Monday, October 15, 2018

Again


I found you again
In the same, trite place
Amidst the treacle of a rom com
The artificial warmth of crafted like-love
Suddenly
On another's tongue
In another's voice
I found you, again

In the language I attempted
(On hold while I tried to forget you)
The curved sounds
Of music that once moved my soul (and hips)

You were there
On the pillow

You are there
On the pillow, again
Next to mine
I see you, again
Your cheek pulled by the weight of your head on the pillow
The mess of salt-and-pepper hair across your forehead
The angles of your lips with an unspoken word frozen
Your eyes, wide, and wondering, and searching
(Searching me)
I am getting lost, again
Caught in the gravity of your gaze

We inhale
(And I don't remember us exhaling)
A single breath
Held, holding, waiting
Wondering
Watching

Then, you speak
The curved sounds of your mother tongue
As syntax and semantics elude me
Words and phrases wash me
As sound and music
Of pure emotion
Then two words leap out
And clasp me with comprehension
"Meu coração"
But I already understood

My heart responds to yours
As my voice responds
In another tongue
The most lyrical dialect I half-knew
My attempt
To match beauty with beauty
When language morphs
To pure sound
To pure soul
To pure moment
To pure movement

Something shifts

We fall in love, again
In the deep pool of a gaze
In the music of words
In the movement of a moment

You don't stay long
You never do
I don't let you, at least at the surface
I hold this moment, again
Momentarily
I swim in the warmth of my tears
For a little while
Then tuck it away
In the little shrine at the back of my soul
Where you – the you I loved – are safe
And I am safe, here at the surface
Until I find you
Again

Some People Lose You


Some people lose you
Not in the middle of the night
Never in the middle of a fight
But when day breaks the last chance
When the heat of the fight
Is nothing left but cold embers

Some people lose you
Flailing in frustration
Tearing and grasping
At the common ground you shared
That no longer exists

Some people lose you
Hanging their head down
Holding the remnants of you-two
The shreds they let slip
Through the grasp they chose to loosen

And then
Some people lose you
In the long silence
They forgot to punctuate
In the assumption
That you’d always be there

Some people lose you
And they don’t notice
The cold spot
Where you once were
The empty space
Where your heart was once a placeholder
The empty seat
They forgot to invite you back into
The now-quiet spot
They forgot to look for you in
The once-reserved place
That you departed
Tired of waiting
To be seen
To meet your gaze
To be reached out for
To brush your hand
To be heard
To answer your last call

Some people lose you
And they don’t notice