I spoke to someone today who knew you, and she said she knew I loved you and it immediately occurred to me that she didn't have a clue, how could this stranger possibly know how the only thing I ever had to do was fit my face into the curve of your shoulder and fill my lungs with the scent of you and I felt like nothing else mattered? How your hand, it fit mine. How no matter where we were or who we were with you coming to you was always like coming home; familiar, safe and never different.

But that's when she quit looking at me like I was insane as I started to sweat at just the mention of you name, you don't have to say I love you to say I love you, she said with a shrug. All you have to do is say his name and I know. Intrigued and scared what might happen if I opened my mouth or move I maintained frozen. Can't you hear it? she said. When you love someone, you say their name different. Like it's safe inside your mouth.

I began wondering again, if even just the mention of my name made you twitch or subconsciously made you start sifting your way back through the memories, or what it was like that day you suddenly decided I no longer meant anything to you.

If you give someone your heart and they take it, do they take it with them? Do you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that can't be filled?

Do you know how sometimes - when you are riding your bike and you start skidding across sand, or when you miss a step and start tumbling down the stairs, - you have those long, long seconds to know that you are going to be hurt, and badly, and there is nothing you can do to prevent the pain that is about to come? I used to often wonder what would happen when you offered yourself to someone, and they opened you, only to discover you were not the gift they expected and they had to smile and nod and say thank you all the same. I soon realized when you give yourself to someone, it is only a matter of time until those long, long seconds occur.

Do you remember?

Do you remember me saying I wanted to be travel writer? How some nights we would sit in the dark, feeling for each other with our voices, and we'd trade memories of places like it was part of an elaborate board game. It occurred to me in the months after you left, I did become a travel writer after all. I wrote of Sicily and Haifa and Australia and about the Orient and the Mediterranean Sea, about anywhere I thought you might be. Except my destinations were imagined, and I never set foot on another shore. At first this upset me. And then, as time passed, I realized I never was a fan of flying.

Your hair was wild around your face, and your thumbs were pressed up close against each other in front of your lips where they held the top of your fingers. 'Like this,' you said, but you were laughing too hard; you couldn't show me how you made those little little gaps with your fingers and make an unholy whistle.
You had been wearing the flip flops we bought at the beach, but you didn't mind walking through the woods.
I was hopelessly bad at whistling; you kept at it for hours, holding your hands over mine and telling me to try again copious amounts when each time I failed.
Do you know how you love people more on certain days?
It wasn't the way that your eyes gleamed when the sun was beating down on you, or the feeling of your hands locked around mine, willing them to move a certain way.
It was because on that day, at least, you didn't give up.

I think you sent me a postcard once. It was just a postcard, addressed to me in unidentifiable block lettering, with nothing at all written on the message side. On the front was a picture of a pig and a horse in fancy hats and polka-dot dresses. It was exactly the kind of thing you would never in a million years pick off a postcard rack, and so that's why I figured it must be from you, yet another layer to hide behind.

It was postmarked from London.
It is not true, what they say, about writing being the next best thing to being there. For days I stared at that postcard and touched it in all the places I imagined you had, when you wrote the address and when you fixed the stamp into place and all the other places I thought you may have touched. But never once did I feel like I'd found you again.

I heard someone on the bus today say that this guy had gotten under her skin.
And it struck me as a remarkable thought that somebody could affect you so deeply they'd always be a part of you.
Theres an image that goes with that phrase: Something fluid and warm that starts at your heart and spreads all the way out to your fingertips and your toes, carried by the blood.
This girl on the bus, she said she couldn't stop dreaming about this man. She said she wouldn't be the person she was now if she hadn't met him.
Under the skin she said,
And I started thinking.

I have questions for you that I never got a chance to ask:
Do you look like you did back then? Would it make a difference, anyway?
Do you think of me when you least expect it - when you're going to work or tilting your face toward the shower or when you're with someone else? And can you leave it at that, or do you find yourself compulsively sifting through the memories? If I had been the one to leave, would you have written out your heart to me?

It's been hell

After a while, I couldn't remember whole pieces of you, as if part of the punishment was a recollection of thoughts and memories through a filter that grew hazier with time.
On certain Sunday mornings when I dreamed of you, I could not picture what your teeth had looked like, or the exact curve of your jaw which fit perfectly in my hand.
I used to imagine us sitting down for a drink at a bright little restaurant, maybe one of those specialty coffee shops which have become so popular.

I swear I could smell the blended beans and the starch of white napkins, even the milled soap that you would have used that morning.
I was able to see your easy smile, which always seem to startle it's way across your face - your smile, but not your teeth - and the way your fingers tapped a light tattoo against the mug. I did not give us conversation: no, you look great, no, what have you been up to? no, it has been hell.
Like your teeth and the line of your jaw, this part was unclear to me. I was not sure if there was a protocol to follow when I welcomed back from hiding my other half, I'd kill to hold you again.

No going back

What i miss most is talking to you. I imagine running into you in a busy market, even though i don't go to the market, and we decide to have lunch and we talk over drinks, and then we walk back to where you are staying and talk some more, and we talk in the hotel lobby and we keep talking until the moon is high in the sky and we talk until the waiters change shifts and the night manager kicks us out. I want to talk to you, but i don't have the slightest idea what we'd have to say.

We Had It All

We had it all at arms reach,
But then our hands fell apart.

We started losing parts,
Soon our elbows were all gone.

Now theres nothing past our shoulders,
And nothing left to hold onto.

Hurricane,

Hold on to those lilacs while you wait for her; hold on to
The moonlight, the springtime, your memories; hold on while the
Rain devotes itself to teaching your body about patience;
Hold on to the stillness with wrinkled rose petal fingers when it stops;

When sun rises, hold on; when the sun sets, hold on;
Do not worry about the flowers wilting; hold on, while
She breaks bread with trembling fingers;hold on, as she wipes the
Sweat beading on her belly, smearing once perfect spheres against her flesh.

Hold on;guide her on her way to everything loud and swirling;
Hold on as you drown each other in dark wine; hold off the
Morning and keep yourself from burning too brightly too soon

Hold on to her feet and hands and swollen shadow as her
Love flows; let go only as your hearts stop and your lungs give up;
When death finds you both worthy, let her last thoughts be of a hurricane.

It's been so long

It's been one hundred and eighty six days since our hands have been apart,
Since the day you left and broke my heart.

It's been that long since your eyes were aligned with mine,
Since the day that you said your heart was no longer with mine.

It's been that long since your body lay next to mine,
Since the day you hung my heart upon the line.

It's been that long since you loved me so,
Since one hundred and eighty six days ago.

Do you really want this?

Do you really want this?

Do you really want this?
Because it's a cold hard road when you awake,
But it's a life love can't fake.

Do you really want this?
Because everyone will think differently of us,
But no matter what I wont let anyone dare stop us.

Do you really want this?
Because everything you said and did tells me differently,
But that tear in your eye gives me hope.

Chest Light,

So starting today things are going to be alright,
I know it's hard, but I'll be with you tonight.

Your rivers don't need to run free today,
Cause I love you and I will see you someday.

This isn't goodbye forever but only for a little while,
Cause we'll meet again and it'll be worth that smile.

Yes the mornings go slow and the nights quicker,
So baby please don't let that chest light flicker.

Picture,

Baby let me paint this picture for you,
My eyes deep in yours of saphire blue.

Our hands together, shaking for the first time,
Our deep exhales, gentle enough for a chime.

Just you and I an a perfect fleeting world,
My love for you ever growing, around you it's curled.

I feel the soft embrace of your arms around me,
I feel the warmth of your heart as it surrounds me.

I find you by my side as we stroll under the lights,
Under the carefully decorated violet blue nights.

Baby let me paint this picture for you,
Your my one and only, and this is for you.

Closer,

He took her hand and told her it'll be ok,
his life would never be the same after that day.

He slouched and leant his head against her knee,
he couldn't just sit and let her be.

"It's just, you know, silly" she said,
"It'll be ok" and he shook his head.

He stood up and she followed,
He moved closer, her heart bellowed.

She turned and ran into his green eyes,
Beating faster her heart that within lies.

Her face close to his though she might miss,
His hands trembled and he gave her a gentle kiss.

Awake,

I awake heart beating faster then before,
wishing I was there for that bit more.

your lips against mine in the pouring rain,
all I could hear was a constant drain.

your arms around me seemed forever more,
I never knew a love like this before.

your heartbeat pushed close to mine,
your hair against my face ever so fine.

I awake knowing that you'll never be in my arms,
because these are just some of life's charms.