Whoever He Is

Sad loneliness surrounds me, who will fill my heart

My soul, my body and how will I find him?

 

I am at home today, spending quite time alone

Watching the winter white fill the forest.

 

There is a pot of beef and barely soup

Simmering on the stove,

 

Skies waiting outside the door

And wine chilling in the snow.

 

This could be a wonderfully sensuous and

Loving day but instead it is tainted by loneliness.

 

I have no one to share it with,

The man I love and want isn’t who I thought he was,

 

He is not interested and so I sit at my desk alone

Thinking…

 

How will I find him again?

Will it be real this time?

 

I need him to hold me, come ski with me

Share a bowl of fabulous soup and

 

Sip my wine,

The sweet wine of love for two.

 

So the afternoon rolls on

The soup perfuming the air and Bach filling my soul with beautiful notes.

 

If only he would come to fill my heart,

Whoever he is…

How Will I Know?

How will I know?

Will it be obvious?

 

Or will I have to analyze

Each moment, each look to be sure and even then,

 

Will I be able to trust my judgment?

Trust another?

 

I met a man just the other day, he wanted me, I didn’t want him, he seemed nice,

But then so did the last one.

 

The last one presented himself to be just what I was looking for,

Kind, honest, loving, spiritual, he must have read my mind and adjusted his words to fit.

 

I don’t know how to get my faith back. My trusting nature

Was stolen, taken when I wasn’t looking.

 

The taking was so wrong and so complete that

I will never be the same again.

 

Maybe being not the same is a good thing,

Maybe it will keep me from being taken again.

 

But I kind of liked the old me, the one I was before.

The one who loved and trusted easily, the one who wore her heart on her sleeve.

 

I had been alone for a long time  when I met him.

I thought it would be hard to let go and love again, but he made it so easy, I wish it had been harder.

 

Maybe some day my tears will stop. But for now they come at the drop of a hat and are

Always just below the surface.

 

Do I cry for me,

Or for him?

 

I no longer can tell the difference, but I know that my confusion is foolish and pointless,

He doesn’t care who I cry for, he is happy now.

 

He says the worst thing that could happen to him has happened

And he has realized now that it was the best thing that could have happened to him.

 

So once again, it is all about him,

She and I and all the others were put in his life for his benefit

 

While he used us and now while he says he is trying to change.

 

What about the pain he has caused, what about an “I’m sorry”

 

There is no sorry, he says he has a “disease”, so just like an alcoholic,

He has yet another excuse for his behavior. An excuse

 

For his raping of my spirit, for his destroying of my trust in myself and others,

For his taking what he wanted under false pretenses.

 

I am tired; tired of hearing myself talk,

Tired of my constant thinking about him,

 

Tired of talking to myself, dreaming of him, waking up each morning with him in my heart with his music running through my head.

 

My friends and family are tired of hearing about it too,

I don’t blame them; I bore myself but I cannot hide and deny my feelings.

 

My heart will not be pushed aside,

She will not be ignored and she will not rest

 

Until the passage of time erases his smile and touch

From my soul.

Impossible, Beautiful Dream

Love is

A weighty substance.

 

What is it made of and

Where does it come from?

 

Why is it for one and not the other?

And why can’t we choose?

 

It’s truth and meaning are hidden in mystery,

It’s pain evident in lies and tears.

 

How do we know when it starts?

Is there a moment when one can say “yes, love has begun”?

 

I think there is a warming glow, an inner heat and smoothness

To love’s beginning but

 

When it ends… then want?

I cry for wanting him, he cries for not wanting me.

 

Our grief is an odd mixture of sadness, anger and joy because after all,

Love and hate are just opposite ends of the same emotion,

 

One that can turn on a dime and oscillate endlessly

Between the ends all in the space of a second.

 

When he stood before me that last time, for just those few seconds,

The world around us disappeared and he was all there was.

 

My heart stopped as the magnitude of the reality

Of his absence outside of those seconds filled me.

 

As I watched him walk away, I felt the warmth of my love, my heart’s

Blood, drain through my feet and follow him like a shadow.

 

But he left it in the parking lot,

Unwanted and rejected as he drove away.

 

I saw it melt into a puddle behind him

Where it waited for me to gather it up and take it home.

 

Where did this love for him come from? I don’t know,

If I knew I would send it back as

 

It has not served me well. It was based on a dream,

An impossible, beautiful dream but

 

One that was flawed, and although I didn’t realize it, it never had a chance,

Because he and it were damaged goods right from the start.

She is Not a Quitter

My little heart keeps asking me “why?”

I hear her tiny voice in the quiet early morning hours but I have no answer for her.

 

She has stayed up all night again.

Thinking about the past, feeling the pain and sorrow of the now.

 

She has fallen into a deep dark pit,

Her little voice echoing off the steep, cold sides.

 

I keep reaching out to her but her tiny hands

Have not the strength to hold on.

 

So she sinks back to the bottom and

Remains in sorrow and darkness.

 

It is a shame to witness this. She used to be such

A happy little thing,

 

Always positive, always trusting.

Albeit, sometimes a bit too naive for her own good,

 

But it was a naiveté not based on stupidity or ignorance but

One based on a choice to trust and believe in spite of the red flags not to.

 

I am afraid for her, she is weak and there are

Beasts down there in the darkness.

 

Beasts who lie to her,

Who tell her she is not good enough, that she is unlovable and a fool.

 

They sneak in while she sleeps and

Whisper doubts in her ear.

 

I keep trying to tell her to be strong and not listen to their lies,

But I don’t think she can hear me yet.

 

So I wait on the edge of the pit

With an open mind and open hand to catch her the next time she climbs to within my reach.

 

I don’t mind waiting because I know she will try again soon in spite of the pain and sorrow.

I have faith in her – she is not a quitter.

Why

Canvas curtains with

Buttons of rice.

 

Small enclosures

Hold melting floors while

 

Starched souls stand in the corner and

Their judgments fly.

 

Half held truths

Debase the morning sky and

 

Silence screams in my eyes while

Cut grass fragrance pervades my thoughts.

 

When will it all come together?

When will it stop?

 

The quiet death

Underwrites my soul while

 

Soft subtle shapes

Shift and take me with them.

 

And when the shapes settle, the past becomes the one and only

Place where I can breathe.

 

But I can’t go back there and all else has failed.

Why did you come back? just to leave again?

 

Why?  Did you forget to take something? I can’t imagine what

There is nothing left.…

The Joy of Simple Solitude

The joy of simple solitude where

There is no risk to my heart, and no chance for destruction of my soul.

 

I can trust myself here,

I’d never do those things to me.

 

I love the solitude of evenings spent in front of the

Wood stove, reading and writing where there is

 

No one to answer to and

No one to betray me.

 

I am safe with just the beauty and silence of winter’s cold

And darkness for company.

 

I feel a silent peace from the holiday lights sparkling

In my windows and the feeling of

 

Love’s glow coming from

Within.

 

My peace is what I will make it to be,

Warm, safe, beautiful and right.

 

It is all I need for now,

This joy of simple solitude, however,

 

I am not fooled —

There is nothing simple about it.

Candlelight, Soft Love and Raindrops

I hear the rain in the early morning darkness,

It’s sound muffled by the closed windows and leaf blanketed forest floor.

 

But its soft sound is enough to keep me awake,

Awake and day dreaming of happier times.

 

Of times when the sound of the rain brought sweet contentment and thankfulness

For its life giving qualities to my mind.

 

A time when it was summer’s refreshment,

And the garden sang in gratitude for its warm sweetness.

 

But now, as I sit here on my bed at 2:00 am, alone in this November darkness,

The droning on the roof only serves to remind me of our separateness,

 

Our aloneness and isolation, one from the other,

With the sound of the rain our only connection.

 

This simple connecting sound brings me to thoughts of him and

I picture him in his room,

 

Lying beneath his white down comforter,

While the rain drops roll in rivers down his bedroom windows.

 

The rain’s sound is amplified by the sloping eves of his bedroom ceiling where the soft flicker of candle light dances.

 

The memory of the warmth of his body lying next to mine takes my breath away.

I can feel his long lean limbs, light but strong, wrapped around me in complete trust

 

As together we sleep as one, our separateness abandoned and replaced by a union of warmth, safety and love.

 

But slowly my day dream fades and reality comes seeping back to me in my empty bed and

The sound of the rain outside my window becomes the sound of my tears.

 

Although the scene in my mind fades away into the darkness of this November night,

My thoughts stay with him.

 

And as I try once again to lose myself in the healing peace of sleep

I become aware of the missing sound of my heart beating in my chest.

 

It seems my heart has left me and has chosen instead to stay behind in my day dream with him.

But I don’t feel betrayed or upset with its abandonment for

 

I cannot blame it for wising to remain in the sweet memory of candlelight, soft love and raindrops, I understand – it is my wish as well.

You Are The Lucky One

“If I laugh just a little bit

Maybe I can recall the way that I used to be, before you

And sleep at night – and dream”

Cat Stevens

 

Will that time ever come to be or am I

Destined to spend forever wanting,

 

Dreaming and remembering

Your presence in my life.

 

Sometimes it seems like it was all just a dream but it can’t be because

I still feel your hands on my body in the night, I smell the scent of your skin in my bed and see your light in my soul.

 

In my dreams I hold you, I feel your arms surround me and

Taste your mouth on mine.

 

You hold me close and I listen to your words,

Words you whispered in my ear

 

As you made love to me as only you can do.

Your passion overwhelming, your hunger for me insatiable.

 

How does that end, how can a passion like that just stop?

Where did it go?

 

Does she make you feel like I did?

Does she make you forget me?

 

If so, than I guess you are the lucky one.

Lucky to go from one love to the next without taking a breath.

 

No nights lost in the pain of what was

Or of what could have been and the why of it all.

 

No time spent in a wanting so intense that it drags you to the bottom of a dark pit,

A pit with steep, slippery sides, with no end, no way out,

 

No footholds, no dreams, just darkness, only darkness.

It is not the soft, comforting darkness of our times in each other’s arms,

 

Those times in the dark of night when we were the only two awake in the world, two alone sharing nights of love and trust, sweetness and heat, but

 

It is a cold and lifeless darkness, the kind that smothers you in ink, sucks the breath from your lungs and crushes your skull with its heaviness.

A paralyzing, frightening darkness that turns your thoughts back in on themselves to deceive and choke you,

A darkness that disguises all the goodness in the world and soaks it in pain and anger.

This is such a terrible place to be … I can’t find my way out…

But I am glad that you have not been sucked into the pit as well,

Because the only thing worse then being here alone would be

Knowing you were here too but hiding from me in the darkness.

 

 

The Dance of Loneliness

Beware the wounded woman

Of the forest.

 

If you hear her cries, run or she will

Envelope you in her sorrow.

 

Her tears will burn holes in your soul,

And her sorrowful eyes will melt your heart and haunt your dreams.

 

The full moon brings her out, she is

Searching, always searching for the pieces of her broken heart.

 

She used to dance on the dirt paths in the moonlight but,

That was before she was betrayed and

 

Left alone in the moonlight to dance the silent

Dance of loneliness.

Be Still … Let It Catch You

He seems sad inside, an unhappy place.

There is a war that rages within, the sides are undefined.

His light has to fight to get out, and it turns cold in its struggle.

He is alone but his loneliness is crowded.

There is no room in his heart, it is full of useless memories,

Wasted space, rooms of used feelings, empty promises, broken dreams.

Nothing belongs only to him, just his, only his.

He tries to be universal, but his soul is battered and sore.

He dreams and wants but denies himself,

He holds tight as he pushes away, searching,

Always searching and seeking,

Stop… be still…let it catch you.

I can’t fix him but I can

Hold him and love him while he mends.