Where our arguments lead

We were like two ships in the night with a vast ocean separating us,

We’ll be in same sea, on the same journey but never meeting in between

a flicker in the light from your deck is all I can see,

The waves roll on swaying across the dark unknown

spilling fear and mystery,

I look to your light,

waiting and praying the flicker grows warmer and stronger, closer to mine

Alas, the storm rages on dividing our two ships with no means to an end.

Both lost,

both afraid,

and both stuck away from each other with no way back.

 

Fast Love

I thought it was okay for us to act so juvenile.
I thought it’s what people starting out in relationships do.

Puppy love starts out great and giddy.
First and second dates turn from bashful to exciting.
Casual dating grows quickly to mutually exclusive.

If we were both chasing love and happiness,
then the goals were clear.
No matter how many differences, we’d get there somehow.
Because the sex was animal.
The lust was ravenous.

But alas, like oil and water. You can mix and mix and mix.
Go as fast at it and as hard at it you want in the beginning,
In a matter of a short while though, the two always separate.

Because fast love isn’t real.
They’re out as quickly as they came in.
Leaving you still pulling up a bra strap, when they’ve already called a cab.

 

What Forgetting You is Like

Forgetting you is like rolling down the window driving on the coast and not smelling the musky salt water.
Forgetting you is like tapping on the table with my fingers and not hearing a sound,
it’s biting into an apple and not having a memorable sweetness explode on my tastebuds.

Forgetting you is like waking up and not seeing sunlight bleed through my curtains,
it’s touching cotton without feeling the soft warmth of a coat in an autumn night.

Forgetting you is forcing myself to forget the 5 senses. If I can smell, hear, taste, see and feel – you are there.

The way your scent is everywhere on my pillows and old jackets.
The way your old records are sitting on my shelf giving me a glimpse back into our old life when you’d take my hand and swing my body around to the tunes.
The way your silent breathing through the night calms me and helps me sleep.
The way your body felt in the morning when I climbed closer to steal your warmth.
The way your tongue tasted minty and aged after you’ve brushed your teeth from drinking whiskey all night.

Even when you aren’t here, all my memory stayed.

Forgetting you is like holding onto what’s familiar,
It’s expecting what was there to always be there.

My five senses will always hold you in memory, even when you aren’t here.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Astroturf & the Sky

Sleep on AstroTurf in the dead of night with your two best friends
one with the hiccups
one drunk
one laughing her ass off each time the boy hiccups.

Be 27
but also 6 years old

Escape reality because your time together makes the world stop

The stars pepper the sky looking down at you from their vantage point
smiling and shining at your pure joy in each other’s company

A lot of innocence slip away as we enter our late twenties
but when you’re laying uninhibited staring into the night
A piece of your innocence revisits
bringing fondest memories of forgotten friendship and youth.

 

 

I grew up ugly & stupid

His friends used to call me ugly.

She kept telling me I was too dumb.

Their extended family would mistake me for a boy because I didn’t have feminine enough features.

Her coworkers would snicker because they felt their kids were smarter and more cunning.

I grew up being told I was ugly.

I grew up being told I was stupid.

She used to make me feel worthless. She used to yell at me like I ruined her life. She would say all my friends manipulate me because I’m too nice and dumb to notice.

I had a childhood friend growing up. Let’s call her Tilly. Tilly was always smarter because she was one year older. But Mother would tell me everyday that I’ll never amount to Tilly.

“Tilly is going places.” She’d say. “I bet she’ll end up at a better college than you.”

“Tilly is stronger.”

“Tilly wins at all these games you play because you’re too stupid to anticipate her moves.”

It wasn’t easy being told I wasn’t pretty for a girl.

It wasn’t easy having a mother resent me for being stupid.

But as I sit here two decades later looking at the place I bought for myself close to the Cali beach. I wonder, is this enough to prove to my mother I’m more than what she’d lost hope in?

Tilly now works in retail and still lives at home with her parents.

So, why do I still cry thinking about my upbringing? I can still hear every remark from her ricochet from my memory, cutting me like bullets from deep within.

Why does she hate me so much?

If I can’t even trust my mother to love me, how do I trust someone to enter my life without hurting me?

Am I still so broken?

There’s a reason I feel safe living alone. Isolated. Single.

No one can tell me I’m ugly or stupid. No words can hurt me here.

 

Waiting Room

The room that gives & takes
With reflective floors sterilized clean

Worry penetrates the air
Anxiety drilled into the seats

In here, you see colorful magazines and dulled faces
In there, you fear the worst and wish for the best

These walls have collected decades of tears, screams, and prayers.
These doors have welcomed life and stripped away hope.

I can’t help but eavesdrop each time a doctor visits our area.
I can’t help but look away, promising myself to make no eye contact with anyone.

Nothing works.
Reading, playing games, watching TV.
My mind only strays and wanders.

The doctor will be here shortly
and the walls will eagerly wait to collect.

She left and I lost my home.

It hurt so much it felt like all the air was vacuumed out of my lungs.
The slightest movement a struggle.
Tears poured like hurricane as my eyes lost vision during the drive home.

Home…
What a foreign concept when love slowly eludes us.

“Home is where the heart is” they said.

So, where is home now?

My stomach had a nervous pit.
My hands shaking with anxiety.
Head spinning with fear that it was all one-sided.
All at once, it hit me.

It was one-sided.

She’ll never love me the way I loved her. I never once walked out on her, but it was so easy for her to pack up her things and walk away.

My breath of fresh air had been contaminated with her greed for the allure of others. She wanted more, and that honest truth left me feeling worthless. I couldn’t give her what she wanted because she’ll always be chasing butterflies where the grass is greener.

“but some part of it will always not feel right”

I was trying to explain to her what she could not grasp.

I wasn’t unhappy in my relationship by any means, maybe just stuck in a conundrum.

“It’s like there’s a bottle and a cap, and no matter how I try to screw on the cap, it doesn’t seem to fit perfectly –

It still functions as a bottle in that the cap screws on and nothing will spill out nor would anything fall in. The bottle still works, but some part of it will always not feel right.”

That was the best way for me to explain my conundrum.