i am afraid

but i love you.
i still love you.
but i am afraid.

you don't know, i don't know

each time we come and go it's the same:

i don't know if i can do this anymore. i know you've said these words before, but this time, i think this time it feels different because this time i find that it's me who's saying them.
so maybe this abhorrent realization crashing inside means we tried hard and cried too long already. pushing out i'm sorry and i love yous like giving birth to the obligation weighing around our necks, just sitting there, dead weight complicating matters more by self-righteously burning holes in the picture of our perfect landscape.
you and i both know how hard it is to see clearly across a blurred horizon painted with tears. maybe now we'll be able to let go of all the reasons we held on for so long and take steps toward walking hand in hand with shadows that will take us on a long journey to places we've never been. places that seemed reachable before impenetrable walls ate them alongside our happy dreams and memories.
sometimes it seems that peace is there, around the corner somewhere waiting to give us a future.
except, i'm incapable of feeling peace,
so emotions of beauty are hard to come by.
i don't know if it's right to sometimes close my eyes at night and have your face be the last thing i see just before the nightmares gaze into my soul as if they already know where to go to raise hell in places that should feel safe like heaven, safe like knowing no matter what happens today, tomorrow will come again to bring a smile on the lips of the woman i love. my partner, my lover, my soulmate.
for me, sleeping tight means i'm grasping so hard at something in the night trying to imagine it being you, when it's not. so every morning i wake up a whole person torn in two, a body with half a heart turning blue beating somewhere outside the tick-toc of time distinctly following nothing distinct anymore. trying to catch some breeze just beyond this black hole of memories that's sucking me down farther and farther into an alternate universe of possibility without a stable home to return to, a home that i wanted so completely to be you, but it couldn't because you don't even know what home means to me. you don't even know how important that word could be. you don't know what the gentle eyes of safety and security could see without making doubt a reoccuring affliction. they are just words that you throw around freely without ever blinking twice or thinking just once that the consequence of losing me could be real.
i don't know if i can live like this.
you don't know if you'd miss this?
you don't know if it's me you want?
well, now i want to be happy. i wanted to be happy with you, but this time,
this time it feels different.

berated

between my reflex and my resolve to solve the problems that are tearing us apart
is a crevice that divides who we both see ourselves to be from the inside out
you see cracks unfortified in places i feel strong
seeing narrow chasms on backs of orgasms that don't belong

heaven and hell in moments of passion
sweeping away all that is bad
with the coming of bodies fighting waves of malcontent crashing against sullied souls

we hold each other taking away the pain of days apart
and try to remember the times when we would kiss and laugh without onslaught or doubt
just us in love.

ore

the memory of the rogue river valley in ashland, oregon
lives on the lips of fading winds and whispered words of beckoning tree limbs.

even if i never return there again
i will always have the smell of sun on your skin
and the beauty of landmarks almost too beautiful to remember them.

in the black

you whispered to me
speaking of lions and gods
on their backs waiting for death.

stars go out silently
beauty rings out into the universe
echos beating against snaring drums.

we are alone in space.
flying separately
connected by our toes.

you whispered to me.
we have each other,
you said.

the shelf of my heart

she speaks softly of simple regrets in hours too late to recall their importance and says times that have come and gone are pieces of you and i lingering behind in places and times that we've dreamed of long ago but can't get to anymore.
she whispers soft maladies like small victories against liquored bodies walking down planks to their end without seeing an end in sight, just blindly walking towards a darkness that will sweep them into chaos.
she used to say that you have to have a little bit of chaos in your soul to give birth to a shining star. i don't know i believe that. it was chaos that ripped us apart.
i try to remember to forget what she tells you, try to understand why she tells you all things undying go down the drain of things to come, maybe we're all here living in this place of memories trying to understand days misunderstood.
tell her that love is a place for happy people trying to get in out of the rain, simply trying to come in from the cold, on the worst of the worst winter's days.
tell her i don't want to run away from you anymore than i already have, that i'm not afraid of death breathing into my heart. i just want to hold you and feel your warm breath on the cool side of my cold neck at the backside of a time way back then, now forgotten.
so let's take today and make it something worth dying for, make up for time that we've lost, because i never want to lose you again, to a life that i was afraid to start.
maybe you never knew, or tried so hard to forget,
but some things good they never die, made to go on forever into the night.
maybe you never knew, or maybe you just forgot,
that you've always held a place on the shelf of my heart.