Years before you swept through my life
I went to this sacred place
where the moonlight on the water
made me feel so alive.
Moonlight. Sunrise.
Afternoon delight
on a quilt near the splash of the bank
and when the wind murmured in the tree tops
the promises it spoke of the future
were filled with hope.
Now many scars later I stand
in that very spot
and ache for the love
that slipped away.
I rode above the water today
near fishermen and bathing beauties
and I tried to hard to remember
another sunny lake
when you were breathing down my neck
and narrating every dream
that passed through my
nighttime eyes.
I always say too much. One joke too many. One sarcastic remark over the line. One feeler thrown out there that shouldn’t have been. Can’t just keep it in my head. Always have to know, have to ask, have to say it. And then I stand here like this wondering why I do it. Oh well, it’s just me. I’m harmless. I used to apologize for myself all the time, but I have come to see that I’m not sorry for being me. I love me. I make people laugh and I help the underdog and I listen with an open heart and I make people defend their stances. I send cards to friends when they least expect them and I tell strangers that that color really compliments their complexion. I remind my children to say “yes ma’am” without being a jerk about it and I don’t mind it if they forget sometimes. I do all the voices when I read aloud. I won’t cut in front of you. I won’t carelessly whack your vehicle with the door of mine. I’ll pet your dog if he wants to be petted. I’m not an evil person. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve been an idiot, but my heart is good. It’s this rare garden that people always smile for when they first take it in. Sure there are the sarcastic thorns and the never-know-when-to-shut-up vines that tangle around our feet. But the colors are vibrant and the breeze blows so softly through here on summer afternoons. I wish you’d come and sit with me just once, just so I could know what yours is like too.
“I wanna ask you about something,” the shifty uncle said. He had the nervous hands of a liar, always needing to be busy. He shuffled a deck of cards in them now, pausing in the hallway of a home where he felt out of place. The laughter from the main room traveled throughout the apartment, bouncing off designer fabrics and Italian leather and the many souvenirs of a well worn passport and a fat wallet. But the uncle, looking very much like a preacher without a gig, was awkward as he joined in on the lighthearted scene.
Famous hands and an often hidden face waited without a word. Maybe there was a sigh or an internal rolling of the eyes, but he paused when he was summoned and he waited to see just what it might be now. There was a ballgame and a plate of food waiting in the next room.
how delicate like feathers
this shattered heart of mine
so strong before it broke
and now the genuine
thrill of being loved
is just a laugh during a game
someone interrupted dinner
and dared to speak my name.
I drove down country roads
singing with a smile on my stupid face
when you loved me.
Everyone got the door held open for them
men, women, children.
I would only have to think of you
and everything was in motion.
The future and all the steps it took to get there
and the dragons we would slay together.
I was so ready to storm the gates of hell
when you loved me.
No limits. No holding back.
Sometimes it was a pot boiling over,
something that could not be contained.
Sometimes I lured you out onto a limb
and sometimes we just sat in the same room
in seething, serious silence.
My blood work came back normal
and all the tests were good when you loved me.
I was at my peak.
Summer days bleed into fall
and things changed
but there was one last dance.
There was one more day in the kitchen
planning what we’d do with a garden
and a lifetime full of Saturday nights.
There was one more
last first kiss
when you loved me.