We say goodbyes everyday and pay them no heed. We bid adieu to one time friends and those who cycle through. The seconds become allies or foes as we become conscious of our farewells.
The seconds are comrades as we see the future together, and quickly change as we move towards the end. The more we spend with them, the more they take of us, if they take of us.
Silence.
The heaviest, deadliest, fullest word.
He loved the world more than it could understand. He felt the potential in the soil when he kneaded it. He tasted the satisfaction after a day's hard work. He heard the unsung songs in the first notes of her voice and saw the beauty growing there. In the world he saw everything wonderful, possible, beautiful it could be and felt glad.
But he also saw how quickly and terribly we deterred ourselves from responding to the potential he felt. Our inability to grow and learn consistently and wholly deprived him of the sweet satisfaction he craved. He grew angry that the world chose the worst of itself instead of its very best.
He loved the world so much, he refused to watch it go to waste. He sealed himself instead his castle, or tomb, depending on what we wanted to believe.
The cold, crisp air stung more than the last words you said to me. I tried to choke it down but it came back up in a sob. It stung going down and coming up, like the needles when blood is drawn.
I needed you, like water through my core. I wanted you and I just desired to know if you wanted me too.
I watched boats sail on the tips of daylight dreams. They floated on the lavender seams of the sky and sea. Their paths may parallel walkers in the streets, or cross like hands held quietly. The sun stroked the periwinkle twinkles that rippled the sea. Both wakes and waves turned to blush like I did when you looked at me.
Dreams may dart away at dawn, but dusk is where they start.
I'll share my queen sized bed with you. And we'll stay up and talk till two! I may fall asleep before you ever do, and I promise I'll try not to drool on you.
I'll bare everything to you, what's in and on my chest. We'll have no secrets between us so that we may lie closer still.
Hold me here so I can hear your heart beat. One for in and one for out. Breathe in breathe out, keep the count here with me.
Sweetheart, I know you'll lay with me but I know you'll never fall asleep.
Dear iPhone.
You can't hold me the way my lovers do. If I drool on you, that's a hundred or so dollars, maybe two. Applecare? Yes, so 50$ since I'm not a fool. Same price if it's tears not drool. I can't buy your love but I'm taking all of you.
Through you I bear my secrets and my dreams into the digital, virtual reality. let's snap and chat and I hope you'll like what you see. To your opposing, eyes I've shown everything.
Let me chirp and tweet my mind in 140 characters, anymore than that is for amateurs. Maybe we can tumblr through the sheets and giggle at your place or MySpace.
iPhone, you know where I am, a blue dot on the move. But if I turn off the services, I disappear from view. don't worry, I'm only right here.
Our phones become both sword and shield against anyone who dares reach us. I shouldn't hold you near, right here. They may not know I'm reaching out to them too.
The final breath before the note, before you choose to sing. The final breath before you belt or blare some melody. Will your voice tremble like your knees did that night? I hope they don't, I hope it soars, and rings out loud and clear.
I've heard your voice do that some time ago, and maybe it was a dare. I remember you called out to the stars, the midsummer air carrying your declarations further than the sea. I could only laugh at your antics until I was breathless, laugh-less, done. The skies twinkled in delight and once we were finished, we moved on, gone. No point in lingering on and on.
I hope you sing that note so well, so they'll hear you like I did. I hope that it hangs in the air and captures everyone; whole, soul, full.
Do you remember when we squish-squashed our toes in the mud? When the dirt bubbled up as we laughed as much as we could run? How about when we played with the sprinklers to our mother's dismay, and grandma could only grin since we watered her greenery that day. The hose was our greatest ally and and we marked the walls with water. It was hard to say who was having more fun. We had the water up to our knees, and the flowers just giggled, tickled by the breeze.
I remembered the blanket-capes and building block shields that we made one day. We ran around the garage times three, with the street lights up and the dark sky, rainy. Dad was working in his office then, so we had to save him for dinner in ten. Our neighbor saw the spectacle of you and me, and asked us bemused, "Is it Halloween?" It wasn't, we smiled, and continued our quest, since who knew what monsters lie ahead.
You told me you were a robot once, and I believed you completely. You told me you lived in the mountains by home, and if I left the room and closed my eyes, you'd be gone. I'd leave and come back and you'd still be there, and I believed when you said you teleported there.
Some things never change. I still am gullible and believe everything and you still have some of the best stories. I may be a little disappointed you're not a robot; since I've always wanted to teleport. We've still got our monsters, and we've still got our dreams. We've armed our tongues with swords and bolstered our brains with shields. Either way, I know we'll be fine... Beaming triumphantly.
Courage is chameleon, disguising itself, knowing quite well we might reject it. Courage swallows up our demons, flying through our heads. It is exposed when we say hello for the first time, even though our fingers and toes tingle at the newness. Courage doesn't know if it's excitement or hesitance, drinking in only the thrill. As the conversations continue with our strangers, and transitions to friends; courage hides itself in the quiet offerings of ourselves. We trade our dreams and hopes, our failures and faults. Courage is coy then, as it usually is. The potential for rejection still looms here, and it always will.
This chameleon shows itself most when we desire. Whether we argue or cry, want or need, we are requesting -sometimes begging- for something outside ourselves to make us happy. We are exposed most fully during these moments.
Our chameleons face the challenge fleeing, or succumbing and becoming the demons it's consumed for us. Courage sits at the fulcrum of which we balance our fears and our fantasies realized. Sometimes our desires align with another's so well... and other times they could very well tip the scales and cause everything to crash down.
Courage is also knowing how to not to crush someone else's chameleon demon too.
Whispers your wants into the wind, building castles in the sky. I don't know how long these castles will last, the clouds change too quickly. They morph between my fears and your dreams until they scatter, splattered playfully. Let's big them bigger and better, we have no limits.
The sun's rays will turn the cloud-walls to gold. When it disperses, let us hope that it leaves a prism of dripping gems as it floats away.
We hold on to our all our goodbyes. We tap them and eke out of them every single drop we can squeeze. We harvest them for no one but ourselves, savoring the seconds as they slip out of the hands we have to hold them. Our minds are simple sieves, only holding on to simple needs.
Time urges us on, as we're only visitors here. These moments were only stops to some destination unknown. If nothing else, time is a gracious guide and lets us relish what feelings or emotions our pauses bring to us.
Even though we linger here, we know we can't stay for long. Living isn't staying here, and we can't stay; time is always moving on. Let's seal parts of ourselves in the words that we say, the photos that we take, and the laughs that we create. If time takes me to a separate place, at least somewhere we knew we had those days.
I know you've seen the summer trees, where the sun makes gold their green leaves. The glow was trapped as the sun kissed each one goodbye, or hello, depending on how this story is supposed to go.
The sun reminded us everyday that summer was not here to stay. At least we can watch the green leaves burn brighter still, when they slowly turn crimson as the weather begins to chill.
Let's try not to fall while winter comes. I might go somewhere warm and follow the sun. But you know, maybe I'll stay here while the snowflakes float through. Especially since I hear that the falling snow glows too.
Peel me away layer by layer, and strip me of my shields. You've let me repulse you and draw from you all the tears. As you rip into my flesh, you tell me I'm stronger than I think. With our eyes watering, I simply say that maybe I've just always been that way. As my skin falls away, your tears fall even harder; you keep ripping, telling me you can't even get enough of me. You take as much of me as I can give, until there's nothing. The tears were still falling.
All that hid the tiny me was laid bare and foreign at my feet.
I didn't see anything after everything I held so dearly was stripped away. Even through your drying eyes, you saw something good in my core. A small sprout, of hope or despair, who knows. It just needed to grow.
But like anything else, that takes time, and how much of it is unknown.
These words were thick and sweet and foreign. I rolled them around on my tongue and to the roof of my mouth, seeing if I could separate the strange syrup from myself. I could not and it only spread further as I clicked and tangled my tongue. My mouth dried suddenly, and I knew that these saccharine sentences would make me sick.
I knew better than to let the words consume me, so I consumed them. These words would become a part of me, I was sure of it. I could feel this sweetness quickly turn to some sort of sick, and my body heaved. It was too much to keep in, but too terrible to let out. I held that in too. I was not letting the words come out and unleash unknown demons.
I was the monster, and all the sugar and sweetness could not change that.
Your breath grazed my skin and it rose in anticipation. The air was charged like lightning from the sky and I held still in hesitation. My pulse quickened and thundered through my body, turning from a faraway warning to a deafening roar. A tempest was brewing between us, cycling between the rain and our clouded judgment.
Lightning had yet to strike.
The storm swirled around us as we ran from cover. Reason had disappeared with the sun too long ago. There was no where to hide now. Your breathing became erratic and the winds blew stronger still. I hushed mine, as if that simple act could possibly ground me.
Lightning struck.
My body stilled at the contact and was set alight. With the gusts at full force, lightning struck again. The expanding air and increasing closeness echoed the reverberation of our bodies so wondrously out of sync. The sweat slinked off our bodies, desperately trying to extinguish what we had ignited.
There was nothing anchoring us now and we blew dangerously, recklessly, with the wind through the night.
The darkness always took you.
The sunlight came and you came with it, dancing on the doors of waking dreams. We played as the sun stood guard from staying shadows at the seams. Even as it kept watch, the darkness lingered behind the unknown, deeper still behind your eyes. When the sun set, we were not so shielded. It became brave and obtrusive; creeping from your eyes, then reflected on your face.
Even as we tried to keep the sun in our step, the reflected sun could not keep joy the same way. As the night went on, darkness became stronger, taking you with it. It ate your insides and dulled your outsides while I held on to your disappearing hand. I called to you softly, but the fog was too hard to hear through. Though I stood in front of you, I knew you didn't see me.
The night took you as it always did, and I knew better than to stop it. If I tried, it would take me too. I knew that. I saw it.
No one loves the sunset the way I love the sunrise.
Only in the moments that the rays slowly graze upon the wrinkles of the ocean do I realize its depth. The hidden mountains that lie still under its covers conceal valleys of life that stir and slumber simultaneously. Even the strongest caresses cannot reach the crevices where darker, more beautiful, secrets lie quietly. Whether in sleep or in sun, those secrets lie for the brave. Perhaps I am not brave enough, but I am persistent, and try.
These golden fingers smooth out the wrinkles creating new ones in its wake, turning the world over with perpetual waves. Crossing the soft sea to solid land, the soft photon fingers run gently through the fields of flowers, tickling each of them with sunshine. Dancing awake at the slight stimulation, they sway with the winds carelessly. Gilded meadows become thick brush and tree. The ashy wood is rejuvenated and given second life. Pockets of light pick through the forests, and a quiet intrepid peace eases the dream drunk creatures to witness dawn.
In these moments, where the potential for power and the pursuit of peace lie passively, I am at ease. In these moments where the easy warmth wakes the weary world, I find a calm drowsy daze. In these moments, these in between times, do I love you most; do I love you best.The virgin soil untouched by intrepid adventurers, beast or bark, quivers expectantly. The clouds swell gracefully over deserts and peaks awaiting release. Life faces death, teasing each other in their play for pawns.
Even as I tickle you gently with kisses and fingers and breath, i know your darkest self. In the dark shadows created by the rising dawn, I find a fearful curiosity of what those spaces hold. Light never stands still for very long and those secrets will reveal themselves in time. But the potential for those secrets, that's boundless and infinite as the power of the sun.
If only every angle of you could be illuminated, then I could appreciate your whole radiance. The potential for each seedling and each sprout and each tree,clinging to the soil is realized in this moment. No matter what the day holds,and what power and destruction lie in its path, the potential is unbound by the finality of each action done unto it. Even as you turn and the sea rolls with you, no potential is greater than the roots that have yet to grow and the land that has yet to be touched. In the sunrise, where I cradle you, you are all the possibilities that sleep in the soil, all secrets that lie in the sea, and all life that stirs in this warmth. I don't know what the full day holds, nor do I care.
All places between ravenous sea and boundless sky, finite earth and shapeless water, is where I find more reasons to stir and love you more.
No one loves the sunset the way I love the sunrise.
I was fine(d).
Fine: a bold faced lie through a bared-teeth smile; a deflection of the questions from prying minds; an acknowledgment of scales balanced just right.
Fine is a damnable word. Everything is fine when we fly through the city nights, watching the streets transform into tarmacs before our eyes. Everything is fine when we conceal our wounds on the world's stage, hoping to play the part well, but not well enough. Everything is fine when we see both here and there, and slowly realize that this goes no where.
We paid the fine for speeding through the nights, the blue lights reflecting in our love-drunk eyes. The moments finally cornered us, full forced and strong. We surrendered and it beat us, wanting to win more than we wanted to lose. Surrounded, we were forced to look these moments in the eyes and acknowledge that there was no where to hide.
Fine pays itself in the seconds that it's said. It is the price for the wonderfully wounded and the recklessly resilient.
We were fine(d), but we won't be anymore.
Almost, but not quite.
That's what you say to a child who's an inch shy of 48. Denying him the fear and exhilaration that the roller coaster can bring is safe and sorrowful. Restrict him by the threshold and he'll never know the thrill. Let him ride and fear may seize him forever.
Fortunately, you don't need to make the choice. We already know he isn't ready now. We have paper rules and uncrossed lines to tell us so. He isn't ready now, and all he needs is time. One day, he will be ready to choose what it is he wants, so let us hope he chooses well.
We stand here at the cusp, not as lucky. We're not shy of 48 seconds, minutes, hours, days? Time is ours for the taking, with an amount undefined. Not counting down the moments, but counting up the time. Excuses don't exist when we make the rules. But even the rules don't say where to cross the lines, especially when the end is undefined.
What do you do then if you don't exactly know the end? If you're asking if it's almost, but always knowing it's not quite?
Even on the darkest nights, the lean light fingers tickle her face. The moon beams, trickling to the sea, quietly manipulating the secondhand sun. No matter how far he is from her, he's always searching for her, chasing after her, reaching for her. Sometimes she's a little coy and hides behind the earth, shyly out of view. He always finds her and for that, she could not be more delighted.
On her darker days, she turns away from him. Hiding in shame's shadow, she keeps herself from turning back. The sun reaches with warm rays, patiently comforting her until she was ready. It was never easy, comforting her. She was as cold as he was unrelenting, and he would wait until she returned to him… Yet.
Sometimes the moon would hide so fully behind the earth that the sun could not reach or see her. The sun would never see the moon's heart raw, as the earth always blocked the view. We could only watch the crimson break bleed, as we were too far to reach or even stay. Perhaps it was better this way; what would happen when the sun breaks?
They played through the cycle endlessly, and never tired and never strayed. There was never a question of what they could endure, but what would happen if the eclipse had stayed?