Tag: new beginnings

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

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“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.

Autobiography · Relationships

Parting

Ruby Pipes31 Comments

"Sprouting!" © mekabra, 2009. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
“Sprouting!” © mekabra, 2009. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
I tell Andrew hearts always break in the same places. The weak points are sought out and shattered over and over again. We do not grow back stronger. It is the same hurt every time.

We know these feelings. We recognize them. We remember just how to scream into pillows and sob on staircases. We’ve been here often. We’ll return before we’re ready.

At dinner Mark stops me when I say, “I think I’ll be fine.” He holds steady until I meet his eyes.

“No. There is no ‘think’,” he says gruffly, “I know you’ll be fine. Better than fine. I know it.”

I feel almost guilty for believing him. For acknowledging the fact this is just another one of those moments we go through, that go through us. That we always walk away from. Every time.

Over and over I repeat the story. Each time becoming further removed from it. Until it’s nothing but a monologue I recite when prompted. Something I can put down and walk away from. Like the dress I threw in the trash because I was wearing it when Mason told me he wanted a divorce. Pretending I could separate myself from the statement by separating myself from the clothing.

No, it may not be that easy, but it is similar, isn’t it? We hand the words off to anyone who will listen, keeping only a tiny piece of them in a coat pocket to be discovered next season. And bit by bit time softens the edges of everything. Staircases worn down after thousands of years of footsteps. We do not remember what they looked like when they were new. That is not what makes them precious.