Category: Short Stories (Page 20 of 46)

Suddenly, I think of her.

Yes…you know her too. She’s captured your imagination and set fire to your senses. She’s waved pixie dust in your eyes and poured you a glass of the sweetest nectar you have ever tasted.

There are those moments when she captures my attention even when she’s absent from view. I can picture her in my mind smiling that smile, wilting away the darkness of the day. I can imagine her writing in that little book of hers as I dream of her dreams, share in her aspirations, and wish nothing but the best for us both.

I know very little about her. but I know so much about me with her. I’ve relished in the bits of her that she shares, but I realize that in bathing in the droplets of water spraying from the shoreline rocks, that I have not experienced the sea. There is a vastness to her; and I want to swim there.  There’s so much depth, and I want to dive into her. There so much beauty, and I want to walk along her shores.

Those little bits of her…like bars scattered about from a fractured song…can ignite my wick into a flame. I need very little from her, but I want so much. She owes me nothing, but gives me so much.  She has set me free, and I love her whole in each little bit that I see.

There are no steel bars that hold us, no shackles that tie us to each other. Instead, we’ve accepted the wind on our backs, and the Sun in our eyes, as we fly straight into heaven. Our hands may hold one another’s, our arms may be locked in an embrace, but we are always free, together. Our hearts beat strongly each other’s name, but in love we are free, and in love we belong to the Universe.

Thus, the first note has been struck in a new symphony, the first wave has broken upon new shores. Out of nothing, everything was born, and out of loss came the greatest love I will ever know.  There is no mystery in the wound. It’s simply a passage into unlimited greatness.

That’s what I’ve found in those little bits of her. Those little bits that have made me whole, those little bits that have lit the torches along my path. Those little bits that create the song I whistle as I walk. Those little bits that leave me weak in my explosive moments of ecstasy.

She knows them, and as she caresses me back to life those little bits of her open my eyes and bring me closer to where I want to be. She accepts me as I am, and takes little bits of me into her hands. Rather than capture them in a jar, she nurtures them and blows them back into the ether, setting free all but those parts of me that have become parts of her.

She loves me, but never needs say it. I can feel it with every thought I have, with every touch we share, with every drop of sweat we offer to one another. Somehow, not-so-little bits of her have become part of me, too. I love her, and she knows it even if the words have never been spoken.

There is greatness in the spoken word, but greater power in the words that never need be spoken. The silence and the notes make the song. The light and the darkness make the day. Somehow, those little bits of her and those little bits of me have mixed to make a wonderful masterpiece. Somehow a simple seed as fallen onto fertile ground, and now we have a forest to explore. Somehow, a single drop of rain gave birth to a vast ocean. and here we are so ready to take a swim.

A beautiful moment indeed. The birth of a brand new Universe. The birth of eternity.

She wants to know.  I want to tell her.

Yes, I think of you. When the words pour from my soul they say your name. When the letters come and mix together, they spell your essence. When the thoughts arrive, they paint a picture of your smile, your eyes, your loving presence.

Yes, I think of you. When the moment comes and the Sun rises, I think of you. When the starry skies light up the nighttime path, I think of you. When I reach the summit of certain places, when my foot falls upon the hardest to reach spaces of my life, I think of you.

Those hard to reach places. Drawn as I am by the low and flat valleys, I am defined by the steep inclines and shaky pathways I have traveled. I have loved and lost, and stumbled as all men do. Yet, when rise and shake the dust from my bloody limbs, I think of you.

I think of you sitting on the summit, waiting for me to climb. I think of all the moments where you’ve entered through the gaps, where you’ve spoken through the silence, where you’ve uttered words only you could have spoken. I think of where you are, and where I stand. I think of the distance I have traveled to get to you, and the moment when our lips finally touch, and our bodies swear the oath our hearts had written so very long ago.

Until that moment, I’ll think of you. I’ll think about how beautiful you are. I’ll think about how thoughts of you rise me up each morning, and I’ll think of you as my eyes shut each night.

Yes, I think of you.

We are, as it is, Beings lost in the confusion of our mind. We are, as it is, unsure of who we are because, frankly, we are not meant to know such things.

We are meant for something more. If the Universe was satisfied with Oneness, duality would not need exist. If infinity was pleased with immortality, the beauty of finite moments would be lost to the wall-less expanse of eternity. We often look at enlightenment and bliss as the purpose of our existence. We look toward the stillness for light, toward the vast summits of our lives for the greatest views, toward the monuments we have constructed for our sense of purpose.

Yet, it is in the wallows that we find all we need to know. It is in the mud that we find our purity, and in the muck that we find our freedom. It is in the unknown depths that we find our courage, and in the abyss that we find our security. It is in the shaky ground that we discover our sanctuary. It is in the chaos of the noise around us that we find our sweetest silence.

We are souls born through joy, which is why we find the truest parts of us in the wallows. We are born to forget who we are, and we rediscover ourselves not through the laughter, but through the tears, not through the ecstasy, but through the pain. We discover our love for each other in our solitude, our need for connection in our loneliness, and all we have gained through the suffering of our loss.

We find life through death, and discover compassion when we are treated without it. We can discover contentment in hunger, simplicity in great challenge, and the value of smallness when trying to fill the vast voids we fear need filling. We are beings who seek shelter from a scorching Sun in the muck, and who look to cleanse in the muddiest of waters.

We aren’t always meant to be smiling vessels of harmony. Bliss is what bid us a fond farewell upon our own conception,  birthed to experience ourSelves as something so much more. We are meant to feel the pain of humanity, see the injustice of our thoughts, feel the sting of the lash we use against ourselves. We are meant to wear the shackles of our broken hearts, and to limit our flight in the blue skies that are untruthful. It is in the darkest part of night that the blue skies reveal their truth, as tiny spots of light reveal a void, reminding us that there is never any color  above us. The blue skies we see are nothing but a reflection. A reflection of something not blue itself, something that never exists as we see it. The illusion is in the light, when the Sun is strongest, when the beasts that would hurt us  seem to hide, when the things that would nourish us seem to be at their most vibrant.

I find so much value in the night. The air seems cleaner, the silence more to my liking.  I find a calmness in the moments when my body seeks its rest. I find much solace in the time when my eyes need to adjust to the lack of abundant light, and my body feels a chill in the absence of the Sun’s warmth.  I need that chill. I need that darkness. I need that solitude.

I need all of that to spring to life in the daylight, to relish in your company, to know what it is I have found.

It is in the wallows that I’ve found myself, and it is in the wallows where we discover all that we need know. The rest is conjecture, and a mind that lives in such fantasy can’t help but live a life of conjecture itself.

There is great strength in being true. True to the sunken pit in which you were born. True to the climb beyond the mud. True to the challenge of a weakened mind made dizzy by its own frailty. There is a great strength to standing up for truth, for the cold water splashed upon your bare skin, for the trail of blood that seeps from the fresh wound that was self-inflicted. There is a great strength to not buying into the bullshit, to standing up for your own experience regardless of what others say is true.

Yet, there is great value in the illusion. It’s like the south end of a compass pointing true north. It’s like the shell surrounding the pearl, the froth hiding what is beneath the surface of a stormy sea. Imagine if we had no choice in the direction we would travel. Imagine if there were no course corrections and nothing to navigate. Imagine how boring a journey this would be.

Peace.

Everything is different. The once plush, green leaves of spring now sacrifice themselves to a change, spraying the world with color. The warm summer breeze has become the crisp air of an autumn morn, with winter soon to come.

The clouds now blanketing the oft-blue Colorado sky send warning that things are changing. The browning hue of my mountain oasis reminds me that soon the White Veil will come, and the ice will return. The mule deer scurrying for final bites of summer food know it too, as nature begins its preparation for the brutality of winter.

That stark contrast of our summer joy, that wondrous playground of warmth, of Sun, of joyous outdoor games, that give way to ways of winter, the cold, the snow, the morning ice.  Still there is joy there, albeit covered in layers meant to keep us warm.

Another summer gone, another winter coming. Soon another year will pass, and with it the promise of time. We will all be another moment closer to our end, even as some of us live in the eternity of a moment born with a morning chill made good in the warmth of blanket, or a lover, or a memory of either.

So much will be lost, but she will still be singing.

I pray on the coldest night I will feel her warmth. I hope that on my driest days she will quench my thirst. I hope that when there is nothing but the barren branches of the trees that line my trail, I will see her smile and remember that spring will soon be here.

Because when the cold winds blow, and the snow piles upon my sacred ground, she will be singing. Her melody will melt the ice, her notes will show me purpose. A lyric will be born that unites us, our bodies dancing as shadows to some holy fire in which no winter’s breath survives.

We will brave the cold together just to feel the warmth. We will cast snow aside just to unite our lips. We will challenge the frosty day as two made one, as lovers united in a common cause.

That embrace. That sweet, holy embrace. That kiss. That breath of life between us. The sweat that drips from our skin that says to the snowy night, “love cannot be chilled.” That moment when time is frozen in the warmth of all that is. Forever.

A man with nothing knows his value. A man with everything forgets himself. A man who can truly hear her sing, forgets himself in everything he values. Even in the empty spaces I can hear her sing. Even in the lonely moments I can hear that melody. Even in the demand of life that patience be a virtue, her song rings through my soul. Forever, I guess, but for now, absolutely.

Come, open and waiting, and hurry. The first note has been struck, and we have not a second left to spare.

Inspired by the song ‘Black‘ by Pearl Jam. I find it to be one of most poetic and beautiful songs ever written.

I lay alone in the morning twilight, sharing the evening’s dew with the grass now buried under my bare skin. I lay alone, sometimes by choice, and sometimes against my will, but alone I lay. I can almost see her imprint in the grass, almost see the crushed remains that testify to her existence. I am, though, utterly alone.

There are memories of when the Sun seemed so joyous, when the morning was a continuance of the love made the night before. I can remember the faint scent of her, how warm she felt under me, how beautiful she looked above me. I can still feel her hand clenching at my own, her fingernails leaving little trails of pleasure on my skin.

It was like yesterday, or a million yesterdays ago. In fact, I’m not even sure it was in this lifetime. Yet I remember, and it is in the memory of her then that I feel so alone now. I have yet to be redeemed.

“And now my bitter hands chafe beneath the clouds of what was everything.”

Echoes of a past lived. Or at least I think. It’s all too real to be imagined, but imagined still it seems to be. Where did I lose myself? When did I lose you? When did my once full, loving hands become bitter, empty vessels? I can’t know, it was some time in some place perhaps not governed by a clock or a space but rather a feeling. Perhaps I knew you before I found my place in the womb, perhaps you knew me before I was me.

These dreams, haunting me so. I see your face, teasing me with beauty and love I cannot find beneath the clouds. I am a lost soul found in darkness. I am a light not yet known to the world around me. I see the lines of your breasts in the faint  morning light. I want to touch you, to kiss, but as I reach out you fade to mist like the fog that shrouds my tomorrow. Like the veil that hides my yesterday.

“…and twisted thoughts that spin ’round my head…

…I’m spinning…I’m spinning”

Once anger was my friend. Once fear was my ally. I had lost myself there. Between the yesterday’s fear and today’s me I faced a bridge of numbness. Of no feeling. Of wanting to feel something or to end it all. There was no feeling for me in the joy of my children. There was no love in me in our embrace. It was time to…go.

That night would be it. There would be no more mornings. I had seen my last sunrise, tasted my last morning air. Still nothing in the realization; there was no feeling in the knowledge that it would soon all be over. It would just be. Over.

Plans were made, things set in motion. It was time. Finally.

“I take a walk outside, I’m surrounded by some kids at play. I can feel their laughter. So, why do I sear?”

I remember walking. Alone. I’ve always been alone, even when I was surrounded by a crowd. There would be no audience here. Goodbye, my little ones, forever remember to feel. Feel everything around you. Show your light, never hide it from anyone. Remember me, and shed no tears. Your father knew, and he lived, and he went quietly when it was his time.

“How quick the Sun can drop away…”

The chilled night air, lit by man’s nuisance lights and darkened by his lack of empathy, embraced me. I felt no cold or discomfort, nor heat or comfort. More nothing. I’m sick of nothing. Or at least I would be if I could feel sick of anything. I’ll walk a bit, arrive at my spot, and say good night forever.

Somewhere, it could be written that I was a man walking toward his destiny. Somewhere, it could surmised that the way ahead was darkened by the fires I was lighting behind me, burning everything that I knew forever.

“All the love gone bad, turned my world to Black, tattooed all I see, all that I am, all I’ll be.”

I am ready. Forever isn’t so long. I remembered you now, I’ll remember you then. I remember laughing a strange, unfeeling laugh of relief or something like it. It was time.

As I began, I looked around me. There were so many memories here. Laughter. Joy. Watching my beloved little ones play at this very spot. Suddenly, a lonely tear fell.

“Fuck, I can’t do this here.”

I was pissed. I started screaming at the ether. I cursed the stars that peeked at me through the winter clouds. I had thought of everything, but I had not thought of this. Anger. Where did it come from? Why was it here?

“Fuck you,” I shouted at the sky. “I will get this done. You can’t stop me.”

I searched for a means to my end. I looked, nothing seemed right. Nothing would work. I walked and walked, aimlessly it seemed, continually cursing the very ground I walked on. Nothing was working, or so it seemed, so I continued walking until….

“I know some day you’ll have a beautiful life, I know you’ll be a star in somebody else’s sky but why, why, why, can’t it be…why can’t it be mine?”

Somehow, someway, I ended up right where I had started. I have no idea how I got there, but I was home, with everything that I had lost and everything that I had made painted before me in one, single, window pane. I was on the outside looking in, a fitting metaphor for the life I had lived. I fell to my knees and cried. I cried and I cried until I fell forward in the snow. My swollen face relished the cold, my wounded heart bathed in chill.

It was all so different, my prone form shivering in the night, my breath made white against the dimly lit air. I was feeling again, differently. In the sliver of a moment an epiphany, in a millisecond came a new reality.

I must love….me.

I must be responsible for…me.

I must take ownership of…me.

I had finally crossed that bridge, from one land of suffering into another of discipline and realization. When I suffered, I knew why. When I hurt, I did not condemn. When I felt alone, my empty hand reached for the other. I began to let go.

It was then that I remembered.  I remembered the morning dew-stained grass. I remembered your head nestled against my shoulder, your fingertips tracing light circles on my chest. I remember our legs embraced, and the heat of our bodies making dew of its own.

I smiled, not knowing if what I felt was some past remembrance or some distant reality. I’ve walked my days since in love with you, waiting. I’ve been impatient at times, patient at others, and I’ve turned over many stones along the way. I’ve sat in wild oases and walked through barren deserts, each step just one more closer to that place where you lay.

I will lay down next to you, and you will move closer. We’ll know the sunlight on our form as we make love until the Sun sets and rises again.  We’ll know, finally, where our paths have intersected, and our moments will become memories to be shared at some later life, some later place, in some later time. An eternal moment, the here and now created for the there and then. Our moments made together, forever.

When all that’s black will be shown to light, and all that’s light will be known to black. In our hands we’ll hold, and in our hearts we’ve told, each other’s story in a kiss.

Peace.

There is a dream. In this dream she’s here. I can smell her fragrance. I can hear her breath break the silent dawn. I can feel her movement beneath the sheets we share, and the sweet emotion that wells up within me as she reaches for me in her sleep.

It wasn’t  but the night before that we fell in love. Our words spilled together like autumn leaves in a mountain stream. We opened gates in walls we had built so long ago, allowing passage to this one who knelt before us seeking entry. We threw caution to the wind, and like airborne seeds offered to the forest winds, we surrendered knowing not our destination but trusting in the breeze that gave us hope.

She’s beautiful. Her eyes capture me, her lips invite me. The sound of her voice sends chills down my spine, and the touch of her hand sends waves of indescribable energy throughout my entire universe. We kiss for the first time, and it is all either of us can do to stand, the weakness in our knees betraying the power of the moment. This is what we’ve lived for.

Post autumn, we’ve survived the winter. Now, like a beast, I have awakened to her lips, and I am drawn to the sweet, spring slopes of her. There are so many places to explore; the beauty of her curves, her hills and valleys, her lofty peeks. I am thirsty for her soul and hungry for her body, as the writer goes dormant and the lover blooms.

I see those spots I’m drawn to touch. It’s as if the Voice within us speaks, rendering words impossible to offer. I kiss her there, her knees buckle. I allow my lips to follow her unspoken guidance, and she falls into me, knowing I will catch her, hold her, and carry her wherever she needs to go.

No words continue to be spoken. We look deep into each other’s eyes as she lets me in, and I can’t tell if these are tears or beads of sweat rolling down my face. Either are a gift of joy in honoring the journey that got us here.

Love was made, and ecstasy was discovered in the union we had shared. The silly voice of fear would sing, but louder came the determined voice of love. There could be no other, in this moment that never fades.

See, there is this dream. In this dream she is here. It is that dream that propels me upward when I think I’ve reached my limit. It is this dream that sees me stand in the dizziness, breathe in the thinnest air, and proves to me that I’ve never, ever, have had too much to bear. I’ve survived the harshest winters just to see those spring slopes of hers.

When this dream is realized, this writer will put down his pen for just a moment to turn the page, be silent as our story starts, and watch fiction become fact right before our eyes. These moments demand our full attention as the well runs over and the fruits become abundant. It is then the story becomes worth sharing again. This time, however, two hands will hold the pen.

“I love you,” she texted, her words glaring at me on the lighted screen. She is nowhere near, yet somehow she is never far away.

I have heard you. I feel you. I know you are telling me the truth. It just isn’t enough.

Sometimes being loved through technology can be as painful as breaking up there. Sometimes her presence, seen only in the electrons of our cyber selves, feels hollow and empty. Sometimes, you have to pony up or let go. Sometimes the greatest challenge for a lover is in walking away from a love.

Distance sucks. In the vastness of our divide, we live our lives through the ether, and we die a little bit in every moment split apart. Loving from the horizon is hard, but it is also easy. Too easy.  When emotions become just words on a screen, we lose contact with each other. When prayers for the afflicted are typed on a keyboard, they become billboards for apathy. When love is shown in words, and not a kiss or a tight embrace, we lose a bit of who we are.

Soon, the void becomes the norm, and shelving the emptiness becomes just another ritual of our day.

I’ve lost your voice somewhere along the line. I’ve lost your touch, your smile, and the way your hair feels on my chest. I’ve forgotten how your sweat tastes, and how your pleasure sounds. While your keyboard has gained your fingertips, I have lost the bumps they used to create on my skin.

You’ve become a phone screen, a picture on a computer monitor. You dangle on the arch, while forgetting the doorway it is supposed to be.  One moment you are there, and the next you fade to black, disappearing right before my eyes.

‘I love you’

It’s daunting on my screen, nearly blinding me well into the night. I can close my eyes and it remains, and when I sleep it is all that I see.

But I can’t hear it. It remains somewhere else, it’s cup within me absence its nectar, its space within me darkened without the Sun.

I’ll awake to nothing. No sounds of your breath, no warmth of your skin. There will be no passionate memories of the night before to arouse me, no flesh to fill with my heart’s desire. There will be no emotion as I go about the motions of the morning, minus the very pleasure that once ignited me to flame.

It’s just not enough anymore. I never made the choice to love you. I must, however, make the choice to let you go before all I feel of you is nothing more than my imagination. I can fly, for sure, but not with one wing shackled and my eyes searching for something that is just not there. I need the wind, and the wind needs me. I must, at last, soar.

For lovers, fear is like clothing. It is shed, one stitch at a time, and left on the floor like bread crumbs marking a trail towards heaven. Gone are the garments we wear, sacrificed to the gods and goddesses of the love we pray to. Forgotten is the fabric we have woven to hide our frailties, our perceived imperfections, and we are left naked to the only eyes we trust with the whole of us.

Lovers know fear all too well. Yet in throes of their panic they discover something so much different. As each layer falls to the ground a new moment dawns, and lovers begin to know themselves as something transformed. Forgotten are the fig leafs they’ve used to hide their differences. Lost are the trees they’ve hid behind. Together they share a much different fruit, and a passion that knows no bounds.

He holds her tenderly with a strength unmatched in her experience. She caresses him with a purpose he has never known. He whispers words to her that raise bumps upon her skin. She replies with truths that bring tears to his eyes. He realizes, and she knows. They have finally found home.

They touch the scars that life has painted within them. They kiss as if their breath depended on it. They move in unison, he inside her, she surrounding him. They don’t think about dying for each other, they focus on living for one another. Their embrace is like no other, their passion indescribable, their truth unknown to a world gone mad without it.

Lovers offer prayers through the beads of sweat that pool upon their flesh. They see their spaces as sacred, and their union as holy. They do not tarnish their altars with burdens of the past, or the whimsical stories of others. Lovers kneel only to each other, in the way their hearts demand and in the ritual of that which binds the stars to the sky, and that moon to her home.

We all seek to be lovers, to be good stewards of that communion which binds us to our soul. We are all born with the conception of love in our hearts. We know love in the breast that we suckle, and the experiences that make us captains of this great ship we call life. We tease our hopes with misfortune, in wayward paths made true with each step that we take. We fall, tumbling into a bruised state, before finally resting…

Home.

It is there we find each other. It is there where we find a path that makes all others before it irrelevant. It is there that we find our embrace, our kiss, our love making itself known. It is there the work ends and the effort begins, the former being harsh, the latter a beautiful labor of love. We cease to question, we cease to ask, for all becomes known. It is a space where the two are made whole, and the body reacts to the desires of something so much deeper.

“Lovers don’t find one another. They’re in each other all along.” ~Rumi.

With that we discover ourselves in another. With that we find a friend that lives beyond friendship. With that we never need pray again. The truth is in the hand we hold, in the moonlit nights we make love by heaven’s fire. It is there we discover the truth was always there, waiting for us to find the courage and the strength to find it.

I want to love her, but I can’t.

There is little solace in the empty void I feel, in the shallowness of the silence between us. There is little feeling in the cold, gray hands of emotionless prose, in the dispassionate stories we tell one another.

She is there, in her space, and I am here, in mine. Nothing, it seems, will change.

I want to hold her, but I can’t.

I stare at empty hands, make love to empty visions, share my dreams and passions with empty ears. They do not know me, and they can never hold their breath long enough to dive deeper than the shallows. I don’t reside where the sunlight shines, I reside in the deepest and darkest abyss. I am the light there, should you ever choose to visit and to shine alongside me.

What I would do to feel your skin upon my own, and whisper in your ear “you are beautiful” when the morning comes. What I would give to show you that nothing changes between the dusk and the dawn, and that unpainted you is still a canvas to be adored. What I would offer to the gods to hold you over and over again until my final breath, and to hold you then, when the Sun never sets.

I want to tell you, but I can’t.

I want to tell you that I love you, not with words but as a man devoted to the sacred space we share. I want to tell you as I trace the lines of your skin with my fingertips until you beg me inside. I want to tell you in the truest way I can, in the deed, in the action, of a man in love with the piece of his soul impossible to leave behind. I want to know myself as the piece of your soul you simply cannot let go.

Those things…those truths I feel when I sit alone with nothing but the stillness to warm me. Those visions that come, those waves of desire they bring, those subtle tears that flow in a testament of a truth my lips dare not share.

I love you.

If love is a feeling, then it must be true. If love is a complete knowing, then I know. If love is something special, then that space I’ve saved all this time is a testament to its existence.

If being love is to be the light, then let us shine. If being love is to hear and be heard, then let us speak our truth. If being love is sharing space, then let us sit together by a stream, basking in the mountains, speaking with nothing but our joined lips. If being love is shouting hymns to the stars above, then take me inside of you as we sing our song together.

Alas, I want to love you, and I do. I want to hold you, and I’ve never stopped. I want to tell you, and you’ve heard.