another empty day on Promised Land

There has to be more to it than this
There has to be more to it than this endless stream of eagerly-awaited Friday afternoons, meaningless relationships with meaningless people, and nothing to show for the disappointment of today but the promise of disappointment tomorrow

There has to be more
More than the constant questions with no answers and the head shaking, eye closing, sigh breaking blackness of constantly not knowing

There has to be more than the bitter taste of contempt for every lost or unrealized dream and the knowledge that settling now passes for the goal

The fire’s out, it seems
Passion doesn’t fit in this skin,
And as time ebbs and flows, so too the reality that this is all we have, time is all there is

There has to be more
There has to be more to laugh about
There has to be more to love
There has to be more to dream about
There has to be the possibility, no matter how remote, that those dream will come true

This can’t be it,

There has to be more

last night
So I wake up this morning thinking about you after falling asleep with you on my mind.
I again find myself writing about these confused feelings I have about you and I’m caught in the after glow of last night.

I think I may love you.

Are you surprised?
Did you know already?
Did my eyes and fingers and arms and legs give me away?
Every part of me was hungry for you.
I wanted to soak you up like a sponge and keep all your goodness and light inside of me.
It’s funny; I must have given you a million kisses last night.
I suppose it was one kiss for every time I thought about you or kissing you or being with you or that single time I thought I was in love with you and it scared me so bad I stopped thinking it.
I don’t want to think about how complicated it could be if I were to be in love with you.
I don’t want to think about you not loving me back, or the complicated separate lives we lead or the nightmare our lives may be together, or even the wonderful blessing you might turn out to be in my life.
I’ll think about all of that another time.
For now I’ll just think about how happy and giddy and calm you make me and how much I love kissing you and touching you and being kissed and touched by you.
I won’t think about tomorrows or forever,
I’ll just lay here and think about last night.

I feel at peace
you feel like what was missing for the past few weeks

We became lost
We lost each other, became detoured from the mission of being there for each other, got caught up in man-woman-boy-girl bullshit
I need you to be my friend and to be yours
No extracurriculars.
I’m still in love with you but I feel a prayer has been answered and I’d gotten a reprieve
I am no longer so desperate for you to be in love with me.
I’d gotten my friend back and I’m yours
...it’s good to be home.

The goodbye is here
Five minute conversations now exist where three hour conversations couldn’t begin to reside
There is space and silence and distance and I wonder what happened…again
I wonder what did I do…again
I wonder why I am alone, why can’t I find it and keep it and have it in my life
I’m wondering...again
And I feel desperate and dangerous and lost and afraid
And I didn’t want to be here...again
It did happen too fast
Words of forever were spoken too fast
The fantasy unraveled too fast
The reality came too fast and too hard and it was crushing
We were not meant for each other- that much is evident
You are wild, maybe too wild for me
I am too afraid of everything to just go with your flow, your way, your vibes, and just be
You are too ready to rush into darkness, guns blazing all or nothing
I still need to feel my way around the darkness slowly, safely

But it was nice
It was really nice
You are such a wonderful spirit
I hope you find someone to be in your life who can really and truly enhance that
And not try to contain that remarkable, vibrant, untamable, passionate, innocent, world-worn man-child that lives in you
It was so great meeting you and getting to know you and being with you and loving you and being loved by you and being in love with you
I will remember this time together always
And believe it or not, I’ll remember this time fondly
I know that mistakes were made but I know we had some once in a lifetime moments- at least I did- and I will treasure that
You made me laugh, and think and love with an intensity I was longing for and I thank you for allowing me into your life
Our time was short but it was so rich you are inscribed please, please believe that
I love you and I am so very, very happy to have been yours for a little while
I’m glad that I’d found a wonderfully warm, safe, loving place within your embrace for a little while

Love lifts us to heights, kindred one
Where time and space and choice leave room for madness and irrationality and only love matters

Love lifts us to heights my dear one
Where in an instant, a profound connection is made and there is a peace and understanding, a movement towards oneness, soul’s mate, connection, recognition of the answers to your heart’s questions and longing

Love lifts us to heights, ancient spirit
Where you mirror me, I mirror you, we seek validation of the truths we disbelieve and justification of the lies we accept

What is this love and where is it going?
why is it so easy to fall and so very hard to
remain
in
love

Love lifts us to heights to sing and dance and be and rejoice and cry
I’m afraid of you of who you are and what you could possibly do to me and my heart, my soul
I’m drawn to you inexplicably and instantly intensely
Is it because I’ve been alone for too long
are you another mistake
or are you the answer that I’ve been asking God for, praying for, pleading for, crying for
or... are you another mistake
a perfectly beautiful, troubled, mysterious, confusing, conflicted, chemically potent mistake
You speak and I’m curious
I want to know more about you and who you are and what had brought you to be this person who you are
are you another mistake

love has somehow lifted me

For a little while
I allowed you to steel my joy
Make me sad and desperate again

I couldn’t see how you
Of all people would be the one
Maybe that’s why I held on

But you aren’t love
You are a test to show me that I deserve so much better
And one day, God’s willing, I will find my soul’s happiness

It occurs to me that love is not a lifetime feeling, not an overwhelming emotional high or low.
Love is a snapshot of understanding, mixed with respect and commitment and sacrifice and practice and patience that is captured in a fraction of a moment of a minute and repeated into a pattern to form habit, to form an intrinsic notion and spurred by a never-ending supply of hope.

Heaviness on both sides
You with your duty
Me with mine
But when we’re together, I’m light
Foolishly happy, even if it’s only for a minute
You bring me joy when you visit
Hope arrives when you call
Potential and promise embrace me when you do and I am light
Nothing matters except your smiles and mine
I’m foolishly happy even if it’s only for a moment

stunted
why is it that every man I meet is stunted?
Either physically or emotionally their growth stopped somewhere around 15?
Is it me?
Am I expecting too much?
Do I think too highly of myself?
Do I think that I am at a level where a man ‘should be at least ‘this’ high to ride this ride’?
They bring me down to their level.
I can’t wear heels, can’t transcend the bullshit, frivolous meetings and greeting and the playground ‘I like you, you like me’ nonsense I thought I’d left so many years ago.
Wearing me down, keeping me stunted. I say I’ll leave them all in my wake and wait on the Lord to send me one who’s on my level, my height, my speed. I pray the Lord lets me recognize him when and if he comes because I’ve been fooled too many times by men parading as giants only to reveal themselves to be dwarfs.

sprung
I knew what the truths were but I still believed ‘some-kind-of-wonderful’ was taking place.
Some kind of ‘enchanted, once-in-a-lifetime’ love affair.
I was aware of faults, of hostile situations,
I knew all and ignored all.
I chose to believe all was well, wanted to believe it was well.
I needed to believe in you.

I’m not one of those women who’ll fight you
Or curse you out in the street
I’m not one of those women who’ll fight another
Or dog you out when we meet

I’m not one of those women who’ll take your shit
Or take your hits
Or just wipe the spit
as you hawk up another to put on me

I’m not the woman who’ll cheat on a good man
Or lie to your woman
Or keep taking your lines and excuses

I’m not the girl with the pin up curves
Or the one you sex and run off to next
Or screw when you and wifey vex

I’m the woman that there’s just something about
The one men can’t live with but can’t do without
The name you call out at times and get into trouble
The one with the gapped- tooth smile that makes good fortunes double
That’s me

I’m the one you can’t seem to treat right
The one you leave alone at night
But always come back to to make everything right
That’s me

That one who loves you, that’s me
That one who wants you, that’s me
That one that sees no other but you
That’s me too

Now that you know who I am
Please tell me: Who are you

who’d cry for me if I should die
who’d shed a tear or wet their eye
my mother, my child, a sister, friend
who’d be sorry as I’d met my end
I want to be missed
Revered and mourned
I want to be pined over
Cause someone to yearn
I want someone to yell out
“Why God, why now
Anything to get her back
Simply show me how”
I want that perfect scripted love
You see on movie screens
I want to be enamored
To see how that love feels
I want that love that’s filling
That love that heals and soothes
I want that love that lulls to sleep
And brightens darkened moods
I’ve looked for him who’ll cry for me
He’s nowhere that I’ve been
I’ve given myself mistakenly
To men who perfect seemed
They use my body, soul and mind
My heart sits longingly
Awaiting him who’d love and care
And know he’d cry for me

Dirty laundry
Whatdafuck?!!!!?!!!!
I was humiliated and I felt so cheap. Trying to be okay with it all is exhausting. I just wanted to lay down and stay down and not bother anymore.
After all that I’d released the night before, finally admitting my feelings to him and that I was still capable of those feelings at all to myself, and giving into wanting to be with someone again on that level and all that came with it, and to not only have my post-coital after-glow interrupted by a girlfriend knocking on the window but to have to get up and hide like some cheap, desperate, mistress under a sheet in a corner while my heart is beating out of control for fear and disbelief that this shit is actually taking place and that in all my years and all of my relationships I’d NEVER EVER had to deal with this kind of thing, this mess only happens in the movies and she keeps coming into the room and I’m frozen with fear that I’ll be found out and the shame of having to hide is worst than any confrontation that may take place, praying she would just leave and take him with her because I couldn’t face him right now, after all my confessions the night before and the love we made now demoted to cheap sex and I felt sick with my disgust of myself, staying dead still and silent like his dirty laundry. They leave and I still sit there so afraid and shocked I can’t even cry for my broken heart, I am left alone in a dark room in a suddenly cold house in a strange place and told to fend for myself, slipped a key to get out and find my way home. It is overwhelming to say the very least.
How could he hurt me like that? After all these years, after all that we’d shared? For the very least he could have been honest with me. I could use a cigarette. This is why women turn to the bottle or into sluts or to Jesus.

I think I’m in trouble …
You make me smile!

You know that smile that makes men take notice and want phone numbers and to spend time
You know that smile that makes women look twice “what she so happy about”
That smile that remembers something you said or did or a song you played for me
A smile that remembers yours, beautifully welcoming, sexy yet sincere

You make me smile ALL over
From my hair, which you make feel luxurious, instead of its usual wild and untamable
To my toes, which relish your attention
To my body, screaming hints, subtle and not, that it really likes you
To my soul, softly whispering your praises, afraid that you might be a figment of its imagination, too perfect to be real, it’s so unaccustomed to good treatment and care

Yup, I think I’m in trouble
Constant smiles require a level of happiness I’m unfamiliar with
But with you the effort is easy and it doesn’t feel forced
You don’t push, you don’t cajole, or exert great energy, but still you bring forth grins I show inside and out
You make me feel pretty and interesting
You make me want to keep smiling
Trouble or not, I thank you for my smiles

You feel like a treat to me
A wonderful surprise I happened upon
As life in its infinity
Yields yet another blessing for me

I wanted to find some way to say
I appreciate your spirit
Your care, Your openness
You
A poem seems so…soon
Too soon
Too soon for romantic words
Or grand gestures
Intimate professions
Or deep intense, heartfelt yearning

But there must be a way for me to say
You’re cool with me
You are welcomed into my life
Whatever comes,
Even if nothing comes at all
You are fresh, refreshing,
A friend, a like soul
And I’m so very glad
To have gotten
To share a little time
…With you.

I just kept promising
Kept promising that I’d leave
I just kept promising myself, my self-esteem, my sense of self, my self-worth, my peace
That I’d leave this man and all he has that binds me.

Just kept promising
Just kept promising
4 A.M. in bed- alone

When he didn’t come home
I promised
When he didn’t smile anymore
I promised
When I tasted my tears, as I lay alone- anxious and afraid
For the millionth ‘last time’
I promised
Each broken promise creating a new hole in my soul

But I kept,
And keep
Promising

In all my life
It’s never been like this
So desperate and hungry
I want you, need you,
An intense obsession
Or a session of intensity
Why-
The choices I make,
Wild, irrational, senseless, contradictory, pain inducing
They baffle me
Why can’t I walk away
It feels so right, alone in your arms
Impassioned embraces
Kisses and feelings
In the dark
In the light secrecy, stolen glances, encounters in shadows,
Veiled affection taking the form of friendship
Once again, I’ve betrayed myself, my heart, me
I’ve let myself love but this has nothing to do with you
I let myself love you, I knew all yet I walked in
Eyes wide open, arms outstretched, heart exposed and hungry incessantly searching
For solace and fulfillment
Don’t believe that you’ve done this and you’ve hurt me and you keep hurting me
I do this, I did this, I keep doing this shit to myself.
I’m sorry I got you involved in the madness.
I don’t want you to hate me, I love you, I’m clear that I do
Is it right, is it sane
I honestly don’t know
I think about a future with you and it seems so right
But then I hate myself because all I see in the present is pain-all around-
So, as much as this might hurt me and hurt you
And as absolutely hollow and alone I may feel and naked without you in my life
I am going to say goodbye I am going to say, I love you one more time and I’m going to say goodbye

Are you what I came here for?
Are you the discovery
Are you the time and the lives I’ve met and left and loved and lost along the way
I feel as though every heart break, every let down, every player with tales of a twelve inch thick…
Fantasy
Has lead to this moment,
To this occasion,
To you
I dream of every touch, every kiss, every physical encounter not yet experience could be the breath I’ve waited to exhale all my life all my love all my all waiting to be given to you
Are you the solution to the problem, the cure for the ill or the quest I’ve yet to go on
Are you just another let down, just another I’m so tired of this bullshit, another I think I’ll take a break for now
Are you another Lord send me a good man, Please,
Are you another sitting by the phone on a Friday night, laying in my bed on a rainy day playing love songs and crying like a school girl with her heart broken for the first time
Cause if you are then I done been had that too many times to run after it again with open arms
If you are that something let me know
I can’t find out by panties left in your bed that ain’t mine or names and numbers left in your head that ain’t mine or time spent in a lover’s arms that ain’t mine
Let me know cause I done been had that too many times to run after it again with arms wide open
But
Are you what I came here for
Came now for
Are you the discovery
Are you the times and the lives I’ve left behind hoping to find you
Are you my be all, are you my end all
Are you what I came here for

my thoughts alone
your eyes are like a beautiful dream
and I love to see you smile

what are you really searching for
you’ve told me
but I’m still wondering

wouldn’t it have been nice if we’d met at a different place, a different time, different circumstances,
I love to look into your eyes
There seem to be so many little secrets
Your unwillingness to share only increases my curiosity
What was it, what is it that make your eyes, your beautiful eyes seem so sad

I love to hold your hand
And I love to touch you
Touches soft and intimate
It surprises me because of the short time that we’ve known each other
Yet the moments without words seem so familiar, so recognized, it’s as though we have this strange need for… something
And in our search we happened upon each other

I love to kiss you
Your lips appeal to me
Seeing the words form as you speak
Or feeling them against mine excite me
I am nervous and juvenile when I’m near you
These feelings I experience because I can’t truly say what I’d like to or do the things I want because I feel they’d be inappropriate or unwanted or just not right

So I’ll write

I’ll write and you’ll know how I feel when you read my words of emotion toward you
I’ll keep writing until I can say or do the things I want to or until there’s no longer any need
The mystery solved, the newness old, the excitement dull, and the beautiful dream of potential and possibility lays awake and aware in the pale unflattering light of the morning

I’d like to take you somewhere quiet and warm
And forget
Just for a minute
That responsibilities exist

I’d like to take you somewhere quiet and warm
And tell you
How much I’ve grown to admire you
And enjoy our talks
And miss you when we don’t
And how much the part of me which longs to be kissed and held and whispered to
Wishes that you might or that you would
In that moment when the world wouldn’t know

I’d like to take you somewhere quiet and warm
and show you
The things I’ve thought about, dreamed about, laughed about and cursed about

But responsibilities exist

Give me your hand
I’ll lay these kisses for remembrance

I’d like to take you
But….

In this time
Forever changing
Forever constant
My love, timeless in its existence is bound by its intent

If I could love you just a little more
Hold on to you tight enough to let go
I could have you forever if I just say goodbye

You’re not mine,
my dreams create scenes, fantasies, misty and perfect, you’re mine, you’re beautiful, I’m happy.
I wake up and you’re beautiful and I’m without you
The dream, a blissful memory, the fantasy no more than a seemingly torturous reminder that you are beautiful and I’m without…

To have a day of having you, to live a day of loving you, to feel a day of sun and jazz and rain and jazz and love and you and … to be a day like that…
Perfection.
I could dream it but my reality is stunted, I can’t seem to move on,
To forget, to forgive, to grow and be happy.
Why does she get to have your body, you hands and lips and eyes to look into, to caress her, to kiss her
And I get your dreams, your heavy guilty tired sighs and teasing, flirty, taunting thighs, when you decide to reward me for my unfaltering loyalty.
I’ll stay here though, try as I might my soul seems unwilling to let go
But so you know…
In this time forever changing
Forever constant
My love is boundless in its existence
But limited by its intent

big brown beautiful beaming eyes
dreamy rays reach right around my soul
secular serene transformation transfixed my location
I can’t get enough of you
God sent golden graces
Grab hold of my heart
Don’t let go love, it feels so right when you hold me
My almost anytime always aspiration is to be loved by you
Wishing hopeful beggar that I am
I love you.

...when it's over
I’ll burn every poem I ever wrote for you
And spit on every tear stained pillow
I’ll rip out the pieces of heart that are still seared with the remnants of your name
I’ll loosen the bits of brain that aches for you and scour the patches of skin that remembers your touch….

FUCK LOVE
Do you hear me
Fuck cozy nights
And breathless kisses
Anxious embraces
And butterflies
Fuck it
Fuck ‘I love you’s
‘I miss you’s
‘I want you so’s
fuck it all
fuck first times
and heart melting, lip blubbering, admissions of ‘forever’
fuck it
fuck love
and lovers
and loving
and wanting hopelessly, desperately to love and be loved
and be in love
fuck love

finding you again
I held on to them for a long time
Your smile, your heart, your love, your wanting better for me, more from me
I held on to them and let them rot, let what was fresh and innocent and beautiful become tainted and old and unwanted
I held onto the hurt I projected on you, and even though it was mine- I created it, I let you claim it
In my head it was you, your doing, your destruction of us, of me

I opened up to ‘wisdom’ recently and was given a new reality on my stance of our relationship
Wisdom made me see that I unjustly lay blame where it had no home, there was not space for negative feeling
Time and progression were in play and they dictated the path we followed
Slowly, the bind I locked you into in my mind and heart is loosening and the bitterness is melting with each revelation I achieve
Whatever I threw to the universe to be manifested I can never retrieve but I can apologize
When the time is right and our paths cross again I do hope I am ready and fully open to embrace you again