Tables littered with mugs and cups and saucers, kettles on
the stove whistling a symphony of steam. Nothing more than a powdered sugar
dusting on yellow grass, I think we might be holding off the world’s cold all
by our selves. Winking lights in the window and you with your stories of tragic
loves and how the winter came about. I’ve never had a blanket like you to curl
up under and I can only wish that you won’t unravel.
I sleep with the moths now. Wings brushing about my cheeks, I confuse them with my eyelashes. Each night they come down from the pines at the edge of the yard and through the window I leave open now. I've given up trying to keep them out; they'll always find a way in, the rafters have so many cracks...
They used to frighten me and I'd turn on the lamp. The brightness would send them into a panic and they'd flow over me in a frantic race to the light, but they never did seethe like dark things do. In the dark they are only soft and sweet, small bodies that gather about me and when I rest they slow, fluttering with the push of my breath. They take your place now; millions of tiny arms to fill the space left behind. They are very accommodating, my new friends the moths. I'm sure they'll rearrange themselves when you come back.
Missing you is getting easier. I only thought about you 57 times today (I know because I kept a tally on a scrap of paper in my pocket) as opposed to over a hundred times yesterday. If I keep going at this rate, decreasing by almost half each day, I know I'll never get to zero, but by the time you get back I'll hardly miss you at all!
Maybe if it were sunnier I wouldn't be having such a hard time. But since it's cold and wet all I want is to curl up in your arms and hear your heart beating so slow and deep. It's amazing how powerful that one muscle can be... to gather up enough force with one perfectly timed contraction so that it can push all the blood in your body through each tiny capillary, and then bring it back. It's amazing how acutely such a strong thing can be hurt, by as cosmically microscopic an incident as, say, you leaving.
We close our eyes, stinging from tiredness, bright with exhaustion and joy. Lodged in our throats, caught in chests, trapped behind teeth; the first gray rays of light wash over us, not as soft as your fingers on the skin of my shoulder. It is a quiet love, a love of bursts of laughter and no words. A love of lips of noses, love of eyelashes, your love, mine. The shadows of the year grow longer- we are stretching thin towards the close and we come back.
Spring is trying on different coats, hand out the window, one foot in the door, deciding. The sky heats up and the rains come down and it seems that everything is in its right place. However off they were yesterday, however silly the grievance, it comes together for a while and you realize that time is only the ebb and flow of right and wrong. Salvation is the warm body next to you as the wind whips the trees into a frenzy that is fascinating because you are safe, held and anchored, tied to the warmth.
My skin still smells of you despite the scrubbing. You slip between my ribs and kiss me- goosebumps from the inside.
Returning to school in a tumble of snow and bags can be disorienting. The snow is up to my knees and sometimes the ice trips you up but you can't fall because you'd be late to class and there is no time to lose.
Luckily, I have your pretty face to distract me. Have you ever seen such beautiful eyes? I think maybe the sea got a little jealous and jumped in there herself. Not that I can blame her. If I could swim in your eyes forever, I would too.
I had a dream that the bread was burning in the fireplace. And you had used all that was left in the house to make French toast for me.
I think it was all on account of you reading that letter that was not meant for anyone to see. I know you read the whole thing, please don’t bother telling me you stopped half way. And I know you are only trying to help but please, this can’t be helped.
I don’t think I’ll look at you for the next month an a half.
“So you can fix him? You can fix everything. I know it. Like that time I brought you mother’s necklace in pieces when everyone said it was beyond repair. You fixed it.”
“Well hold on there sweetheart, let me see what’s broken here… Ah! There’s your problem right there: it’s his heart. You can see there’s a fissure right up the middle- leads all the way up to his mind. Jeez you sure did a number on this one! What’d you do, drop him off a building?”
“I… I didn’t mean to… I just wasn’t thinking and I got so angry… I didn’t mean for it to be bad, but he’s just stopped working. But you can fix him can’t you? Can’t you?”
I was thinking of you and I looked out. Saw two people kissing in the rain.
The month is gray fog over the valley and cold rain. It's a quiety time. I'd like nothing more than to curl up close to you because you're always warm.
I found a bone in the woods today, bleached white and so delicate, and then the rain started. I took it home with me and placed it in the box you made me before you had to go. Missing you is getting harder. I forgot to wake up today, but Dr. Queen didn’t get mad. He said meet him later, but sometimes I don’t like the way he smiles. I like your smile better. Too bad you took all the oceans south with you and I’m still here with my paper. Sorry your letter got soaked, I know I promised I’d take better care, but I never remember my rain slicker before I close the door. My mind can’t hold concerns of anything but you.
Today I woke up and something was different. I think I dreamed about you. I wasn't tired when I got up this morning. My eyelids stayed open instead of asking to close again like they usually do. I think my top and bottom eyelids must be in love with each other, because they always seem to want to be together. I do a lot of sleeping here.
Aaron wrote me a poem yesterday. He says he is in love with me, but I know better. So I wrote him a poem back explaining why he shouldn't be in love with me, but I don't think he really understood it. If someone wants to be in love, there's nearly nothing you can do to stop them. And I love you, but you're way aways down south with the storms. You laughed, but be careful please.
The day was Sunday and, having nothing to do for once, I decided on a spur of the moment trip to Manhattan where I wandered aimlessly until I would up some forty blocks north of where I started at the entrance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I bought myself a student-price ticket and went in. There I spent several very enjoyable hours wandering its cooled and echoing halls admiring the art both visual and tactile, before agreeing with myself that it was time to go. Not being able to find the exit, i eventually fell to retracing my steps through the exhibits, going backwards with a curious sense of rewinding time at a speeded pace, until I finally came to the place where I had first entered. While I had been inside the sky had darkened from blue to the threatening gray that generally heralds summer squalls, but the sun was still shining from the west in that way it sometimes does, and when I stepped out of the museum, the first drop of rain fell squarely on my forehead, like a christening. I didn't reach up to wipe it off. I spent a few minutes sitting on the front steps of the Met which were still quite warm from earlier in the day, watching the people come and the people go until the rain started coming down even harder and I figured I'd better get going so I got up and walked, smiling, back the way I had come
Now, on my walk up I had passed a man sitting on a bench on the park side of 5th Avenue with a typewriter and a cardboard sign at his feet offering poems for a "suggested donation" of $2. As I passed him on my way there I considered stopping but didn't, telling myself that if he was still there when I got back then it was meant to be and I would buy a poem. But I had stayed later at the museum than I had planned and with the rain coming down ever harder I didn't expect to see him again. I started berating myself for not stopping when I had the chance, for though I told myself I didn't really need the poem, I was sorely disappointed, as if I had lost something very valuable. I knew it shouldn't matter, but I was upset in my heart nonetheless.
But when I hit 75th Street going south, there he was, hat over his typewriter to protect it from the wet, hands clasped in front of him as he bent over his knees. So I walked up to him and asked what kind of poems his were. He looked up at me very slowly, starting with my shoes covered in the grime of city streets and transferring some of that onto my feet because they were only sandals. When his rising eyes met mine he said in a voice even softer than mine, "Whatever kind you want." Only a bus was going by just then so I hardly heard him and had to lean in very close and ask him to repeat it once more, which he then did. So I looked down and told his honey-coloured eyes to write "Your favorite." "My favorite," he said, and put his head down on his knees, eyes closed, hands clasped in front of him. He stayed like that for a long time as the rain started to let up, and then as quickly as it had come, the rain stopped. I had had visions of arriving at the station soaked to the skin and suffering through a wet and viciously air-conditioned ride home, but it then appeared that my fears were unfounded. I noticed his hair, soft as his voice and a dark honey colour as well, thin and gently curling. The hot breeze was playing tricks with it while he wasn't watching. Just the my poet straightened up and held my eyes for another long moment before removing his hat from the typewriter to his head and beginning to type. When he had finished he carefully creased his sheet of paper below where my poem ended, moistened the crease with his tongue, gently tore off what he had written and handed his words to me, honey-eyes still locked on mine. I read it through quickly and my heart skipped and stuttered a bit. Meeting his eyes again I said, "It's a good one," and handed him two five-dollar bills. $10, instead of the requested two. He said thank you very much in the same low soft tone and I said have a nice day and even though I knew he was still watching where my eyes would have been, I didn't look back until I was ten blocks south. When I did turn around of course he was far out of sight, and a curiously hot wind from the north knocked about my legs and ushered me towards my train. When I reached the station I was dry and silent. I had made it to my train thirty minutes early. When I looked down at the heart locket on my necklace which perpetually hangs open because the clasp is broken, I noticed that my entire chest (and probably neck too although I couldn't see) was a blotchy red, like my mother's turns when she gets upset or very emotional. I wondered if it had looked like that when the poet met my eyes. I sat down in the second car and turned my body to the window to hide the marks, watching the reflection of my eyelashes in the glass that looked out onto the dark of the tunnel, and waited for the train to move.
I haven't told anyone about this encounter; it feels too... I don't know, too something to speak out loud, but I needed to put it down somehow and I feel like you're the right person to tell. I don't know if I'll tell anyone else...
Oh, the poem that scared me and set me wondering even as I fell in love with it he composed on the spot after looking into my eyes. I'll always wonder how he did:
Yesterday at the tea party I was very glad you came. I wasn't going to go, I usually don't have dresses fine enough for company, but yesterday I curled my hair and put on my best frock and sat up straight at the table like a real lady. Like Alice does when she is taken down off the shelf for tea in her velvet gown and best Sunday bonnet. I see the way you look at her and I don't blame you, she's beautiful with her blonde ringlets all swept up fashionably and her necklace of real pearls- I know they're real because I asked her once. What could I ever have that would tempt you from her perfection, even though I know in my sawdust heart I am the one you were meant for? But yesterday, when we were seated next to each other (maybe you had been poured one too many cups of tea) you slumped over against my arm and laid there for a long moment. I loved the way your black button eyes shone up at me and although you were righted rather quickly, I can still feel your soft weight on my arm. I know I only have yarn for hair and Alice tells the toy soldiers about all the sweet things you do for her, but I think you could love me too. And I think you think it too.
Have you ever been in love with your very best friend?
The one who knew everything about you without ever having to ask? Who knew all the right things to say and just what to do about everything that went wrong?
I bring him my broken jewelry and he brings it back whole. He says he likes fixing things- good thing too, because I have a tendency to break.
Girl with the black beret,
Every time I break open a fortune cookie, I hope that there will be something on that little strip of paper so profound that it convinces me to finally tell you that I love you.
Sheepish Mountain Goat
They say a text is just a text,
but my heart's about to explode in my chest.
Dear A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y or Z,
You stole my heart, I love you too.
From A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y or Z.
T,
I was so distracted thinking about you this morning that I accidentally brushed my teeth with face wash. It was worth it.
— K
boy,
i was thinking this summer that maybe we could fall in love. you interested?
— girl
All of these are from the cutest site I've found in a long time: letterstocrushes.com
Visit it to renew your faith in love and remember that people are actually capable of these emotions
I promise you'll come away with a smile
What do you wish you could tell the person you care(d) for?
We tried to run again, but sleep got wise to our tricks and she caught up with us this time.
Still, it was without resent that we went to her arms, slightly abashed, like children caught hiding from their bath.
Now in the grey morning she gentles us with a warm breeze and muted skies
I think the world wants me to be in love- the boy with waves in his eyes and summer in his curls tastes of blueberries and lighthouse floors, letters tucked away to be read generations from now and rocking chairs with stories in the sanded grain.
The leaves are coming back you know. A greener green than before. Winter was worth the wait.
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
We tumbled home in the morning bloody and bruised but patched up best we could
and we smiled still. These are the smiles of tired days. These are the smiles of sandy hair sandy eyes sandy mind. These are what we have left over when we have lived everything else.
We watched the moon set and then flipped over and watched the sun rise on our other side.
This is what is left when you have lived even the memories.
Life: it loves the young
The spring is short and summer brings hotter days for sleeping through.
Open your windows wide, the breeze carries the sea- it lives for you, now
Break off a piece of chocolate and hold it in your mouth. Laugh when the wind catches at your dress- it only wants to play.
Life lives for the young.
So live.
She packed up her things for the weekend. A weekend away from here is what I need, she thought. Can't let too much of life go by standing still.
The travel was long and tiring, but she finally found a welcoming place with a hard, warm floor she could rest on for the night or two. Friends awaited there. Friends who had been met before, and friends who hadn't. They took her out of the rain and the driving wind and fed her and warmed her and treated her as one of their own.
Across the rough, round table there was a man with eyes the color of chocolate which seemed to melt at the edges. They smiled at the ballerina and frequently flicked back to her face to check the tip of her nose or the curve of her collarbones. Her eyes, hazel and dancing, took in his hands, long as a pianist's (though he didn't play) and the way his cheek seemed to tug at his mouth when he laughed.
This night she slept not on the hard, friendly floor, but in a soft high bed where her long legs couldn't reach the ground. He smelled of earth and the clean sharpness of snow melt in rivers. He reminded her of summer and everything she wanted in life outside of the studio and the stage. Strong hands traced those collarbones and fit the slim waist. They laughed when they found he could enclose her tiny fist in one of those hands- it was perfectly baseball sized.
Together they hid from sleep and fought the night, but morning came anyway. It was time for the ballerina to move on, but he kissed her forehead and stole back a few more minutes. She walked back into the driving rain with a smile and the cold didn't bother her. She took the bed with her and stayed wrapped up in the soft, the smell of earth still in her hair.
Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay.
The travel was long and tiring, but she finally found a welcoming place with a hard, warm floor she could rest on for the night or two. Friends awaited there. Friends who had been met before, and friends who hadn't. They took her out of the rain and the driving wind and fed her and warmed her and treated her as one of their own.
Across the rough, round table there was a man with eyes the color of chocolate which seemed to melt at the edges. They smiled at the ballerina and frequently flicked back to her face to check the tip of her nose or the curve of her collarbones. Her eyes, hazel and dancing, took in his hands, long as a pianist's (though he didn't play) and the way his cheek seemed to tug at his mouth when he laughed.
Together they hid from sleep and fought the night, but morning came anyway. It was time for the ballerina to move on, but he kissed her forehead and stole back a few more minutes. She walked back into the driving rain with a smile and the cold didn't bother her. She took the bed with her and stayed wrapped up in the soft, the smell of earth still in her hair.
