Sidewalk chalk, All that’s left, All that’s lost.

Hot balmy nights of summer, Flags flying, Even the breeze doesn’t offer relief.

Mass confusion, Leadership colluding, Pressing our backs against a wall we will tear down.

Born from Enlightenment, We are the Self-Governed.

But old man’s pride and a sly orange smile are stomping too close to my fangs.

Even the thought they might care–The occasional, “how are you?’ feels like the sweetest sun rays piercing through dissipating, thunder clouds.

Their shortest of words acting with the deepest sentiments of love, making it possible to talk to them out loud and inside your head when all the other moments feel too heavy.

But the second you hear the laughter in their voice change to a stranger’s tone, a new bolt of lightening strikes the water, splitting the ship in two, tossing you out to sea–

And there is no mercy when the fifty foot swells suck you down with relentless force into their deep, dark abyss of a lost planet.

That break in time,

That splitting of what feels like your soul, as the vision of light you remember in their eyes turns to rejection from within–biology revolts.

Your lungs fill with the dark, murky salt water.

Stinging.

Strangling.

Suffocating.

Alarms going off, loud, angry, red, flashing lights–fangs bared screaming EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY–you need to breath.

But FUCK! What direction do you swim to take what you need?

Panic setting in–throwing off all sense of space…

Will you make it through the storm this time?

I wrote you that first message.

I invited you to coffee, just coffee.

I showed up to get you when you got stuck in the mountains.

I brought you homemade muffins when I thought I got you sick.

I invited you to your “would be” second concert before you flew to Romania, but you didn’t show up.

I was there to talk to you everyday when you were in Romania, until one day you disappeared and didn’t talk to me for the next 6 months.

I sent you care packages on your birth day and Christmas two years in a row.

I ordered your photographs that hang on my walls because I believe in the artist that I see.

When I thought you may have cared, I flew to where you were for a whole week because you told me it would be okay to drive out and see the stars together.

But when you saw me, you shut the door in my face and you said,  “You can’t be here. You need to leave.”

How is cruelty so easy for you? And how could I have allowed it? 

And who is the monster that I see? It’s me. It was only ever me.

This winter I will share my Coyote Story. But tonight, under the great stars of the desert, I will sleep for the first time in 23 full moons, one year, nine months, and sixty-five days.

Work keeps my mind occupied. Holding back tears cried in the night.

Early evening then requires the facade of functionality-

…prepare the food.

…wipe down the counters

….dance to the tune of a lonely reality.

I could phone a friend,

Or fall off the wagon and drink a pint.

Better yet, paint the town red and white,

or even blue…

Anything to forget,

My heart remains a permanent shade of you.

Each day begins with the hope that I might heal, yet before the sun goes down I replay the sound of your voice,

And remember the playful look in your eyes…

Once more frozen–

Grief’s grip on my broken heart,

Drowning in love’s tortuous lies.

I want to flirt with you and

feel butterflies on the inside.

I want to feel the corners of my lips ache from the way you make me smile.

And for a while–ride the dopamine train you seem to always bring.

How’s that for a rhyme,

My greatest drug of all time?

Open heart
Open wound
I’ve been trying to stop the bleeding
But the thread’s too weak.
The tourniquets I’ve tied won’t hold.
The words I’ve tried….

You called.

You came in,
Sent electricity to my heart
And then you removed it.
Walked out–
Gone dark.

And I’m left lying here on the table unable to move.

My vision stares out at the empty fluorescent, white walls. My eyes glaze over and the familiar objects I once knew become blurred as they lose their shape.

The cold, metal table underneath me becomes my final place.

Cords are still connected, forcing my lungs to breath, but there is no heart, just a temporary machine attempting to pump the blood.

I no longer move.

setting over a ridge, across the fields, she always welcomes you home.

her rays sent to dry your tears and warm your heart.

Oneday we’ll share a kitchen with green painted cabinets and dark stained wood floors.

And we’ll sleep in on Sundays.

Well, maybe you will.

I’ll walk downstairs in my warm, winter socks and make our favorite coffee.

I always will.

As the aromas fill the room, I’ll gaze out the window at the sun shining its first rays on the fresh, fallen snow.

I always will.

And you’ll quietly walk up behind me and put your arms around me from behind.

You always will.

I’ll feel your face and lips bury into my hair and come in near my ear and you’ll whisper–

“Good morning, beautiful love of mine.”

You always will.

And I’ll love you back until there are no more days left on this planet.

And then I’ll love you more– beyond all sense of time and place.

I always will.

Forever.

Would I recall the way we held hands as we walked on our first date?

Would I memorize the sound of your laugh or tone of your voice?

Would you want to wrap your arms around me on a random afternoon?

Would you shift your life even if we had our hearts broken once before?

No.

You wouldn’t.

So, why does the pen of my poem still shift between reality and the dreams of you?