I bent my head in prayer only to ask for a God I could relate to.
I still have never heard Their voice
but I’ve heard your unsteady breath
on days when I prayed to disappear into eternity.I haven’t prayed to God in years, but there were nights I prayed to you.
Tag: prose
I dreamt of disintegration. I dreamt of a body dissolved into salt water. I dreamt of becoming the sea. You say I have such an expressive face and I wonder if you could see the ocean when I pulled away from you.
(via alannadp)
So beautiful.
You can abuse my emotions and toss them aside,
but like the masochist I always am,
I may still find a way to love you.
hozane, To the memories of my childhood (via wnq-writers)
Il est moi, aussi, je ne sais pas pourquoi.
So you win. You forgot about me while I was still saying your name in my sleep. Even now, I wake up in the middle of the night and it’s still about you. Look, I can’t forget it. I won’t forget it. You don’t forget the people you love, you just learn to live with them somewhere still inside of you.
2 years // thewordsyouneverunderstood (via thewordsyouneverunderstood)
It’s not been two years… But I feel the same, and I suspect I always will.
Look, people forget their dreams before they go to rub their eyes in the morning. You’re a dream that never stops no matter how many times I rub my eyes.
(via sexsesh)
I wrote a poem about you once.
I was lonely one Tuesday night,
And instead of going straight to having conversations with the cracks in the walls or the creaks in my bones
I decided to pour the thoughts of you into ink
And immortalize you on paper instead.
You see, there’s a saying I read once that claimed that if a writer falls in love with you,
Then you could never die.
And if that’s true, love, then you’ll live on forever
Because I lied just now.
I didn’t write a single poem about you.
You are the kind of person who can’t ft into one poem.
You, you are worth odysseys, and stories, and grand myths
I could write novels about how your name fills my lungs like smoke.
And how my pulse seems to scream when your mouth hangs like a crooked painting.
I could write novels about how my hands will always search for yours in complete darkness, how you seemed to split open my heart
And I can’t stop the hemorrhaging of affection as it runs red rivers towards my fingertips.
My love, my dearest, my friend,
I could write hundreds of novels about you.
Just…You. And you’re magic ability to make me feel like my pieces aren’t just stitched up with trite promises and scotch tape.
This novel isn’t the biggest, and it won’t affect thousands of people,
But I’ll tell you right now that it affected me a thousands different ways.
A thousand different times.
So I’ll drink my coffee until my teeth are stained yellow and my tongue is burnt raw. I will nibble at my toast until it’s too hard to even look at. I will look out the window of the coffee shop and stare into the world. I will try to write my feelings down, but won’t utter not a word. And I will write about how I miss you and how I can’t eat or sleep anymore. And then the waitress will bring my check and I will sign away, no matter my debts. I will leave the coffee shop late, into the polluted streets of your favorite city. And I will walk till I reach the end of the sidewalk and my mind finally stops bugging me. I will. I promise.
m.j.w., “my promise to you” (via wnq-writers)
Lost Love and The End of The World
I can’t ask to see you, anymore; I’ve taken away that possibility.
I mean: I could write an email to you, as I still have your address… or I could send you a message on Facebook, and hope that you respond…
But I won’t. At least, not yet.
It’s not as easy, now, without your phone number.
…My head still aches, like your spirit is still calling me, is still pulling at me, is still trying to get in, to speak those words you refuse to speak, to let me into the dark crevices you refuse to admit exist, but that I see, that I feel so easily. I wonder if it will stop, or if I will somehow become linked to you through some spiritual-psychic means. I wonder if I will be able to forget that you have meant so much to me, except in quiet, bidden moments – like with the other men I’ve loved and lost. I wonder how long it will take…
…Or if you’ll come back to me, as you did this year; if you’ll hunt me down – or I, you – and we’ll run into each other somewhere in my hometown or amongst our mutual friends and haunts.
It was too good to be true, someone might say. Or, it was a fairytale romance, and this great angst is the demon we must face before the obligatory storybook ending.
All I knew is that I loved you. All I know is that I love you… and that you’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen, so perfect in your lithe movements, in your arrogant stance, in your handsome demeanor, with your penetrating stare from your captivating eyes. All I know is that you’ve owned me, and I am still yours… and somehow thrown through the looking-glass into a world where I may not touch you, where I may not speak to you, where I may not hear from you… where love is silent and distant, where true lovers never make love.
All I know is that you love me, and that your words will never speak that truth; and your protection haunts me, stalks me, would save and murder me in the same second…
And all I have left are memories.
I miss your skin. I miss the way the light shone on it, and the way the clouds and sky looked behind you as you stood and paced nervously, restlessly in front of me. I miss the way your hair falls upon your brow, and its silkiness between my fingers as I stroked it. I miss your gorgeous, gaunt cheeks and jaw… your slender neck and jagged Adam’s apple, and the rough stubble on your chin beneath my lips as I so often drew them over your features like a blind woman, memorizing your face with my most sensitive skin.
I miss your eyes, when you would look at me with quiet, surprised vulnerability; when I would look at you with the same openness, and we would take in each other with so much startled love, like two beasts unfamiliar with each other, yet sensing nothing innately harmful….
I miss the way you’d lay your head on my shoulder, near my neck, like a boy burdened with so many thoughts and responsibilities, asking silently that I take some of it away, taking my love in unhurried draughts as I held you, gave to you my strength.
I miss the way you’d react so deeply to my caresses, aching to return to me the power of my touch with your own capable fingertips.
I miss our kisses, all of which were fumbling and afraid – despite our respective skill. I miss the questions that would pass hurriedly through my mind as your lips found mine, as your heart sought out mine, as your mind hunted mine, as mine hurried away in terrified desire for you, for your hands, for your lips….
And, most of all, I miss your heart. I miss being your Sugar, and I hate myself for ever being otherwise. I want to pound myself back into a pulp, to squeeze myself until I cry sweet tears, to boil in my own rage until I am again refined and clear and sweet… and acceptable, again, to your palate.
For I am lonely for myself, and I am lonely for you, who loved me enough to see me; who saw me for long enough to acknowledge, to ask for me. And I am lonely for us, for that unspeakable love that passes always between us, that is so hard to grasp and so strongly uncontrollable.
May I never be fool enough to forget you; may you never be fool enough not to forgive me; may we never be fool enough not to return, one day and always, to each other.
A Kiss
He said to me, looking me in the eyes with so much love… “Kiss me.”
And I kissed him, wanting to fill him with my passion, to translate it… and he pulled away and looked at me gently, and said: “No. It doesn’t always have to be world-changing. Just kiss me.”
And he kissed me gently, and I kissed him back, and I could FEEL it… and it was good.
And it changed me.
He asked me why I love him.
“Because,” I explained with faintly childish impatience, “you’re a MAN.”
He laughed and grinned in his boyish way, and asked me what I meant. "…Because,“ he explained with resonant patience, "that means all kinds of things to different women.”
Of course he’s right, but my arrogant self-assurance in my appraisal says that doesn’t mean THEY are correct.
I grew up with a principled father who loved his family beyond measure, whose love for his parents, for his wife, for his children has meant all kinds of things to him, but meant so much more to me.
When my dad was away on his frequent business trips, I indulged in books, in exploring the creative aspects of my mind, in learning as much as I could, in playing outdoors and swimming at the neighborhood pool, in helping Mom with cooking and cleaning and generally trying to keep out of trouble so, when Dad came back, I could get giant hugs from him, follow him up the stairs to his room and watch him unpack his bags, chat with him about where he’d been and the people he’d met on planes while traveling across the nation.
Dad’s life was an adventure, to me; I thrilled in his tales, imagined vividly the places he’d been, embraced his life so thoroughly. On Saturday afternoons, I’d sit on the floor in his room, watching, as he polished his shoes every week, until I was old enough to ask if I could help. I took so much pleasure in working the dark creams into his shoes, carefully polishing and buffing out the handsome leather until they shone. I loved the big, metal watches he’d wear and would pass to me while sitting in church when, in my boredom and curiosity, I wanted some distraction from the very-adult-oriented speeches. I’d snap and unsnap the clip around my small wrist, letting it dangle and fall like a bracelet as I tried to balance it on my childish arm to examine the large face, my eyes following the tiny second hand perpetually ticking off time. And, when I was cold, with the smallest word of complaint from me – and sometimes, with only a shiver as my fair hair lifted in goosebumps on the backs of my arms, he’d slip his giant suit jacket off and wrap it around me, still warm with his body’s heat; and, when I still shivered, he’d curl his arm around me and cuddle me close.
Perhaps we don’t understand the impact of our fathers, of their natural and subtle ways of being with us, when we’re children; and perhaps they, too, don’t quite understand their impact while it’s happening.
For my impressions of men, of the beauty of men were formed in the music Dad listened to, by Simon & Garfunkel and their melodious tunes, by The Eagles, by tales of Dad’s history as a bassist in a band, and of the mother-of-pearl-inlaid guitar that he’d sold in exchange for taking care of us.
The idea of handsome, honest, honorable men was reinforced while watching his favorite movies with my dad: gorgeous black-and-white and early-color films from the 1940s and ‘50s with tall, gaunt, well-built men who danced lithely with glamorous women and treated ladies with respect and adoration, showering them with classic romance. The variants melded and intermingled in my analytical mind as I subconsciously came to understand that men were simply… men: strong, independent, honest, conscious, deliberate, courageous, caring, noble, self-respecting male humans with individually-chosen character.
My dad is still of the men who always open doors for women, who scolded my dates if they dared show up in jeans while I was in a dress or skirt, who loved me, no matter what.
He admired my mind, respected my beauty, treated me with a kind and gentle and serious hand, surprised me with flowers every Valentine’s Day and brought home little gifts, when he could, from his adventurous trips.
So, whether I knew it or not, whether I could help it or not, my desires for love come well-attached to the man who raised me, who treated me well, who helped move me to Midtown Atlanta (and back again), who helped move me to Cincinnati (and back again), who came to visit me time and again when I moved away to Canada and left my family and friends behind.
Yet, I have never fancied myself as looking for my father in my loves.
Still, it was with my dad that I enjoyed meals most frequently, going out for work-week lunches and dinners at his favorite diners and delis and, occasionally, at out-of-the-way restaurants. And it was my dad who introduced me to the restaurant world I’ve come to love so much, making a go at running a small diner in Florida when I was only three, and my older sister and I would “take orders” for our family. It was because of him that I decided, at a precocious age, that I wanted to be a waitress – which I later came to be and love.
It was my father who first expanded my palate, introducing me to freshly-squeezed orange juice on a trip from Orlando to our suburban home in Duluth, Georgia, when he halted his cherry-red Audi Quattro at a roadside stand selling freshly-picked citrus, and I tasted the sweetest juice that had ever touched my tongue. And he taught me to drive, and to love driving: on that trip and on so many roads, in that beautiful Audi, letting me shift through the gears as he worked the pedals; sharing with me his love of sports cars through so many conversations and tales and photos of hot rod shows in his youth.
And my father who taught me, first, to be honest and true and sensitive. He may not have said everything he felt, but when my dad spoke, I knew it was honest and true; and though he may not have been completely open with his feelings, my dad was sensitive in his dealings with all of the children, with my mother and with his colleagues and employers. He was gentle and aware of our feelings, always; and he always responded to us with as much warmth and affection and kindness as he could muster – while still being rational and honest and true to what he knew.
I was never “Daddy’s Girl” – there were too many daughters for him to ever choose or isolate one; but I was Daddy’s girl, and when I was with him, I knew I was loved. How he managed to love each and every one of his eight children so profoundly that we each, to this day, feel an individual relationship with him is quite astonishing… and his love taught me to love just as infinitely, just as individualistically.
So, in years hence, I could not help but be the girl he raised me to be:
Honest.
True.
Sensitive.
Loving.
Pure of heart.
Strong of mind.
Rational.
Reasonable.
Gentle, but firm.
Kind, and generous to a fault.
Adventurous.
In love with nature and the world.
I took everything I learned and loved from my father – in fact, from both of my parents and from both of my grandparents and from everyone who loved me – I took all the goodness I saw, cultivated in myself what I wanted so I might be as purely as I ever considered a woman might be, and looked for the purest culmination of these that I could find in a counterpart…
And that was, to me, a man.
Why do I love you, my dear one?
Because, unbeknownst to either of us, you have somehow fulfilled my dreams of the perfect man: a heightened amalgamation of the principles my father taught me, added to my girlish ideals of exploration, adventure, truth, honesty, romance and love.
I love you because I am my father’s daughter, my mother’s fascinated little girl; because my grandfather loved the sea and my grandmother was so infinitely giving and understanding; because my parents left me to myself, to determine my destiny, and my siblings paradoxically let me alone and challenged me.
I love you because, with every man I ever loved before you, I was honed and tempered by all that they loved and all they could not tolerate in me, becoming stronger with every part that I knew myself to be and softer in the parts I did not know I could be; because my mother taught me to follow my heart and my dreams, and, through that, I loved and loved infinitely through pain and heartache and confusion, through depression and fear and misery, and I learned to learn to love and accept and cherish every drop of love that was given me – which I am yet learning to love and accept and cherish – even when I do not know why I receive it.
I love you, my darling, because I am me, and you resonate so perfectly with me.
So, thank my parents for all they taught me, for all they are; thank my siblings for loving and hating me; thank my loves and all of those who loved me – whether they love or hate me now; thank my children for showing me new parts of myself, and for teaching me to love more greatly…
For they are all the reasons I love you, and all of the reasons you love me.
Love, The Infinite Unknown
It’s not the easiest thing in the world, to love.
I mean: it’s easy, but so many things can get in the way, distracting us from love, from letting ourselves fall into the flow of loving, of giving everything we are to the act of caring for another person, for the knowledge of them, for the knowledge of what impact they have upon us, for the responsibility of our impact upon them. So many things can hold us back: pains from past experiences, confusion over lost loves, rules and cautions given by well-meaning others.
For years, I’ve fought those rules, those cautions, those fears; for years, I’ve sought to find the truth of my impact, to see who people truly are, to understand why they behave in all the ways they do.
And I’ve loved.
It’s actually the easiest thing in the world, to love. To give of oneself; to listen beyond oneself, to watch silently as someone moves in their native – or adopted – ways. To take in someone else’s essence as quietly and non-judgmentally as when looking at the ocean water push again and again in rippling seafoam upon the shore… to marvel at the patterns and at the way those patterns make us feel, rippling even into our own hearts and minds.
To know that one may not be able to affect those waters, aside from having them slide around us as we wade into them, to allow ourselves to be embraced, surrounded, loved back in the ways natural to them while we stand, basking in the warm sensations of saltwater washing on our skin, kissing our cheeks in sudden splashes, filling our sinuses with cleansing seaspray.
It is enough, sometimes, to bask, to take in the beauty of a thing again and again. That, too, is love.
And, yes, there is more, should we wish to go there: there is protection of those things and people we love, ensuring that no harm comes to them, that we may indulge again and again in its beauty, that others too may share in the beauties we value.
But, imagine the fear and terror of something so benign as the sea, should we have waded in too far when we did not know how to swim, if we were pulled under by a current to strong to resist. Imagine the fear we might concoct of even wading in shallow waters, if our fears grew great enough.
And imagine the beauties we would miss, if we let those fears take hold and rule us, instead of facing our fears and the reasons for them, if we did not learn correctly from our life’s lessons: if we understood incorrectly that the waters were life-taking instead of life-giving, if we concocted tales of monsters pulling us under the seas instead of currents from which we could actually, in growing stronger, swim.
Imagine if we decided not to love, simply because we were afraid, because we had been pulled under and choked on a love stronger than we knew how to handle. Imagine if we tried to empty ourselves of all the waters within us, simply because they resembled those waters of the sea.
It would be a crime against ourselves, and such a great error in our understanding – and yet, this is the conclusion too many draw from the pains of love, of loving: To withdraw. To stop. To die. To fear.
There are some waters in which one cannot sink, in which the salt content is so high that it is impossible, even when one cannot swim, to fall beneath the water’s surface. There are some waters so clear that one can see straight to the bottom of the sea bed. Would we want to miss these beauties, just because we had some painful, incomprehensible experience at some time?
I would not; I do not.
Love is only another mark of life, of living; and, to love, we must know what love is, how it works, from whence it comes.
But no one has taught us love.
I would say: As with anything worth knowing, as with any skill worth learning, keep trying. Keep living. Keep learning. Keep loving.
To me, love is the final magic, the infinite unknown into which so few deeply delve, from which there are inevitably the greatest rewards.
I love loving; and I will always love you.
Patterns Found in the Dark Winter Mornings of Love
It comes again, and lingers again, this morning, as every morning since I have left the men who I’ve loved, as it comes every morning when I wake to find myself yet alone.
The bed is too narrow, I tell myself. It’s the wrong bed, and the mattress is too old, and that’s why I sleep so poorly, why I wake in a fight with my psyche – wanting so much to be happy, embracing the beauty of the day and its potential while facing the reality, day after day, of my astounding aloneness.
“Honestly, I can’t for the life of me understand why you haven’t been snapped up by some eligible bachelor,” my first sailing instructor tells me in some fashion or other every time we chat since I left Ontario three years ago.
Honestly, I can’t, for the life of me, understand why I haven’t also. Except, I do understand.
I accept and expect a certain degree of aloneness in my life. It is only when I am alone – even amidst other people, even with those I love most – when I can fully appreciate the things I love: the way the wafting breezes lift and play with the summer trees’ leaves, turning thin, green appendages into shimmering waves of laughing silver-green, playing midstream between earth and sky; the way certain chefs’ dishes, presented in artistic perfection, interplay in textures, flavors and scents on my palate, arousing endorphins that heighten my culinary sensitivities as strongly as any sensual, sexual interplay has ever done – and with none of the expectation, or disappointment.
I begin to see a pattern in myself: that there is not an ounce of expectation in those things I love all by myself, when I am alone; I was not taught to expect, to demand that the sun shine or that leaves shimmer in the breezes – and yet, they happen so naturally, so easily, all the time. I was not taught to expect bursts of flavor on my palate, food plated in perfect artistic fashion, sudden endorphin highs from food. Food was nutrition, practical, and only occasionally fun.
But men, and love… and some degree of pain in regards to them….
Those, I was taught to expect. To endure.
Why?!? I cannot help but wonder.
Why should I not meander through life, giving love and learning to expect, in so many places and so many times, beauty and love returned, shimmering with the same kind of random repetition as can be found when the trees are full of their tender, fragile fans; as can be found in restaurants the world over.
That I am alone is not a problem. That I wake every morning, remembering the glory of being with one whom I’ve loved, with whom I can share need not be pain, but a gentle reminder that it happened once, twice, several times; and it will happen again.
I am in the springtime of love, even if I am alone – or in the late winter, perhaps – but, somewhere on Earth it is summer, and the breezes lift and play with leaves in that way I love so much. Somewhere on Earth, even if it is night here, chefs are making gorgeous plates with deliciously-woven layers of flavors to lilt on diners’ palates.
Somewhere – in many places, in fact – there is love.
I’m just in the wrong place, or in the wrong time… and it will come again, or I will find it again, when my eyes open, when they’re not so clouded with tears. When I accept where I am, and where I’ve been; when I accept it will happen again.
A Lazy Summer
It’s not just a lazy summer, though one might think it is to see me from the periphery.
I have the luxury to spend time outdoors, basking in the sun at the neighborhood pool, volunteering at beerfests and other events around Atlanta on weekends, meeting new people and making new friends. I even flew away to California for five days a little more than a month ago; it was the most amazing trip of my life, so far: full of spontaneity, new friends, surf, sun and movies-come-to-life.
But, in the background is my life, and the true stresses and trials left to me to solve.
Granted, I’ve arranged my life and outlook so as not to have so many stresses as some have – at least, not in the same ways most have. Instead of worrying over my health, I whittle my diet to things I know I can eat without much concern; I watch my activities so as to reduce the possibilities for physical harm to myself. Instead of worrying too much over money (which does, yet, concern me a bit), I worry over how best to make my way to the sailboat of my dreams, to the life of my dreams, to the work of my dreams that best fulfills me. Instead of fighting eternally with those I love (or like) over any given issue, I hunt mercilessly for solutions, for work-arounds, for freedom and greater love, for understanding and even distance so I may gain perspective – or, at least, peace.
I am, therefore, single; I spend a great bulk of my time thinking of others, worrying about others; and a great amount of time working on the projects that most move me, that fill me with great excitement, endless ideas and momentum.
The rest of the time, I spend enjoying life.
It is important, vital; and, somehow, I see so many who’ve forgotten it, who fall into the trap of living vicariously through the excitements and hazards and problems of TV shows, of family members, of neighbors and co-workers and friends. There is no attempt to help anyone; merely to watch from the fringes, to observe and make commentary; to tell others’ stories.
I suppose that’s important, too: storytelling is certainly an art. But I’d rather tell my own stories; live my own life. Find my own way.
So, I bask in the sun and let my mind work its magic while I’m paying attention to nothing but the luxury of peace, of hot rays beating down on me, of cool breezes picking up the sweat from my skin, of children playing Sharks-and-Minnows in the pool nearby. Of the music I choose to hear from my Pandora app, meanwhile.
And, when I get home, my copper skin a shade more bronzed, silky-smooth from repeated slathering of extra-virgin coconut oil, I’m ready again to work, to plan, to harness the power of my mind towards my most cherished goals:
My boat.
My writing.
My friends.
And peace.
Seduction
So many mornings, I wake naked with a sheet or light quilt draped over three-quarters of my body, the wind coolly sneaking into my room and kissing my arms, shoulders and back; and I find myself half-dreaming of resting in a lover’s bed.
This morning, with the sun not as hot as yesterday, not as proddingly demanding that I leave my comfort, my dreams turned to the ocean, to a bed near the beach where similar soft breezes and gentle sunlight awakened me as tenderly as a careful love. I could remember the white sands beyond, hear the faintly crashing waves orchestrate with quietly-rustling leaves; and my body is quiveringly seduced as thoroughly as by the scent and structure and attentions of a well-attuned man.
Could it be that nature itself is calling me, beckoning me to the edges of land and foamy water? If so, I’ve felt it for years….
It’s said that youthful impressions are the strongest made; and I’m sure of it.
My first and greatest love, le mer, is calling me home.
Sketches of the South
It’s on days like today that I understand my laziness, my hesitance to move, to do anything but bask and take in this hot Georgia sun, to await cool breezes petting my skin and dancing through my hair and through the shimmering leaves, carrying the sweetness of roses and gardenias and dying lilies and fresh-mowed grass, of simmering pine and leafy trees of deepening green, soaking up the sun as I do….
On days like this, I don’t even wish to speak, to disturb this lovely prelude to summer. I sit and watch glistening leaves and pale petals, and listen to nothing: tinkling wind chimes and calling birds, and the soft percussion of leaf clapping upon leaf. Every moment of this is a vacation – with the dilettante-like luxury of never needing to go anywhere, of never wishing for escape, of never tiring of the same things: blue skies and billowing clouds and fluffy roses.
It’s a cultural thing, I’m sure: this laziness arising with drawled speech and meandering stories and long supper tables laden with food at small white churches and old family reunions. The Old South is alive and well in me, and in this land; and, returning to this lazy world after half my life spent no farther south than Southern Ontario, the scents and sensations and simplicity of this land are irresistible.
The trees beckon, waving full boughs to those inside, whispering songs to which no words can reply.
So I return, realizing that I always return, always wished to return to this place that breeds laziness in the most beautiful of ways.
For Sarah M.
Oceans of Mine 