Category: Prose

On the Green

Guiltily he picks at a hole in the knee of his jeans and looks up from that same daydream once again, while something unseen moves through the room which leaves his stomach tense and lip bitten.

Nothing will take away the past, but no matter how long ago it was, in the mind it is but a moment ago, vivid, real, reinforced by countless hours reliving the same memories. He shudders and pulls the blanket around his shoulders, staring back into the void.

There is no peace from the labyrinth once you cross the threshold, once you lose your way. He knows that the only way out is to go forward, but what horrors it contains he cannot tell.

The void calls once more, the delicate seduction of the voice of memory, that sweet oblivion of self-destruction.

“Come to me my love, and we shall walk together again. All you have to do is remember how it felt.”

He tries to resist but the memories are strong, beautiful, sweet memories of sunlight and summer days, walking gently through the park while the wind dances in her hair and her skirts flow like waterfalls of silk.

His resolve is undone, and drifting ever on in her arms he remembers the taste of strawberries on her lips, gently mixed with champagne.

The cold creeps in under the edge of the blanket, but he remains unaware, its tendrils wrapping around his throat, sneaking under his clothes until he starts to fall asleep.

‘So tired now,’ he thinks. ‘Perhaps we should go indoors?‘

‘No, stay with me here, my love. Stay with me and hold me, don’t ever let me go.’

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Sunday morning

On Sunday morning the coffee always tastes different, as if infused with memories wafting towards me, mingling with the notes of lonesome country, filling my head with daydreams. Each drop reaching my lips the warmth of a thousand kisses which were and a infinite number which were never meant to be. My hands caress the cup as I pull myself into the corner and remember what it was like to hold you, to be held by you, while silken cascades of liquid across my tongue recall the smooth softness of your skin. The harsh lamplight’s glare scatters in the ripples, like city lights we never kissed beneath and settles to the glowing light of the same moon under which we found our peace for just a moment. Deeply breathing steamy air, I remember the smell of your hair the summer you made my body your home, and across the years your voice still whispers those words you will never say again.

Not yet

Nine hours on the road, in the air, on rails, all to get somewhere I don’t really want to be. Yet I’ll take the good with the bad, for the doing of something unpleasant gives the chance of change. The shedding of granite shackles, even if only for a few days, is welcomed. Perhaps they will be loosed for good one day.

Not yet.

First I have to make it through what might be a rather dull afternoon. Though there is the dawning awareness that it would take the same time to be somewhere intrinsically more appealing.  It is present but not overwhelming.  I could spend tomorrow walking on the beach, trying to fathom which of ten thousand footprints are yours?

Not yet.

That ever-present urge to change direction, jump back on a plane and hit the reset button on life, just is. Like an appendix it sits there doing nothing, occasionally flaring up. Yet whilst it is something possible, I must recognise that it is not probable.

Not yet.

The therapist’s favourite expression as he tries to slow me down and stop me running headlong into a brick wall, or a pit of spikes, or vipers. There are, after all, very good reasons: Ones which have legs and walk around but cannot readily follow of their own volition, though I hope they would want to.

Not yet.

Tonight I will watch the lights go on once more in the City and wonder if the quantum you and I had fun that weekend we met here. Would that this were a ‘not yet’ rather than what it is, but we cannot have all things as we would like.

Not yet.

Perhaps that was the universe’s way of saying ‘Not Yet’? Yes, you will find peace, just not yet. (In the interim here is a glimpse through the window of possibilities.) Yet I lingered too long at that window and found myself transfixed.  When the shutters closed my heart cried out “Not Yet!” for I did not wish to leave. 

Not yet? Not ever. 

A

Electric you

I felt current flow through my fingers as I touched your radiant skin. That sense of heightened sensation which made the air around you glow and your eyes spark with an energy hitherto unknown to me.  It was like someone had connected you to the universe with jumper cables, an energy so intense that it electrified the very air in your presence.

I should have seen it coming,

You struck my heart with the power of a thousand suns and I was blinded.  That energy with all its power and majesty filled me with awe and I fell down upon my knees. 

But oh like lightning you brought such devastation!  The fires you started swept through every corner of my being.  They smoke and smoulder even now, long after you have passed.  

With power you came
Destroying all before you
Beauty incarnate

Therapy

I spoke to my therapist today for another hour. We talked about how far I have come in the last 3 months. During that time my journal has stood so deathly quiet but this week it has been taken up again.
How different it is from when we first began to speak, as I sat there, falling to pieces.

We didn’t talk about you much today. You have become one of my “not yet” items. I still love you. There are days when it is so much harder, but now I know that I can love you without feeling like the world is ending if you don’t love me back. I forgive everything for I am not without fault, and hope that you will forgive me too one day.

My poems speak of pain and heartbreak at times. These things are still true. I still have bad days. I still have moments when the sadness of those final days breaks me like a wooden doll under the wheels of a pickup truck. My hope is to accept them and acknowledge that the past isn’t what matters: All that matters is now. When I feel the pain I let it flow through me onto the page and allow it to pass.

The pain is no longer what defines me, it just is.

You are still in my thoughts as I go to sleep, and when I wake I still look for you. No-one said I was over you. I am not, nor do I think I will be for some time. Maybe I will never be. What matters is now. Not what may be.

The road ahead is taken One Step At A Time; like climbing a mountain, or walking a long and winding path through the hills.

What is important
Is not the end
But each step
As it is taken.

To Moth

A moth flits from the open window and lands on my knee. It tickles. Does he know how short his life will be or wonder where he is going? What the meaning of his existence is? No. He just ‘moths’. Action born of instinct. To do. Not to think.

How quickly I could end him.

I don’t, and he moths away. Fluttering his little brown wings without a care in the world.

Meanwhile I am left sitting looking at him. Trying to work out if it is possible to just ‘human’ and what just humaning is.

Is there a way to be which just embraces every moment as it comes, moves from moment to moment in blissful ignorance?

The moth comes back wondering if my bare leg is something interesting.

Then flits away again.

I sit and read for a little. Wondering if this is what humaning is. At least in part. Sharing experiences. Whether messages and conversations are like the moths as they dance around a candle. Or am I the candle? Burning slowly. Not wanting to burn too fast, too bright, lest I run out of fuel, waiting for someone to come along and snuff me out.
That lingering smoke smell the afterthought of my existence. The reminder of my light and presence. Reminder of the light that was.

The moth flies out of the window.

I hope it finds another moth. It may not be the most beautiful, elegant or intelligent of creatures but it is, just like me. Doing what it does.
Trying.

Sometimes finding what it is looking for, even when it isn’t looking for it.

_______

I wrote this some time ago when thinking and writing a little more than I have been of late as a message to somone I hold very dear to me, someone I always will hold dear to me, always. 

It strikes me that what I said then applies so appropriately to how I am and what is, that it should be something I am more open about. To be, to Moth, to Human; these are things which should come naturally yet we constantly fight against them. 

I hope that for at least a moment every day, with or without anyone or anything else in my life, I might be able to find the ability to just BE.