, treading here, like long ago?

2009-02-09T12:36:00.000-08:00

Dear Heart.

I hung a picture today, the one you gave me of the little chruch,
the painting you brought back for me from the market that sunny morning,
then that rainy afternoon, then the afternoon that you asked me to hold you forever, every morning that you woke, and each night that you fell into your deep, black sleep.

The one you asked me to always put near me wherever I may go.
"To have a bit of the day" with me always you had said.

After you left the house this morning
I unwrapped the picture from its place in the dresser.
I let my fingers linger over the wire before I hung it.
A small droplet of blood on the tip of my thumb from a place the wire had been cut.
I press my thumb into the back of the framless picture,
and press the picture as I hang it to the wall, watching as the spot sinks into the paper, made visible.

A tiny place that I have been, and will take with me.

2009-02-04T13:35:00.000-08:00

I waited an hour for you to phone
and sat on my sill taking long drags on my cigarette
and watched as it blew back in and onto me
and I remembered that line
from a Leonard Cohen song,
that true love leaves no traces.

Then I stretched out my legs
and walked into the living room, where I could not see out
to know whether or not you were coming
so it would be a surprise.

But you didn't come and you didn't phone
and the hallway light was turned out
so like I always do, I came looking for you
and walked through our streets and our bars
and our doorways and our station but you
had left them long ago
and forgotten to send me something in the post
to tell me.

2009-01-26T10:43:00.001-08:00

we heart it (yes, we do)

Now you are gone, my dream of climbing into you.
Now you have risen, like a dark star,
bound and claimed by the world and to another.

There was a time,
when I knew you so well and sat for hours, just watching you move
slow and steady and open to life and living

Now you are gone, and nothing grows from your place.
I have tried, and am trying, to bury my ache,
deep where you once gave me a place to rest my head
and where your shadow held me.

2009-01-24T18:28:00.001-08:00

make me, I dare you,
dare you to take me into you
all my pain and disgust and crimes of the soul
taken in, in one, big, gulp

here is a finger,
it used to curl around your hair
put it to good use
and then here,
take my whole hand
the one that held your face
under the streetlight in the rain
the one that opened your car door
the one that you cried into and sobbed your heart to
there now, here is my arm
the one that kept you dry as I balanced my umbrella
and got soaking wet
while you were tight under it and warmed by me
here, my chest,
all for you,
the one that pressed itself to you,
the one that you said held the most pure heart inside it, ever
take my belly
and take my lungs
breathe for me now
feel me expand and ache under your own skin

2009-01-24T18:20:00.000-08:00

oh, baby, you wear me down...

you wear me down to the very dirt you wiped my face in

wake me when the pieces are put back together

open my eyes and clean my face

part my mouth into a kiss

watch my lips crack and bleed

my knees are skinned

glass in my palms

a small sacrifice indeed

walk me home and put me in the shower

play me my favorite song on your guitar

lock your fingers into mine

push your hair out of my eyes

mend my limp, bandage my heart ache

take me out to the sea

lay down on top of me

push my arms above my head

part my mouth with your tongue

hold me still

and wear me down

2009-01-24T08:06:00.000-08:00

i'ts a hot day, there is not a breeze,
and the trees and their leaves stay sticky still
like my heart
stuck in its cave
afraid to make its shadow known
the flowers are bright, the grass is new
the smell of last night streaming through

a ship is on the harbor
a new perspective raises from my waves
a flag that draws me inland
a hand that helps me step into my grave

it's a cool wind
a night of standing in wait
holding my own against sand and bitterness
a slippery ache in nature's gate
as the cold pulls in what last night left over
for us lovers to try and recreate

2009-01-23T20:51:00.001-08:00

...and do you recall,

sitting in your car, the heat on full,

me in a blanket, you in tears

and we knew it was over, our time stood still

but we tried to pretend the night would go on and on and on?

...it was like a beautiful nightmare,

the kind that doesn't frighten you, but you know you will be

waking with bruises on your heart and knees?

...when your mouth met mine in the dark

and I felt the sting of fear and old sores

opening just enough to pull me through

we were still while the outside light switched off

and we knew my parents hadn't seen us

or at least thought we were already gone.

...when did you talk yourself into stopping the beat of your heart

onto mine?

I just need to know, how to tell the ache within the ache

when it comes to me tonight in panic and sleepless slumber,

I just have to know how to calm this endless hurt

this weariness, this time I spend in my head,

I wonder if you know

what you left behind you

and what awaits for you in every corner and pause of your life,

so prepared and certain and ready to pounce

and I sit on my haunches, too worn to strike

and to brittle to bend

making friends with my fury and knowing

you are alive and left me with your blanket

the one you said was your travel blanket, the one incase your car broke down.

Your security blanket, while you are twenty-three,

you took it off of me, and put your hands to my face,

kissed my cheeks and wiped your tears on my skin.

And it felt like this, it felt like this, it felt like this.

2009-01-23T15:02:00.000-08:00

There is a slow rush
of water of pain coming in
floating out into the sea
washing and keeping me down
A piercing sound in my ears
a haunted feeling
of being free
a wholly undertaking
a small price
for this such large ache.

2009-01-23T14:54:00.000-08:00

You were in my dream tonight

I woke up in your sweat

it smelled of you, of moonlight

It smelled of us, our bed, our sheets,

our stars.

You were watching me from a treehouse

across from our window.

You were not sure what you needed anymore from me.

I wanted to beg you to need me enough for the both of us

and not to have to ask.

I rolled over to see you, just then

the small of my back with a slow ache

and a soft place to rest my heart, under your pillow.

2009-01-23T14:42:00.000-08:00

How do I ask for you to stay with me,

when you have left the room, closed the door,

made your side of the bed for its last time,

closed your heart and mind and thoughts from me,

taken your music and your pocketknife and your cable knit sweater

your box of Shredded Wheat and your poster of guitar chords

off of the wall

and your side of the bed and my room is bare

with a stillness in the floorboards that ache with my every breath

a sharp and dull ache

like you, leftover

part of my history, my heart still rising and falling

while you turn the knob and lock it behind you.

2009-01-23T14:26:00.000-08:00

I don't like all the things I have to see before I get through the forevers and evers of your past to get to see you, to see into you.

I don't like to have to wonder or to want or to be needed by you.

Do you wonder what I look like, real deep down inside?

Have you been into the dark places behind my eyes with me?

I ask for you to hold out your arm for me to reach for.

I hate to ask for anything from anyone, especially you.

Especially you.

I don't know what to see, anymore, when I see through you.

I don't know where to look.

I don't know what you will reflect back, on to me.

2009-01-23T14:10:00.000-08:00

I miss you, and my body, it moves forward to see you fully, clearly, whole.

I can't help it.

I look back, I watch you leave. I always have, I always will.

It is slow, the ache, the time it takes to run deep,

from my hairline I can feel you leave my body,

through to the back of my ears and down the side of my face.

A methodical and light sting through the roof of my mouth

as the salt mixes with the tears and the hole in my heart,

and you push through the doors, both arms outstretched, and meet your whole new world.

2009-01-23T13:06:00.000-08:00

My hands are covering eachother,

covering my center, my middle, my balance point.

I am watching you move across me, a dream, in headlights, a shadow, you and your ghost, you're leaving me.

I take baby steps to the bathroom door and peak into the darkness.

Too many baby steps and this is where they have gotten me.

I open the door and the floor is cold on my feet, you are behind me, in my mind, in my mirror, in my calling out to you.

My hands slip down to the water, I sit while the bath fills

And fills me with your picture, your perfect image, your ghost inbetween me and behind me.

2009-01-23T13:02:00.000-08:00

Where does the ache begin, and what continues to allow it to grow?

When does the time come, when healing takes over?

When the ache ends its clawing, its talons sharpened perfectly,

and the release comes crushing in, like perfect blue water through you?