Somewhere beyond everything we know

My mind keeps going back to those two nights we were together. A dark and cold music bar, a small table tucked away in a corner. I couldn’t tell you how many people were in there; I only knew I was finally near you again. Even the music was a blur of muted sound. There was just you and me, our clasped hands erasing any remaining distance between us.

Yesterday I caught myself playing the scene over and over in my head while driving in the afternoon heat. I had to stop and wonder if it was a dream, if those nights really happened. So many of my dreams revolve around you that I no longer know where wishful thinking bleeds into reality.

But then I remember the warmth of your hand. The deep, tingling resonance of your voice. The smile you gave me as I rushed to wrap my arms around you. The possessive insistence of your fingers as you traced mine, silently handing me back the ring on my finger, removing all evidence, any reminder of our lives apart from each other. The long, sad sigh when we both wondered what happens to us now, barely hiding the resignation of knowing neither of us had an acceptable answer.

And oh, I remember that kiss.

I want to be yours for one day. Twenty-four hours. That’s all. Completely yours, with no thought of consequence.

Perhaps if I dream it enough, it will come.

“Someday we’ll find truth and peace of mind
And I’ll still love you then.”

Is it love or is it me?

Airplanes and deserts and winding hills everywhere, and as I gaze at the wonderful vistas before me, I am painfully aware of that familiar feeling inside that reminds me of the distance between us. Every new place awakens the part of me that feels like I am on my way home to you. You are everywhere I go, all the warm and rich voices that speak to me, all the tall and lanky strangers whose eyes linger on mine just a little while longer. You are in every new song about love. Longing. Regret.

I am hours closer to you, hoping for a chance for an unhurried conversation. I tell you that I wish I could ask you to hop on a plane, meet me in Monterey for an afternoon stroll and dinner that ambles on into the morning. You answer sweetly, “Wish I could, baby.”

I wish the same thing too.

I am imagining white cars and long stretches of quiet sand. Sunsets and sunrises and the lingering smell of answered prayers in the air. In my mind, our dreams have the color of fire, the feel of cotton, the taste of cloves. And the sound of a thousand songs and a thousand poems, all of them unable to adequately describe what you are to me, and how your love is my life.

All the love that this heart can stand

A haunting recording of John Mayer playing “Gravity” plays through my tinny speakers as I sit in front of this screen. I have a blurred photo of you on my desktop, stolen by our friend in the middle of a poker game. You look terribly pixelated, thanks to the dim lighting and the unsteady hand of someone trying to steal a shot of you, knowing how much you hate being photographed.

But it’s still you. Your likeness. For once, I feel like I can watch you, memorize your features. My screen is smudged in the lower right corner, where your photo is displayed. It’s almost embarrassing to admit, but yes, I sometimes half-consciously run my fingers over that precious square inch of smooth glass, as if to caress your face, your cheek, that soft part of your neck just above the collar. I know it’s lame, but what can I do? I miss being with you.

They take me back to you

“He stole you from me. And you let him get away with it.”
“Don’t say sorry for letting me in on it because I’m making it my right to know.”
“Love you too babe. You made me a promise. See me again soon.”

I cling to your words the way a climber clings to her lifeline. On the edge and looking down at certain death but feeling safe nonetheless because of the unbreakable cord that keeps her tethered to the ground.

I never loved technology so much as now, when a few buttons is all it takes to tug at that cord and feel the reassuring resistance from your end. Never mind that I have to do it in secret. I do what I can.

All I know is that I feel safe with you, loved by you.

Changing my life with one wave of your hand

It was three weeks ago that I saw you again, the first of two separate nights that play over and over again in my head.

I am content now. I am whole again.

See you again soon.

In secret, between the shadow and the soul

Every conversation with you now is hushed. Stolen. Half my mind wrapped around the warm sound of your voice, the other alert to any sound of movement in my sleeping home. I sneak away to dark corners in the middle of the night, like an addict anxious for a fix. You are my drug, and some nights I feel like I need you in me, no matter what the cost.

I spend days dreaming of September or October, about seeing you for the first time after so many years. I lie in bed trying to remember the touch of your hand, the taste of your mouth, the warm smoothness of your skin. I cannot wait to be with you again.

My conscience is troubled by my sin, but the part of me that belongs to you asks: how can this be wrong when I loved you first? If every minute that I am with another feels like a betrayal of our love, then am I not living my sin everyday that I am away from you? I loved you first, I have loved you longest. I love you the most. In my heart I know that I have always been yours. Anyone else is merely a steward, a caretaker of your belongings until you come once again to reclaim your possession.

I live in a world tangential to what we see everyday. And in that world, you are my husband and I am your wife. We are not wishful thinking. Not an affair. Not a dream on hold. We simply are.

SONNET 17
Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Always and forever is such a long and lonely time

A killer song for you.

SOME DEVIL
Dave Matthews

One last kiss, one only
Then I’ll let you go
Hard for you I’ve fallen
But you can’t break my fall
I’m broken don’t break me
When I hit the ground

Some devil some angel
Has got me to the bones
You said always and forever
Now I believe you baby
You said always and forever
Is such a long and lonely time

Too drunk and still drinking
It’s just the way I feel
It’s alright
Is what you told me
Cause what we had was so beautiful
I feel heavy like floating
At the bottom of the sea

You said always and forever
Now I believe you baby
You said always and forever
Is such a long and lonely time

Some devil is stuck inside of me
Why can’t I set it free
I wish, I wish I was dead and you were grieving
Just so that you could know
Some angel is stuck inside of me
But I cannot set you free

You said always and forever
Now I believe you baby
You said always and forever
Such a long and lonely time

Stuck inside of me

There’s still a little bit of your ghost

Oh what it is to hear your voice once more, to know that you are still somewhere in the world, and that I haven’t faded from your heart’s memory. You cannot imagine how much life you breathed into me just by being there, comforting me with the knowledge that you still love me, that you still want to see me again.

The other day I was going through old scribblings, and I found something that I wrote for you. I don’t remember if I sent it of not. It was written some time ago, but it still feels so true that I could have written it yesterday. And what it said was:

I miss you. I still have nights spent longing for you. Days, too. Maybe not as often anymore, with so many other demands on my time. But I think hey, my free time may be more precious and scarce, and yet, consciously or not, I still seem to choose to spend part of it in thoughts of you. And now that we have spoken again, just like that, my time belongs to you once more.

Sometimes I sit and listen to old songs that never fail to transport me back to damp university nights, daring joy rides, musty tablecloths, or even just the curl of smoke from across a small table when all that mattered to me was that I was near you. Sweet torture is what it is. Many times I can’t decide whether reminiscing is painful or cathartic. All I know is that there are things that will never change, and how I feel about you is one of them.

I wish I had two lives. Except, if I did, I’d want to spend both with you.

Why don’t you steal what you can keep?

17 years, 15 days, and counting. I’ve known and loved you for more than half of my entire lifetime now. You will prove to be my doom, my greatest hope and my most desperate falling. But I accept that because no one else — no other love — is more precious to me.

Belated happy anniversary, darling.

MY THIEF
Elvis Costello, Burt Bacharach

When I go to sleep, you become my thief
Why don’t you steal what you can keep?
But you won’t let me be
You break into my dreams
And every day seems different

Sometimes I pretend you’ll come back again
And you’ll console the heart you stole
Have pity on the man
Who knows that you have gone
And has begun to break down

I feel almost possessed
So long as I don’t lose this glorious distress then
You can take all I have left
I know it’s over
If you can’t be my lover
Be my thief

I’m so drowsy now, I’ll unlock the door
What fades in time will hurt much more
So here’s that happy scene
Where you come back to me
It’s only found in fiction

I feel almost possessed
So long as I don’t lose this glorious distress then
You can take all I have left
I know it’s over
If you can’t be my lover
Be my thief.

Nothing’s really wrong, it’s only loneliness

Time wastes away when your days are spent wishing you were somewhere else. Or even someone else.

I’ve taken to crying in my sleep. Very strange. I have immensely sad dreams that leave me sobbing, and I wake with a heart wrenched in so much grief and regret that it sometimes seems pointless to even get up from bed.

I am afflicted with loneliness. The desperate kind, the kind where you know there is only one solution that will dispel it – the one solution that is also the most impossible.

I yearn for you. It is so strong it sometimes seems to pull my heart out of my chest, eastward, to where you are.

I will never be free of you. That much I now know.