A few 2:00 am words
Broken and parsed
Stunted, slurred, hers
Common enough
A 2:00 am girl
No good I am told,
Confused but longing
for some place to meet
that someone to be –
Common enough
And yet
when I close my eyes
And look –
searching the world
for her imprint on the faceless
I never find –
this common one
all that is left
are some 2.00 am words
broken, slurred
but
hers
On joy
A cup of fresh
coffee
a long silent moment
in solitude
breathing in this
quiet
of a rainy
afternoon –
I
I find
you.
You sit plumply
on my heart,
spilling glitter and sequins
all over
my skin
and spread,
like
a stubborn ray of sunlight
lights up a
room
long
forgotten
Oh joy –
where have you been?
I have looked
for you in
so many
places,
in women
half-broken
and men
half-mad,
in houses
locked inside
and doors
open outside
Joy turns
to me calmly
and asks me
did you
look for me in
the stillness?
for I have
been
here,
always here.
lying so
softly,
wrapped under
the folds of
your skin
listening to
your ragged
breathing
waiting,
wishing
you would
just
open
your eyes.
She is pale, her face drawn, the pouches under her eyes slyly revealing her age. Her greying hair barely falls across her shoulders – they are growing wild in areas she has not been able to comb. She reaches up with her brush and tugs at the knots, painful though they might be.
It is pouring outside, and no one will call upon her. But then, in sunny weather too, this corner of hers is forgotten.
Boom!
Thunder explodes outside, and her windows rattle. Surprised, she pushes back her chair and rises to the window. Tugging at the curtains, she peers outside. Unable to make out the world in the dark, she does what she did as a child. Standing between the curtains and the window, she cups her eyes and thrusts her face against the window.
Chaos reigns outdoors. Black raindrops fall, invisible, onto the lonely road that leads to her house. As she watches, orphaned branches skitter and scatter, and the trees that still stand swing wildly to the tune of the gale.
There is not a soul in sight.
There is a calm in her soul, as half-lost dreams dance in her eyes. She was once young too, and there was a man – a man like no other….Gazing up, she tries to read the sky – but there are no answers in its murky depths.
Lightning cracks its whip across the clouds, and for a split second, it captures her, as she had been – wide-eyed, soft, and joyful.
She sighs and collects herself. Quickly checking the bolt on the window, she returns to her seat at the mirror.
The bulbs overhead flicker and dim. Did she forget to pay the bill this time? She blows air through her mouth. She will have to check tomorrow. As the lights go out, she finally concedes defeat, and dumping the brush, climbs into bed.
Slowly, sleep takes over – and then she is free.
Free and in love.
Once again.
Somedays I close my eyes. My old, tired eyes.
Who I am and have been sometimes meet in my dreams.
We speak of things past and the few days yet to come. We walk together – we are both mature and childish and can entertain each other for hours.
“Do you remember…?” we ask.
“Can you believe we used to think…?” we marvel.
Our stories are endless.
We are boring to no one, and there is no one to declare us old and senile. And so on and on it goes, until – one day I close my eyes, and the stories end too.
The unlearning of things
in a dark,
undiscovered room
half-hidden secrets
bright,
unseen
in the crevices
of my face.
Passing invisible
under your
flashing
cheerful lights,
fumbling
with these
crumbling feathers
of
hope;
as I crash on by –
another world,
another realm,
one within
another –
existing
barely in this
this
old,
forgotten
one.
The Fickle Lemon 