Autobiography · Relationships

IMHO

Ruby Pipes13 Comments
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“Burger” © T-L-P, 2010. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

“What’s a band you hate?” he asks across the table between bites of burger and sips of Oreo shake. I freeze up. Palms sweaty. I’d never felt the need to impress him before, but now I am straight terrified of upsetting him.

I bring the onion ring I’m working on away from my mouth and rest the heels of my palms against the cool tabletop. Debating lying. What’s a band everyone hates? What answer is safe? Take a deep breath. Decide to tell the truth, look him dead in the eye and say, “The Ramones.” Drop my gaze to the napkin holder, the ketchup, anything to avoid seeing his reaction.

He inhales sharp and my eyes dart back up to his face. Oh shit, I think, oh shit. I remember Jake standing on a table at a bar when I was nineteen, screaming down at me, “They are fucking brilliant! They changed everything!”

Staring straight ahead, trying to dissolve into a pitcher of beer. “They’re nothing but power chords and repetition,” I said to his knees.

“EXACTLY.”

Now here I am, almost ten years later, waiting for a repeat. He swallows hard and stares at me. “I can’t believe you said that.”

And my heart sinks. The first chink in my armor. His first glimpse of what is going to drive him crazy about me. My mind reeling. Not so perfect after all, apparently… I meet his eyes again and murmur a weak, “What?”

“I hate the fucking Ramones,” he says to me, smiling. And it’s not a break. It’s just another link.

Autobiography · Poetry · Relationships

Sail

Ruby Pipes3 Comments

I.
The boat arrived elsewhere
by the time you showed up.
Yelling back to the current
that now you have enough.

 
Strength.
Persistence.
Dedication.
Resistance.

We fought the tide together,
but eventually you sunk.

“I’m sorry,” slips from your fingertips
and never found its way to your tongue.
“I’m different now,” is a charming thought,
but I have to interrupt.

Fight.
Lose.
Try.
Refuse.

We said we loved each other,
but I guess we got stuck.

“I’d take it back if I could,” shines
in the dark room.
I turn off the screen
and dismiss you.

II.
You ask if I have a minute after you call.
Send emails, texts, keys in the mail.
It’s over, but you’re not leaving.

I didn’t mean to dissolve you into
smoke signals and shouts.
You’re not broken,
you’re just grieving.

You know what this is all about.
It was our future I wasn’t seeing.

And, yes, I should have done things differently,
but that doesn’t delude the words.
When I say what I mean
you need to know
it doesn’t matter if you believe me.

III.
Movies don’t make better entrances
than when I was standing at your door in the rain.
Hands outstreched, smile on,
palms placed against my face.

Slip shoes off, drop coat down,
press me hard into the wall.
Murmur something sweet into the space between us
then make sure there’s no space at all.

Electric and magnificent.
All the lights powered up.
We created something beautiful
just by using trust.

You tell you love me too early
and it still feels like you took so long.
I exchanged the words and understood
we belong here from now on.

Autobiography · Mental Health · Personal Development · Relationships

Revival

Ruby Pipes8 Comments

55143142_4e95d570e2_o
“tide” © snarl , 2005. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Strangers. Our eyes met and I flashed a smile. The earth was magnetic, chest light and fluttering. He was at once my roots and wings. The world melted and there he stood. Alone. Spotlit. Deafening.

And I find myself having trouble writing about him. About the angles of his body complimenting my curves perfectly. The way we dissolve into giggle fits just by exchanging glances. How his hand regularly reaches for mine, like he needs to be touching me to be sure I’m there. That this is real. That we exist. Here. Together. Finally.

I catch myself wondering if I ought to be jaded. How the broken promise of forever-love should leave me unbelieving. Instead I let him put his hands on either side of my face and kiss me deeply upon greeting. I let my knees get weak and my face to ache from smiling.

There is nothing wrong with inviting love back in.

In the morning he gets up for work and leaves me sleeping. Twisting in the sheets that belong to him. Hours later I climb into the shower. The smell of his shampoo engulfing me in the steam. I breathe deep and boggle at my good fortune of just existing.

He is the first one from the new time. From the beginning years. The first one to meet me after the medication is settled. After I rediscover my own spine and plant my own feet. He is the first one to only see the scars and hear the stories. To not have the memory of the woman I used to be. To not remember how empty I seemed.

We recreate ourselves through others, don’t we? And this time I know how I want to do things differently. So when we’re scared we tell each other, just like when we’re pleased. I stand firm on what’s important to me. I make time to see my friends. I keep writing. I talk to my family. I remember to believe there is nothing wrong with me.

Really believe.

This man does not know the way I pulled my knees to my chest and sobbed about living. He does not know the suffering. And I can see it in the way he looks at me. I am not broken or fragile. I am not a time bomb, a loose cannon. I am not the person I used to be. I’m… Happy. Grateful. Ecstatic and thriving.