Skipping Beats

I don't think you will ever understand. What it's like to look at you. To realize I have been holding my breath and to find myself surprised at the unconscious reaction. With you, I always want more. Of whatever you can give, whatever you have for me. I find myself needing so much of you that it fills me inside til I am bursting with needs. I look at you and I feel love. Not earth-shattering heartbreaking, but mind-numbing, bursting, enveloping. Can I compare? Where do I start measuring? With you, I am simply amazed. A tendency to lose myself in you brings me to pause. Can I survive the chance of loss? Can I even help myself? Silly questions. With you, I am alive.

Hello

There I go again, chasing after the past. Just a tiny crack and I slip through. If the world were in shades of grey, it would remind me of you. Like postcards or film shots; things in the past. Better left uncovered or buried deeper yet. But in slipping, I wonder: do you remember me still? how are you? what goes on now in that racy mind of yours? .. the fascination is not as strong..slow and soft now, but nonetheless, there.

Love and

I look at your picture. I wonder if I remember enough. Did those hands really hold mine for a time? It seemed so brief and yet so indefinite; like seconds in slow motion. I look again, more closely. Did those lips really touch mine? Were you able to command so much from me at one point in time? How can I forget? How can you seem like such the stranger that you are now? I see different faces with you. And yet, somehow, you belong there. Without me.

*To the good times in the past. Let's forget the bad.

Shattering

There are things that break that don't make a sound; and in breaking, I find myself losing the things I thought I've found. In the silence that follows, I am transported into a dozen places all at once. Taken to memories I hardly remember. Breathing even, even as I find it hard to breathe. You don't say a word. I dare say nothing. And the shattering continues.

April Fall

It struck me how far apart we are now.. how our lives have lost almost all connections, but how just seeing your face takes me memories back. Your face is still the same, perhaps older, decidedly wiser, and etched with a certain sadness I didn't quite notice at first and I can't quite name. I wonder what your thoughts are like now. I used to ask you insensible questions about it and you'd laugh. That was so long ago, wasn't it? I have not even remembered until I stared at your face again. Your certain sadness is spreading on to me like the fall of dusk on a street--too slow to notice, but before one knows it, it's already dark. The sadness envelopes me as I scan your face. The old lines are there, more new ones too, and yet I cannot quite ignore how familiar the curve of your mouth looks, or how I used to love the way your face crinkles when you smile. I do not love you anymore. That came to me in an immediate flash. But HOW I loved you. That came in heavy, bearing implications I cannot afford. Not anymore.

MATTHEW

In your hand you hold my life;
And every shadow in my darkness remains at bay.
You are every breath,
every fighting hope, and
every tiny triumph in between.
You are both purpose and belief.
My only miracle.
My saving grace.



-August 24 2005

Hold On

take my hand
i will hold you down
you with your gentle eyes
i have felt your broken smile
and now i hold your pain
clench it in my hands
till you can let it go
i will hold you down
till your world spins on its own
again

*To one of the best friends that i've ever had; for making life easier to hold on to: let me hold you down.