The Ghost of You

 

A version of our life together

sits in a frame

in our daughter’s room,

smiling back at her while she sleeps —

these two people

role playing a perfect scene

in some foreign Spanish film

whose protagonist

turned into the antagonist

in later years.

Tucking her in,

I stare at those two strangers,

the ghost of you

transparent

with the secrets of lifetimes

you participated

with so many others.

The interpretation of me

is of cellophane

covering rubbish.

That young woman has been buried

with the ex-composition of you

that so eloquently seems to smile

back from the glass,

encased in the lack of understanding

for her needs.

You haunt memories,

escaping the emotions

with your Houdini acts

that left only a version

of the apparition

we thought was you.

In Darkness


I lay…

As darkness embraces

Every part of my skin.

I breathe deeply

Thinking of you

Holding my soul

In your hands again.
I feel your touch,

Your desire,

Your love,

Of what was once.
I feel the light of the moon,

The stars,

Infinite galaxies guiding me

Back to what was us.
I am missing a part of me.

I try to shake it off,

Disregard it,

Substitute it,

Excuse it…

To no avail.
I have nothing left

But memories.

I have everything left

But moments.
You are here with me

In this darkness

Holding me as I fall

Back into the arms

Of who you were once

In some parallel life.
But I lay

Alone

Still missing a part

Of my essence

That I gave to you

Long ago.

Peaceful Flurries

from phone 053

Snow falls peacefully.

Wind blows fast and hard.

I hate missing you

throughout this chill.

Winter has taken over

inside of me,

numbing what I know,

freezing all reality

as I stare into the coldness.

Silence appears

laying in the whiteness…

I wish I was snow

and you

the shovel scooping,

unearthing,

gathering

me up towards you.

The beauty of moments

is that you never know

when you are making

a cherished memory.

Mine hold many of us

frozen somewhere in time.

Intricate Exposure

 

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I remember

you and me

tangled in those sheets,

dismantling each others’

armors and weapons

built through a lifetime

of heart break.

Your hands grabbed

the walls of my subconscious,

fondling the lining of emotions.

And in an instance

you found

all of my essence

swimming in the blue

of the duvet cover

exposed to each particle

of your soul

without the fabric

of skin

to hide beneath

every secret of our pasts.

The sun stood at guard

while the warmth

of embraces

evoked the final gasps

exhaled from true love’s

final cry

and leaving

shadows on a bed

we will never visit again.

Returning to this World

 

Last night the rain shivered beneath the moon

and I fell asleep staring at the silhouettes of trees

dancing across the field, lost in the wind of chances

until I drifted without thoughts and illusions

into a dream land that called my name from the other side.

 

This morning I returned to this world,

woken with memories of another life I left behind

and as I stared into the morning light

a quiet whisper left me without doubts:

my thoughts are the small journeys

that bring me back to reality

and I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

 

I return to this world surrendering to the universe.

Some days there is peace of mind.

Some days there is utter chaos.

Some days I thank God for the rain inside

that washes over me and fills my spirit

with such certainties and assurances.

The dreams intertwine with past lessons;

the past intertwines with the disillusions

and then I am back to this reality:

This is my one-and-only spectacular life.

The Very Thought of You

 

            A look inward brings me back to you,
to us on this bed
that tells our stories in colored sheets
you never notice
except when I strip them
each Monday as you leave.

 

            And I see you now in my mind
while I smile,
not pretentious but reminiscing,
some isolated nostalgia
of past escapades when we did not know of each other —
even now throughout so many years
there are secrets that sleep here with me,
without you,

with us in dreams.

 

            The very thought of you chills me,
heats me,
redefines me,

but I cannot let go
because I will be fractured beyond repair
if I stop thinking of the man
you ought to be,
not the man you think you are.

 

            Here and there tells the story
and the very thought of me
with you
erases it all
disregarding who I ought to be as well

until you can find the way

to scoop me up and make us whole again.

 

Namesake

He had a name.

He has an eponym.

It is still deeply rooted

in the center of my heart.

And though I try

not to utter his name,

play with the two syllables,

my heart echoes it

from some mystical place

I can never reach.

 

He has a name.

It is a noun

and every so often

it carries an adjective,

attaching a memory

to the few small letters.

Sometimes they are loving words,

others not so sweet….

 

If every man I’ve loved

clung so tightly

I would have drowned

in an ocean of

descriptive despair

full of letters and sounds.

 

But he had a name.

He has a beautiful pseudonym.

I can’t seem to release it

to the vastness of the universe

because it returns,

boomeranged with force,

periodically into my words,

smiling in its relief.

 

His name is implanted,

crisscrossed into mine,

for what seems a forever

and ever of a lifetime.

Collecting Memories

attentiveness

As I sat, listening

to your words,

following gestures –

            lines connecting,

       detaching, intersecting,

        circling all around you

passionately expressing

details of where you’ve been

in such joyous promptitude

                     I wondered how it felt

                              to be you.

 

How do the stories,

words, and thoughts

file inside the memory

of such a gentle soul?

How amazing to carry

those moments,

retracting them

at a push of a thought.

 

Each of us is connected

by an action,

a            lapse          in            time,

a twinkling…. pace

            causing a scene for

later viewing

alone in personal time

full of tears or giggles.

 

Your smile paused

the very thought of me

noticing the attentiveness.

In such erratic tone,

the seconds lasted an eternity

when you leaned in,

closed your eyes,

kissed me for the first time

and my moment

was quickly filed under “L o v e.”