Tuesday, May 19, 2015

lady di.

We were on the patio that warm night
I can still smell it
The rich foods fading as the kitchen closed down for the night
The temperature falling, but not too much…
Spring was giving way to summer
I was glowing
Much like the red awning with all of the lights beneath
I was in love.
Madly
Deeply
Something stunning.
Something came alive in me
The stars had “aligned”
It was my turn
The sketches of dreams now filled in
I could see him
My gorgeous man
Becoming…
And I gave him that room
That grace to become
And I bloomed in the reciprocity
I was his.
It was beautiful and I glowed in it.
I never was moved by southern city names,
But it was all made right in Memphis.
Though it all began much earlier for me.
That night, I was floating.
I felt like I’d won the lottery of love.
The dreamy boy in school picked me!
That night, she approached me… meeting my smile
Happy for me, and I was surprised.
I knew we got along, but didn’t realize I meant much to her
It’s a sentiment echoed throughout much of my life, if I’m honest
But that’s another story for another time.
I was waiting with friends for him to clock out…
And she walked over to me as I sat at that black high patio table
I remember the grates and the feel of the chair beneath me
I remember her heels as she moved closer to me
Such a beautiful lady, she was.
She spoke to me with an air of authority that stilled me
She said, “he better treat you like a queen, and don’t you dare ever settle for less”
I remember that I stopped breathing for a second.
Hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it?
You see it all so clearly…
Not how it felt, or the heaviness of the door, or how familiar the place had become
Not the table numbers or the drinks or the faces of regulars
Or the playlist on heavy rotation… what game was on
What time it was…
But every feeling filling in the details with color
And the fact that I still saw myself as a girl of the cinders
Waiting to be discovered by a prince
Waiting to become a princess

When all the while I was a queen.

Saturday, May 16, 2015

un...found

Find me
Infuriated
Full of light and fury
Full of dark and hurry
Full of angst and worry
Anxious in a still still room
On a bed
Unslept
Held only by walls I painted
Tucked in some lonesome corner of the county
Wrapped up in shrouds of beauty
Most of them would curse it
Most of them would lay down and die
It.
The heavy weight of being cast off.
The moment you wake to realize you are no longer…
The love of anyone’s life.
The highest priority…
The deepest heartbeat
The most beautiful
The apple of their dark eyes
The motivating factor
The color in the sky…
The light… the light that makes them move…
You’ve been unraveled
Unwoven
Unloved.
Undone.
And ushered by your lover into the very jaws of hell…
And left
To drink the seas of loneliness down…
The pale ring on the finger of your left hand…
The diamond lost.
Now, wrapped up in excuses and justifications
And the passing off of blame
Heavy on your shoulders
Heavy on your head
Heavy on your furrowed brow
Heavy on your mind
Always on your mind
Haunted…
Silent and haunted.
Feeling breathless
Burning lungs
Cracked lips
A prayer ever on my lips…
Unuttered words
And lost affection
Stolen affection
And the red marks of lies like welts to the face.
And so in this brokenness… I wait.
Wait in the feeling
Wait in the knowing
Wait until I’m healed
Wait until I’m found

Find me…

the madness. [prelude]


There are the blues.
There are the mean reds.
And then there is the madness.
You cannot choose it.
It’s like an illness of providence.
Not mad in the sense of being a harm to yourself or others…
Not mad in the sense of creating your own reality…
But mad in the sense of being able, or rather willing to sit in the ache.
To find words to explain the feelings.
The highest of the highs…
The lowest of despondent lows…
And giving meaning and depth… making a song out of the rhythm of the every day.
Because it isn’t always these tiresome waves…
Waves of jubilee.
Waves of sadness.
Sadness.
That word just seems so mild.
When what you mean is something so incredibly cold that it burns…
And bones ache
Delirious with the feeling.
Every breath is agony.
But there’s this mark that your eyes are fixed on…
This deep intent to survive it.
To be still in the chaos… not to be part of it, or to allow it to become you…
Not to overpower it with anger.
But breathe through it slowly like labor pains…
Engulfing.
Trusting that there is something miraculous on the other side.
Trusting that you’ll be carried to the shore,
And find your feet again
Again
Again.
Again.
And so you sing your way through it
You give the pain a sound
You harmonize with the wailing
To make some beauty of the dark.
The madness…
Is my being thrown against the blackness of the sky
Being buried in the grief of midnight
And letting it crush me until I become a diamond
And my pain explodes into a hundred stars
To guide some weary eyes to a new dawn of hope.
It is hope singing in the middle of the night.
And so here I am.
It has eluded me.
I have run and run and run til I can run no more.
Put the day to bed…

And let me sing again.