You can ask someone to listen, but you cannot make them hear you.
If you question whether or not it’s locked you should always check again. You’ll only be able to love her as much as she will allow you to. Sometimes you should just order the second slice and not regret it. It will become difficult at times to breathe. Know it will pass. Let yourself fall in love. Again. And again. Being weird and different only sucks in high school. Perfection is whatever you want it to be. Whatever makes you happy. It’s easy to forget what you’re worth. Remind yourself. Daily. Stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves. Stand up for yourself also. Make a habit of it. Your body is beautiful. You should never be ashamed of it. What happened after you said stop is not your fault. It's ok to be angry. You are more than what they tell you that you can be. The purpose of life is simple. Leave the world better than you found it. Run. Fast. And for as long as you can. Enjoy how you feel afterward. Reflection can be a really positive thing. Holding on to the past isn’t. Teach yourself to be a morning person. There’s happiness in the sunrise. Always try to become more interesting. It means you’re learning. Growing. Love your heart. Love your soul. Love yourself.
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Chance and fate hang in the air around me.
It’s Los Angeles; time isn’t reserved for only one person. My fifteen minute break is someone else’s fifteen minutes of fame. And their fifteen minutes is someone else’s time to go. Last week we were in love. This week you’re in his t-shirt. It doesn’t make me love you less – just less likely to love you later. My mother called me from the hospital. She’s recovering. Who knows how long that will take. I have thirty-five minutes before I can climb behind the wheel. Two weeks before I start a new job. A month before I’m sitting at Dodger’s Stadium with one of the most important men in my life. When he was four his mother locked him in a closet for two days. Ten years later, they ask me “what’s wrong with him?” He’s the product of his raising, as only time could tell. It’s taken me this long to realize that he is not the problem. Sometimes we are to blame for looking the other way. Justice is everyone’s responsibility, accepted by few. They say he will be fine over time. But time is only plentiful until you run out. Last night, I ran until my lungs could no longer keep up. The cool night air rolling off the water reminded me of an East Coast summer – known to take my breath away. Lily pads decorated the surface like cobble stepping stones for the amphibious creatures bellowing out from the tall dark grass, and I wished for just a moment that I could run straight through.
I’ve been doing that for ages. Chasing thing after thing. Running until I can’t breathe anymore. I’ve yet to be defeated, but I have grown weary. Giving all of oneself takes a toll, especially when no one is there to accept you. Still, I have never given up. I have never given in. My heart has grown calm over time. I’m less likely now to make snap decisions about important issues, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still make mistakes. I’ve grown to expect them. They are a part of growing up. I wished I could have explained that to the tears brimming in my eyes; I wasn’t due another cry for days. Stealing breaths back from the evening breeze, each deeper than the last, I found my stride. I had just a few short miles to go, and the only weight I had to carry was my own. Step after step, I accepted that the shortcut was only a mirage. That I would never walk on water. Last night, I took the long way home. The sun rises slowly, peeking through the blinds.
I take a breath, uncertain of my surroundings. I am safe. I am home. Home is where the heart is and my heart is on my sleeve. Home is wherever I rest my head. Born beneath a wandering star, I stay until I’m gone. I long to try, but try too long and then it’s over. I wash my face, rinsing the night from my eyes. Cleansing away the nightmares that linger. The tears that are dried to my cheeks. I stare into the mirror. I see who I’ve been. I see who I am. I see who I’ll become. I start the coffee. It drips into the pot like experiences in my life. One by one. Filling me up. At maximum capacity I’ll pour them out. Only to enjoy them for the moment and start over. Fresh. I take a breath. Happy to be alive inside. Happy to be free. Happy to be. My heart still aches. Something is still missing. I fear that I’ll never find it. Then I remind myself how silly that is. You don’t find your purpose. You create it. I’m a very creative person. All I need is to decide. Whatever I want, it lies at the tips of my fingers. Tangible. It’s been so long since I’ve felt this. So long since I’ve felt. It’s been so long. But here I am. Alive. Happy. Me. Here I am. A product of my own faith. Absolutely certain that I will be whatever I’m supposed to be. Whatever I want to be. Wherever I want to be. I have only a few stipulations. I will be honest. I will be kind. I will be happy. I will be me. There are no exceptions. I will settle for nothing less. Nothing less than what I deserve. I would expect nothing less than that from those who I love. If loving me does not fall under those categories, I would expect we would not love. Another day in which I go out and live fully. Filling this life with fantastical hopes, dreams, memories and miracles. I expect they’ll all come true. And when I lay down tonight, I will dream a sweet dream. A sweet dream of today. I will. This morning I slept five minutes late, because a dream of you wouldn’t let me open my eyes. I stumbled to the shower, and turned the water all the way to cold, knowing that you would hate it if you were here. My body goes through the motions, but today is not like the days before. Today is the day of letting go.
A hummingbird meets me at my window. He dances wildly around a banana tree, tempting the street cat perched on the fence beneath him. Unaffected, he darts from bushel to bushel, taking in the sweet nectar before the blooming fruit consumes it. In different ways, they both remind me of you.The song playing reminds me of you. I change it. The next one reminds me of you as well. I accept that will probably be the case for a very long time, but it doesn’t mean that I will stop listening to music, that I will change my daily routine because you are no longer a part of it. Instead, I will find new things to associate with my feelings. Even with the world at my fingertips, my hands feel vacant without yours, so I fill them with keys, a wallet, a cell phone, anything to replace the empty feeling. In the car I find myself traveling at speeds of five miles per hour. Los Angeles cannot drive in the rain. In the distance I can hear the thunder traveling in the opposite direction. Everyone leaves eventually. I am not angry with you – I am confused. You are not the person I thought you were. I allowed you to take my love for granted, but that ends today. This morning I promised to never love someone who doesn’t truly love me in return. Her step leaves glowing footprints on blades of grass
There’s glitter in her hair. I’ve got scraped knees and a mending heart, But I can bare it when she’s near. She said "They can't get to the both of us. There's too much happening in the universe. I'll distract them while you run around the sun, If you promise you’ll love me first. I wrap her in a veil of time and patience She learns to love the way that it feels. There are depths in which I haven’t been That reside within her still. The clock will stand at ease ‘til Fall, When she first breathes Pacific winds. I’ll loop a dream around her heart Soon life will begin again. I miss the way your hand feels in mine. It’s the closest I’ve ever been to holding you, and in my mind – Fingers are arms, pinkies and thumbs are legs, and I do my best to wrap them completely around
yours. We haven’t said it yet. We’ve hinted, and I can feel it, but that word still weighs so heavy on my tongue from the last time that it was used. I do my best to separate you from my past, but all hearts feel the same at their breaking point. It has taken me only weeks to do with you the things that I couldn’t accomplish in years with anyone else. When I hear your laughter, I remember that patience really is a virtue. At nineteen, you spun my heart into a frenzy. The once steady beat, skipped and danced through my chest whenever you were near. In the darkness, I sat next to you. Your eyes, nearly as heavy as your heart. It is difficult to keep yourself afloat when everyone else tells you that you’re drowning. I wanted to reach inside and pull out every bad thing anyone had ever said to you. Redefine every word until you were full of compliments and promises that would never be broken. It isn’t difficult fall for a woman like you. That feeling is measured in moments, not days. With you, forever is not more than a smile or kiss away. My heart is a scratch-paper canvas with many layers of memories I’ve tried to cover
up before you. For me, being let go is something that I’ve grown quite accustomed to. Stroke by stroke, I struggle to paint a picture of a life without you in it. The colors bleed beneath my teardrops. Repetition reminds me that you won’t be easy to hide, but I am no longer afraid to make mistakes. They’re expected. When I woke up this morning I wiped the sleep from my eyes and your smile from my mind. It found me again by the time I reached the bus stop. I didn’t expect it to hang around for very long; historically speaking, I’ve never been difficult to walk away from. I can be a lot to handle at times, but you ought to know that by now. After all, I’ve given you plenty of fair warnings. Somewhere between gates 6 and 7, I find the deep breath that I have been searching for since you said goodbye. “It’s not me. It’s you,” you told me sympathetically. “Your heart is too beautiful.” Apparently it’s possible to love too much. I never knew, but I’m also not surprised. This isn’t the first time that I’ve been here. Summer after summer of bed sheets and broken hearts. Sometimes, I forget whose side that I am on. “What do you love about me?” You asked. I meant it when I told you, “Everything.” I should have added, “Even the parts that leave me breathless and torn. Even the arguments and the panic attacks. Even the sound of your footsteps when you are leaving. It reminds me of the beat of your heart. I love how brave we once were and how close we almost came to everlasting." You don’t believe anyone could love those parts. But I do. Never before have I met someone who believed so strongly in fairies, but could not fathom forever. Permanency has never been appealing to a heart like yours; full to the brim with unsettling wanderlust. Your soul wants freedom and your mind sees me as a cage that you could never fit comfortably inside. I press the pads of my fingertips together. I wonder how your hands feel after all these years of holding on to someone else’s. Four years ago, I would have flown across the country, caught a cab to your doorstep, and set your heartbeat into a frenzy as you unsuspectingly rounded the corner. I would have only gotten through a few lines of poetry before breaking down. Through tears, I’d ask you to make promises that you could never keep. You would gently squeeze my arm - apologize as you sidestepped around me- already late to where you were going. Instead, I’m on a flight to Missouri writing poetry that’ll never change the outcome of your decision. It will only document the many times I’ve managed to get ahead of myself. My heart thinks it’s a pioneer blazing trails that lead to fairytale endings, and yours thinks that I am trying to burn down the mystical forest in your mind. I’ll never understand what makes you feel you cannot trust me. You will never try to explain. At three years of age, my mother moved us up to a tiny suburb outside of
Chicago so she could pursue a relationship with an undetected drug addict. That’s all I remember about him. That and how it felt to come home to coke on the counter and everything my mother had worked for, gone. The best thing about him was his family; particularly his niece. She taught me how to love. How to pronounce a few words in Spanish. How to say the Lord’s prayer. How to build mounds of Autumn leaves tucked in the corner of the yard against the fence for jumping into. She also taught me how to die. She was five when the doctor diagnosed her. Stage four Cancer. Even through the chemo, I remember how vibrant and full of life she was. When she left the city after her last treatment, a drunk driver ran a stop sign killing both she and her mother instantly. I knew then that Chicago didn't love me. Years later, I found myself speeding down the highway well past midnight. We met in college, and although you had to take a train from her house to get there, she swore she was from the city. Instead of bright lights and roaring street sounds, I found silence on an air mattress in their rural guest room. I couldn’t help but notice how much she looked like her mom in those photos. I recall the steady sense of normalcy that rested in the house the next morning. We ate eggs. Together. She curled her hair in an antique mirror, her mother read out on the deck, her brother was busy somewhere still being a kid and I couldn’t for the life of me understand the fairytale I’d stepped into. I think that she really did like showing me the city. It was tall. Bright. Beautiful. Something my sheltered self had never seen. My neck broke as I stared up at the cloud-laced skyscrapers. I couldn’t keep up with her brisk city gate. Maybe she didn’t like showing the city to anyone. Maybe the city was her secret. See, Chicago never loved me. The heart plays games. When people say things, I listen. And when they ask me to love them, I do. I let myself get caught up in the poetry of it all, so close to sharing four letter words with a figment of my imagination. No matter how many mediocre lines I write for her, she will not forget how big the world is. I would never ask her to. Sometimes, I give her everything I have. Even when she isn’t sure yet what she has to offer in return. She is not a vending machine. I cannot push things in to pull others out. Instead, I take her as she comes, with split ends, snagged threads, dimples and half smiles. Her beauty is not validated by whether or not she is loved by me. Maybe she is still learning to love herself. I know that I am not her greatest victory. That is what I love about her. I receive another picture. And another text. She fills my heart with lyrics and my mind with clouds. Then she stops. Because she has to wake up early, and Pacific time is not universal. Even time is against us, and I know Chicago will never love me. Not in the “let’s catch up.” Sort of way.
But the “this is your last chance.” Standing next to the water. Toes dipping just above the edge. I could fall in. But I can't swim. I wonder how deep it is. It wasn’t him this time. It was me. Maybe I feel guilty. Maybe I know that he is right. He is sorry. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t mine. I fought. He ran. Maybe I resented him for that. Not for leaving. But for going back to something just as bad. Sometimes, I wonder how he’s doing. What he will amount to. I run it over and over in my mind. Is there something that I could do to help him? Does he just need an opportunity? Or does he need a miracle? Because I’m a little short on those lately. |
Tennessee Martin
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