What Dreams May Come....

 

This month, like many months,
you’ve been showing up in my sleep,
as if the distance between us
is thinner than air.

I wake with your voice still echoing,
your face so real
I have to check the room-- are you here?
Oh, how I wish you were.

Last night I had the exact same dream as you—Maybe?

Did you feel it? 

Okay... at least it felt that way.
This month it was one dream of me watching us last year, as in a menagerie, you reaching for me, kissing me, both of us scared in those first moments, but all eternity rushing in.

Do you dream these same dreams? I always wonder...

But when you DO dream of us, do you wake up wondering why the edges of our lives still brush against each other, like stars that share the same sky?

I wonder if you know,
time and too much don’t belong together
like we do.
If I had all my yesterdays,
I’d give them to you too.

Remember that MP you sent me once? I still have it saved there and on my phone. The one where you told me months after we broke up how you weren't quite sure how, but how exciting it was to find someone who sees the world the exact same way you do.

Just like the Brandi Carlile song...

In my dreams, we see the world
the exact same way--like we always have.
We lend our hands,
take our stands,
even in silence, in tandem.

Sometimes I think
I’ll die the exact same day as you.
On the Golden Gate Bridge (like the one on your arm),
I’d hold your hand
and howl at the moon,
scrape the sky with tired eyes,
and I’d come find you.
I’m not scared—
because if the dreams are real,
I’m never gonna miss you.

And yet I wake aching,
because the room is still empty,
because you are still gone,
because even eternity in a dream
can’t keep me from missing you here.

If dreams are real,
then maybe we’ve never left each other.
Maybe we’re still walking the same miles in the same vast universe,
quietly, endlessly,

but
side by side.

Not an Agent of Chaos

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I am not the storm that shatters the sky,

nor the wind that whispers a reckless lie.
I do not scatter leaves in a careless flight,
or set wildfires raging in the dead of night.

I walk with intention, steady and true,
planting my footprints in earth’s quiet hue.

My words are not daggers, nor poisoned with spite,
but lanterns that offer a softer light.

If hearts are unsteady, if tides start to rise,
it is not my hands that unmoor the ties.

I gather the broken, the lost, the afraid,
mending with kindness the cracks that remain.

So call me the keeper, the one who will see you—
not a force of ruin, but one who never left. Always stayed.

 

We don’t know…

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A heart is an organ beating my my chest. It keeps me alive. 

But at school? The heart is a red crayon,

a shape traced on construction paper,

cut out with safety scissors,

taped to a refrigerator door.

The soul is my shoe. Right momma? 

No honey. It is inside you. It’s eternal. 

A soul is something that drifts

somewhere up high—

maybe behind the clouds,

maybe near the moon,

It’s what you feel in your depths. Like your heart. But not your HEART heart. 
My 2nd grade mind cannot understand that which is not literal at this age. Everything is literal. Black and white. 
But oh to not understand the heart and soul now. Age 40. 

Age 8? We do not know yet

that a heart can ache without breaking,

that a soul can be worn thin and still glow.

A heart can break over and over though we beg it not to. 

Our soul can be crushed in only a few words, sentences, moments. 

As children, we do not know yet

that hearts are not just paper,

and souls are not just air—

that one day,

we will carry them both like lanterns,

guiding our way through the dark

Or in moments of desperation and deep heartbreak pray and wish on every star to light up our path because we are so far under water we cannot see or even breathe. 

As children, we do no know yet that our hearts and souls can also do the same for others. 

But we are no longer children.

So why hold the lantern along the path for only your own footsteps

When your light is bright enough to, metaphorically, walk each other home?

Little

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I feel like a little kid

whose friend moved away

without saying goodbye.

Like I showed up to the park,

feet dragging through wood chips,

only to find the swings empty,

the laughter gone.

Your laughter, only a memory that I'll always miss.

Really?

But I’m not a kid.

I’m 45.

And this isn’t supposed to happen.

Nothing stops the hollow feeling that settles in my chest.

And I don’t want this to be the ending,

don’t want the last words spoken

to be the last at all.

The last time I saw you or hugged you to be on my birthday of all days.

Is this really what you want? 
I can’t think that it is. 

I can’t believe for ONE single second this is happening and can't believe you want this. 
I’ll never believe that. 

It’s too too sad. 

And you’re not like this. You've never done this to anyone. 

So I can't believe any of this.

It feels like I have saved a seat at school lunch for a friend, you,

but will you come back and sit with me? 

Come sit with me at brunch on Sunday. 🥺🥺🥺

Please come back and sit and talk—with not 8 year old—with 45 year old me.

Fine

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Each night, I promise, say—tonight, I’ll be fine.

I’ll breathe, I’ll sleep, I won’t rewind.

But darkness settles like a weight on my chest,

and the memories riot, denying me rest.

I fold in on myself, tears pour down my face,

I scream out wishing you’d just reverse this—save me from this angonizimg head space.
So what if I’m too intense, care beyond belief. 

This is how I view everyone, do everything. At least I’m always ME. 

This silence can’t be final, this absence not real,

There’s a void in my being, no one else can fill.

How? Just walked away leaving me stunned and so defeated,

haunting every nightmare and dream, while ignoring my cries for relief. 

So I break. Again. A flood, a quake,

This pain, this ache I cannot shake.

Tomorrow, I’ll fake it, I’ll try to pretend—

but tonight, I collapse, cry till I can’t breathe, unravel, bend.

My job loss buried me in grief, 

But this.

This put me 6ft deeper than that, buried in unbelievable disbelief. 

Words on a Screen

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a vibration against the quiet—

a whisper of finality,

delivered by a machine.

Not a voice. 

No breath, no pause,

just pixels stacked like bricks,

walling off the echoes of voices

that once spoke only kindness to each other.

Maybe it was easier this way--

but don't let it

don't let it be this way--

to let the glass and metal and elements

carry the weight,

to hide behind, press send, then disappear,

Leaving only words

where a person used to be.

shaky hands and oceans of tears

breaking under the weight of words juxtaposed with silence

A cluster of words on a screen...

where a conversation, a hug, eyes should have been. Where a conversation, a hug, presence should be…