because you asked me what's on my mind and i don't know how to answer like a normal person; here is a poem.

i've been thinking lately about
                  skin

catching myself staring at the stranger
      on the café bench

wondering if
           the dimples in his cheeks would
                      feel the same as yours
           with my nose pressed into the crease

[if i could ever love him if they didn't
 if i could ever leave him if they did]

how the cab-mans callouses
    compare to yours
        held tight against my ribcage —
     that extra friction
                      sending me over the edge

if the workman's arms are also used
             to wrap themselves around someone
                               soft and breakable
         when he puts down his saws and hammers for the day.

・・・・・

i've been thinking lately about
           forgiveness

whether you can find some for me
     when this all goes to shit

[if you can start storing it up now
 and slowly letting us go
 before we have to]

and whether i can find any for myself
         for taking it this far

knowing that this is going to
         break us both —
                       differently.

S.

{Photo: Утро вторника}

the art of being destroyed .

i never thought we'd get here.

when it came to you and me
i had begun to believe that all we'd ever be is
two lost causes
staring across crooked timing with inaudible 'what ifs' awake on our tongues.

two broken-compassed travellers
who could never stay on the trail long enough to collapse under
the same night sky.

but now i see
that we are two stories about the same moment
that sound nothing the same
and yet are both true
and both beautiful.

i was a shipwreck and you were the ocean
and no matter where i went
i was always going to drown
and you were always going to swallow me whole.

S.

{Photo: Memoriste Flickr}

art .

You're trapped somewhere between my longing and forgetting
A half-memory, half-god
An exhausting mix of emotions
That never tire of being felt.

I am a dwarf to the lie of you
An abandoned painting in an abandoned home in a dirt-road town
While you are Michelangelo's David.
Unforgotten through the eras.

But you don't exist in real time -
In solid proof between my fingers.
Just in half sketched drawings
And conversations recalled in so many different ways they might not have happened at all.

I think, more than having you,
I need to shrink you down into a manageable size.
Because no one ever has to think about
An abandoned painting in an abandoned home in a town 600 miles away.

S.

{Photo: Clara Román Flickr}

dawn .

i lay on the roof beside him
watching the stars fade
as the sun made its ascent
into the morning sky

and i wondered where you were
and how it was that you became so far from me

i wondered whether i'd ever know you again
the way i once did -
when i could read your glances and your quiet
better than anyone else's voice

i wondered if you could still locate
the star you called by my name,
and still find the one
i picked for you

and as i raced down that rooftop
in the ripeness of the early day
i wondered if one day i could climb onto building-tops
or trace out constellations
without, also, wondering after you

[you, who still rules my heavens.
you, who still rules my heart.]

S.

{Photo: Leigh Ellexson Flickr}

one, two, infinity .

you have a mole under the corner of your left eye and it was the first thing i loved about you.

you have a scar that runs down your stomach that you got while play-fighting in the woods when you were six, and it was the 5th thing i loved about you (after your lopsided grin, the ruddiness of your cheeks, and the calm of your voice).

you have a patch of freckles on your right calf that look like ursa minor, and I'm not sure what number this was because somewhere after five i stopped counting parts and started seeing a whole. 
and this would have been terrifying had it not happened so slowly and so without me realizing that the pieces were adding up to make someone who would, one day, become a part of me.

if you like, i could write the whole long list of everything you made me love, but i've found the things i didn't fit easier on a page: 
when you stopped smiling with your teeth, 
how your words became smaller and more sharp over time, 
the look on your face when you said goodbye and meant it. 

and i understand the goodbye, i do. it's just, some days i miss that mole under your eye. 

S. 

{Photo: Ian Richardson Flickr}

ps. hello my lovely readers. this month marks 3 years of writing in this space(!), and in all that time the appearance of this blog has remained mostly unchanged; this month i decided change was due. i hope you like the new look! i also just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who reads and comments on my posts, you mean more to me than i know how to express. thank you for your kindness, encouragement, and support; i genuinely love and appreciate every comment and i'm sorry that i'm not better at responding to them. i'm going to try to be more interactive, so if you have any suggestions for the blog, any writing prompt/subject ideas you'd like me to try, or any questions about myself, i'd love to hear them! i also have an email you can contact me directly at: eachinfinitehorizon@gmail.com . thank you all again. 

Winter winds.

Isn't it so that time disturbs most everything?

More than anything, I fear putting myself within your grasp because time has a terrible habit of sweeping me away before anyone else can.

And yet it seems that love unused burns the strongest and the longest.

I think, if you took me back to that night, when you brushed my forehead with your lips with whispered words for only my hearing, forcing things to change, I think, I would have answered you differently. But who can know?

Time keeps ticking forward and this story is buried in the past.

S. 

{Photo: Emma Llensa Flickr}

Constant state of leaving.

I wish I was around long enough to say how I feel.
I wish I could feel.

S.

{Photo: Julia Trotti Flickr}

Grasp.

"I think she was afraid to love sometimes. I think it scared her. She was the type to like things that are concrete, like the ocean. Something you could point to and know what it was. I think that's why she always struggled with God. And I think that’s why she struggled with love. She couldn't touch it. She couldn't hold on to it and make sure it never changed."

"Sometimes it's those things you can't touch that you need to hold on to the most."

Carrie Ryan

{Photos: Erik Bockenstette Flickr; via We Heart It}

Before - and the Aftermath.

I just realized it's going to kill me:
Everything that we are not, and will never be.

As much as I want to go back, I don't.

There are things that I wanted to leave and never have to see again.
There are feelings that I didn't want to resurrect from their long time grave.
There are situations that must be faced, that I can not even think on.

I know how this story is supposed to end.
And I'll let it - end, that is.
But let these words be mine
And let me say them how I choose:
With vehemence, or sorrow, or something deep and stronger still --
Something more than malice or heartache could hold.
-- The left over fire of a passionate soul:

I love you still. 

XXXX

I hope you're happy. 

You, with all the words off your chest. 

You, with a pair of ready arms to fall into. 

You, safe at a distance of a million miles away.

I hope you're glad I read what you wrote 

sitting in an overcrowded bus in a strange city; 

tired and alone. 

I hope it gives you joy to know that I was brought to tears 

amidst the strangers, the hard plastic chairs and the bright city lights. 

Surrounded so fully, and yet, more alone then I've ever been. 

Infuriated by your selfishness, your timing:

Everything you were and weren't and won't ever be to me.

I hope you find delight in the way you've played me so completely,

and the wicked way you reached to pull me back just as I let you go.

And I hope you are pleased to know that I don't care. 

I've ripped the blinders from my eyes and you don't own me anymore.

I do not love you still. 

S. 

{Photos via: Tumblr; We Heart It}

The Words On My Lips.

Written By: I Wrote This For You

And when we speak now, seldom as that is, the old language returns. I wonder if it makes old names make guest appearances in your mind. If you can feel the skin of my neck near yours one more time. Do you reach across the bed for a shape, no longer there. Do you remember it clearly or is it all just memories of memories. Is there still warmth from my fingers tracing the contours of your skin, left somewhere in your body. If you smell the smell of how I used to smell in a crowd, do you think of these things. Is something missing in everyone else's or someone new's voice. Will they never know quite how to laugh or breathe just behind your ear. Do they know what you look like when you want to leave a party, when you've had too much of people. Could they rebuild your body out of clay if they needed to, because they've touched it so many times. Does your back still arch the way it used to when I still kissed you. 

Does an old singer sing an old song on an old radio. 

Do the lyrics still shake your fucking soul. 

Did it sound like this?

You were everything I needed, and now all I need is for you to remember.

S. 

{Photo via: We Heart It}

I think I might know --

The snow is building up around me these days in a way that would be alarming in another world. A world I lived in a few short months ago, where snow came only as special occasion, accompanied with some degree of awe.

Now, I stand unamazed and unfazed by this phenomenon. Getting buried under the inevitable without raising an eyebrow. Settling into a new commonplace, rather than embracing it with previous childlike wonderment. 

And I feel like this may be some sort of metaphor, for my life currently - and I have some ideas towards its meaning - but I can't be bothered to work out the details.

I only know I've come to forgive you for everything you couldn't possibly apologize for; and that my anger has subsided into a dull 
hollowness that echoes slightly 
when I stand too near the edge.

No, I don't think you should be worried, yet.

S. 

{Photo via: We Heart It}

On Things That Last -- Nothing.

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost

{Photo: Flickr Dewberry}

What I've Become.

Please let me go as unscarred as possible.

I do want to see you. I do. With everything I'm made of, but I know that would damage me. Deeply. So I'm left to choose the weaker path, of running. Of hiding my weary, dirt-streaked, bruise-stained body behind lies of dead cell phone batteries and strict nightly curfews; I choose to never face you again.

And I like to tell myself I'm brave anyways. At least I'm escaping, I say. But it's no good. I know what a coward I am, and I despise my weaknesses.

I know if I saw you, one last time, just the two of us, it would all appear. A mess of confessions and confusions and anger and pain, and a horror worse still: desire.

So I will hide away until I can leave this place for always. This time I won't turn around; I won't stare back at you as drops race each other across the pane, wondering on what ifs; I will not ready myself for some glorious return. Because I know now that there will never be one. I won't think on your life, at all, any longer. I'm really leaving. 

I just have to make it out alive.

S.

{Photo via: We Heart It}

Promise.

Please don't see how broken I've become:
The way the words and lies have made me numb.

Please promise you won't look as closely as before.
You need not know me anymore.

[Yours always,]

S.

{Photo via: Favim}

Parting Speech.

This is the end. We're over now.
Don't blame it on the girl I once was,
Because her promises were real --

For that part of me will always love that part of you.
Trapped in a time and place so far from where we're standing;
Buried in a history no one can take away,
And none can remake.

No. Blame it on the constant turning of the earth,
and the way my hand fits into another's.
Blame it on the freshly fallen snow,
And the human need
To be loved.

S.

{Photo by: Benj Haisch Photography}

Choose Love.

In light of this situation, in light of this life, I think it best that we stop and recall the words of Martin Luther King Jr.:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,

begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes: Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

I see no good in wishing ill on someone, for that only traps us in our own cycle of hate and darkness. Remember that light and love are the only weapons we have to drive out the blackness that surrounds us; and indeed, that is what we should long for.

Choose love, dear friends, above hate or bitterness or anger. Choose it so that it can become part of your character. Choose it when you are wronged, and when it it the furthest from instinct. Choose it, because it is our only hope now: it is our doorway to forgiveness, and through that door we will find freedom and joy renewed.

I am sorry for everything that has happened; but remember that more pain will neither reverse nor erase the pain already felt. Remember that you have a choice, and then choose love.

S.

News.

This is a lot more difficult than I imagined it being; though I did imagine this day.

I've always wanted the best for you. But I couldn't let go of the hope that that meant me.

But it's not. It doesn't.
And in logic I knew that, I wished for that. But it's the accepting it - the seeing it in action - that lends to the trouble in my heart.

Don't get me wrong, because I am happy for you; really. I remember, once, thinking up what you needed; and it's what you have now. Yes, I am glad for you.

It's just that my selfishness imagined hot chocolate chats, and mistletoe dances, and cookie dough food fights, and now that picture is changed. She changes things a lot.

And part of me wants that. I want your happiness. I want you to have someone who will stick around; someone who will appreciate your good cooking, that side-ways grin, your ridiculous laughter and those sarcastic comments through every season.

But another part wishes you had seen that you already had that; that somebody already did -- somebody that's wishing she wasn't so damn far from you these nights.

Congratulations on finding happiness, though.
I'll find my way too, one of these days...

S.

Please understand.

I haven't put a word to how I feel about you yet. As far as words can go, they still haven't reached here. Not that I can find, anyway. And not in a sappy love-song kind of way. No, I'm not saying that I have some kind of love or a passion that goes deeper and further than language. Just a feeling I haven't had before.

I could try here, to write out what I know. To put the pen towards honest words; honest feelings. But you know that would open me up more than I am willing, making me just a step further out of my boundaries than I can allow.

You can - and will - read between the lines and answer for yourself; you're probably better at finding the words than me.

-- There are a handful of things that I fear in this world. The deepest of these, the ones that I think on most, are the ones surrounding relationships. Any relationship. Any closeness.

This is where I stumble. This is why I fail. And this is where you brush up to the border; sticking your foot in the door and scaring me, for I have not yet become the person I need be.

I will never be her. Not so far as I can see.

I already know what you need, and - most importantly - what you don't.

I am the latter - please understand.

S.

{Photo via: Favim}

The Body.

The bodies fit those nights, tangled and balanced by their differences --

But soon they became awkward and unsteady.

The mouths said few words, but those were enough --

Or maybe just not.

The hands, entwined, were magnificent, they knew no bounds -- 

And then they stopped searching.

The eyes did more than see, they knew and learned from each other -- 

Now they are shut tight.

The limbs were used to build and shape and become more --

Until all they made, fell.

We were one, and now, nothing remains.

I am not so different, but you.

You have changed.

S.

Falling.

Last week for the first time, I breathed love in for this place.

I've liked it before now. Definitely. But last week, as I was walking along minding my own cares, I looked around and saw - really saw - the clear blue sky, the colors of the season, the trees leaning with the breeze, and I could hear the mower cut the grass and smell the fall surrounding me.

I inhaled deeply, and in doing so, I was filled with a love and a growing passion for this place: home. It can't compete with where I'm from, not even a little. But it can be the apple to the orange. Competitions are only necessary if one need win. But if one only need love, then this is good, I have found my place. This is where I am supposed to be.

And I'm falling in love.

S.