Laughing

The splash of bells on glass – I look up in time to see the steam rising from your shoulders as you step in from the driving rain.
I comment on how free you look when your make-up is running in lines down your face and laughter is curling at the corners of your mouth.
~
Why, in crowds, are we always trying to hide the life that is bursting forth from inside of us?
Sometimes I find myself singing aloud when riding a bus full of strangers. Sometimes I laugh when I see the frozen expressions on the faces of those I walk by… of course, that only causes them to freeze up all the more. No, I’m not laughing at you, I think you’re beautiful, honestly, I do. Come alive, come alive!
Why should our hearts not dance?
In laughter or in grief.
Why should our hearts not be revealed?
Why are we so eager to maintain some semblance of apathetic anonymity? I guess when we’re anonymous we can delude ourselves into believing that others have bought into the image we present, we can fool ourselves into thinking we have convinced others that we are everything we pretend to be but know we are not.
How much of our lives do we waste crafting a world of illusion around ourselves?
~
This tobacco tastes like cherries and I realize I haven’t heard a word you said. You start again but, just as quickly, I am lost. Not that it matters, it is enough for both of us that we are here together.

Of Cakes and Candles and Coincidental Gifts

And these feelings – when they’re stirred – are not substantial.
A lingering emptiness long unnoticed is recalled.
It’s not a presence that reminds me of what I had.
It’s an absence that reminds me of what I lost.
Of her, of I, of us together.
If I’m honest I would say that I still love her.
(Though as time passes I think less and less with those words.)
Like a wound that heals slowly and imperfectly
It becomes routine and I am ever surprised
To discover that I’m still limping.
Now I know her faults and all the ways she wronged me.
But still… I know the way she smiled in the morning,
And I know she meant – even for that moment only –
The words she spoke as she pulled me down beside her.
The firelight dancing on her skin.

A Tenderness Recalled

It’s funny the things that I end up missing the most.
It’s funny how there’s really no way to describe those memories.
A scent, a movement, a look in her eyes. That feeling of unveiled joy, of intimacy, of knowing and being known.
A gentle caress, a luxurious resting, an embrace shared in the first waking moments when the sheets are warm and the air is cool. Half awake but mostly sleeping, a subtle shift of her shoulders and hips bringing me closer to her.
There are no words for such moments. There was a childlikeness, an innocence, an uninhibited playfulness at those times. A complete loss of self-consciousness, only the awareness of loving and being loved.
The moments of tenderness are the moments I have come to treasure more than the moments of passion.

Her

Her body’s like a prison
that’s locked-up from the inside,
but always open to those
outside.
They choose to come, and then go –
but she still has no way out.
It’s a partner that she can
hardly recognize. Although
strangers never cease to look
at her,
as if they somehow know her –
like it`s inevitable.
Like they see the things she hides
from the image she reflects.
Like hot water over glass,
Or wind
that moves over still water –
Only the heat is stifling.
And the wind is biting.