Author: Tom (Page 41 of 71)

We swirl in a storm of confusion. Our lives bring us to places that challenge us, that make us whole, then break us, then assemble us back into vessels misshapen to our past. Sometimes we barely recognize the twisted version we see of ourselves. Sometimes, that is a good thing.

There are times we meet people. People who remind us of the great love that exists everywhere. People who inspire us, who bring out the parts of us long hidden, who see these misshapen vessels as wonderful works of art.

We want to be inside these people. We want to feel them inside us. We want to press their flesh, taste their souls, and see ourselves in the twinkle of their eye. We want to fantasize with them, creates amazing stories of wonders within a book all our own, and never, ever, stifle their amazing growth.

They are our lovers, the few great souls we find a connection with. For some, there is only one. For others, there is a great abundance of lovers for which there is never an end. There are no wrong answers in love’s sweet moment. Somehow, it all makes sense to the heart.

For me, there is you. For me, there is nothing else quite the same.

You are my clarity.

There are the stories of making love by the orange flicker of a fragile flame near the stainless steel gateway to heaven. We’ve shared the sacraments of our passion upon the altars of our dreams and the fabled sutras that gave us hope. We’ve torn at flesh and fantasy with equal vigor until there was nothing left in our bodies but the very thing that brought us together.

There are those moments of great despair, when the pieces just would not fit. The gods conspired, throwing stones in our path, and creating disarray out of harmony. The breezes of circumstance mixed the great colors of our mandala, and the rains muddied the great lakes on which we sailed. We were beaten, lost to the ages, yet in the miracle of time we gaze at one another from separate summits, alone save the very thing that brought us together.

The very thing that brought us together. The stiller of great waves, the calmness of massive storms. The great soprano in a chorus of tone-deaf voices. The wisdom. The truth. The clarity.

The love.

So alone, yet together, we stand, worlds apart but in some kind of harmony. We throw veils on our truth, yet it is always there. We hide our eyes from its light, yet feel the burning on our skin. We shield ourselves from its driving rain, yet feel the wetness soak us to the bone. We cannot run from it, and it will always chase us down until, finally, we allow it to breathe.

That is the greatest story of our lives hidden nicely in a  myriad of other great tales. We feel it in our children, in our passion, and in our moments of unbridled glory. We seek in our darkness, in our helplessness, and in the deepness of mindless despair. It is our destiny from the moment we were conceived. It is our inescapable fate.

I’ve surrendered to such a thing. I feel it every morning in thoughts of you, and every evening when I tell the ether I love you. I feel it in the memories, in the promises, in the endings we so often cling to. In my moment I realize it isn’t the end I need grasp, but the beginning. That’s where the promise is, where the forsaken moments of memory allow us great hope.  It’s where we find great clarity even if the waters were muddied by the whims of gods and fools.

I will forever love you. When I die I want you to tell the world great stories, and share with angels and demons the truth of a life well shared. I want to share with you the snowy peaks and clear glacial streams that wash winter’s dust from our flesh. I want to make love to you with reckless abandon in the middle of a great forest, and laugh as we howl at the moon together. I want to hold you down in the mud as you dig into my skin, reminding you that every winter thaws, and every spring renews.

Then, we will have clarity. Truth. Uncompromising dedication to the path we have set upon together. We will have each other.

I heard her say a thing, as if almost in a dream.

What is it you hear when you close  your eyes, my love?

I shut my eyes, desperately trying to answer her question. Through an avalanche of silky mist I searched, and in the hallowed caverns of a heart darkened by circumstance, and reborn through time, I find the answer.

I hear nothing.

I can sense her reaction through the space set between us, and I move lightly through the mystic channels of her pain. There are no drum beats to offer her, no raging fires by which I can warm her labored heart.

The rants begin, the once-shuttered wounds now on full display. She waves her angry finger in my direction, and points her injured mind like a laser at me. I make no attempt to dodge her searing light, and I bear its brunt with all of who I am.

Yet, I hear nothing.

Missing pieces of an ugly puzzle have now been found, and distorted images of a nasty jigsaw suddenly begin to fit. Memories, once discarded like empty refuse now seem to matter more than the air we once breathed, as seconds once forgotten now must align themselves to be counted.

Still, I hear nothing.

It seems I’ve been renamed a million times in the confines of a single sentence, and redefined eternally within the grasp of but one, angry thought. It seemed only a matter of time before the knives once thrown at her became weapons of her choosing. One-by-one she sliced, and one-by-one she’d use them all to find the single, sharpest blade. It seemed no wonder that even in her blindness, she never missed her target.

But, I heard nothing.

I could not look in her direction. I needed to remember her as she was before the battle took her away from me. I could not bear to see the Sun herself darkened, the Moon whittled away into nothing but a black hole within my heart. She had gone, from the greatest work of art into a child’s cartoon hastily painted on an outhouse wall.

Dammit, I heard nothing.

Finally, I forced my eyes open to gaze upon her brilliant Divinity. In the power of the moment I had forgotten how beautiful she was, and in the absence of my attention she had grown beyond my ability to grasp. I admired the way her hair flowed magically from her skin, and felt those eyes pierce through me in a way that destroyed every wall I had ever built, and leveled any obstacle I had placed between us.

Please, baby, tell me what you hear when you close  your eyes?

I heard nothing.  I searched for the knives she had used, but only found the one held tightly in my hand. I searched her for an outstretched finger, but could only find the one that I was pointing. I looked for her words, but only found the ones that were falling from my lips. It seemed everything that was, was in me.

“I hear everything,” I answered.

As she lit the middle candle I could see by the reflection on the wall that I had lost her. The darkness of my life was lit by nine, and the visions I had seen from her were nothing more than fantasies of my own design. I dreamt of having everything, and nothing, and here I was getting all I had ever wanted.

I reached for her empty hand, and embraced her gaze in my own. Then I let go, resolved to loving her more than she had been loved in her life.

“Goodbye,” was all that I could say. One word that said a million, one moment that brought eternity to life.

I heard nothing as I turned and walked away, and heard everything as each step brought me toward…

I do not care for idiosyncrasies. I do not care for morbid tales of broken hearts, or bloodied fields of forgotten memories.  I do not take to heart your showy dancing or your protestations of joy through the many tears you shed.

I do not look for false praise, or reactionary condemnation. I do not hope to be your savior, or loath to be the sinner for which you blame your anger on. I do not care for your desire, or hope for your acceptance.

I simply wish to live.

I will not compete for your attention, nor will I wallow in some pity in its absence. I will not pray to empty space for things within my grasp, and I will not create some faith on which to pin my hopes. I will carry the crosses placed upon my shoulders, and I will pick myself up when I fall upon the rock soil.

I do not ask you to wipe the bloody sweat from my weary face, but I will love you in the mere suggestion that you will. I will not beg for your hand to grasp my own, but I will hold you tightly if you do. I will not seek out your embrace, but I will protect you with my life should you seek shelter in my arms.

I will not beg you for mercy and will run you through should you try to force me to my knees. I will forgive you but I will not forget, and I will stand tall against the storms in my mind suggesting my memory should be shortened. If you cut me I will bleed, and my blood stains the tapestry we share forever.

My skin has been thickened by the lash, my heart hardened by the blades sent to slice it into pieces. My mind is strong, tested by the best bastards who’ve tried, and failed, to break me. My will has been tempered by the Devil’s own fires, fires that have singed to a hardened stone on which nothing feeds.

You will find me vulnerable, but if tested me you will find a Lion who feeds upon those who dare poke those tender spaces. The better parts of me are saved for those who love me, while the best parts of me are saved for those who would feed me to the vermin.

It is not the holiest of men who can smile through the suffering, or fake comfort in their pain. It is not the enlightened among us who can laugh at life’s misery or shout love from the mountains of bodies strewn about. The man who truly loves himself finds comfort in the truth. He allows his tears to fall, his passion to burn brightly through even the thickest walls. He accepts his own defeat, relishes in the glory of his victories, and never, ever, fakes a single thing about himself. He silences the voices in his mind with the clap of his hands, and lets them speak when such counsel need be heard.

The enlightened ones are warriors. They act through the cause of self not at the behest of past echoes in their souls, but in the cause of a moment not fully lived without the truth. They are unbridled in their self-expression, and they never buckle under the scrutiny of eyes made dim through the edicts of others. They take orders from an authority seldom heard, and bow only to altars that most will never see.

Such warriors are lonely hearts. It becomes hard to find others who understand the path, let alone can handle the journey. Yet they move in solitude through steps graced by divinity, feeling the soft caress of One Great Soul in each and every footfall.

When they seek out loving company they reach out to find only empty air. Such space acts as the softest wall, invisible lines whose memories create separation that only a few can describe. We find such wonderful people there who are always just beyond our grasp, moved always by a truth that in some way we are simply meant to be alone.

Yet there is no pity for the absence, no remorse in the setting Sun. It is what it is, a great symphony who always makes beautiful music, a simple harmony that always sounds just right. Warriors trust in the process, and have faith that waves will break just the way they are supposed to in the exact space they are meant to crash. There is no questioning the Great Sea whose tides will always ebb and flow in a matter mere mortals can only hope to see.

I will close my eyes again shortly, knowing full well that when the Sun rises above my reluctant home no one else will be there. I will smile and take my place among the stars whose light is present yet hidden from  some earthly view. It is the darkness that rescues the light from heaven, and it is the night that gives the day all the praise it can handle.

Good night. I will see you soon.

There’s a sultriness to my nights. In those moments when my mind has been cleared and my body is still, my heart speaks to me. In those moments after the daylight dust settles and the night mist begins to form, the greatest truths that I try to hide make themselves known. I am helpless, and I am made to listen.

And so I had a dream, and I can’t deny it’s truth even though when I awaken I will resist it.

I felt a hand in mine as the feeling came to life.  I looked for its source, and there you were standing firm, your beautiful eyes fixed upon a scene. I felt the flow of soft power cascade through me at the very sight of you, a familiar flow that comes throughout my day when you enter my thoughts. I took a moment and just gazed at you, enjoying the love that I felt, tenderly squeezing the hand the sought me.

There are so many secrets I withhold from you in the daylight. There are so many things I feel, so many stories both written and untold in your name. There are bountiful unspoken words that never escape my lips and truthful intentions that you will never know. I leave your life freely yours as the Sun conspires to save me from my feelings. In the light of day I can use my strength of will to withhold from you the greatest truth of all.

I love you!! 

Such beautiful words that never spill from my lips and that never grace your ears, hidden from you as the greatest testament to love I could ever offer.  I’ve watched you spread your wings both with and against the gale, and heard your stories of wild independence and painful submission to the heart. I’ve seen you in your fear, felt you in your resistance, and basked in the glory of your compassion.

So, I am in love with you, and in love with you I leave you to your journey untethered by my hand, unkissed by my lips, unmoved by my truth. I leave you be so that I may joyfully yet painfully watch you in your space, and bask in your triumph from afar. I hold you firmly in a distant embrace and count the minutes apart from you, even when the numbers become to great for my heart to handle.

Isn’t that true love?  Do I not love the rose I cannot cut? Do I not love the angel whose wings I refuse to clip, whose cloud I will not choose? Do I not love you more simply by not becoming a chain on which you bind yourself?

But ah! the pain of my empty hand upon this lonely waking moment. I think of you from a distance and my mind destroys the dream. I see you in my mind and my heart turns to something else. I am a warrior, one who guards the shuttered gates as fiercely as he opens them. For you, I guard the spaces that you roam with equal vigor, protecting the gate opened by a dream and then closed by a particular reality.

Yet, there are those moments in the stillness of night when the fortitude fades and the truth in me awakens. It seems they are not one in the same right now.

I feel your hand in mind as you study the scene before us. I hear my heart singing as my eyes take you in, my body surrendering to the truth, a story of lingering desire.

In that mist, my eyes follow yours to a scene that has your attention. There is a part of you lying ill upon a bed. My eyes go from the bed to you, and back again, trying to make sense of what I see. I feel you squeeze my hand as your head rests upon my shoulder, your body leaning more and more into me. I hear the image on the bed speak to you.

“You are free. I am almost gone, and you can move on.”

I get a sense of which part of you this is. It’s a part of me too.

“My fear is dying,” you say to me as you stay staring at the woman on the bed. “I’ve known her so long, it’s hard to imagine I won’t miss her.”

You lean more into me, and I become stronger to the task. I am your rock, and I will not fail you. Life has made me strong enough to hold us both.

“Go ahead and let it go,” the woman says to us both. I feel you move, and look to see where you are going.

You just turn, and look at me.

“I love you,” you say. “I’m sorry I made you wait.” Tears stream down my face in testament to a moment well worth the wait.

We kiss, finally.

Nothing that has happened matters. Ideas, thoughts, trials and tribulations all fade as our lips hold firm. Our lips part only to gaze back at the place where our fear rests. It seems it has faded too. There is nothing but a fire that remains. Perhaps we’ve lit a pyre as an homage to the moment.

I awaken peacefully, your final words echoing in my heart.

“Forever sounds so good with you.”

“It does,” I utter to the nothingness around me. I sigh as I close my eyes, hoping to capture forever the feeling of my dreaming moment.

I text you, you reply, I follow…then nothing.

Everything is back to normal. You come and go in a wisp, it seems, exactly as it should be. My thoughts bounce in and out of the insanity of it all.  Let go and move on, says one voice. Hold firm and be patient, says another. I’m not sure which is the voice of insanity, and which is the voice of reason. Perhaps it doesn’t matter.

I am an acquired taste, I reckon. I am not for everyone, I suppose. I approach my dreams with a dose of reality, and my reality with a dose of a dream. I make no excuses for the star I follow, or the footprints I’ve left behind.

So, I’ll just say that I love you. You know who you are even if you remain anonymous outside the ether. You may or may not read this, although its very likely I won’t know if you do. I’ll just shout silently to every star that will listen and every sea that we sail that I love you. I’ll just ride the waves and see what shores I’m taken to, hoping one will take me to a dream where we stand, hand in hand, “forever” sounding so good to our ears.

I have a feeling you’ll be so worth the wait, even if I never find out.

I can hear her whisper calling me through her wooded pines, and my own resistance is fading fast.

She asks me for my words, and I offer them as a gift. They become the fingers I use to caress her, the lips I use to kiss her, the arms I open to embrace her. In the union we are One, and in the sweet story of us there is no division, only a connection shared by lovers who cannot deny the presence of the heaven around them.

I inhale her sweet scent, and I wonder what’s taking us so long. The aroma of decaying yesterdays mixed with a potpourri of present and future promise surrounds me in my stillness. Her wonderful perfume begs me onward, raising desire that begs me to make love to the life I live, to offer myself in the sweetest surrender of my earthly vocation.

She is needed in my space, and she wants me in hers. To live a life of simplicity one must become simple, to live a life of love one must become a lover. One cannot wage wars on ideas and expect to find peace, one can not reject the folly of fools and think himself anything but foolish. One must stay true to his own course, focus on his own footfalls, and embrace the gift he is regardless of what the weather brings, and regardless of the condition of the path he has set upon. I’ve decided to hold firm to the place where my feet are set while surrendering to the footfall about to come. I’ve decided to love myself enough to listen to her calling, and to heed the echoes her voice has cast within me.

She wants me higher, and asks me to be up to the challenge of the climb. There is a freedom in the struggle, she says, a liberation in surviving a walk through knee-deep snow and bundling up against the coldest winter’s chill. There is love in the kindling that sacrifices itself to the fires lit to aid my journey, and a telling certainty in the whimsical shelters that I’ve found along the way. There is a truth in the view of the valley below, and a hope revealed in the beckoning summit above. There is a peace in the solitude, a joy in the companionship discovered there, and a love of the life found when you are no longer at the mercy of those who would distract you from your purpose.

You develop a strength in your survival which translates into a dedication to the path you are on. You stand a little taller each day regardless of the challenges you face, and you smile in the Sun despite the coldness in your limbs. You embrace the music the snow makes under your feet and the silence of your respite. You feel a togetherness in the aloneness, and a hint of gratitude in the fatigue, and realize a truth in the dream of living this life to your own desires, your own calling.

She does love me. She always has. She cares for me in a way unique to the understanding that we share. She begs me on to peace, showers me with love in the soft snowflakes falling upon my field, and teaches me so much about myself in the rocky climbs thrown deliberately in my way.

She loves me. She always has. Even as I’ve ignored her in her patience, denied her in her acceptance, and stepped on her in her sweet surrender, she has loved me. Even as I’ve dirtied her shores, and tainted her waters, she’s loved me. I’ve been a poor lover in return, but now as I listen to her whisper, I feel the bits of her within me coming alive.

I am reminded. I am her as she is me. I stare into her eyes and want to kiss her, but I can’t even muster an apology. I feel her wash along my skin and I melt with eager desire. She is my nature, true and plumbed toward a solidarity with uniqueness.

One day, I will sit upon a mountain and love her without the walls that I once created. I will embrace her tightly even as I admire her from a distance. I will spill my heart upon her soil and watch as flowers shoot up from those places that we share. She will know her lover in each kiss, in each dance, in each musical embrace.

Sitting with the churning waters that are now beginning to freeze with the winter’s tide, I am humbled by the patience of her power, and the forgiveness with which I’ve been blessed. I will love her back now, as I make my journey clear and my intentions known. She will guide me with her stars and lead me with her streams. I will feel her kiss with each drink, and be renewed with each breath of life that she provides.

You may not recognize me when this is over. You may not know me any more. Just know that I am in love, and that in love I can no longer pretend. Who you see, is me, a lover forevermore.

You don’t know me. Well, you do, but you don’t. I’m the one you barely notice in the sunlight, barely speak to in the rain. I’m the one you brush by on the sidewalk, the one you hardly see in your hurry to move along.

I’m the one who comments on your beauty, who makes whimsical remarks about your day. I’m the one who notices the soft lines around your eyes when you smile, and the way the sun reflects off the softness there. I see the tempered curves of your lips and the beauty of your lines before I even see the beauty that surrounds you.

I’m the man who loves your comments, who sees the wisdom of your words and the comedy of your ways. I listen to what you offer about your day without any effort, and know what parts of you need my attention before you’ve ever uttered the request.

I’m the person who would become an oak if you’d only lean in his direction. I’m the man who would become a crystal clear stream if only you’d bend your thirsty lips his way. The world would hear me roar and feel my bite if only you needed my protection.

I’m him. I’m the one you’ve been hoping for. I’m the one who answers your prayers in the night, who holds your hand in your moments of need. I’m the one whose embrace reminds you of some great sanctuary, of whose words take you to treasured places where no darkness can reside.

I’m the one who calls your name when the silence becomes too great for me to bear. I’m the one who’d never let you walk alone, even if that meant walking far behind you. I’m the one whose waited his entire life just to hear you say his name.

If only you knew me. If only you would know. If only I could tell you.

No greater pain hath man wrought on himself as the one of unrequited love. It’s there, upon the iron throne where the armor of fantasy and the sword of reality mesh, where flesh is pierced and prayers are answered. It is there I become the Master of myself, and it is there that I wait heaven’s great promise, either in this lifetime or the next.

I write, with an open heart and peaceful mind, waiting.