no fear

one word

love

...and love

is only a word

it has no meaning, no substance until someone comes along and we feel the heart become swollen with longing and appreciation and the desire to know more, feel more, experience more with this someone.

love allows us to see and embrace perfection in the imperfect.

it is patient.

it keeps hope alive.

love says, "i want you in my life and i want to be a part of your life, to create moments and experience everything with you."

it is the most beautiful and powerful human experience, yet it can be the most devastating and painful experience when those we love leave us, whether by choice or circumstance.

love...it can be beautiful and messy and only when we experience its power can we truly know love.

sc

3-14-20

a promise made

i awoke around 6:30 this morning to thoughts of J.  i'm not sure if those thoughts woke me or drifted in while i was waking, but as happens most morning, there they were.  warm, loving, sensual thoughts that seem to come of their own accord.

upon gaining more clarity my thoughts drifted to mark, thinking how quickly 3 years have gone by since his death.  i remember leaning over his hospital bed and whispering in his ear, "if you're going to fight, then fight like hell, but if you need to let go then let go.  it's ok."  he finally let go after i left the room, unable to make the decision to take him off life support despite being pressured by the hospital staff to do so.  i had prayed hard for him to make that choice because i simply could not.

this morning i sat with my coffee and wrote a note to thank mark for his love and the things he taught me about life and love in our brief journey together.  then i folded that note and tucked it into the little glass jar that i had filled with some of his ashes.  today, per his request, i will take that jar to the cemetery where his pappy is buried.  if the ground is soft enough, i will dig a small hole by his grandpa's headstone and bury that note with mark's ashes.  if that's not possible i will open the jar, perhaps read the note and light it afire, then scatter his ashes atop pappy's grave.

it has taken me three years to come to the point of fulfilling this promise i made to mark of placing some of his ashes with his pappy.  it's the very least i can do.  after all, mark made me a better person by showing me through his love, that i was more than i had believed and more worthy than i had known.  i never forgot my promise to him, but it wasn't until this past week that i knew it was finally time and that i could do this.  how appropriate it seems to me that this day is to be sunny and unseasonably warm, that we have set our clocks this morning to "spring ahead" knowing we can look forward with hope in the promise of renewal.

if you want me

i am the luscious ripe fruit

just within reach

i am the passion

the softness

the understanding

your spirit cries out for

you've dreamt of me

all of your life

the question isn't

will you deny me

the question is

will you deny yourself?

if you want me

come and get me

speak the truth

amen

opportunities

this is where i come...

...to expose my feelings, to vent, to write what tears would say if they could speak.  this is my diary of sorts.  and so i shall continue to write and process and examine my thoughts and feelings.  it's simply what i do.  few if any read this and what if they do? 

it has been a hard few days since saturday.  i don't know how long it ill be until i hold the face of the one i love in my hands again.  maybe never.  but those last moments together and his beautiful face are seared into my brain, that image as clear as a bell. 

i am so tired of crying.  i am so tired of missing him and wanting what isn't mine, perhaps never will be mine.  hopefully time will ease this ache, but i have little faith in that, so despite coming to an agreement of putting a halt to things, much has not or will not likely change.  here i go again on a path of acceptance, at the mercy of whatever fate may have in store.  i can only hope she chooses to be kind.  i have known enough of her cruelty for one lifetime.

each of us will go about our own lives now, not so immersed in each other, yet there is a part of me that believes this won't be the end of what we've known previously.  i can't accept that nor can i see how it could be considering what we've shared.  maybe i'm in denial, but when two souls come together by chance or fate and share the rare connection we have, how can we ever allow circumstance or distance to prevent it?  perhaps i am wrong.  only time will tell.  i will continue to hold the reins of hope, only less tightly, but the love i feel will remain strong and the memories vivid.

what a week this has been so far, full of angst and sorrow.  to top it off, sunday is the the anniversary of mark's death.  there's little doubt i will be anything but alone as is usual on the weekend, or for that matter every day.  being by myself so much of the time allows my mind to wander.  i dread sunday and all the memories it will invoke.  i already know it will be a sad day, one i cannot ignore.  my thoughts at the moment are to fulfill a promise i made to him and to take some of his ashes to the cemetery to be placed on his pappy's gravesite.  it's something i have been meaning to do since he passed and there would be no better day than sunday to do so.  it won't be easy but it is necessary.  perhaps i will ask a friend to accompany me or perhaps i will go alone because really, who would want to participate?  besides, there is no one left here that was extremely close to him.  maybe this is my job and mine alone. 

today the thought occurred to me again that maybe i should sell my house and head back to ashland where i would be closer to what's left of my family.  i probably won't, but i often think of it.  i have few friends left here and those friends were a big part of the reason i chose to stay after mark died.  but then, as my sister pointed out, living close by would not necessarily mean i would see them any more often.  she lives there and seldom sees any of them herself.  point taken.  i guess it would just be knowing that they were close by that could make a difference.  i've never missed ashland, either.  wapakoneta is a much nicer place to live, this is certain.  there are still reasons to stay put.  the one thing that would convince me to move is if J decided we had some kind of future together.  i would seriously consider moving back to ashland or someplace closer to him.  the town of oberlin has always come to mind.  as always i am open to possibilities, having learned not to fear change.  it has never been change that i've feared.  if that were the case i would have never found myself living in wapakoneta.  in fact i have generally welcomed change.  my life has been nothing but, sometimes by choice, but many times not.

it is 2:30 am and i should settle into bed but most likely i will wait until my eyes grow a bit more weary and i have exhausted my brain.  another day gone.  they keep going, one by one, adding up into weeks, months and years that pass too quickly with so time and opportunities squandered.  then before you know it, there will be no time left. i feel this so profoundly since i've gotten older.  this is why there is such a need in me to grab hold of the things that matter most, why i am so passionate in my desire to love and be loved when it comes to J.  the time we have to live and love is so short and so precious.  we are just a blip on the screen of life and in a moment we are gone.  if we don't grab onto that moment and that opportunity, if we let everything else consume our time and energy, we find one day it is too late, we can't go back and we are left with a hole in our heart and the sad taste of regret for the remainder of our days. 





 

 




 

a million maybes

maybe i'm hardwired for love or heartache or both.  seems to be the story of my life.
maybe i need to give it up, ya know... to stop thinking or hoping that i can have a happily ever after.  but it seems like hope is all i have at times.
maybe i want to believe in the possibility of forever, fool that i am.
maybe i'm too old to be wanting more for tomorrow, but i don't believe that.
maybe i expect too much from people in general.
maybe i think people are better than they actually are.
maybe i invest too much in others.
maybe i'm naive, gullible, foolish when it comes to matters of the heart.
maybe i should stop chasing someone whom i fear is ok with losing me.
maybe i'm too much...or just not enough.
maybe i think i matter more than i do.
maybe i fear i don't matter enough.
maybe i'm too easy and willing to please.
maybe i'm just being selfish, but it doesn't feel that way.
maybe i need to get my shit together and realize i've had all i'm going to get and this present state of being is it, so maybe i need to accept my fate, period...but i struggle with that because maybe i want more!
maybe i want to be adored because i've learned what that feels like.
maybe i give too much too freely to those i love and maybe i can't help being that way.
maybe i want passion instead of mediocrity....i know i do.
maybe i like expressing myself sexually with my lover too damn much...but how can that be?
maybe i just want too much in the long term.
maybe i'm tired of wondering where i really stand.
maybe i need a haven, a refuge, an escape instead of always being one.
maybe i shouldn't be so eager and accommodating.
maybe i should try harder to ignore my feelings, to forget love and desire and passion.
maybe i should let my world grow smaller and smaller, resigning myself to more trivial pursuits (or perhaps a monastery).
yes, maybe i should walk away from anything that even closely resembles love. but i have tried and failed.
maybe i need to stop believing that love is really all that matters, but i don't think i can because life and death have taught me otherwise.
maybe i should just stop. being. me.
maybe i would if i only knew how.

hard truth

sorry is a lie

i'm tired of feeling i must apologize
for being me
me-the vulnerable girl who wears her heart on her sleeve
me-the temptress whose skin burns craving the cool touch of her lover
or me-the petulant child who sulks and can cut you with her sarcasm

i'm not sorry for my sometimes harsh honesty and analysis
for pushing your buttons
for saying what i want and what i need
for being so much of everything you want
that your head spins

remember, you chose this, too
you chose this storm
you had to know
and now you do

so no, i am not sorry
for crying tears over you
or for the tears that you might cry
i'm not sorry that you crave my soft, rounded flesh
you could have always said no
(but you didn't)

i'm not sorry that you go to sleep
and awaken with thoughts of my warm kisses
or my fingers entwined around your desire

i'm not sorry for all the sighs
that escape from my lips
or the moans that escape from yours
when we take each other to the height of passion
again and again and again

i'm not sorry for making you uncomfortable
with my questions
or your life
and what you thought was real
i am fucking real!
as real as anything or anyone else
don't ever think i'm not

you say i get the best of you?
give me the worst of you
i welcome your demons
and won't apologize for mine

penance

i question, "is it just me whose heart feels this intensely?"
i answer, "it must be or he would say more
or take some kind of action"

am i deceiving myself?
is anything true?

and then i think, "no, he loves me.
he takes (very calculated) risks,
he makes the effort to see me."
but i know that lust alone will cause that

i feel broken
unsettled
and such a fool at times for love

i don't want this feeling
this hopeless yearning
this endless need
this heartache
but i know

that without him
there would be nothing
for what meaning has life without love
without passion?

i am not one of those women
who fills her remaining years
with grandchildren and trivial pursuits

i am still alive
a firey soul
unwilling to succumb to what is expected of me

i want life
and to me
love and passion are life
otherwise i am already dead

but why must it be so painful?
because it is love
and it's not mine to have

so i suffer to know those few brief moments
when opportunity allows him to slip away

in those moments he comes to me
to seek refuge   to be free
to know himself and
the giving and receiving of love

we give of ourselves freely and completely
and when he goes away
i am undone

he says the tears he causes are his penance
in truth they are mine