454

this week has been different, a strain on the body when my soul has been so free..  having a relationship with prescriptions is not at all my idea of health and wellness, so around 9pm, i broke up with my medicine..   after dryheaving until around 6pm, several attempts to soothe myself by taking hot showers, an amazing mom who is nursing me at the beach house, finally around 9pm, fever broke.   stomach is still a bit queasy, head is still headacheish, but i’m looking forward to clear thoughts, feeling great and being able to work 10 hour days again.

453

written via Siri 1/13/2012  while driving through the mountains of eastern Tennessee

I am piecemeal. these are the random of thoughts, not a prettily spoken or fluid motion, no, this is a puzzle of words just spoken while taking it all in..  

It’s almost Wonderland.  Almost.  The sky is cloudy with hints of blue clouds, gray overall.   26° and the temperature is dropping quick on this mountain. Bridges and roads are covered in this great song to set to, feels like my heart is too.  There’s snow on the mountains, ice stripping down the rock and there was a waterfall frozen mid flow, day it’s amazing how beautiful scenery can be. 

And as darkness slowly creeps in, the light disappears on the horizon- I can’t help but feel so quiet, still, an anonomyous  passerby, and unknown in the city, and I’m an unidentified stranger on the highway. I feel like I could scream and yell and honk my horn and no one would look, but that’s okay I feel like there’s some type of solitude be it within myself.  So many of my days spent loud vibrant, I’m winterthese days, it’s nice and refreshing to have beauty within were the sunshine is exuded from my soul when missing from the sky.  

It really is beautiful out here, trees bow down to make way to winter snow and ice. You adorn the trees in the land with winter frost.   Other trees still semifrozen the chips of bury lens on covered in snow and icecicles as though this were a movie, a still photograph, a breathtaking picture of God’s creation.

452

Fact is, I could light you like a cigarette, set fire to the tip of you, let some oxygen fuel the burn, breathe you in, that nicotine rush, fill the room with your smoke. You’ll stain me with your smell, even hours and days after I’ve put you out and I won’t be rid of you yet, there is a whole pack of you left.
the road In front of my house bends and curves right after it goes under the bridge that has spray paint traces and decades of rust underneath the ivy that clings to the concrete and metal like it is it’s mother. But this road takes a curve in my direction, though cars turn once more, there is a point when cars are directed right towards me, fourty-five miles and hour right towards me, but they always turn and bend with the road before them, but I wait on that one car, the one who will cross over the curb, take out the trees and mailbox, stop short of my porch landing them in the shrubs and over the cobblestone path, opening up the door, walking up the steps and letting the contents of our hearts spill onto ground as though it was a waterfall that could actually contain liquid love. And when I actually see him, you, you will be everything I have imagined and yet a total surprise. Though a thousand years overdue, you’ll have been here, attached to my soul like we shared it since before we were ever on the earth, hands, eyes and mouth all familiar, back, neck and feet all memories from before we’ve created them..
I need you today, your words that calm me down when I’m so mad I shake, when my defenses are a crumbled wall, a result of battle and the arrows that scar my tower walls..
Until I can inhale you..

451

you’ve haunted me today, weaved through my thoughts like a bird in flight- never quite landing on a word, proper noun or adjective, only circling the room with your feathers propelling your motion around me, nesting not in my thoughts, but instead on my heart..  you’re beauty within the pages i’ve avoided and i’ve waited only a portion of the moments you’ve waited on me.    it seems you’ve bonded my soul and spirit to what is eternal and glorious within you and you’ve left a bit of your Holy within me. 

how precious it is that you hear me and listen..

450

walls come down, like jericho has been danced around, walls are down.  my heart is open for those who pillage, but you guard me, still.  an Ancient Tower clothed in stone and iron, a place that feels cold, dark, violent until your arms bend bare and it’s warm, quiet and still within me though wind blows like my coastal hurricanes that batter the ships within our sea, protecting my wide open heart, protecting me.  You’re the new within my breathing, the aged within my soul, and now the transitions within these seasons are like a ‘han’ deep, deep and deeper and pulling me in and out of the currents like a tease that affects the emotions yet i’m steady and free with wildness setting me ablaze.  how curious it felt, this newfound trait, i was ashamed of it at first, like it was traces of red rebellion, but its vibrancy is the color of Your eyes and i get them from you, i’m the very image of you.    let this fire run free in me.

449

the air over my chest feels heavy tonight, like weight on the lungs, i’m waiting on the salt air to rid me of this congestion like i am waiting on the tides to come in.  i’ve been slowed down this week, stagnant like a pond, wishing to flow like a stream.   thoughts all out of order, writers block and stomach in knots..

448 room 202

this hotel room is dark, though the paint is kindof fresh. i’ve got james blake singing me some beauty in the form of songs while the cold air is warmed from the opposite side of the room.

i’ve been tempted to go downstairs to the bar, but figure i’ll just go to bed instead.  work has drowned my time with regret and the remainder of this 15 hour day with the type of ache in the breath that you get from choosing some things over others while knowing the consequences while doing so.. but i played with fire during the days in the water, so my hands, not quite burned, are sensitive to the touch of anything besides ice..
the sea was filled with the salt that circles the rim of beverages we all like to lose ourselves in. but i never tasted these thoughts on your mouth, no, i withheld myself from that.  i’m selfish for one, jealous for one, careless for him that i’ve not yet met. and he is somewhere else, i imagine a city with more skyscrapers than waves, more wind than breeze, more concrete than trees and he’s there- always there, never here..

447

You’re like the air on the beach, from another place but making your home on my shores, stirring up sand and hearts.. You’ve gotten under my skin and into my thoughts like salt in the veins, lips and lungs.
I never asked for your aftertaste to permeate my soul, like wine on the mouth and sweat on the skin, you’re leaving frost on my heart.
It’s a game I’m not equipped to play, but we’re waist deep in this beauty and waste..

446

you weave in and out me, like traffic on 17s, the way the lanes shift and bend yet lie within a few miles of the shore the entire drive home.  i feel like a bird in flight meandering on this route, slow enough to be on the street..

my heart is on fire, yet grief for the self sabotaging ways i can’t seem to deviate from.

 

445

tonight is not that quiet, imbetween things to do and people to see, but sometimes you need solitude and a few moments to exhale. 
though there was much laughter and adventure within this day, keeping me out until after 1am, my favorite moments of it were the still ones, when i was in my favorite spot, quiet, and listening to the roar of waves yet still, small and silent within myself.

444

it started two nights ago, feeling those feelings among the bottom of the trees, like i was rooted there with them but feeling like i was nested where the birds are, allowing thoughts to tangle me in the branches.  how they stretched and arched to unite though those meyers park streets separated them a hundred feet below perfectly.   a road named east and remnants of lingering conversations beneath dark green umbrellas are years old but seem fresh in this mid-november wind and under these rain clouds..  the clouds were hazy that night, they hid the tops of skyscrapers from my view and let everything be secretive and oh so mysterious.  
it continued yesterday with writers block and the emotional vacancy becoming the polar opposite of the overwhelm, how quickly i chose to forget such things and yet how quickly they surface.    i’ve searched for traces of myself within the little things i can access of you, but it seems i am gone from there.  i have all but disappeared from your words, as beautiful as they are. 
even then, i was sitting on a concrete step, half a decade ago, listening to those words on the other end of the line, but even now-even now, it is good to know when to hang up, what to bury within the ground and when to forget.

443

whomever you are, wherever you may be, whether under this autumn moon and in near mountain breezes, or in a salty wind with nightfall bringing deep and dark curtains across the horizon, i hope you are warmed.

…and that you have an amazing soundtrack playing for only you

442

it’s a never ending love for these colors. never ending vibrancy that actually does end, and too soon. by the time then end of autumn arrives, it is starkly winter and we are too bundled for far too long. but i love winter. i always have. and where my numb hands and feet desire spring, my heart loves the dormancy that is this slow dance with november winds..

441

today has felt as though you were here, like i was living my life beside you.  you, a transparent other beside me.  like our closeness was not requiring words or conversation, no, we were past all of that with just our souls needing only the other in the same room.

it was a beautiful day..   once dawn settled in and the room lost everything golden and the light changed to a pewtery, deeper shade of silver.  i kept recalling st. john of the cross when he referred to ‘silvered o’er faces’ and wondered if everything in that time was happening in the midst of the fall/winter transition and it was in the perfect moment of day when the sun is setting and the world outside of these walls is fitting everything in to be home before dark..  these are my moments, the ones where the busyness out there is only felt when peering through my window panes, dingy and old as they are.    for the tranquility of my home is fueled on candlelight and serenades and an eternal satisfaction in knowing that one day, one precious yet distant day, we will be sharing the same space and air.

440

after a lovely few days of company in town, i find that i am not productive when stalled in my own environment.  my habits are sure and when temporarily changed for accomodation of different, i lose focus and momentum and take a few days to find it.  my new rule is:  no house guests during the week unless they are occupied during my work hours..

 

439

it’s like i’m lighting candles for you. in the midst of this day when i’m at my window working, cars drive by covered in rain drops and splashing through puddles as they go. then, there will be a brief moment, sometimes only seconds where there are no cars, no consistent passing by and it will get quiet, solemnly quiet where you actually hear rain drops landing on streets and sidewalks and occasionally, my window pane. it is on this morning where there is a realization that it is no longer summer, on this third day of november, through the dark clouds that stir above this mountain town, the trees are the most colorful and wearing their autumn shades nicely; i am most content within this old victorian, shotgun house where the wood creeks and the windows don’t keep the cold out or the heat in, let alone the noise. but like these moments of imbetween cars and events and travel and when there is a hush that escorts rain drops to land within your earshot, these moments are perfect for being grateful for the way everything is.. two months left in 2011, i don’t want to lose this year, this has been the best year of my life. i can only imagine 2012.

438

i find solace in you, you words on the pages i flip through and devour when the story sweeps me into another world, when i find that trace of remembrance of missingness for an other that wrote something so pleasant and melodic on the tongue so long ago that was meant for me.  and again when i replay scenes like a movie reel from almost 10 years ago when the air lingered of coffee and there were words in the form of lattes and hot tea.   it is there when i sink into the depth of psalms, proverbs and matthew, mark and luke where there are words in black, white and the strongest of reds.   there are words that are in me, sitting on the edge of the tidal wave-beating against my armored walls, waiting to explode and cross the sea and shake houses and forests when they cause their quake..  if only i knew how to set them free.

437

what was hidden away on the 28th of october in some email draft for a later thought on a later date:

Its like you were there, cloud cover and mystery between the ever present sunset.

I haven’t forgotten you, this heart searches my hands and feet  to maybe feel you in the places I go, things I touch, but this land doesn’t hold enough of you, the fault is mine.   I can bring you in beside me, abruptly invading the atmosphere.   .. Too late have I found that I want you more than anyone else.  There Is no person known that I can name that my soul craves.  Yet you are in the thoughts and present in the cavities and recesses of the mind.

436

i’ve circled here before. the place between free and bound and clear and murky waters.  you’re like a triumph to my failures and i love you for it.

435

a perfect autumn evening, mid-October chill when the air is crisp and you smell last night’s bonfire still lingering in the air.  a stray dog walks down wedgewood finding the scents of others while cars drive by surpassing the speed limit becaus there is somewhere important they must be.   but my front porch is lonely, 2 candles and one blanket remind me of the warmth i’ve so grown fond of over the hot, hot summer.  the painted wood bends and curls with the weathered effects of age, water damage and those who have paced this floor for miles, there is something heavy in the air tonight and my heart may need to pace these boards some more. 
traffic slows with the need for a turn lane, disappearing as quickly as it came, like waves there is the sound and rythyms that leave patterns, cars pass by, then they pass by again until all is quiet, then more come.

the tennessee air is growing on me, i’m growing fond of a city i probably shouldnt become attached to, this happens every time though, i fall head over heels with the architecture and pace of the city, move just as i find my rythym there and continue the cycle of moving boxes until my heart grows attached to the next whirlwind of a location, within a state, which all feel the same with their nuances, cultural habits and the lovely people that you could easily become like family with.   but, there is distance between me and all of them as though my heart knows its’ bounds and what it can and can’t endure, the attachments, like romance cause missingness and then i find myself wishing to live in every city at once.. 

today was beautiful, a long morning in pajamas and that sleepy aftermath that stays on your skin, hair and mouth until you’re fully awake and moving.. visited an on farm market for produce, stealing up the last of the season before the frosts come.  i keep sitting on the edge of my seat though, waiting for something spectacular to happen, but this city has once seen my heart alive in winter where fireworks lit my soul, i understand if it doesn’t happen twice, besides, it’s still 2011, next year will take my breath away..  or so i’m told.

434

it rained today, moved my heart it did, it rained the way it does on the nights like winter. it was cold and the rain fell soft on our shoulders and hands and through my clothes, onto my skin. it was beauty within liquid form. i felt you in it though, like i was your lighthouse wishing you in from sea, a beacon asking you to find me; but you’re not here, you’re there, wherever you are and i’ve made memories of my own tonight.
a friend joined me on my porch swing, under heated blankets and giggling over red wine, we laughed and talked loudly, losing feeling of hands and our faces until we fell asleep.
but dear, tonight the dream came heavy, this house haunts me in the hours that transition from late to early and my sleep is rarely full. the dreams are varied and intense and nothing short of the kind that wake me entirely, so i generally roam or write or read for an hour or two until my heart beats normal and my chest rises and falls like a rythym i’ll one day share with you. i dont know why these nights stir me from slumber, dont know if the house or the spirit in me is not at rest, but i would have liked you beside me tonight..

433

it is the most grande thing to wake up to your mercies, be lured into the everlasting hope that brims on the surface like the impending boil to water over flame.. when my mind is overwhelmed and all kinds of despondant, this heart seems to grab hold of a that fabric sewn into a garment holding the power to heal every disease and it does not want to let go.  there has always been the place in me that is fully yours, fully fallen, but fully longing, i’ve enjoyed seeing the match meet the flame and how i seem to come alive when i’m in you..

tonight the moon is bright and yellow in the middle of a dark cobalt sky, this is the first time in almost a month that i’ve been home, in tennessee, enjoying my front porch swing and how it is finally time for blankets out here.  the candles do little for warmth of the skin or bringing light, but they warm the heart nonetheless.  this hot tea is the perfect temperature to keep me smitten and i’ve realized breaking down to buy slippers was the best decision i made last week.    while i adjust back to the laziness of being in the central time zone, i cant help but be the most overwhelmingly point of brokenly grateful for everything.  the entirety of my being seems to be the most fortunately happy one can possibly be.    

it’s like fingertips covered in paint have danced all along the world today and left artwork in every dark corner.  overshadow me with your colors tonight..

432

you’re good and perfect- something holy on a throne of my birthstones and with the best of thoughts still higher than mine.  when you see all and the best in me, when you know all and still love me; when there is a goodness like a diamond in the rough.

431-transformation

 

these minutes go by like the breeze used to rush against me while on the shoreline, waves would hit the packed sand but wind would also leave its’ mark.  low lying breeze strong as the jet stream hurled up onto the rise in the soil and nowhere to land but on our skin like a kiss between two long distant loves in the airport that i both love and hate walking by.  it’s hard to explain this season, complete contentment and joy from things i’ve never been able to take joy in, but also asking questions into google as though it was sovereign and all knowing- brimming over with answers like it was a fountain, such a perfect flowing.. 

this heart continues to overflow and take it all in, savouring these days when it is both cold and warm and undecided of the season, just like this life is.   i guess the key is not to push the change which moves so gradual and takes each moment necessary to do so, but to enjoy the warmth and cozy up into the cold when the temperature drops..

<3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4_T8QNjUaY&feature=mr_meh&list=WLFAA7805E13697F7C&lf=mh_lolz&playnext=0

430

these days are whirlwinds of 14 hour work days and new markets and transitions and airplanes, rental cars and hotel rooms. i don’t mind it that much, as long as there is wireless so i dont get behind. even this morning was a rush, rush, RUSH, to complete everything, now a wait, wait, WAIT. but my first cup of coffee for the day is in order, a soundtrack to distract the mind into something other than stress.
i’m pretty fortunate to be spending over 2 weeks in my piedmont, i’ll be getting a few days by my ocean in that time, see good friends that nurture the soul and promote laughter until i’m doubled over.

429

We’re apart my dear, distant as the Tennessee ground is from this plane..
my heart has never been more yours, more open though fears seem to keep looming of the dangers of availability. There is trouble in the world but peace in my home.
I miss the steps you take across my floor, your shoes beside the couch and your coffee on the table. I miss the ever changing expressions on your face while I get to know you, memorizing the things you like and that which you don’t.. learning new cities and family, laughing at the childhood stories and being in cohorts to sneak baby pictures out of your albums and into frames. I miss your allergies and knowing your scars, I miss your fear of heights and the bravery when I am scared. The teamwork and partnership I find in you moves me to be a better one for you..
I miss the first time we met, our first date, the anxiousness, the giddiness when finding I actually like you more than I want to or will care to admit to more than my 50 closest friends.. I miss our first photo I oh so quickly framed, the first time we held hands and holding back sass because I liked you too much to push you away.
there is a look in your eyes I understand, the subtleties of when you can’t control your face from telling me exactly what you’re thinking, how I can read you. I miss the laughter you bring me, the way your passion rises and wanes over topics of interest. Meeting your friends the first few times, learning your values, needing your voice before I fall asleep. Pushing you out the door while wanting you to stay when it’s late and you have to leave.
I miss the phone calls that keep me awake with hearing every moment of your day, our first disagreement and how I wanted you to hold me for hours after that. The pet names, the time it snowed and we kept slipping on the ice and it was cold but we were warm. I miss your hands and arms, cooking your favorite meals, buying your favorite coffee creamer & starbucks blend, our trips to the farmers market and lunch at fido & jacksons.. I miss hearing our names together for the first time, like we were destined to be together and confirmed by an “&” between us. I miss finally allowing you to meet my sister and telling her not to tell every embarrassing story about me since birth.
I miss the slow realization that I didn’t want to ever be without you and that you not only ‘might be” but you “are the one.” I miss dressing up every day, getting excited every time we go out wondering if you were going to propose, ring shopping with friends so they were prepared in case you were to ask..
I miss that moment when your knee hit the ground, I miss my parents grabbing the video camera and documenting the tears and screams. I miss the rush and the feeling, the worry of planning our wedding. The desire to elope and have the thousands of people we love seated on white satin at the same time. I miss us going crazy with the scanners for our registry, being so scared you might leave after a rough night of pre-marital counseling. i miss the walk down that aisle, gripping my fathers arm and at the same time wanting to run to you, grab your hand and yell our vows on the way out the door. I miss our first wedded kiss, the first days and nights as husband and wife, the honeymoon, the adjustments we made, the conversations about which furniture we keep, what we leave behind..

I miss starting our life together when I have never met you.. I want to meet you.

428

gaps between the trees as though a razor moved from the skin to this habitat;  dark grey clouds are perched on top of mountains like crowns made of pewter & tin.

i put another crease in the paper, folded it like it’s a curve in the road.. 

tired eyes on the pavement, spilled heart into inkpen.  i feel like that steeple, in the corner of my eye, aged and covered in petina, a could-be beacon for those to know the holy- an intimacy deserving of sex, but without touch due to the distance from the roof to the ground.    but, i drive on- on this asphalt river winding around mountains and artsy towns while wanting a detour..   ..a handheld stroll on cobblestone streets, under a vineyards’ shade, to be on horseback in a meadow..
103 miles away from what i’ve built and i want to turn around.  but instead, i’ll talk about flesh and instincts while trees confused show the depth of plums and yellows.

it’s a tender notion to have the ache in the chest for wanting to fill the space betweent the arms and the breast.

427

There’s a mark on the heart. A fingerprint that seems to thunder every now and then and quake at the seams, tiny veins expoloding in beats.. I want sensitivity, to feel the breeze, to smell the flowers and hear the wind..

So what must be done to allow this, peel the calloused places back till all is new..

426

absence makes the heart grow fonder and though i feel one day closer to you, we’re more  distant than i ever wanted to be.

425

if i were a ghost, i’d spend my time in the shade
haunt you like a fragrance you couldn’t quite forget.
i’d sleep in your laundry, your socks on my feet
learn the places you go,
perched like a sparrow in your nest.
if i were a ghost, living and alive
i’d yell with my loudest of voices
 all that i wanted to say
and you would hear me fully,
as though i were the traffic on the street
like the way the waves breaking overwhelms what you hear.
my voice would carry like a scream
such weight to the whispers on one’s lips
a secret, a mystery no one thought to protect..
but i am no ones ghost, 
my heart drunk on being soul with body.
and you i could not linger near, no waiting around your slumber
no roaming the rooms you constant-
the lights created by candles lit will reflect all along the walls,
leaving a path of heat and golden air in its’ journey
i will be human, bare, without a sheet that catches the breeze
i will live my own life, leaving alone yours..