A Carthusian Death

 I took scissors and cut my tongue out because I want you to be the last person I say "I love you" to.

I took the knife and stabbed my eyes, so your soul is the last soul I stared into.

I sharpened a pencil and stabbed my eardrums because I only wanted to remember your voice.

Mute, blind and deaf, waiting for a love I had once and will never again, but yet, I wait.

I turn my body into a prison so my dreams of you can't escape, while I wait.

I spend all day screaming your name but no one can understand the murmurs, they never did anyway.

Bloodied eyes stare at the horizon, hoping to see your silhouette break it, one day, but how will I know.

I burn to hear your voice whisper my name, but my past is my present and my future.

The only thing I can wish for is your hand on my face one day, miraculously healing me.

Restoring my eyes so I can gaze at you.

Restoring my ears to hear your voice claiming me.

Restoring my tongue so I can tell you how long I've waited....oh how long I have waited.

This dream sometimes makes me smile and laugh.

This dream sometimes seizes me in hope.

This dream sometimes chases me like a nightmare.

I rejected a world...for you.

I froze my life to give it to you, it's in my hand, take it, for it is useless to anyone else.

Crazy they call me as I reach up my hands to an empty space.  

But I see, you in my mind, reaching down, to break my vow.

Stolen...Robbed

 I spent my whole life preparing.

Preparing to be a man, a husband, a father, a provider, protector, a bringer of security and prosperity.

I take this suit of armor, dressed ceremoniously by my queen mother,  and I swear my oath to my path of life.  My father anoints my shoulders with his sword and grants it to me as mine, a splendid farewell of hope to conquer the world.

I come into this new world armed with all I was taught, armor shiny and bright, sword sharp and at the ready, Philosophy swirling in my head, covered in dreams, so fresh I could taste their birth.

Yet, I told I'm not good enough, because my love left me.

My daughters are taken away from me because I cant have success, and them too.

I'm told I cant enjoy in my worth at work, because I'm black.

And no one cares about the man in the armor, because they just want what the armor provides.

They...still don't know my name.

My philosophies are now just the ramblings of a fool. My armor, heavy and useless. My sword, given to conquer the world, now just a toy, it cuts me more than it paves a way.  Who will I protect, who will I teach, who will I raise, who will I love.  This is all I know and none of it is wanted. 

Do I walk back to the gates of my home kingdom, no horse, no parade of wealth, head hung low? No feast, no gifts, un-poured wine, just disappointed faces burnt into my soul as I go to sleep on a quiet first night back.

Wandering a world which no longer wants me. Chasing fleeting dreams.  Where do I go now, what do I do? Shed my armor, hide my sword, become...like them...hide my tears under their expectations?  Betray my soul and all I know? Hands that were willing to work, now just hanging by my side as my abandoned heart can't hold them up any more.  Stolen...robbed.

Comet

 I stood and watched you. 

An orange ball of fire trailed with flames breaking the horizon.  So high up but I could still feel the heat on my cheeks.  The rumble still reverberating through the ground, up through my feet and into my soul like a direct intended path.  For a moment you were directly over me and a tear from you dropped on my face.  I swore you penetrated my soul, but you didn't stop.  If you were screaming trying to find yourself, no one knows.  If you were in pain, no one knew.  You were on fire, chasing something or something, chasing you. I couldn't tell and you couldn't say.  Nothing looked like you in the sky that day, nothing felt like you, then or after.  

Silence now

All I see now is the tail of flames as you race to the other side and out of view.  The rumbles now a whisper and my chest now hollow...vacant. Your trail disappeared over the other horizon but you left a blaze in me, in my soul, in my mind...marked, forever. I stand in my present, alone, now a ghost as my life moves on, without you.  A coldness only your fire can warm up. Seeking, searching for a scent of your tinder.  My feet, imprisoned in a slow search to find what left me that day in someone else, since I couldn't fly to chase you. Could something so powerful be repeated?  So I went on a search.  A fool's errand.

Years pass.

A familiar rumble in the distance catches my ear.  I turn back to the horizon you first entered.  I see you. I see you lower, lower in the sky.  So low I don't have to raise my head.  Your blazing right towards me...at eye level.  My breathing speeds up, your orange ball of fire I could fit in between my fingers in the sky years ago is now a huge white circle twice my height.  Your not slowing down, you're coming right at me.  My chest recognizes your heat and immediately heats up to match yours.  I clench my fists and brace myself for impact.  Why don't I move out the way or run? Am I afraid or relieved, I cant tell.  Louder, closer, faster, the ground below my feet starts to break apart.  I close my eyes as my skin starts to burn.  Behind my clenched eyes, your light is so bright I still start to see white as you get closer.  I don't know when you hit me, I didn't feel it, as if it wasn't an external event.  I know my feet are no longer on the ground. Silence now.  I'm floating, everything white, everything, slow.  My eyes still closed but my hands are no longer in a fist.  I don't know what's happening but I'm not scared.  The heat that started to burn my skin is now just a warmth cloaking me.  If I open my eyes will I see your face in front of mine?  Will I see it's your arms carrying me and your chest against mine, warming me up?  My shell has been so empty without you. Is this you coming back to stay, with me, for good? Is this a dream? I keep my eyes closed...for now.

Still Here, But Not.

 I'm still finding your hair when I clean.  A strand here and there, not as much as in the beginning.  It's like you're still here.  I feel  it drift across my hand and land so softly.  I see how strong it is yet curved in my hand seeking shelter.  I squeeze it like I don't want to let you go, but you're gone.  I close my grip somehow wishing wherever you are, you would feel my touch on your shoulder or your face.  A wish I play over and over, each time I find your hair, here.

The rip is still exposed, so many questions, so many needs, so many wants, abandoned. Why did you have to be broken, you were perfect. Or at least perfect in my mind, a mind which wanted so desperately to wish away the damage.  I climbed high because your love is so deep, I wanted to be so high I couldn't see what I didn't want to see.  

Time heals all they say, but how can time heal something that has no end.  You're not here to touch, but I remember how you smell.  I remember the pain, but in order to remember the pain I remember the love.  While I train myself to remember why I can't, I'm bombarded with why I want to.  The opposites can't exist without each other, so either I love you and be in pain or being in pain without you while my love for you exists. Both are hell.

This fight of oil and water are stuck. I am the jar imprisoning them, shaking them, trying to stir away the pain and chasing a dream they will mix so I can feel your face in my hand again. I want something I can't make happen.  A prison in and of itself, tortured by these strands of hairs, here.  The torment of having a few good days then finding one and becoming frozen, staring at it, wishing I could pull on it and pull you from where you are to right in front of me and knowing all the while it will never happen. Whichever devil created this cell, did well.

All I can do is remain silent. Do you know what it feels like to squeeze a crying heart and tell it not to cry anymore?  The pressure against your hand, the heat, the stifled beats and whimpering vibrating up your arm forcing all the thoughts of all the good times, stinging you with heated moments of passion trying to get you let go and scream out your name and run...to her.   

I feel like our love, beyond the dark, was my whole life summed up in her first name. So I don't clean my place perfectly each time so I can keep finding your hair, here.  It makes me feel like you're still here, but not.

Let it burn

 Our quarrels sparked the sharp bitter words flying out our mouths and they fell on the carpet.

We walked over them as if they were never there, ignoring the orange specs.

We wanted the pretty living room to make it go away, but the smoke started to lift.

We ignored the smell of smoke and just kept spraying air freshener and lighting incense.

When the smoke make it hard to see, just blamed each other for making us cry so much we can't see.

We moved to the bedroom and climbed into bed, hoping a new day will reset what we want to see in our heads.

When the fire backed us in separate corners, we finally ran out the front and back doors.

"What about our memories?!"

"Let it burn, we waited too long, let them release into the heavens"

"What about this house we took years to build?!"

"Let it burn, we only filled it with bitterness, pride and pain."

"We have nothing left?!"

"We never did".

Moving...on.

 I can go days without thinking about you now.
You were like a lamp, in a painting of a living room,
an expected thought, a fixture.
You were every second. Now you're a surprise.

After a few days when you pop in, it's not the
actual thought surprising me, but the fact that it's
been days since the last one.
Are you finally becoming a faded memory? Will I
one day have to puzzle at what your name was?
Should I fight to keep you alive or should I fight to
live the life in front of me.  And even that is a question, 

was the future meant without you?

So when your face, your voice, your touch visits
my wondering mind, I can't tell why anymore.
Confused whether to feel glad that you are no longer
the backsplash of my days, or wonder if the growing
distance is a warning, like fading ping when you're
going in the wrong direction. I don't know but I do
know these thoughts are not steps my actual feet
are making. Every sure footing without you is
proof of something, something that no longer
needs you, whether it be good or bad. 

I can't rewrite the past and I don't have a crystal ball
showing me what's next. But what I can do is look
at my standing feet and dare to take another
step, and another , and see that I am still here, 

breathing and still me. Will I ever forget you, I don't know. 

Your memory exists like a passing wind, it didn't change me, 

and I know another will pass again and again. 

Some I won't even notice, some I will. 

But I look at my feet and I look at my
present, here, without you...proof I can move on.
Proof I can rebuild, proof I can be alive again.
Only the heavens know what's next 

and you know what, that's quite ok. 

I stand, I dare.

10 Paces

 Our backs turned, pressed against each other, maybe for the last time. We feel the warmth of our bodies pressed in. The pressure, the heat, almost like we're holding each other for the last time.  Our troubled embrace flooding memories of ravenous nights, tangled sleep, hiding from the mornings and promises of forever.  On the other side of our backs are angry faces, tired, torn...in pain.

First Step.

The journey of the end begins, but first, we gasp, at the cold air sweeping down our backs through our clothes as we rip apart our bond. The chill of being alone sets in. We thought the world couldn't separate us, but here we are, striking the first blow.

Second Step.

We thought we'd fall and die, but the second step is our will to survive.  But all we can think about is the shock that we're actually doing this. After everything we've been through.

Third Step

Anger pushes this step.  All our failures and disappointments reminded us why we need to be here and their tears become smothered under the crunch of our heels.

Fourth Step

For the pain we caused each other, then...and now, yes, even now. Tears we showed the world then, tears we hold back now.  This must be done.

Fifth Step 

The confirmation step. Slow and almost hesitant. Columbus' ocean might as well be the distance between us now. 

Sixth Step

Memories make its last ditch effort to save us.  Visions of love making and interlocked fingers now clutching our ankles.  Our strong forward faces now pointed down, lost in sadness.

Seventh Step

Could we try again?  After all the agains and agains and agains? What we've wanted we've never been able to give each other.  Failed, time and time again.  Our love was too strong to follow this world's rules.

Eighth Step

Fear of losing each other steps in, almost overtaking the pain. 

Ninth Step

We did it. The love we thought could never be defied, now facing it's own mortality. Authored by us.

Tenth Step

Silence. Thoughts run and hide... then one final breath.

Turn....