Naps are glorious.
Tornado warnings are not.
The Great Gatsby is intriguing.
Nadya Suleman is not.
Tortellini is tasty.
Canned fruit syrup is not.
Ice water is refreshing.
Pop quizzes on the New Deal's economic programs are not.
Red roses are lovely.
Soggy pinecones are not.
The Office is funny.
SNL used to be.
Money is difficult to come by and share these days.
Smiles are not.
The world tells me you exist. Jewelry commercials, magazines, the occasional married couple. You are somewhere. There is only one of you, and that's the magic of it. You are one person and you live in Zimbabwe and I will find you someday with the help of that magic. Even if it means finding you while I'm married to my first, or perhaps inevitably my second, husband. I will find you and truth simultaneously, drop what I've lived for, and commit myself to you for all eternity. I will be happy forever, and it will be easy, because you will be happy too. So says the world.
No offense, Soulmate, but you are a crock.
A charlatan. An illusion. An accidental fraud. Accidental because I know you would be there for me if you could; your benevolence, though faux, is benevolent after all. But you're not there, and you can't be. You do not have the power.
Do you?
Here's the thing. The world is big. Mine is small. Mine will take a long time to grow. It has so far, and that is why I'm sure. Literature did not relocate my grandparents to better pave my trail to you. The media did not create property values and nationally acclaimed public schools. Word of mouth did not decide my grades, my major, my degree, my apartment, my career. They did not. Fate then, would argue that all of these option-narrowing circumstances have been supernaturally affected. Supernaturally, yes, but fate -- Fate is your best friend. You, dear Soulmate, have coffee with Fate on a weekly basis. You discuss ways to trip me up with pleasant, soulmatey fake-os. I try not to buy it.
Admit it. You're everywhere. You walk behind me in the halls and you make my burritos on Sunday afternoons. You will teach my World Issues class. You will sort library books over the summers. You read my blog but never comment. You've made your opinions of me without even showing your face. Then, Soulmate, we will have to clarify a few things.
Jesus Christ is your Savior. You have a passion. None of this "where the wind blows, everything's cool with me" nonsense. You have direction, and if you don't yet, you're praying for it. You're sober. You make me laugh until my eyes water, but you hate making me cry. You're taller than me, and your eyes are blue, green, and brown. Heck, your hair is long, curly, buzzed and silky straight. Do you see? Do you see that I've discovered you? Without even finding you, I've discovered you. You mean something to me, and you always have. I've known you for years, I love you now, I'll meet you tomorrow, and I hate your guts. You must ask Fate to do a better job. His bread crumbs led me astray, but your scent is too strong. The path isn't straight, and the fog in front of me is thicker than I'd like, but I thrust limbs into the clear with all of my might, that I might deck you, trip you, whatever. I will catch you, and of that I am also sure.
I hope you are watching for me. I hope I am a grand alternative to the soulmate the world has waiting for you. Because I am not your soulmate. Our souls have been promised to He whom we praise, and all that's left of me and of you is a heart or two. My heart will learn and live to love yours, and yours will wish never to be loved by another. We will grow in each other and occasionally meet people we would date if single. People as attractive, as hilarious, and as into The Magnetic Fields as we are. But I found you, and you found me, and the rest is, well...the future. A future as slim as our patience for one another sometimes but never as lonely. And in the name of that future, I would like to thank you for deceiving me for so long.
And just to let you know, birth names are changeable. My mom did it just last year. Yours is a misnomer, but there's hope.
Yours truly...at some point,
lucy
and the stream through the brush through the wood
slips slowly, sneakily, simply past my lips
to deaden misnomered shouts,
misplaced modifiers.
yet the spell in the book past the clock
swirls slightly, spitefully, silently around your ears
countering dissatisfying compliments,
melting self-developed worries.
for the keys cloaked with ivory in the ebony
strike them stupefied. such starlit surprise shies
listeners from listening
the player from playing
the laughter from laughing
the despair from disheartening
the woken from walking
the born from becoming
becoming a tearful remedy
of broken delights
knowing not which harmony
to hum, drum, or run from
the stream's spell
the key to laughing at despair,
to awaking (not becoming)
a broken harmony.
The ring on my finger
the paint on my nails
reveal love then independence
reveal some sort of strength in my face
a harshened, sometimes falsified
strength.
because I am not yet broken enough to fall in front of you,
I will stand tall in front of you.
and because my tears fail to fall upon my own shoulder
I will save it for you,
keep it dry for you,
and dry it again once you've left
that it might remain inviting
and within reach.
I promise you, it will always remain within reach.
"Perforated"
then the top fell through the bottom
and all predictions fell futile.
the path walked was beaten,
the path to walk
invisible.
the heart
perforated
as though someone knew something
I didn't
and marked me
with the knowledge
from the inside.
from observator to insider
I suddenly hope to change.
what good are choices
should they be
pre-cut
by a subconscious
(and an inconsiderate one at that.)
"Tightrope"
heartstrings a tightrope
to be navigated
gingerly, precisely
as though the line walked
is between clouds
instead of between
feelings.
because feelings,
if we can help it,
are only felt
and never stressed
or pressed.
the unknown, unsurprisingly,
left alone.
your feelings, clouds?
to block the sun
allow for shade?
or to swell before you
and rain upon parades?
take your time.
one foot in front of the other.
[I hope writing these one after the other makes up for their somewhat identical style.]
I face the windowed wall
twisted in a dark blue armchair
(its velvet rubbed to linen
where heads lay
and coffee mugs rest)
so that elbows touch ankles
and toes meet fingers.
Grey leggings coat my lower limbs,
emerging from your red knit sweater
whose arms envelop mine.
My worn-out knuckles are lost inside the cuffs.
I watch the sky and ask it what to write.
The birds are middlemen, reporting
my anthologies' titles to the clouds --
evidence offered while they determine
what more I have to express.
A door opens, closes.
Footsteps grow more pronounced behind me.
You kiss my ear.
The clouds are silent.
The rain is not.
[I've written even more to post for you. But everything in moderation...]
my mind is in one million places
divided by your words
hurtling towards me - through me -
from all directions.
bits of surrounding conversations
derail trains of thought
without my permission.
I am painfully
unflinchingly aware
of my weaknesses,
my inability to battle
sanity's erosion
like water through a cliff's cracks.
or similarly,
the photos radiating sunny dispositions
from ill-fated good old days
discovered in the midst of a marriage's
final hours.
the season's first snowfall,
a European vacation,
our late daughter's last birthday.
though toted here for safe-keeping,
I release them to the storm drain,
flinching in pain
as I remember your words
spoken with more clarity, precision
and spite
than I could even begin to muster
here
amidst a train station's bustle.
"I told you," you say.
"Trying to heal only hurt us more."
"But where will you go?" I exclaim.
then nothing, before:
"Be well, Clara. Look ahead
and try to forget me."
I pull myself back to now,
having learned to suppress.
looking ahead, I wonder if my train is approaching
but silently hope
among so many spoken hopes
that the tracks are getting longer
and instead pushing my future farther away from me.
I invite the enveloping chaos
reluctantly
desperately
granting permission to its whining,
shouting,
laughing.
I grant tearful permission
to separate my sanity from itself.
for it is irreparable and
like my soul,
left behind
as my body boards the train.
