“IF”

If I take you to dinner will you take me to bed?

If I take you to church will you forgive me?

If I let you sleep in will you cook me breakfast?

If I answer the phone will you call back?

Again?

Take this dance and make it as awkward and unnecessary as the future
called “the morning after.”

Take my hopes
and scream them aloud
in the wake of every failure, of every destruction of dream my dream of
love has set forth;
to the world. To my horror.

Take the time to speak of your beautiful, treacherous, independence as
you douse the lights and turn down the covers.
And I agree with every word.

Because in these moments
when everything is possible
the end has already been written.

It breaks my heart to laugh with you
and it makes you uncomfortable
that you feel so at home with me.

If time wrote the past in strokes of compassion on the memory the soul
wouldn’t fear it.
And pride wouldn’t be forced to force “reality”
down our throats dissing illusion if only to ‘protect’ our hearts.

And as our senses dull to the brilliant shine of possibility
the possibility of something that might work
gets blurred by impatience and lack of faith,
in people,…
In ourselves.

And in those few awkward and unnecessary phone calls that follow I
will know why.
And you will know why we don’t work.

But for tonight-

Let’s speak of the need to be sober in love. And imbibe the reasons for
why
we’ve failed in a series of allusions to some common thought and
inference. Let’s share in the drowning of those shared emotions,
as we move further away from what we’ve always sought. Because as we
gladly watch our cynicism grow drunk and faithless, the sparks-
the similarities between us-
fade too in a feeling of familiarity that whispers ” a match…” before
it’s gone

Desire and need get “blurred” with objectivity and the many reasons why
you
And I
Deserve better.
I’ll trade you a “how could she?” for a “why would he?”

And as the wine turns time on it’s side and the reason that brought two
such
Splendidly, similar people together slips into the past we can speed a
lifetime of understanding into the vacuous hours of this night and live
a lifetime of possibility til dawn

AND,
If I find your arms familiar at daybreak,
If I kiss you’re forehead and slip back to sleep-

Will you let me?

If I don’t ask YOU for more-
Will YOU do it for me?

Please…

If I answer the phone will you call back? again?
If I call you first will you respect me?
What if I then make you wait?

How many days does it buy me?

Us?

“Bring Them to Me”

Bring them to me. Let me breathe their scent. Melt in their warmth and be important again.

Give me the sense of a simpleton to know what soft skin and questions are worth.

Make my dull mind a genius if it means I’ll change. Understand love and people.

            That the value of the equation is greater than the sum of the parts of transient things

NO- than the best result the catalysts the world offers may yield.

Bring them to me to wrap myself around them and feel every inch of them. As if wrapped in good and purity.

So that I can be for those moments washed pure and made good.

Give me their eyes, glistening, sun like with wisdom of kings and ages so that I can again understand life and suffering.

Hand me their hearts so their strength can be palpable and I can recognize the power in every beat of will and resilience. They’ve withstood my pain with the courage of warriors who come back again and again. And again.

Watch me run – the coward. Selfish and afraid. Confused by nothing. Filled with everything and feeling empty.

Study this fool, this idiot, and learn.

Learn what not to do.

“Perceptions and Personifications”

Perceptions and Personifications

I think I have a crush on a city from my past.

I find that I think in its terms now.

I measure the effect of events in my life now by how they compare to what I felt with the hardships of those days.

Would sadness in paradise be any less? Yes.

Although far from paradise it was a nice imitation of a cheap vacation

And I can’t stop thinking about it

I view present moments of my life from eyes stuck in the distant environment I sauntered through in 2006

Strangely, new feelings have developed from that long and tumultuous encounter.

What was once a tedious recollection of events has evolved…

Now my perceptions are tinged with the accents particular to _________.

I can taste its morning sunshine on the hills sweet and clear when I awake here

The tanginess of its cool afternoons spinning through the valleys and into my days today tease me leaving a smile

Sharp bursts of heat and sweat coat my mind like the hot days there stuck in traffic with a slurpee and a the roof back, breaking the dull temperature of these stoic afternoons in a warm nostalgia

Once the busy nights there were so empty to me as I drove alongside crowds of cars alone in a familiar city

Now a canvas of mist lingering from an evening rain and lazing dreamily over the horizon of hills drenched with little stars hangs heavy over my dreams at night.

If only we could get a few “do overs” in life I’d fashion our introduction differently.

I insulted the city upon our first introduction and it holds quite a grudge I’ve learned.

It closed its doors,  locked its windows and spread the word like a bitter gossip about the new girl.

And round and round I went through loops and hills trying to get a chair before the music stopped.

Trying to find a place to rest for a moment and gather my courage for more.

Even the music pauses briefly in the game but not in ______.

How do you get out from under a bad sign?

The sad truth of a hundred days of failure is that for all of the regrets i don’t want to forget a moment under that city’s sky.

I search my mind now for more of its mornings and evenings and their smells and sounds, eccentricities of its environment.

Oh the fierce dominance of nature in all directions that was __________.

I miss it.

Like a misunderstood relationship I want to go back and try again…

What if it was all a misunderstanding on my part. And this time with humility and good will I approach that foreign world anew?

What if I live our new encounter like a friend not a competitor and I allow myself to think kindly about its inhabitants?

If I find virtue in its mountains and strength in its seas surely I can find the inspiration to engage its stormy society and calm a corner of its many chambers convincing it to submit its shelter to me and my family too.

If _________ personifies happiness perhaps someday I can perceive happiness, even live happiness, in its arms.

“Emptiness” -5/29/01

(I found this floating around some paperwork the other day. I’m thankful for the few times I salvaged randomed sheets of scribbles and even more for the times I remembered to date the scribbles.)

Were you ever in a place-

a situation

a sad, a hopeless

event in time?

Were you ever face to face

with the inevitable-

the predictable?

Have you ever walked toward

a room

a person

a situation

knowing what was there was all too real?

Have you ever known:

been told

the information

the prognosis

the betrayal?

Have you ever walked out into the rain

without cover,

Called-

knowing who might answer

Visited-

knowing it could be the last time….?

Have you ever done all of this without

feeling

anything…

 

In the face of these things you are numb.

In the place of so many possible emotions, you have none.

Have you ever been numb?

In my thoughts I’m uncomfortably aware of a sensation as valid as emotion

as tangible as air-

………………..emptiness.

Is that what I feel? Is that the emotion?

Lack

of feeling

leaves a

void

that

CAN

be felt.

Have you ever

felt

emptiness?