Things

There are things like words and places

sounds and smells are such things.

Things like memories, things like visions

thought provoking things.

It’s amazing how many things affect me

how many things set me off.

How many times a day I find myself

mindfully drifting off.

At first it was things that we shared

things that were part of our life.

Things that were part and parcel,

the fabric of our life.

There were moments and days and time that passed

and all of it bound by these things.

Now the moments have become staggering reminders

that are simply filled up with these things.

It’s not even so much the reality

of the time that together we spent.

It’s now the cost of a lifetime lost

and forevers that will never be spent.

So the triggers are pulled and the buttons pushed

each day by so many things.

And I am learning to walk through the pain and the loss

that is wrapped up in all of those things.

******************************

Poetics – Button, Button

for dVersepoets.com

Days that are hard

It doesn’t matter how smart you are

doesn’t matter how much you know.

It doesn’t matter how much you learn

or how much ‘work’ you do.

The thing that remains the same

for each and every one of us.

Is that when it hurts, it hurts, and really

there is nothing that you can do.

I know you’re gone and you’ve moved on

without a pause or even a breath.

I know you hurt me, I know that you lied

and that I’m probably better off.

I still miss the dreams I had

the ones I made with you.

I still miss our life and love

because for me all of it was real.

I don’t know when it ended for you

and I’ll never know that now.

You kept me guessing right up to the end

so much so that I doubt everything.

I don’t know what was real with you

I have no idea who you are.

I only know what it meant to me

and that is what I will mourn.

I can almost breathe in the daylight hours

except today, I’m here drowning in tears.

But I still cannot make it through the night

without waking to the pain of you not being here.

You left a hole in me that will never be filled

by anyone or anything else.

I told you once that if it wasn’t you

that I would never love anyone again.

I meant it then, I mean it now

I just can’t give away my heart.

Give that power to someone else

and let them break it at will.

I can’t see the point of any of it now

your lies changed everything for me.

There is nothing to remember, no ‘good times we had’

there is no comfort in any of it.

I still don’t understand so much of this

all of it happened so fast.

Well, for me it did anyway

I know that for you that’s not the case.

I’m lonely, I’m sad and these days hit me hard

and sometimes I just have to sit here and cry.

I don’t even wish you’d come back anymore

I just wish that my heart would stop breaking.

Tryingt to learn to live alone

Time keeps passing and with it distance grows

yet somehow I can still feel you here.

Maybe I’m just hanging on because that is what I do

maybe you were never supposed to leave.

Even through the things I know and wish I never knew

the things that still keep haunting me each day.

I still see your face when I think about forever

and feel the ever present absence of you here.

I guess we weren’t supposed to be together

I don’t even really know what that means.

I can’t stop thinking of you as my love and my life

and you are already living in another world.

Why has all this happened is what I need to find

some answer as to why everything I dreamed of is now gone.

Why did you just walk away and walk right into her

was anything between us ever real?

When did you stop loving me, I really wish I knew

but you stopped telling me the truth so long ago.

Who were you really lying to, was it you or was it me

it’s an answer that I will never ever find.

How did I become so obsolete, so unimportant, so suddenly

when did all this happen and why did I not know?

You promised me you loved me yet you forgot me

and you so quickly replaced me while I was still standing there.

I’ll never understand this, but I simply hope one day

that my heart will find its way to the end of this pain.

That I won’t miss your smile, your laugh, the twinkle in your eye

and that I will learn how to live my life alone.

Why I Can't Sleep

It comes when I am quiet,

when I am without defense.

When I go from the place of unconsciousness

and come back to being wide awake.

It hits me like a shock

like a bolt of lightning would.

It shakes me at the core of myself

and leaves me rattled deeper still.

I used to love to fall asleep

in the middle of the day.

To drift off slowly and softly

for a moment or an hour.

I used to love that dreamy place

of slowly waking up.

The smoky gray would hang on the edge of my memory

and I could walk around in the dream.

I never have that any more

that safe and cozy feeling.

That drifting gently back and forth

between the awake and the dream.

I either have to push myself

until exhausted, I succumb.

Or submit to the terror and panic

of being unable to stay asleep.

It’s terrifying and painful

and leaves me afraid and feeling small.

To be smacked in the chest with the reality

that I still here all alone.

I Don't Want To Feel

These are lyrics to a song I wrote today:

v.

I want to hold on to the darkness

This hollow feeling filling up my chest

I want to say things out of anger ~ no restraint

I want to lay this thing to rest

br.

I don’t want to feel         x2

v.

I want to turn you into nothing

A memory left lying on the floor

Forgotten ~ just the way you left me

No thoughts of you anymore

br.

I don’t want to feel     x2

ch.

I want to forget you like I never knew your name

I want to forget you and let you take all the blame

I want to forget you and leave you far behind

I have to forget you, you will never be mine

I don’t want to feel

v.

There isn’t anything inside me

The words and places lead me back to you

I’m going crazy and I’m losing

Myself in all these memories of you.

ch.

br.



Trying to write it away

I know that I sound crazy, obsessed, unhinged

I know that I sound like I’ll never get over you.

I’m trying to be real and feel it as it comes

I’m trying to keep writing through the pain.

I miss you more than I ever thought I could feel anything

I hurt and I ache and I bleed and I mourn.

I don’t know how to get over this but to feel it for all that it is

and to hopefully come out one day on the other side.

There are hateful ugly things to feel and words I have to say

just to get them out of my heart.

There are also words that I cannot say just yet

like that you were the love of my life.

I have to hold on to the anger to keep me distantly estranged

because right now I can’t take the pain of missing you.

It’s not even that I want you to come back anymore

I know that you don’t love me but I still do.

I know that a long time probably passed

where I was the only one in this thing we had.

I wish that I had known before you ran off to be with her

so I could have told you not to come home.

I wish that through it all you hadn’t lied to me

it would have made this all such a different thing.

It wouldn’t have taken my self-respect and dignity

and I would have been able to know you one day again.

You took me for granted and you treated me like anyone

when I was supposed to be the person you loved.

There are so many days when I still can’t believe that this is you

but the truth is painfully there in you and her.

I’m sorry that I can’t just let it go

sorry that I can’t just stop feeling the loss of you.

I’m sorry for what we lost and what we can never have again

I wish that it hadn’t gone the way it did.

A pained rant

Why am I the fool who’s left here aching

the pathetic wreck nursing a broken heart?

Why am I the one who’s given all of this to you

when you have given all of you to her?

Why am I the idiot who still mourns you

when I doubt my memory ever crosses your mind?

Why am I still sitting here crying

when for months now you have been with her?

I’m stuck, I’m broken, I’m still so sad, I’m hurting

I don’t know how to make it go away.

I wish I’d never seen your face, never heard your name

I wish that I had never loved you at all.

I just want to make it all disappear

the way you made it all vanish into the air.

How dare you tell me that you still mourn our loss

tell me, does she wipe away your tears?

It sickens me and saddens me and makes me angry

that I believed in you while you lied to me.

“We’re just friends, I swear to you, I promise”

I’ll never believe in anyone again.

You did it, you got me to the place where I can hate you

now can you just do something to take away this pain?

Of course you can’t, and I know you can’t be bothered

I just want to stop it! Make it go away!

I never want to see your face again

and for that I wish I’d never seen it at all.

It wasn’t worth the loss and the place I’ve come to

it wasn’t worth what it ultimately cost.

Nightmares Return

I know why I’m afraid of the dark

I know what goes bump in the night.

I know why the panic paralyzes me

so when will it just let me go.

I know where it came from; I know where it’s been

and I know why it’s back here now.

But it really can’t get any worse than this

I’m alone as I’ve ever been.

There’s nowhere for me to go home to,

nothing that feels safe or warm.

Nothing that I feel connected to or part of

I’m just waiting for the time to move on.

To place with nothing and no one

at least there won’t be you.

Or you and her that I’d have to see

at least it won’t be here.

I just want to sleep through the night

or for a few simple hours please.

I’m tired of waking up with a start

with my pulse pounding out of my chest.

There’s nothing left to be afraid of

you’re gone and you left me alone.

Without word, thought, or gesture you just disappeared

you knew I was here all alone.

It would have been nice if we could have been friends

but you know that will never be.

That would have meant that you actually cared about me

and that never seemed to really be true.

It was just about you and who you wanted to chase

and I just wanted you to chase me.

But as soon as you caught me the chase was over

and I was left wondering why I wasn’t enough.

Maybe that’s why the ghosts are haunting me again

because I don’t even believe anymore.

That somehow, someday, I will have more than this

the broken pieces just won’t fit together again.

 

Postcards

I’m travelling through the memories like a road map

from that long ago day when we packed my things into the car.

When we drove into the desert on a hot summer day

and I wept with a force that I’d never felt in my life.

I remember that day as if it was only yesterday

and how you didn’t know what to do with my tears then.

You said, ‘let’s go back and spend another day’.

when all I needed was for you to draw me in.

Draw me closer and put your arms around me

and tell me that you wanted me to come with you.

Instead I remember feeling alone and terrified

and that I was somehow supposed to do it differently for you.

I felt that way all along the journey

when I was more scared than I had ever been.

Couldn’t you just once have made me feel like I was ok

that I think, was the tone we set for our life.

I didn’t know how to trust you when you put up that wall

that wall that you put up when you were scared.

We probably should have turned around that day

and you should have gotten right back on the plane.

Armed with a bottle so I could sleep at night

a way to drown out the terror that filled me up.

From the beginning I didn’t know how to turn to you

and now all these years later, I’m crying because you are gone.

When I walk back through the memories of those few days

I’m shocked, really, that we made it as far as we did.

Through the years that followed and the grief that I went through on my own

you never knew what to do when I cried.

You never knew just to hold me and take me in

take me in to the deepest parts of you.

Somehow you could make me feel guilty for feeling

no wonder I could never let go in front of you.

Where did we go from being in love to being strangers?

We were strangers who tried to be something we were not.

We didn’t know each other then and tried to build a life

I know you better now than I ever knew myself.

For five and a half years I listened to you talk

and for five and a half years I never spoke the words.

I’m speaking now but the only one listening is me

not surprising that’s the way it’s always been.

Lingering Dreams

Please just go and get out of my dreams

get out of my unconscious mind.

You fill up my dreams and take up my thoughts

and leave a bleeding stain on my heart.

You’re in every shadow and crevice

every dark, quiet place.

Ironic now since when you were here

I couldn’t find you at all.

But now you linger and leave traces

of memories and hopes long lost.

A constant reminder of what I no longer have

and how alone I am now.

I keep seeing you when I close my eyes

so much so that I don’t want to sleep.

But I am exhausted from fighting this battle each day

and I’m sick of being so awake.

Sick of being clear and aware and raw

sick of knowing too well all that I feel.

Sick of being lonely, sick of being sad,

I just want to drift off for a while.

But every time I do, there you are

and unfortunately so is she.

There with you, living the life that was mine

and here I am just trying to breathe.

I can’t get rid of the images,

of the things that will never be erased.

The things I never should have had to see

but that was the only way to get the truth.

I remember now that I deserve more

than you ever gave to me.

But I can’t forget how much I loved

and how much I believed in you.

The person I used to be

It’s stunning how much quieter it can get

how the urgency has been replaced by an eerie calm.

Making the choice to let go of needing you

and admitting to myself that I deserve more than you ever gave.

I am now in a place where it is all slightly pushed to the fringes

to the edge of my vision instead of being all I can see.

In a place where the breaths now come one by one

and I’m not holding them as if they’ll never come again.

It’s hard for me to say that I deserve more

I’ve never been very comfortable with those words.

But it’s true that I deserve so much more than I got from you

so much more than I let you take from me.

Thinking back now I see signs like flashing lights

but I just couldn’t see them from where I stood then.

I needed to be saved and I thought that you could save me

when you were more lost than I have ever been.

I don’t know why I chose not to see you clearly

and only saw what I really wanted to see.

I guess because I foolishly believed your words

and not the actions that you constantly displayed.

Even now in this quiet place I miss you

in my mind’s eye your smile will always shine.

But you are selfish and I let you be that much to my defeat

I let you become more important than me.

It’s been a few weeks now since I walked around that corner

the one that helped me see exactly where I stood.

I am cautious and wary that as I wander around this place

I do not let the fear lead me backwards again.

It would be easy today as I am tired and alone

and sitting on this side of three days by myself.

To slip and fall and drown in you again

to fall away and find myself deep in that mourning place.

But today I’ll decide to make another choice

today I’ll remind myself that is not what I deserve.

Today I will embark on a mission of strength and resolve

today I will say goodbye to the person I used to be.

Dreams~ the moral compass

Where do you find that the answers come to you,

is it in the quiet places where no one speaks your name?

Is it in the lonely place where you lay your head to rest,

is it in the ever mystifying places you dream?

Are the interpretations clear or do they pass you by

can you see what you were really supposed to see?

Do you understand what your self is trying to tell you

or do you forget it all as quickly as you awoke?

Do you stay quietly with those visions for a moment

listening for all that is in there for you to hear?

Or do you pass it off as just another story

an entertaining tale that has been told?

My answers come often lately in that quiet

through the many and varied visions that I dream.

The average person dreams 153 times a night!

I’m sure in that case average defines me.

It’s all there in color, or is it black and white

actually, that’s interesting, I don’t know.

Either way the messages are calling out to be heard

whether I can hear them or not is what remains to be seen.

I’m listening for answers to all of the questions

or for validation of making the right choice.

It keeps coming and I’m feeling like this road has opened up

and the darkness is finally giving way to dawn.

I feel like dreams are my moral compass

the voice that I cannot make go away.

I can’t reason with them or hush them into silence

they are the conscience whether or not I listen to what they say.