Tag: Experience (Page 5 of 6)

The Leaf (Poem)

October 16, 2012 / Tom

I’ve done my job

And as the end slowly comes

I will do my job again

And fall lightly to my Home.

I’ve rustled through the breeze

And sang loudly through the winds of change.

I’ve given you shade

When you needed a break from the midday Sun.

You’ve given life to me,

So that I could give life to you, my Tree.

Now the seasons are changing

And it’s time for me to change as well.

I’ve grown old to you

Another spring I shall not know

In your embrace.

You once held me so that I knew I could touch the sky

You once lifted me up so that I could see it all

And held me firm when the storm clouds came.

But now you’re letting go

In your release I cry shades of red

Of yellow and hues somewhere in between.

Where we once held firm against the storm

Now the slightest breeze tears us further apart.

Where I once danced in the Sun

I now wilt and seek refuge.

Where I was once supple

I am now dry and brittle to the touch.

Yet I have done my job.

And I will continue to do my job

As I fall lightly to the Earth

To feed you once again.

Part of me in the decay will spawn another leaf

In another time

In your place, the place I loved to be.

And you will dance in the breeze, and sing a song

I’ll Stand By You

October 13, 2012 / Tom

I’ll stand by you

I’ll stand by you

I won’t let nobody hurt you

I’ll stand by you

Take me into your darkest hour

And I’ll never desert you

I’ll stand by you

So the song goes. A beautiful expression of true love, a woman vowing her allegiance to her man. Equally beautiful is the man seems to have suggested a need for such help, for such devotion. His Angel has responded, and now he can heal without fear that she is abandoning him or judging him as so many others have throughout his life. He can focus knowing that his love is by his side, and will not leave regardless of the circumstance.

Wow. And yes, I am projecting. I know that, no emails need be sent to show me that wonderful light. So what, I’m a man who would love to have a woman who would stand by me regardless of the circumstance. Because I have been one who has not wanted it, and has pushed it away vehemently, I realize the beauty of wanting it. Maybe even to someday have it.

I also wonder if the singer is singing it to herself. What a better gift to oneself than to know you will never desert you. Yes, I’ve deserted myself many times over my life. I’ve abandoned my intuition, my beliefs, my values and my inner truth many times. I’ve left the love I feel within me at the door and acted like a moron in the quest of a security that could never exist anywhere but within me. I’ve clung to the cliff when all I wanted to do was jump off of it.

So, part of having someone standing by you is living in the knowledge that you are that someone too. You stand by you, you walk with you into your darkest hour. You sing love songs to you, and you adore the person you are. Someday, with a little luck and a lot of passion, the person you are in love with will stand by you too.

Don’t give up, never give up. Know with some practice that there will always be one person who will stand by you no matter what, and that is you. You are that special. As for that other person you’d love to share your life with? Well, that person is out there waiting for you. What you are searching for is searching for you. It will come. Somewhere there is someone wishing they had another person standing by them, and one day your paths will cross.

Be vulnerable. Be open. And when those paths cross for Pete’s sake embrace the moment.

In A Moment of Complete Despair

October 11, 2012 / Tom

I can sit

And wait

For the call that is never coming.

You sit, and stare. You stare at the television, and watch shows you could never repeat the content of. You read chapters of a book, but couldn’t recite a single word on any of those pages. You laugh, but you are not sure at what. You so want to give in, to give up, and you utter a prayer to whatever God you know to make it all go away. You need her to call you, to tell you that it will be alright…I’m just angry right now…I love you.

But nothing. You…I…me…just sit and stare at the nothingness that is around you. The emptiness in your heart suggests that all of this is wrong, that what is right is her talking to you and laughing with you. The hand in yours, the arm around your neck, the eyes staring into you in ecstatic joy are all you want to know. You want the rest of it, the argument, the points, the protestations of something you don’t even care about to just fucking disappear.

Yet it won’t. It never will.

The darkness

Sheds me of the light

And now I just cry…empty and alone.

No, it never will. It will haunt you like few other demons have. Had it not all felt so perfect in those moments of love this moment would not be so absent of hope. You can hear her voice in the back of your mind and you just wish you could cry. Yet you can’t even muster another tear. The front you put on to the world suggests you are fine, but the reality is that you are dark and you are cold. Love is the most painful experience in your world when it no longer applies to your present, when it has left you cold and dangling from a ledge you have no certainty of escaping.

So you dangle, and you stare, and you wish it could all be different.

She seems happy. You can take some solace in that. She has not found the darkness and is not sharing in the cold. You find a smile creeping from your lips at the thought, she is fine and will be. You would bear this cross for her if just to know that your final gift to her was joy. It’s all you ever wanted to give her, and even when you failed you wanted to do so much more. If this, the joy she has in finally being rid of you, is the final gift you provide then the pain itself is worth it.

The phone rings

You jump, hoping…

But alas you sink in disappointment.

Hope falls to the floor like broken glass. Shards of it cut at your skin on their way down, and you bleed clear, salty blood from the little nicks. You feel the pins-and-needles of where those shards of hope have scarred you, and sink into the floor further than the Earth would ordinarily allow. Even the Earth gives way to your grief, and you are grateful for Her not resisting you in this, your moment of despair.

It will get better…it has to.

The voice reminds me

You’ve been here before

And look at the gift you got for surviving.

It is here, now, that you live your moment of despair. True, gone is the light that once gave you such beauty, but alive in you is the desire that fuels who you are. In this moment you are sucking the dust of a hundred lifetimes as she leaves your life, but you will, someday, use those arms that have picked you up before to again respond to the calling. You will feel the strength in your shoulders return. You will know your heart beat again. You will come to your knees and your legs will do their job.

No, those eyes will not grace yours again. Those hands will not grasp for you, wanting and needing you ever again. Those lips will not breathe life into your soul. She has made her choice and you now must make yours. You are love, you are strength, you are the man someone will embrace. Yours is a soul someone will not be able to envision ever living without. The lessons you have learned will make you smile, and once again you will laugh in the dance of Divinity. You will heal, and you will know what it is to feel again. So bask in this, your moment of despair, and remember it wisely.

Never forget this moment even as you seek to never relive it again.

The Broken Umbrella (Creative Writing Exercise)

October 2, 2012 / Tom

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” ~Lao Tzu

It was just a solitary, broken umbrella. To the casual observer it meant nothing. It was refuse, trash, and needed to be discarded before the next home game. It had outlived its usefulness and could no longer serve its purpose. Soon, it would end up yet another anonymous object at the bottom of a landfill somewhere, decaying for a million years in the land of unwanted things.

Yet it stood there proudly, its bright red color contrasting greatly against the stadium’s somber grey concrete benches. It had been a couple of weeks since the team’s last home football game, and another was coming up in a few days. The maintenance crew was busy at work, getting the field ready and the stands prepared for the warm bodies that would give life to this otherwise cold landscape. Everyone there could see the red umbrella, but no one really noticed it. That is what happens when something becomes old and broken. The protector becomes garbage. The needed becomes discarded. To many who worked that field on this day that umbrella would become a harbinger of things to come. They, too, would become discarded when no longer loved, needed, or wanted. They, too, would be anonymous. Their bright color would fade into the grayness, and they would be forgotten.

This umbrella had, however, given a gift in its state of disrepair. It had been protecting a man and woman, lovers, as they sat and talked under the steady rain a few days earlier. They had been having trouble in their relationship, both feeling as if they had become broken and forgotten to the other. They both desperately wanted to work it out, to fix what had been broken, but neither would give up their anger. As the conversation became a debate and the debate became an argument, both began to lose sight of their truth. Soon, the innuendo became threats and it seemed like all would be lost on that cold, wet October day.

Suddenly, a gust of wind blew and the once strong umbrella bent in the middle. It’s bright red covering folded backwards, and its arms gave way to the pressure. Both became soaked instantly, but the man and woman stopped their argument as the rain became a torrent. They began to curse the umbrella and the rain, running for shelter in one of the open doorways that led into the bowels of the stadium.

Once reaching drier climes, the stopped to get their bearings and to regain their senses. As they wiped raindrops from their faces they looked at each other. The eyes, those gateway to the soul, met and suddenly the world stopped around them. Something clicked. She suddenly was that beautiful woman he fell in love with, and he was that caring man she loved. Their hands moved in unison as he moved the hair from her eyes, and she wiped some raindrops from his forehead. Their words stopped, their anger was gone and all that was left was the indescribable force that had brought them together. The resistance subsided, and they stood, man and woman, lovers again.

“A lot of good this umbrella was,” the man said, looking at the broken thing in his hand.

“You know, it’s been a long time since we’ve danced in the rain,” came her reply.

They looked at each other and smiled.

“Yeah, it’s been too long. Let’s go,” the man said. He grabbed her hand and the ran out onto the concrete heading towards the field. On the way, the man dropped the umbrella along the benches where it would stay until it was picked up by the maintenance crew a few days later.

The sounds of laughter and rain echoed within the walls of the empty stadium as the lovers danced and played in the rain. After a while their bodies would become cold and they would embrace to get warm. They both remembered how nicely their bodies fit together, her head on his chest, his arms around her, his hand holding her head tightly to that spot where his heart beat. It felt so good to remember how right this was. It felt so good to feel how perfect everything would be when they just leaned on one another.

He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. She, looked up at him, and they kissed like they hadn’t in quite some time. They held each other in this lover’s pose, remembering all along what made their world work. This, they remembered, was the Truth.

“Baby, take me home. I need you,” the woman whispered.

He took her hand again and they began to run to the stadium’s exit leaving their umbrella behind. In a moment that umbrella had given way, and the two would become one yet again. As the rain washed away their pain they remembered their love. Neither would recall what they were arguing about, and neither cared. Instead, they focused on the love they had rediscovered and the warmth they had given to one another on even the coldest of days. A gust of wind and a broken umbrella had provided a miracle of sorts, and one that would not be forgotten for the rest of their lives.

Even in breaking there is purpose, and even in getting wet there is hope. No one would know how important that umbrella was. It was picked up and put in the dumpster with the garbage but it had served an enormous purpose. Lovers who would find their eternal purpose that day owed it all to something they would never know and never remember. As their days became years and their years became decades it all made sense, and the man and woman never forgot to dance in the rain. And they never bought another umbrella.

♥

The Final Breath

September 28, 2012 / Tom

♥

He laid there, the immense pain in his chest beginning to numb under the realization that he was dying. Just moments before he was alive, enjoying the morning with his beloved, laughing about the memories they had created the night before. Now, he was sprawled out on the living room floor fighting for air, and wanting so desperately to talk.

She was there, above him, her hands holding his face as they had a thousand times before. The worry in her eyes was clear as she begged him not to leave her. “I love you baby, please stay with me. We never have to be apart again, I promise. Stay with me, I love you so much. Please…please.”

He wanted to talk, but the words just would not come out. He wanted to remind her that he loved her too. He wanted to bring her back to the many moments they shared. As her blue eyes cried the rains of hell onto him, he wanted to bring her back to Heaven, the place that they shared when their bodies meshed and their minds fell into each other. He wanted so badly to comfort her as she tried to comfort him by touching him, kissing him, and reminding him that yes, he was all she ever needed. All he could do, however, was lay there. As the tears streamed down from the corner of his eyes he could only stare at her and beg whatever gods there were that this would not be the end.

His desperate struggle for air began to settle as his mind drifted back to the first time he saw her. It was a picture, and her eyes had enveloped his senses and drew his attention. He couldn’t explain the feeling, he only could utter something to himself that he would say to her a short time later: “beautiful”. She stole his attention to the point that despite loving the mountains he did not notice them behind her. All he could do was look at her face, those eyes and that smile. He felt he knew her once, although he couldn’t say when. He also felt he needed to know her again, although he couldn’t say why. So, he sent a simple message, and then came her reply.

He could remember the reply, the poetic way she stated her emotions of the moment. He could feel her presence despite never meeting her. In a brave and courageous moment this man had sent that woman a message and she had replied. He knew then that something was happening within him.

A sudden shift brought him back to his reality. “I’m going to get the phone to call 9-1-1. Baby, please hold on!”

“NO!” he wanted to scream. “Please stay here with me. I need you baby, hold my hand. Kiss me. I don’t have much time left. I have so much I need to say to you.”

She was gone, and although only a few feet it seemed like a million miles had separated them. They had begun their relationship hundreds of miles apart, and although they had settled into a routine he could remember the pain of being separated from her. So many days had to be spent missing her and wishing she was there with him. In the early days he had often doubted that this woman could love him. He had often doubted that she could stay true to him. He often caved to the frantic fear of his mind created long before he ever met her. Even at its worst when they ended for a short time, she came back to him proving that he mattered, and that he had value to someone. She loved him, he could see it in her eyes and feel it in her touch, and now as he heard it in her voice as she frantically begged the dispatcher to get there as fast as he could. As she screamed at the phone, he only wanted her voice to become sweet again like it was when she said “I love you” or “come to bed baby”.

“Please sweetheart, let me hear you sing” his mind whispered as his mouth remained silent. “Don’t cry, just whisper in my ear and laugh. God, let me here that laugh please. I have a joke here somewhere, please just laugh.”

He could almost hear her laugh. It made him tingle to hear it. Her eyes would light up and her mouth would curve “just so”. It was no wonder everyone loved her so much. It used to drive him crazy, and he often felt in the beginning like she liked them more than she liked him. She paid more attention to them, and he felt relegated to a dark corner of the room. He believed she gave them more of her than she gave him, but once he began to listen and to see the truth he realized what a fool he was. She gave him so much more of herself than she had given anyone else. She loved him, and offered to him parts of her he was sure no one else had ever seen. She even gave him what he asked for, and in the process showed him the truth. “What a fucking idiot I was” he said to himself. “I want my fucking life back, I want to love her like she deserved to be loved from the first time we met. Please God, give it back to me, I won’t waste a second…”

God’s answer was a gasp for air and an intense pain in his chest. He shook his head angrily at the reply, and then focused as he had learned on the beauty around him. He could feel his children in his arms again as they had been as babies. He could hear them say “I love you dada” and feel their little hands take his index finger as they struggled to walk. He could feel them cuddled next to him when they got older as he read their favorite book. He could remember the lectures to his son about sports, the diatribes to his daughters about boys, the millions of laughs and the relatively small numbers of tears. He loved to make them laugh, and he would often make himself the butt of his own jokes to get them laughing hysterically. As he looked into his woman’s eyes something must have told her, “please tell my babies I love them. Please don’t ever let them forget.”

“I won’t. But you’re not going anywhere. You will tell them yourself.”

“God I wish” was his heart’s reply. His children were the first people he ever felt pure love for. They taught him what it was to love and be loved, and the woman who now cradled him softly taught him how right he was. His children gave him value as a father, she taught him value as a lover, together they taught him value as a man. Even now as he spent his last moments in this existence she was here, showing him his value and the true meaning of love. It wasn’t in the nifty words he could string together. It wasn’t in the sex. It wasn’t in the outward show of affection. It was in the truth that made all of those things possible, but not necessary. They were necessary to the ego, the truth was necessary only to itself and it owed something only to itself. He had understood that early on, but it took him time to get over himself to actually use it. His past had once so cluttered his mind that it stole precious moments away from him and from them. Moments made even more precious by their imminent end.

He could feel the end coming. Within him became a mixture of peace and pain, of darkness and light. He realized this interesting parallel in the life we all lead. It seemed what we call death is just like what we call life, a mixture of suffering and joy. Even now, as he suffered intensely amid the final pathway to peace he couldn’t go there. Not yet. He wanted to spend one more moment with this woman who had changed his life and brought the sunshine where none existed. For that he would bear whatever pain that had to be borne. He suddenly became calm, and the pain seemed to subside. This, as it had been his entire life, was the power of Love.

He looked at her and felt healthy. His breathing seemed to return to normal, and the pain in his chest subsided. He shook his head slowly, although he was not sure at what. It felt like the first time they met, with a mixture of excitement and anticipation followed by realization and love. Then she laughed, oh God she laughed. Through the tears and sniffles she laughed. His head, now on her thighs as she stroked his head and wiped the tears from his cheeks, shook a bit with each burst of laughter. He was able to lift his arms long enough to wipe her hair from her face and stroke the contour of her jaw line one final time. Suddenly, he found his voice for one last poetic verse to his lover.

“Baby, I love you. Since the dawn of time I have loved you. It may be here, or it may be there, but somewhere I will be loving you. Please, know that it is you, and it always has been you. I am grateful for last night, and for every night I have had with you. I am also very grateful for this moment and that it was with you. I love you…I swear.”

As she bent to kiss him, he closed his eyes, grateful that the last vision he would have in this lifetime was of her, his lover, his friend, his guiding star. They kissed sweetly with a passion that had never left. With that, he inhaled deeply and headed toward peace.

♥

Single Touch

September 26, 2012 / Tom

In the candlelight lays destiny

In the moment there is a mountain of truth

Wanting…needing…knowing

Reaching out for an answer to the call

Seeking for each other’s hand

Longing for that single touch

Than another

And another

Until there are too many to count

And we are lost once again in a place without time.

In the morning awakes destiny

Aglow with the passion of a remembered lust

Searching…reaching…taking

Not letting go and grasping all the same

Needing each other

Reaching to give that single touch

Than another

And another

Until they become too many to count

And the Earth stands still as the Lovers dance.

There are no questions

In the moments of honest ecstasy

Longing…sweating…falling

The two become one in the soft voice of forever

Eternity is calling

Demanding nothing but a single touch

Than another

And another

Until they become too many to count

And the mind’s defeat resounds in the sounds they have never made before.

They are one

In that single touch

That never ever ends.

∞

A Trail to Destiny (Creative Writing Exercise #2)

September 19, 2012 / Tom

Setting: at a meeting in a conference room on a dark, rainy day

Subject: the raindrops on the windows

I stared out the window as the rain pounded against the glass, making a tapping sound that reminded me of a thousand boots marching out of time during a parade. My head felt like it had been hit by an avalanche, and the weather certainly wasn’t helping. That damned numbness-mixed-with-a-dull-ache just wouldn’t go away as I sat my ass down on one of the plump leather chairs surrounding the large oak conference table. The meeting I had just attended was over, and after the cordialities had been dispensed with I just had to get away from the bullshit being thrown around the office. Everyone was acting so nice, so fucking nice, and I needed to get away from the act long enough to gather my senses. The often strong exterior I donned before leaving my apartment was beginning to crack, and I had reached my limit of fake smiles, jokes and laughter for one day.

It’s tough when a person just doesn’t feel like enough. He can’t imagine being good enough for his partner, strong enough for his family, smart enough for his bosses, or there enough for his friends. He feels pathetically weak in even the most benign of situations. In many ways he was just like the raindrops now finding their way to the window in his gaze. He was helpless, and even though he would give life to whatever he could he went largely ignored unless he was seen as a nuisance. He would never be noticed unless he was stealing away the sunshine or ruining her hair or creating havoc whether intentionally or not. No, he…I…we, would never been seen for the beauty we gave to the world and instead would spend this lifetime in certain role in a certain way.

I followed one raindrop as it hit the glass near the top of the window. It hung on for dear life there, reminding me of my need to hang on. I chuckled at the irony as I stared at that tiny drop of water just stuck there, unable to let go and unable to follow its natural destiny. It would fall, eventually, but for now it just stayed in that one holy spot fighting for its own survival. Or was I? I was in a job I didn’t like. I was constantly trying to be “the one” to my woman I wasn’t good enough to be with. I wanted so desperately to be accepted by my peers, to be noticed among them even as I wondered anonymously between them. Here I was scratching and clawing to remain stuck to the glass, desperately fighting my destiny.

Much like this raindrop I had no idea what the truth was. I had no idea who I was or what I was doing here. I just knew that I had been thrown on this piece of glass and now hung on without ever truly knowing why. I could not look down for fear of seeing where I was heading. I could not look up because, well, “up” had rejected me. All I knew was at this moment I was married to this piece of glass, and if that glass wouldn’t accept me all I could do was try to accept it while hanging on for fear of falling into the abyss.

I could see the raindrop slowly losing its battle. I realized that the battle it was having was not with the glass, but with some unseen force that was dragging it downward toward its great unknown. Some may call that force “God” or “fate”, but I like to call it “destiny”. We are all slaves to destiny it seems, for whatever war we wage to hold on to our piece of glass the truth is that we were never going to outwit or out fight our destiny. As the raindrop slowly began its way toward destiny, I could only wonder what would happen if I just let go and let the chips, or raindrops, fall where they may. In truth I had no idea what would happen because I had never done it. I’d always took the path more traveled and then suffered the consequences.

The raindrop was heading downward now, and I followed it to the known end of its journey. It was gone, save the little piece of itself it left as a trail down the window. Like a tear-left stain marking the spot where sadness had reigned, I followed the trail from its beginning to end, and that was it, a metaphor of my life, which had begun inconsequential and would end meaningless and forgotten.

I wanted so desperately to join that raindrop in its end; to dive out of the window and meet my destiny anonymously and without fanfare. I could feel me falling. Free. Done. Forgotten. I would hit the ground with a splash and soon would become lost in the enormity of it all. Yes, destiny certainly could be a cruel Master but at least it never played games or fucked with the minds of its victims. It just was, unintentionally cruel and unforgiving as it doled out truth to each and every one of us.

Just then the door to the conference room opened. I snapped back to attention, donned my fake smile and forced laugh, and began the role renewed. The fall and freedom would have to wait for another time and in some other place. I would happen, though. After all, it is my destiny.

Old Harriet (Creative Writing Exercise)

September 18, 2012 / Tom

Setting:
Sidewalk corner of a 4-way urban intersection. You are a pedestrian waiting to cross the street.

Subject:
A badly rusted yellow car with a large dent in its fender, rimmed with blue paint, waiting for the light.

Timing:
The 30 seconds until the light changes and the car drives away.

It had been a while since I had walked this route to work, and I was pleased to have the rare feeling of actually not being late for a change. My early start had given me time to take in the scenery of the City I’d rarely gotten a chance to see. I got to stroll through the Park, and had the opportunity to see street vendors set up their wares and some older couples casually walking and feeding the pigeons who seemed very comfortable in the routine. It was a beautiful morning, the type of morning where even the rush hour seemed quiet and peaceful. The extra time this walk was taking was nothing compared to the feeling of peace and serenity it afforded given what is normally a morning filled with chaos in meeting “the man’s” appointed hour.

The park’s exit was a few blocks from where I worked, and I promised myself upon exiting that I would make a habit of this trip. I needed to get my act together and end the chaos that kept mornings like this from happening. I became lost in the endless promises and vows that come along with making such a momentous change. I would have my clothes ready the night before. I would wake up earlier. No, I would not start emailing and Facebooking before I left for the office. No, I would not…

I was suddenly brought back to the moment by a tug on my shoulder. I looked at the man who grabbed me, a rather slight and frail older gentleman who looked at me with a certain amount of curiosity. As I was about to give him the “what the hell” line, he stuck out his nose and chin, pointing to the direction I was walking. It seems I was not only ready to walk into traffic, but was also ready to walk directly into a car stopped at the waiting traffic light.

I became transfixed on the car. It wasn’t anything special, certainly nothing that would ordinarily grab my attention. It was what appeared to be an old and rather used taxi, one that was bought and converted into a car for a family or a teenager who could afford little else. It was hard to tell if it was yellow with rust or rust with yellow, but one would not be corrected if either description was used. It was missing a few of its pieces for sure, but it was nothing that this car had or didn’t have that caught my eye. Rather, it was a large dent in its fender that suggested it had either hit something or been hit by something.

It wasn’t the rather unspectacular car or the completely unremarkable dent that held my attention. The concave crater formed by someone’s mistake was streaked with a cobalt-blue paint as if someone had applied it with their fingers. The paint was a unique kind of color, one that I didn’t see much of, but one that had brought fond memories into view. As I stared blindly at the cobalt blue paint, an onrush of memories took me to a place I had never forgotten. One that had me lost in a combination of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

It was the color of her car, and it brought me to the first time I saw her. I could still see her pulling up for our first meeting in that car. I struggled to fight off the glare of the street light I sat under to see her face in person for the very first time. I wanted so desperately to look into those eyes; the very eyes that had captured me weeks prior. I noticed the car only because it was in the way, and I cursed it somewhat for the intrusion. Yet, it was the horse that brought her to me, and as such I would always remember it.

She pulled up, and I was in love all over again. I fell in love with her many times. In fact, I fell in love with her too many times to count. First, I fell in love with her picture as her eyes caught my heart and would not let it go. Then I fell in love with her voice, melodious and strong it brought me to places I never knew existed. Then I fell in love with her words. They touched something unwounded and dormant within me, and offered me promise that all I had seen, done, felt and faced was worth it. She exited the car and walked to me, and as we embraced I fell in love with her completely as this moment became the opening to the song my heart would sing to her over and over again.

My thoughts went back to our moments in that car. We had shared laughs, tears, love, and anger there. Old Harriet (her pet name for the car) had certainly seen enough of me. Ours began a long distance affair, so Old Harriet had seen the miles fly by on the way to my town. She had also seen miles driving me around my Love’s town. She has seen us meet somewhere in between. We began, shared, and grew our love on the back of Old Harriet, and for that I owed that car something I could never repay.

Suddenly the old beaten car that had streaks of memory stained in it pulled away. Startled at the suddenness of its departure, I looked up at the traffic light. I had missed my chance to cross the street, instead joyfully living in memories that always seemed to complete my days and bring life to my nights. I had to call my Lover, now, and tell her how much I loved her. Delay would not do, I missed her and needed to tell her my heart’s story.

So I began my walk to the office anew with her in my ear and in my heart. She was telling me about her morning so far, how she missed me and couldn’t wait to see me. I didn’t tell her about the car I almost ran into, or the memories the stains of cobalt blue had jarred loose from within, but I did tell her about this moment, and about how much she meant to me. The time in between that first meeting and now had seen the distance between us shrink while the love between us grew. As I walked we talked, and laughed, and cried, and talked to each other as only we could. I sat outside my office on a bench and listened, loving every word, thought and plan that she was telling me about. Here, there, everywhere I fell in love with her all over again in a timeless cycle that demanded that I fall in love with her again and again with each passing second. Finally she had to go, and as she told me she loved me my smile forced a tear from my eye. Yes, baby, I love you too.

In case you are wondering, yes, I was late to work again. Some things will never change.

my Sweet Affinity

September 18, 2012 / Tom

How much is too much

Of me?

How much can you hear?

How much can you see?

How much can you bear

Of me, my Sweet Affinity?

Which time is the last time

You’ll be

Smiling at my words?

Wanting to hear from me?

Oh how much can you bear

Of me, my Sweet Affinity?

Which moment gives the rest

A loss of dignity?

When I don’t exist at all

In the Sunrise that you see?

Oh how much can you bear

Of me, my Sweet Affinity?

I pray, I struggle and look for signs

Or a simple, golden key

To unlock a moment’s saving grace

To set the question free

Just how much can you bear

Of me, my Sweet Affinity?

Our Love Heals

September 13, 2012 / Tom

Photo by: David N Cooper

When I met her I felt I must be dreaming. I had to blink once, twice, a million times or more before I finally saw her as real. This great dream came true before my eyes, in my arms, now, then, forevermore. I still, a lifetime or two later, have trouble believing what I see, feel, or want to be true. I need to heal.

She smiled and the Sun rose above the horizon, exposing a fog lightly hugging the fragments of my life. I could see the firm ground where there was firm ground, but beyond that I could see a fine, white mist hiding parts of me I simply never wanted to admit existed. There was a fear there, a timely loss of awareness born as she slowly burnt away the veils that hid what laid beneath. Cracks in solid ground appeared as she dusted off those parts of me I had always felt and had always tried to forget. There would always be a shaky patch of ground in the otherwise solid earth, and she sought through no ill will to expose all of it. It was who she was, without excuse or apology.

Let’s not fool ourselves. There is a price to be paid for burning away the shrouds a man has donned in order to find security in this life. Fear shows itself to be a devil’s tool, a torture for the minds of even the strongest of men. Take me on physically, and I will stand firm. Challenge my fortitude and you will find layer after layer of a stone wall built by years of facing the shit thrown at me. Seek to find a trust from me and find a fear that can often create a Mr. Hyde running through the streets of our life. Even the most docile of creatures can become vicious when you touch their wounds, and I am no different. I don’t mean to react, I don’t want to react. Yet I flinch when the pain arrives and I suffer the moment I realize I have reacted.

These wounds are a strange thing. They are there, and they speak whispers whenever I flex the area around them. I’ve learned to ignore the whispers, but they become shouts the moment they are poked. There is my Beloved, running freely in the fields with me until she pokes unwittingly. I react, I pounce on my tormentor without ever realizing who is actually doing the tormenting. It is not her, it is me. I have not yet learned to ignore the wave of pain or the sinister thoughts that suggest she is somehow to blame for it. I cannot stop it, I cannot change it, I simply ride that wave as it crashes all around me often sweeping her up in the carnage. I try with all my might to stop it, but I am no match for the wall of water that has, by now, dwarfed even its creator in size. I simply stand by like a child as it destroys the landscape, ending the run and the freedom as the once-pristine fields become a muddy swamp of lost promise and torturous memory.

All of this because she unknowingly swept away the mist and touched the wound that laid beneath it. The ground shook and the wave came, and now if I am lucky we stand before each other locked in a steady gaze. A part of me feels grateful for her survival, for our survival, and a part of me seeks to protect her from further inundation. I want to take her to higher ground and leave her there, in tears, so that she may never have to swim for her life again. I am unsure and like a child again searching for her arms, her breast, her soothing voice. The tears I cry are hidden by the salty remains of the wave I let loose on the world, but they are there. Sometimes best cried in solitude, other times best hidden, especially from the parts of me that want to let them flow.

I know I have nearly drowned in myself, and I don’t want to take her down with me. I want her to leave, but I don’t have the guts to ask her to. I need her, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars as clearly as I need the breath inhaled upon rising from the wave’s remains. Where she stands is steady ground, and I want so desperately to be there. Yet my feet are stuck in the mud of my own design, and even as she demands me to “walk” I can’t even lift my leg. I stare at her, often hiding the grip of helplessness and fear that dominates my mind. “Please don’t leave me” I utter to her in words she will never hear.

She gives it to me. She gives me her embrace, her breast, her soothing voice. I exhale as if the air itself is burning my insides, but it is not. It was simply holding me up like the man I was taught to be, and without it I collapse into her completely. She accepts me. She loves me. And I am home.

I want her to love me, and soon I will forget this miracle. Another wound will be touched at some other time. Another wave may come, another time of reaching for her will arrive. I will touch her wounds, and a wave will hit me square in the face as she reaches for me. We both survive by loving the place where we stand together, strong and immovable even in the brutal face of human nature. The waves come so that we can experience each other after the crash, and in that experience we are healed.

I want her vulnerable even if she tries to hide it well. I want her to collapse into me after the storm as she exhales her strength into the void between us. I want her to need me, want me, and know that I am there. I don’t offer more than to suggest that I will be vulnerable if only to her. I will collapse into her waiting arms and embrace her with whatever strength I have remaining. I will need her, want her, and know that she is there. The power of that awesome place we stand is found when the waves come, and together we face the storm and survive it knowing something that most may never see. There is a safe place. There is a harbor here. There is a heart that beats for you and arms built to embrace you even when you are soaked to the bone. Especially when you are soaked to the bone. You will find warmth. Yes, you, too, are home.

Imagine such a place called “home”. Imagine even a single piece of ground so steady and strong as to survive all things. Imagine a Love so real as to know humanity and Divinity in the same place at the same time. Then close your eyes and see her and know that it is real. Feel it in the essence of the man you are embracing the woman she is. Feel its power. At that moment you realize that you did not choose it, it chose you. You are powerful and powerless all at the same time just as you are in all of this existence. You fight it in your humanity and surrender to it in your Divinity.

Now you see it. The scars begin to heal. The wounds no longer matter. You freely expose the tenderness that makes you the man you are. You allow the tears that form in the corners of your eyes at the sight of her to freely spill onto your face. You have found your true strength that goes beyond the physical prowess you have developed and the mental rigidity you have been taught. There is a firmness there, on that ground you share with her, and you will not relinquish an inch of it to fear. You no longer see yourself as “just a man” and you realize you can stand up to the wave. True strength does not show itself as that rigid, emotionless, tough man you were taught to be. Rather, it shows itself in Love, compassion, and an unbridled devotion to be who you are outside of who you were taught to be; who you have chosen to be.

Want to know what strength is? Cry in front of a crowded room. Wear your heart on your sleeve. Surrender to the woman who shares your love. Forget. Forgive. Love. That’s where real strength is shown. Remember. Don’t ever forget who you are in spite of what they told you.

Your love will heal you. You love will heal it all. Just trust, and you will see.