the effectiveness of rain

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.

july flame

I feel as though I will never get warm.  I need the searing heat, the pressing humidity, the excuse to lie down in the grass and sleep because it is too hot to move but to sip cool things out of glasses.  I need the length of days and the closeness of the sky; the colors deepening in their ripe fullness; the sensuality of pressing air moved only by a hot breeze.  Here the air is too thin to hold me- I cut right through.  I need the heat because it holds you.

you could love me

Miss says I’m wasting away. I tried to explain that my stomach is full; I can’t eat.  It would do no good to explain that my heart dropped down and it’s sitting there, there’s no more room for food.

It’s been since your last visit, on that leave they gave you.  I didn’t know how to greet you after your last letter, but I couldn’t help but hope.  I waited in the rain for you that day, I know you weren’t pleased when you saw me soaked to the skin.  Your smile didn’t reach your eyes.

Please just cut me loose. Since I can’t stand the waiting I tried to sit it, but that didn’t work either. It rained like that again yesterday, and I took your last letter outside with me. Now we’re both soggy.

repair shop

“Here. You can fix him right?”

“Eh? Hmm let me see there then…”

“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?”

“Sweetheart…”

static

The winds came and with them a quiet. The constant static of the drops hitting tin roofs formed a sort of white noise that made thought unnecessary. She knew she had to leave

Maybe I'll fill up with rain and it won't matter whether I'm wearing boots or not.

This strange saltwater rain- and then I'll always carry the ocean in my curls.

concerns of you

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.

love poems

          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.

beauty to cry for

Ever since I was a little little girl I've been fascinated with ballerinas. The grace and suspension- turns that end only when they decide to and jumps they only come down from because they get bored; the delicate wrists and ankles that seem to weep as they arch into beautiful lines.
I made up my mind to become one, but after hours and hours of rehearsal today, I am so battered with bruises and blisters from the hard floor and angry pointe shoes that I can barely make it up the stairs. My feet are bleeding in a million places but it will all be worth it I tell myself.

Julie Kent; simply seeing her wonderful feet prompts deep sighs of longing. I wore my blue dress and the lovely heels that pinch but look so graceful with Grandmother into the city yesterday to see her. She was so sad and beautiful that I wept in my seat for the sight of her.

K.

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.

you interested?

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?

chez moi

I see my house clearly in my mind.
The weathered furniture rescued from flea markets, given love and a new coat of paint
Mirrors and shelves and shelves and shelves of books, bits of driftwood and old pictures- bottles found and filled with the tiniest shards of smooth sea glass
Clocks and papers and shells and dried flowers in vases- a perfume that smells like home and the salt air
And white curtains that catch the wind and dance for joy of movement
And my room: with the window and the desk and the chair so certain, I know already I know. The bright light and the fall of the pen and the remains of breakfast in the corner. Both clutter and space and full, soft white light. And the birds call outside my open window, my beautiful paint-peeling window.
My house visits me in waking dreams- does yours?

my lighthouse keeper

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.

(photos are both mine and from here)

wake up now

Come on summer, I know you now, you know I know

Silly lazy, come along now, it's time to get going and lie down now

It's time to put the leaves back on the trees and that perfume on the breeze
And at the end of the day you can stretch out so nice and long that everything turns orange
Wouldn't you like to have a picnic on the shore with me?
Warm up the rocks, lets go- we're so long overdue

 (I don't know all the wonderful photographers whose pictures these are, but can't you just taste summer on your skin?)

oh peter

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.

...So live

perfect

Once upon a time there was a beautiful little girl

Everything she said or did was perfect

But the little girl had a secret

She was in love with the elk who came to visit her by night

By day her father lined up suitors all the way to the shore to promise riches for her hand

She was not a princess

She was a deer, locked up in the body of a girl

And she was miserable

One night the elk came to her and asked her to come with him

So she stepped out of her body

And she went.