on fire, and who we've become.

i called you an old flame
to a new friend
who has never heard your name out of my lips
before

an old flame

it makes you sound like a candlestick affair

simple, small
a dinner for two
glowing dimly on
the outline of a person i could love
or did you just flicker away?

i should have called you a furnace

deep in the belly of the beast
heating everything up from the inside
thawing out the winter of my bones
defrosting a human heart
we weren't sure was there
until it started beating

i should have called you a bonfire

fueling the drunken nights
the summer nights
when everything was good
but your warmth made it better
more alive

i should have called you a wildfire

taking out everything in your path
swallowing up all the cities we dreamed for ourselves
in one great gulp
raging, as one does, until everything you touch
changed

(i lived through the night
but
for better or for worse, i'm not the same).

S.

{Photo: Rita Ji Flickr}

alchemy .

i've found you in the silence

when i'm alone or in a crowd of strangers

i've found myself missing the softness between your calloused hands
& the laughter on your teeth

& i know we were insignificant — 

strangers colliding on our way to bigger things

but i think you dropped your pen — 

something small and insignificant

& i think i picked it up

& after all this time it's turned to gold in my pocket —
heavy and significant

but it's yours not mine —

all too heavy for my two arms to carry

something bigger

than we were

so that i've found i'm now missing your blackberry sweet kisses

& the sound of your voice first thing in the morning

before either of us had opened our eyes

saying not now not now not now to the early-light
& right now right now right now to me

& i'm sure you left these moments in that
apartment next to mine

before leaving that old town for good

but i brought a button home with me
that turned into a diamond in my suitcase

& i can't seem to let it go.

S.

{Photo: Lily Little Flickr} 

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}

Wayward noise.

You want to cry aloud for your mistakes.
But to tell the truth the world doesn't need any more of that sound.

by Mary Oliver

{Photo: Flickr 陳雪梨}  

Six Months Later.

My mind is in turmoil. I am feeling too many things to make coherent words string together. 
(Finally, I am remembering what it feels to be close - the familiar comfort of being enclosed in two strong arms and held steady with one.)

The truth is, I'm not sure if it was out of loneliness, spite, or blind emotion. I've been refusing to believe that I acted out of real feelings - for nothing could be more dangerous to me. 

I won't let myself feel right about this.

It seems I haven't finished letting go of you - as far away as you are. (As far as you've made yourself.) But I know now that I can. The hands; the lips; the eyes; they are all ready to meet mine. And I am standing at the brink, deciding if I dare. I've long since admitted that there is nothing for me with you, yet something holds me back even still.

A whisper or a hope. Something I dare not touch with heart or mind. 

Come find me and make this right.

S.

{Photo: Flickr Posternaks}

Silhouettes.

I've been living with the ghosts of all the things I've refused to say, shadows of lost possibility.

My remaining soul tries to fight against them - explaining that it is the curse of my humanity - pointing to another that has haunted me longer still: Fear. He, fixed fast upon my heart, won't let the words out.

I don't suppose these visitors care much. They're here to stay. Besides, what would be the use of winning this battle of reason? I've lost the war, my favor will never be regained, and that is why they haunt me.

But, truth be told, I'm not so sure I would want to be a part of something so terribly fragile; something so easily destroyed by swallowed words. Let these monsters taunt me; let them strip my heart of all it's substance, and let me claim the life of the tin man.

S. 

{Photo via: We Heart It}

The Broken Years.

I dare say I still reach for you through the empty spaces, just to see if you will answer. Of course, you never do. I don't know who to blame for that; or if blame is necessary.

I hardly trust myself to think on those days - irrelevant as they are - for fear that I will somehow alter the details. Dulling or skipping or smudging some small moment that meant something to me then. I don't want to lose it altogether, but the possibility of remembering it wrong seems a greater tragedy.

It isn't you anymore, though. I feel I should tell you this, so you know I'm not entirely lost. No. Not you, but rather, the comfort you brought. The illusion of safety I felt in your arms. The ease by which we existed together. 

It's difficult for me to find that here. By now, I'm nearly a full-time cynic, with little time to count my blessings, trust there's love, or hope for peace. Maybe 19 is too old to still hold on to magic - an age to stop waiting for that miracle, and instead, face the discordant song of reality: "You are alone; the strongest arms let go."

S.

{Photo: Flickr Kelley Smith}

Chess.

I think we may have reached a stalemate; stuck in this place of indecision, anticipating our demise. I was never any good at games, and you were never any good at playing fair.

I want to talk it out. Even just to know why you chose these steps. I want to see the patterns of your mind and understand your motives. If I could have that, I believe, I'd give up everything. Full surrender.

Instead we have this - this tension and this silence. And this feeling that, no matter how we play the end, we both lose somehow. 

(Your move.) 

S. 

{Photo via: We Heart It}

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}

The night when joy began -

I know it flawlessly
Every detail stitched with precision
Upon this mind, that longs to lose it;
That longs to leave it buried
With the rest of untold stories.

I know you won't, but I remember

That small moment - not quite asleep,
When you pulled me closer
Holding me just nearer than what made sense
Oh but somehow, this heart settled.

I breathed in that moment
Knowing it would soon be lost.

Back then, I scarcely recognized it for what it was:
The beginning and the end of me.

S.

{Photo: Flickr Lauryn Holmquist} 

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}

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.

What we won't speak of.

I would write my heart upon a page, if promised that you'd never see.

But no such promise will be made, so this remains in mystery. 

Don't ask me; I'll only lie. 

S.

{Photo via: We Heart It}

Everyone Is Leaving.

I could say something about the smallness and instability of life, but those words are all used up.

I don't understand why these things happen. I don't understand the significance of life. I have yet to determine why I'm here - why anyone's here - and then, all so suddenly, not.

Sometimes I see so much beauty in the day; sometimes I feel as though I'm getting a grasp on meaning and purpose.

Today is not like that. My heart hurts.

XXXX

I'm losing my faith. I can feel it escaping from me with each passing breath.

I've been thinking about human life. What if all we really are is a strange combination of atoms; a brilliant number of chemical reactions; a jumble of neurons, protons and electrons. What if that's all we are and nothing more.

What if they're right and we're meaningless and finite.

I still pray for comfort.

XXXX

I was so close to telling you everything. I haven't figured out if I'm thankful I didn't, or if it was the worst mistake I've made. 

Either way, it ends the same. Either way, we die: dirt and dust.

Sooner than we originally planned for, I think.

S.

--- Sorry, the world is dark today.

Time Machine.

I shouldn't have done that..

I shouldn't have gone back in time.

I remember so much now; too much. Oh, these are yesterday's feelings.

S.

{Photo: Flickr Mischelle }