This churning won't rest. There are no changing tides, it's always a beautiful full moon. It's so much deeper than surface changes, which wax and wane always, this is something entirely its own, unique in the truest sense. Gears are turning in me that have never worked, or were newly birthed. I'm like a toddler with a new toy, curious and so eager. Gently exploring; fingering every nook, every bend and button, twisting all the knobs and tugging all the ropes.

Over and over and over, how many times can we twirl until the dizziness wins?

It seems like the two of us are the only ones completely ready and willing to lay this thing to sleep. The rest of our life is attached to itself, to the image and the thought of what we pretended we always were.

--

I haven't sat in any sickening still sadness, I haven't retraced any of my old routes. I haven't needed any of my old safe guards, no distractions, no hiding places. I fall straight to sleep and I wake up rested, unworried, ready. I haven't felt a pit stirring in weeks, I think some may have even gotten lost in the shuffle. It's been spring cleaning and shedding and an abundance of soft growing things and smiles. I've got a new compass and a steady guide and together we're charting a course and the conditions are clear.

I'm trying to be cautious, I swear it's true. But all I could come up with is a silent prayer, a lifting from my core to all that's above, and the tone is always thankful, hopeful, desirous, asking; hoping that's enough. I have my usual safety nets in place from before but by now they wouldn't hold the weight of this, everything is everything.

And how is it every time things start to fall apart again, before you even know I need you, you find ways to save my days?

I heard what you said, I've said it to myself and all the other voices of reason have said it in turn.
Be careful, be mindful, be watchful. Be careful careful careful.

I hear, I absorb, I agree and I repeat. Those words stay somewhere on the outskirts of the pools in my heart, whose depths are doubling and tripling each and every time you smile, or your hand touches mine. My mind has a BE CAREFUL banner on display, at every entrance and every exit. The worker ants who live up there and sort and tunnel and connect and move all the feelings into thoughts, all the thoughts into actions, they've all got on BE CAREFUL jerseys, BE CAREFUL baseball caps. But as for me? I'm in that fog right now, the perfect moments of stillness. It isn't clearing or thinning and under that veil I can dance and no one but you sees, no one but you knows where to find me. I can sing out and you'll come, I can even whisper with confidence that this fog doesn't distort or cover, it carries. My hands have memories all their own and each feels naked on their own.. lonely. The rest of my body is a perfectly paved roadway, every turn and rest stop carefully marked in a language I know you alone can read. Just how I want it to be.

And all the other things fade away when you come through the door. There's no room for memory or heartache or the distances that exist or the other things that have been a weight dragging me along the ocean floor. It's like a balloon being set free from a terrible child's grasp, soaring, finally. Tickled by the air and riding the currents, sharing great altitudes with the birds.

Even still my realism is on the forefront of every single thing I do. It's always before my eyes like a parallel universe and through each situation I can see the alternate sides, the what if's. What's missing though is the pessimism, the dreadful waiting I usually do, knowing it's all falling apart at any moment, feeling that I'm riding the river in complete darkness and the falls are just ahead and the roaring tells me I will fall, I will fall. With you I'm not preparing for the fall, I still know somewhere along the river will be rocks and rapids but it's okay.

Somehow it's nothing but okay.

I didn't know my heart could race that way.
As scared as I'm not, I'm about a thousand times more terrified than I've probably ever been.
But it's not horror-movie-terror, it's not world-disaster-terror.
It's the most amazing kind of terror, that makes your knees weak,
it's exciting and mystifying and terrible and the best thing that's happened in a long time.

I can't sort it and label it like with other feelings, it's too soon.
There's still so much to shed, so many things standing in the way.
What were roadblocks are more like a cement fortress and standing beside I am so tiny.
When I've ever felt large, I can't say when or why but I know it's existed in me before, this makes me shiver from the inside out.
Somehow it doesn't seem impossible, even still. I think that comes from you.

If you can keep this up, I can wind my springs and just maybe we'll get out of this.

It really is so much easier to forget when you're busy with something else to start trying to remember.

Sometimes when my feelings are hurting and someone is talking to me and I'm supposed to be talking back instead my eyes wander and I read things, any things conveniently readable and close by so I don't have to squint and I bounce in and out but with you, I'm really trying to stay focused on one line at a time.

birthday...happy...

This is hard. This is so so hard.
It was never supposed to end up like this, remember?
Remember when you said no matter what, no matter what...
I can't say this beautifully because I can't even say it at all. Inside or outside, written or spoken.

All the weights I've been lifting so delicately and tragically, they all found a way back this morning the minute my eyes opened.

that song wasn't about you.

Last night I dreamt that I made us a meal and you came in and snuck up behind me to put your hands right above my hip bones on either side and then you took down my hair and scooped it all in one hand, twisted it round once or twice to tuck it over one shoulder and kiss my neck. You rested your chin above my collar bone and spoke softly. All I did was grin from ear to ear.

I think my most despised word right now is family.
Filling out forms and checking little squares and feeling like I'm lying.
It's a sick sort of wishful thinking, it's a torturous game of pretend except am I the only one who is still trying (or willing) to play?
It's tiring, where there should be a safe haven, a cave to rest in during the storm, there are other terrors lurking in the darkness.
The waters that should be shallow and calm are black as tar and have extended their depths and what lies waiting is only more of the unknown.

I'm ready to let go, cut my ties and open the cage and spread my wings and leave this place for you.
You can have it all.

It's time to let go, but I'm still only pretty sure.

keep on

I can't hold on and wait for some life that's never going to happen.
I want to live the life I dream of now, without you or with you.

If you keep on killing you could get me to settle and as soon as I settle I bet I'll be able to move on.

I want to say time has sped up, but I'm too old and already know everything is just as it was ticking right on time and it's only me that's off. For a time I was sure quicksand surrounded me and pulled me down but I've only sunk so far, and now I see it's cement and I'm stuck right where I've been. It doesn't seem too stiff or too set on itself yet, I'm just tired and pulling out is.. and really you're the hurricane. If only you would cease for a time, if only some weatherman would move you along down the coast and I could sleep to regain some of my life.


I've been practicing what to tell them about love.

All I wanted to say is it's okay to let me go.

I know what I need to do, there are certain conclusions that can be drawn whenever I'm ready to draw them. Others are lost in the frey, they may never come to fruition, they may never realize their own potential and this unrest could last for the rest of time. But I am learning myself and my limits and how far I can be pushed and pulled, how elastic I can be, how much I can let this hurt. But there are some filling the spaces, volunteering themselves to me and we smile and we laugh and it helps me remember I can stop this at any time. I can reach the finish line at your pace or mine. I can make a pro-con list and place things in a proverbial scale and assume the weight of what would be lost, what could be gained. I'm learning your tricks and what skills are required to partition this head and this heart. I want to keep certain things isolated, segregated and locked in pens and not allow the colors to bleed together, as easy as it would be to blame one on the other I know it would blur my vision and I'd lose the path I've chosen. And that's just it, I know what I need to do, which way to walk, it's a matter of not getting distracted along the way; it's a matter of how fast or how slow. Something will come from this, something new or something renewed, but I know nothing will ever be what it was and that is a good thing. It's tricky being durable and flexible; bending but resolute.

If you ask me how I'm doing, how things are going, I'd probably say okay. Not too bad. So-so.

If I'm being completely honest, I'm terrified. My heart is not mending, the pain is at a standstill but it's bought a one-way ticket for the deepest, most remote parts of my heart, where I can no longer visit. The things that used to live there were so delicate and I'm afraid they've been devastated in the shuffle. I can no longer find them anywhere in me. I've been planning and coaxing myself to try and weasel my way in to where they might be, but in the end I am more destitute when nothing happens. I have been on the cusp, of writing, of creating, of opening up my insides and letting those things fly out. I thought they were speaking to me, calling to me like omens, like dreams, giving me instructions, directions; X marks the spot. Find us, we need you, need to be found, we're fading and you must bring us back.

That's not even the only thing. As many things as I can build up, twice as many crumble behind my back, as soon as I turn to face another direction everything falls to pieces. As I gather the pieces and coat them in glue and lay them out like a puzzle and tear at my eyes to see the fault lines the lights will go out. And if I light a candle the glue has dried. And if I coat them again in glue I find the pieces have rearranged themselves and some have run off.

Is this the meaning of faith?

I'm finally riding the surface of the storm, the waves are still churning and the sky is wild and my legs are shaking, knees weak, but my heart is finally behaving. At least more so than any recent times. Living and beating, but still, no longer faltering, no more shattering. There's no more time allotted for that. I can finally not look, and if I do peek nothing can be so devastating anymore. I know how the currents work, I've been out on rough seas more times than your hearts have changed course. Regardless of what we do, we are not in control of which way things flow, there are much greater forces at work, hearts and minds dull with time and everything can always be broken. The things that remain will bring us to our ends, whichever shores we need and need us most.