Author: Tom (Page 38 of 71)

I always thought you were beautiful. I would gaze at you from a distance, knowing you barely knew my name. I would admire your eyes, they curve of your mouth, the way your hair flowed just right. I’d listen to your voice, and I would hear it echo all around me.

I remember it.  Clearly. I would think about you in my childish way, lacking both the confidence and the courage to do something about my thoughts.   I’d meander about in fantasy, knowing what I’d have to offer, yet believing that you never would be able to see it.

Today, there you were, and my breath lost pace with the rest of me. I won’t mention the place, or the forum, or the way in which I saw you, but there you were. It doesn’t appear you’ve changed much over the years, but I know through experience that decades have changed us all. You’re still beautiful, with the soft eyes of a warrior that could both melt and sear through a man at the same time. Your mouth still curves in that way it always has, and your hair still looks perfect regardless of its intention.

I can’t hear your voice, but somehow it is there, echoing in my mind, Remembered are the insecurities of my youth, the frustration of wanting yet surrendering, of reaching and having the treasure fall just out of reach. Those memories contrast nicely with the man I’ve become. Strong, secure, a man who knows himself and has no fear in the desires of his heart and mind. If you only remembered my voice too, what a moment we could have.

There you are. I remember you, all of you. My breath finally catches up, and I just sit, gazing at the wonder of you. What are the stories you have to tell? Where are the scars, the wounds, and the empty spaces you’ve left waiting for the one?  Who is the one you crave, the one you hold your breath waiting for?

So many things, so little time. Just know that I remember you.

The pit. It’s there. I can feel it in my every breath, taste it in the very air that sustains me.

I know I want to find you, to meet under the pines. We’ll sit chatting while listening a mountain stream as it passes, softly throwing tiny shore-borne pebbles into its waters. We’ll tell tales of a journey that led us to the place, of streams we once saw, of pebbles we once threw.

I want you here, your head laying softly on my shoulder, our fingers entangled and our hands clasped. I want to feel your breath on my skin. I want to hear your sigh as my fingertips draw lines on your naked back, teasing you onward. I want to stop you in the middle of a sentence, diverting your attention and shattering your focus with nothing more than a touch,

Yet here I am on this stony path, talking to myself about things that hardly matter. I admire the woman walking toward me, and acknowledge her form and her smile. She is not you, however, so I keep walking. Desires of the flesh can only take me so far, as I am a connoisseur of a truth few chefs can prepare.

I sit alone besides the Boulder creek, watching with joy the couples in love, seeing pleasure in people riding tubes down the crystal-clear currents. Next to me is nothing, just an empty spot where the future lies in a lonely present. My heart screams for you as my mouth stays silent. Only the ether, that lonely space between us, knows my truth. That is as it is supposed to be.

I want you to move, but I say nothing. I want you to hurry, but focus on patience. I want you to know, but can only hope your eyes are open to such discovery. Instead, I’ll sit alone, whispering to the leaves, praying to the wind, and longing for a sun shared with you in a morning climb, a night together making love under a loving moon. All things in their time, everything in its place.

The emptiness speaks to me. It knows I understand each and every word. It once was my foe, and I battled it with random companions, hollow words and meaningless rituals. I once demanded the emptiness be filled, and I needed to change to see it gone. I needed to be different, I needed to be “fixed”. I needed to be loved. Together once meant everything to me, and I once fought hard to keep it next to me. The more I fought, the less “together” I would become.

Now, the emptiness is my friend. It is sacred space, left open for you for that moment when you choose to arrive. Each place next to me is hallowed ground, empty to all but the truth of who I am. My hand is now a holy vessel, empty but for the most cherished of things. I am empty, and waiting, for you.

Your name is unimportant. That is best left to soothsayers and whatever guides us to each other. Your face, it’s there but I just can’t see it. Your word are written for me on some eternal stone, just waiting to be read. Your body is waiting for my arrival, as are the waves of pleasure wanting so desperately to break upon our shores. I hear them, and feel them, calling out my name.

If I do leave this earth, the space beside me still empty, my hand outstretched to nothing but the air, I will come back for you. In some way, in some form, in some crazy manner, you will see me and you will know. I will not leave this place without reading your words upon that stone, tracing their curves with my fingers, playing with their meaning in my mind. I will not leave until you shout my name to the heavens above. I will not leave until our screams of ecstasy move birds from their perch, and serve notice to all things, that Love cannot be beaten. I will not leave until the emptiness is filled, both yours and mine, with something equal to its cause.

Make your way when you are ready. I will be here, tossing pebbles in the stream.

“Stop playing in the shallows!” I want to scream in her direction, yet remain silent in my own repose.  She is where she has chosen to be, and I leave her as the mistress of her own destiny.

Still, I have my indignation. I can hear her soul screaming out to the ether demanding something more. I can see it in the faux, two-dimensional smiles she shares. I can see it in her absent stillness, and feel in the remarkable dreams she once had shared.

I could see it in her disdain as I pulled away, lost in a battle I needed to wage alone, and could feel it in the moment she realized there was nothing she could do. There it was, a microcosm of all there is, in a single raindrop streaming down her face.

We still adore each other, in that there is a certainty. When warriors find their frailty, it is their love that holds them steady. When cuts bleed and wounds appear, it is the love that shines on through. When a man can no longer stand on his own two feet, it is his lover that holds him steady.

One cannot understand the strength of things bound in the hands of such a love unless he has been there himself. One cannot understate the notion that we are brought together and driven apart, by events and circumstances not of our choosing. Still, we are creatures of choice, both blessed and burdened by the very free will that defines us. Sometimes the strong survive, sometimes the dust wins.

I will never know when that last first kiss is coming, nor will I know when that only final kiss will arrive. Yet, I know that first dates need never end, and that a single kiss can be stretched into an eternal act that heaven itself cannot contain. I know that tears are not forever, weakness often fades, and “goodbye” is rarely the end of things.  I know that one day I will type my last, sigh a single, final breath, and fade from view like a cloud on a summer’s day.  Yet, I will never stop loving you. Even in the way we do, the promise of two friends holding hands in the sunlight, of two humans who so thoroughly understand one another, this cannot fade. The Universe is built on such intentions, and though stars made change and heavens may fade away, that which holds them dear lives on forever.

That is the forever bond. That is the promise we are given at conception and the promise we pass on in our final moment. It is the smile, the tear, the joy and the heartbreak we all choose to experience. It is two worlds colliding, a star exploding, a galaxy birthed around the very blackness that will destroy it. It is the beginning and end of things that truly never begin and certainly never end. I love you, and I always will. One day, I will write it in the stars.

Do you ever just want to know that you are loved?

That she’s got your back, that he’s standing firm in your space? That whatever happens the truth that flows between you is real, and that you stand on solid ground even if the Universe around you seems to quake?

I know, you do. I know you want to feel hands made strong by a lifetime’s journey hold you in the middle of your back. I know you want to feel the hot breath of a life well lived sweep hotly across your neck. I know you want to feel held. I know you want to feel safe. I know you want to feel honored.

I want to know what brought you to me. I want to hear the stories of footsteps taken and stumbles made. I want to hear your tales of survival, of grit, of wild determination and tame resignation. Mostly, though, I want to hear your moment, your ecstasy in the space we share, your joy in the gift you are to the warrior you are with.  I want to feel you are present in our time, in our space, without surrender to the past or mercy on the future.

There are no guarantees around the corner. Connections are in the moment, and aren’t a surety in the next. Storms come, rains fall, and lightning burns the forests on which we’ve built our home. But now, yes now, I bask in the sunlight and in the lively green around me, hoping you are too, knowing in my soul that we could live, or die, knowing that nothing will ever be the same again.

Someday we may touch that place where connections meet. Someday we may hear the same stream rush past, and see the Sun rise high about the same wily peaks. We may make love in the soft grasses laid out before us, and wash each other in the chilly falls made warm in our embrace. We may find an indestructible in our intertwined fingers, in our gaze that looks beyond the flesh and into something so much deeper. We may know all we’ve been searching for as our sweat puddles united on the ground. We may…someday.

Until then, I walk in purpose, looking intently on the path ahead but feeling everything that is around me. I clearly mumble my mantra, reaching far beyond my mortal confines in awakening, while feeling you in each and every breath.  I wonder then, do you feel me too? I guess we’ll know in the moment of our quickening.