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} 

hollow .

it's hard to believe (no it isn't) how easily I fit back into your hand.
how our voices dance back and forth again -
as if the choreography never stopped (i'm not sure it did).
our months of silence melting into the last time i saw you
until there was no silence, only a desperate goodbye to hello-again
one after the other.

your presence somehow cancelling out
everything that came between:
the chill of winter seeping into spring, summer, fall,
the bitterness that bled into my bones,
the side of the bed that i named loneliness (after you).

there are some things that i know in life (things that you taught me):
i know that though we work in theory
we will never work in practice
i know the clock is never on our side
i know the way the world ends is not with a bang but a whimper
(eliot warned but you showed).

but for just one day - today - lets pretend that all it takes for us to be
is what we are in this moment
that the force driving us together is stronger than all else
tomorrow we can put miles between our sea salt lips
and forget our dance for silence
but today lets say the world is what we've asked it to be
since the beginning (a place safe enough for both our hearts).

S.

{Photo: Patrycja Dolata Photography}

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}

mid-wake .

you've been in my dreams for weeks now
   through these listless, too-hot nights

        you come to me in a haze of amber-tones
in crowded streets.
   
   or alone.

            at the edge of the milky way,
   or a parking garage.

it doesn't matter.
it ends the same.

me,
    trying to fight my way back through tangled sheets
           to where you, wordless, stood.

waking with the cruelest sense
                       that something real
        slipped through my grasp
     and something right
is gone again.

S.

{Photo: Guillaume Kayacan}

timezones .

despite it all (the whole heavy lot of it) i still believe that your hands contain magic and your heart is made of softer things than you pretend.

i sometimes think that our souls were created to fit into each other but something went wrong and somehow we became just a wavelength apart. its as if time got wrinkled slightly, so that you show up too early and i too late and our souls still fit but we are never aligned enough for it to happen.

the nine-hour time difference between your front door and mine has a way of reminding me how distant our lives have become. a gap i'm not sure can be closed simply by boarding a west-bound plane to where we left off, although i'll be sure to let it try.

but nevermind all this. what i wanted to say is that i heard you were doing well, and i really hope its true (i only wish i had heard it from you).

love anyways (always),

S.

{Photo: Kylie Parks 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. 

catharsis .

I had a glass or two, just to take the edge off
And it worked for a while
But morning comes early on late nights alone
No one knows better than I do.

I chased you down with deep red wine
And still you bubbled to the top
Making me regret every sea-parting kiss
And the nights we forgot about gravity.

People have written novels and plays -
About the way your voice sounds in the dark
And where they went to get theirs back -
And I'm beginning to realize they've been healing me (slowly). 

So forgive me for reaching for their words
Instead of picking up the phone
This time.

S.  

{Photo: Laura Makabresku Flickr}

Creation .

I am made of dirt-caked carrots from the backyard garden, 

            of scars that I can live with.

I am made of classic rock 

            on roadtrips with an old man. 

From the oceans push and pull, 

            missed curfews and long goodbyes. 

I am made of real maple syrup and Sunday comics, 

            of slammed doors and inaudible apologies.  

      

I am made from skinning-dipping in early May 
            with a boy who 'wasn’t right for me' 

                                               (he wasn’t). 

I am made of packed bags and packed houses, 

            and the restlessness that comes with staying now.  

From a phone call made across the world 

            that has bittered the taste of everything I’ve since known. 

I am made from still moments and negative space, 

            from the sound of steady breathing in a single bed for two. 

I am made of words that someone else has penned, 

            when no one knows me like a stranger. 

S.

{Photo: Melissa Lunar Flickr}

Fade to dust.

I stayed up until the earliest morning's gold touched down and unfurled itself at the worlds edge. So sure, I had been, that I could stop tomorrow from coming if I could hold steady my grip on today. But it shifted in my grasp. I have only hours until the world wakes up around me and forces me to accept this movement I'm enclosed in.

You never told me why you didn't wait.

I've guessed that the moments I missed carried you away in the end. Often and again, I remind myself that that's okay - with words so simple to repeat and so impossible to feel. But I will try again this new day: it is good this way. 

S. 

{Photo: Alexander Duvall Flickr}

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}

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}

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}

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}

Your smile and my dress.

I saw us together and had to smile at

how happy we were and

how right we weren't and

how foolish everyone was
not to see as we did.

Love and friendship are not
as far as some imagine -

no, quite a bit further still.

S.

{Photo: We Heart It}

I can feel home.

I just returned from a weekend in Boston. Boston in the fall.

I can't retell how lovely it was, only to say it was almost as breathtaking and divine and majestic as home. That, of course, was the trouble.

First there were the mountains. Snow capped and beautiful. But that's not what I was waiting for. And when finally I did see what I was after, it took away my speech. The ocean. The glorious ocean. Pulling in late at night, I could see it stretching down the beach for miles, the waves breaking with a fury, the moon as the spotlight. And I could hardly contain my excitement for what the morning would reveal.

Disappointed I was not.

Thinking on it now makes my heart long for it all again. This is the closest I've been to homesick since leaving, because this weekend has been the closest I've been to home. The closest I've been able to relate anything to the lunch hours we snuck down to the beach, or days we hiked to some bright spot, or mornings we woke early to the sunrise. Closest to the crashing waves and boat rides and sea wind.

It was the first time for one girl on this trip. Her first time ever seeing the ocean. And this struck me because I cannot imagine a life without.

A life that never stood out on a jutting rock as the water swelled up, being sprayed with sea mist as the wind blew salty hair into tangles. That never leaned over the dock trying to catch all the white jelly-fish in sight. That never ran in, on a late August night, and watched as the movements made the phosphorescence light up. That never simply sat beside, looking and wondering at everything, because the magnificent expanse could not help but provoke your mind to engage in the beauty and grandeur that lay out beyond you.  

Magic. It has always been. It will always be.

S.

Days. Gone. By.

In the end, I think that I will like that we were sitting on the bed, talking and wondering where the time had gone.  

Brian Andreas

(So let's go back.)

S.

{Photo: Gatopalomas Flickr}

The sounds of loneliness.

It's taking my breath away, the way a song can flood my mind with the past. I'm really drowning. Drowning in the long - frequent - drives, in the late nights spent with you, in all the things that I forgot to say racing through my mind.

I forgot this loneliness, but it's a not a feeling I despise. Instead I let it crawl back to me in its old familiar way. It comes to hold my hand through the cold, grey months. It latches onto my heart and grabs a hold of my mind (again). There is something odd about this feeling - something addicting about the ache it creates in me. I remember it all.

And I welcome it back. Maybe I ought not wish its return, but there is that something about it. That familiarity that I accidentally long for. Maybe I'd rather - sometimes - fall back and drown in an aching comfort than march forward and upward and past it all.

But it sounds ridiculous like that, no? Unambitious, perhaps? Very well, I am stupid and lazy. But it may be said, clearly and soundly, that some of my most fond memories were in that time. They were in the car rides by myself, in the late night visits that ended too late and too soon, in facing some battles by myself, and in the music that surrounded me all the while. So today I reach for that old friend - the dull ache that kept me company when my heart was beyond the reach of human touch. I let it take me again, to a place where I felt many things, and nothing at all.


S.

{Photo: Junkiesky Tumblr}