Slow Motion

The brake peddle slowly meets the floor

As I reach in the center to change gears from drive

            To park.

I'm anxious and my nerves are buzzing.

I want to just slam and throw,

But take the extra seconds

To slow down--

I breathe with the forced gravity

I send to my bones.

Twenty seconds, that's the only time I steal for myself alone

Before I focus on not running, falling--

Not before I meet comfort in your arms,

I must be in the moment.

Too many times, emotions override or detachment

            Takes my place--

Not tonight though.

I refuse to let it.

The last time I got to be near you--

Be near you for more than hands held,

Grasped tight,

A fleeting hour,

Wish glass would break--

I'd lost my strength.

My self.

Clouds drew in, charcoal and grey.

My silver lining and moon were driven away,

Silent and unlit blues and reds

Disappeared in the distance as I stood.

Stood as if life ebbed away with each tear

Breeching the barricades of mascara-ed lashes

And staining my porcelain cheeks

            Ready to crack.

That day has haunted and provided sleepless nights.

Restless nights.

Nights of longing,

            Terror,

                        Sadness,

            Tossing-turning,

                        And ache-filled

            Dreams when my body could do nothing

But shut down from pushing--

The strides I took to fill all the minutes

            Between that goodbye moment

And the next kiss.

Every kiss.

Embrace.

Felt my soul wearing away, for I'd for the balance.

            The yin to my yang.

I was alive but not living.

Just praying.

            Hating. Damning.

                        Loving.

I'd have knelt in your favorite green summer dress,

On bare jagged stones until my knees bruised

            If it brought you home.

Now as I fight the tears of joy that wish to fill my eyes

Since the moment you called, surprising me with the news I'd hoped for--

And all the seconds I've bounced on my toes

Counting down time until I could arrive to this now:

I look down as I speed-walk,

Knowing that with my luck that my shoes

Will slide off or send me head-long

On the sidewalk if I most too quick--

I think for a second that I should have bought

            The other shoes we'd looked at just weeks before.

A small segment of me self-conscious--

            Knowing you'll point out that these black clogs

I've already scuffed,

Don't match my chocolate brown dress pants and silky flowered-blue top--

But I can't find it in me to care as my feet carry me closer

Jacket unzipped and wide-open, hair in disarray,

            To the store where with my friends

I'm told that you await.

I hesitate half a breath before the glass door with the open sign beckoning

And see you in the middles of everyone else

            Though I love them, they're blurred in the edges.

I burst through a lose all breath

            Because the bad has faded the moment I see you

In your black-grey striped sweatshirt and ruffled clean clothes--

My home is free....

And our group jumps to the side

As I nearly tackle you with my arms thrown wide around your nexk

No worries of falling,

Because as always

            You catch me and keep me standing.

Heart.

            Break.

                        Breath.

                                    Catch.

With a kiss I never want to end,

You set me down,

And I'm okay with facing the world.

For A Fleeting Moment

***Wrote this back in the Fall of 2012, just finished editing it***

For a fleeting moment

I wonder if I should care.

You came back in, beautiful words spilling from your fingertips.

The email was entitled,

            “Everything I Need to Say.”

I remember my heart slamming into my chest from the shock.

            Worse than each time, I saw that you had viewed my page.

What is there to say? It’s been a couple of months,

            Since you first found me, to speak, apologize—

But you never left the key.

You’re still the one with it, the one to my heart.

            No key for me

            Yet I am free….

For now it seems.

I am not vindictive, not the sort to want you to know what it’s like

To break…millions of little pieces of you floating around

As you scramble and fight to put yourself back together—

            But you won’t ever be the same.

Atoms rearrange.

There’s no returning to who, to what

The person you were in the past.

That’s me.

I broke and ran from who I was.

It took a few months; I built walls like you had preached of.

I drank to be drunk.

I smoked to shut off my brain.

I gave my body so I could feel, but not love.

God was with me, just waited for me to be somewhat sane

So I could face the hurt and pain—

            The fact of that matter was that I just couldn’t handle my big heart being squeezed.

I may be a sponge for information, for beauty

But my heart is no play thing.

I’m strong, always have been,

            Always will be.

My heart though, you left….

You made the center of my being, weak.

You have forever been my kryptonite.

My soul just had to be ready to once again stand.

That is when I completely forgave, free floated,

Connected.

Thought of lightning.

Dropped the chains, the what ifs, the could-have-beens.

Funny how you contact me

Not even four weeks after I finished my poem

Where I erased my pride, and was beginning again.

What it Wants

You’re not mine,

I can’t state a claim.

If someone wants you

I’ll have to sit on the sidelines.

Chorus:

Here’s the truth of the tale,

The heart wants what it wants,

Emotions and attractions

Open my eyes.

I like it when you come to me,

Your touch makes me feel alive—

You send an electric current

And I give in.

Chorus

I won’t make you choose

It’s not right to say it’s me or the other,

I just ask that there’s honesty,

Embrace what you’re given.

Chorus

Take what you want,

I’ll keep your secrets.