Time out

I’ve decided to stop writing for awhile. I’m just too broken these days; too lost. Too many pieces that seem like they should fit, but they don’t. Writing about it used to make me feel better, but it doesn’t anymore. It just magnifies how lost I really am.

Hating myself and my life

When I was 20, I tried to kill myself. I sometimes tell people I was 16. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I had more reason at age 16 and should have tried it then. Maybe I would have succeeded. At age 20, I failed. But it wasn’t because I didn’t try. My plan was fine; I just didn’t take into account everything that might happen. There’s no way I could have. Because not in my wildest dreams could I have know that someone who hated me would ultimately save me.

I was 20 and my world was crumbing or had crumbled. There was nothing left to live for. The man I loved was slowly going crazy. I had no job, no home. I could find no warmth. Everything was cold and frozen and dirty. I was more alone than I had ever been in my life. There was so much nothing.

I’ve always wished for a different life. I’ve always wondered why everything has to hurt. All the time. Why memories and ghosts and the coldness of my past is always there. And why the people I think I love seldom are. At least not when I need them. Which is always.

Life could have been over at 20. And yes, I would have missed out on some magical moments. But magic is an illusion. I sometimes wonder if it all isn’t an illusion. These feeling that I think I have to write about and this love in my heart that threatens to tear a hole through my skin and scream its existence to the world.

I hear it sometimes, in the sound of a city bus pulling away from the curb. A train whistle in the distance. The muffled thud of a door closing as someone walks in, and then out.

I shouldn’t be here. And yet, I am.

Sometimes I hate myself

It’s so easy in my head. I just say the words and they float away like tired dandelions on the edge of the wind. Perched helplessly on the lips of a gentle breeze, anxiously awaiting that first kiss. But in the real world, where the lights are bright and breezes are seldom, my words hide like field mice. Afraid of their own shadows. And I can only watch as silence floods the land.

Scared

I don't know what it is. I start a sentence or two, then hit close without saving. When I was a kid, I had a hard time learning to read. They call is dyslexia now. Back then I just thought I was stupid. But it feels the same. The words moving around, shifting and twitching and changing their positions. I try, but then it all gets too frustrating. Like over sleeping and having to race through the day, trying to make up for lost time.

Or maybe, if I could ever be honest with myself. I’m just scared of what I might have to say.

Chasing words

Nothing to say lately. Which isn’t really true at all. But I’m tired of chasing the words. Like that one last pea on a plate that doesn’t want to be eaten. I stab and miss and eventually decide I’m not hungry anymore.

I suspect ink would still pour out if I were to wound myself. Which I will not do, although the idea is tempting. Forcing words to rhyme is like leading that proverbial horse to water. It’s so easy to believe I’ll never fall out of love while I’m falling. That this thundercloud opera in my chest will still be echoing years from now.

My arms outstretched as I walk the rails. As if my bones were hollow and I could drink endless heartache from the darkening sky. I have no purpose anymore, just presence. Like stars on redundant pedestals. A t-shirt stained with tears. Remembering a time not so long ago when death sat at the kitchen table and I had no fear of immortality. Somehow the world made sense and I could churn out poetry in the name of being alive.

Suspicious

The hours drip like melting ice. And why shouldn’t they? Nothing lasts forever. It all disappears, evaporates without a trace. As if nothing was ever there. And sometimes I have to wonder if I’m not imaging all this?

Believing that love will come my way and want to stay for more than a day or two. These thoughts, these feelings, like threaded needles trying to close up bleeding gashes. An effort in futility to keep alive what died so long ago.

The sweetness of his touch only makes me crave more. The love in his eyes just another song I’m not meant to hear. I name the days as if that will help me find what’s missing. My otherwise empty heartbeats like quiet footsteps in slippered feet.

Love might as well be made of paper dolls. Hands touching because they have no choice in the matter. I watch my life search the floor for its socks and shoes. Suspecting that it’s true. It's all just temporary after the door closes.

Poem from my hotel room - Part 2

What to say
when the words won't rhyme,
all that is felt
falls like a stone?

Where to sleep
when life takes me away?
Where to put my sadness
when even love won't fit?

How did the past
make me so fragile,
that I break under the weight
of it?

Where to begin when unraveling?
Visions that proceed the other,
the mist of breath upon shower walls,
for a length of time undetermined.

Whispers tumbling through
in every click of the channel,
when there's a stumble
under this popcorn ceiling barricade.

Connections undeniable,
trying to slow the water
trickling down.
as the loneliness rushes

eloping within
half thoughts of suicide
awaiting my own arrival
back home with you.

Poem from my hotel room - Part 1

Mistakes gathering in puddles,
following the dots of every raindrop.
My fingers trailing upon the railing
as I ascend and descend, every bump,
every ridge tempting.
Trying to forget
as forgetting will allow.

My hollow footsteps so tragic here
against the silence.
Loves reprisal always hiding
in the words I’ll never say.
Even in this place,
guarded by distance.
Colors longing to dance again
with shades of gray.
Twines of time,
stringing me into the places
where I wish to be.

And here,
hidden within these walls of sympathy,
I lay awake.
Visions trapping,
overlapping,
stifled by the door.
Leaning into the feelings
as if they were the wind.
Wishing I knew where to go
when redirected,
as detour signs vanish
with the setting sun.

Melt

Sometimes, we'll both stop in the middle of our crazy conversation and stare at each other - quite forgetting who started what and whose story was the oddest - we'll stop and stare, and each will remember what's most beloved about the other... and then he'll smile a blindingly sweet smile, and I’ll melt away.

Alone

When I’m not with him I wonder. What he’s doing. Alone, maybe, like me. On the couch or in a chair, reading maybe, thinking. I want to call him, but sometimes we need this time apart, so I resist and let him be. I sit alone on the bed and pretend I’m paying attention to no particular movie. But deep in my heart I’m hoping. He'll call.