Once Upon A Twisted Mind

How easy it is to swap one sin out for another ?

Trying to survive destruction with distraction.

Untethered, and uprooted.

A cloud basking in the transient blue of freedom.

Trying it’s very best to ignore the rolling, impending storm.

All my vices are handholds I’ve carved in the side of the cliff.

Frantically climbing climbing climbing.

It’s all I can do to get away.

I’ll climb into the sky, you see.

I’ll float into the storm, you see.

I’ll go from fire to the thunder.

All I’m left with are scars and scraps

Long lost pieces and uncertain edges.

Glimpses of long gone, odes to goodbye.

Solitary moments, sparks of memory.

And there you go, still spinning.

Like your axis never broke.

Somehow you were always enough for yourself.

I left myself behind,

And tore down my home

Just to build you a castle-

Your shelter against my storm.

I can try my best to let it go,

To forget and just move on.

But your footprints made their mark on my fresh cement;

Your hands wrapped around my sides made an indelible dent.

It’s 1 am on Tuesday, and I’m scraping out the hieroglyphs of your transient love, the scars of your doubt.

At 8pm on Sunday;

I stare up at the empty and freshly painted wall.

It’s 12 am, Monday.

And I realize,

Chasing the day away, with a vodka on the rocks.

The words lashing my cheeks, crying to be unlocked.

They travel softly at first, and then grow wilder.

Lashing and loathing, a hurricane spreading wildfire.

I can speak and recite and yell.

Over the continent that lies in our way.

Barely chipped, mostly unbruised, the earth remains steadfast at the end of the day.

When do you give up, when is it enough?

When love turns dark and tender becomes tough ?

The clock strikes 12, it’s time to go.

You pick up your glass shoes and head out the door.

You could turn around, but never do.

Growing up, and giving up taught you a thing or two.

So there you are- alone, with a fragmented heart.

A playlist, some wine and a boarding pass for a start.

You’ve packed away your smile and your soul for another time.

Your lips practice the ever ready ‘i’m fine’.

You survive and trudge on, whatever the cost.

And then one day, you realize you were never really lost.

Because somewhere between the road and the song,

Your heart found a place to belong.

You unpack your smile. It’s been so long.

There once was a bandage boy.

Part of a band, no doubt.

Beer on his breath and smoke on his lips.

Sauntering, sliding his hand on my hip.

He smoldered, and laughed and flirted and joked.

Silver lined the edges of my broken, with hope.

We used metaphors and songs to disguise our thoughts,

And the shuddering candlelight to conceal the doubt.

Twirling around the crowded, but empty bar.

A whiskey, some rum, 3 shots, and back to the car.

We happened so fast, I scarcely blinked.

His mouth on my neck, fingers interlinked.

The sun rose to find us whispering about the past.

And how it was responsible for why we wouldn’t last.

But he would always remain the bandage boy.

The could-have-happened, maybe someday, sort of guy.

With hands of tape and glue,

And kisses like syrup.

Pacing in ruin- the battleground after the war. 

'We're finally here', you say, holding my palm.

 The only ones left standing in the rubble, 

Blanketed in a shroud of a deathly calm. 

Time has piled up- layer by layer. 

Fossilising our every battle.

They lie there hidden, but still feel prickly. 

Uncomfortable but inconsequential. 

Numerous 'Are we there yet's' echo all around us; 

Yet somehow we didn't know. 

That an ever after that was happy, 

Is in the journey- no matter how slow. 

We're here now at a crossroads; 

A choice we have to make. 

Walk away bruised but whole, 

I looked at my reflection and thought I saw someone I knew from a time long ago. When these hands weren’t imprinted by yours. When you didn’t reside in the center of my being. When all my soul needed was to be seen by you.

The mirror showed me something I’d never noticed before. The sliver of hope knotted in my hair. The touch of color back in my cheeks. A whisper of a smile hidden in the outlines of my lips. The tremble of excitement in the tips of my fingers, and the glimmer of ‘maybe’ dancing in my eyes.

​Take parts and assemble a whole.

Lost moments and faded bits that time stole.

Pick up bruised broken bits to form

A being a life a heart a soul the norm

Beating hearts and racing red

Although unloved, was never ‘dead’

Alive kicking and laying waste

To anyone undermining her need for haste.

Quicken those hearts; a future lies

Slightly beyond your charcoal eyes.

A little out of touch you see.

Because all you learn will be the key.

Hoping to unlock,

All that will free and unburden this flock.

​The lifeblood flow finished.

Life unblemished.

We parted and said goodbye.

Nostalgia lay tapered.

The past left unfettered.

 Untied unlatched unchained.

Cut to the bone, organ, my own.

Left behind a home faraway.

Life without you and a world without me, existence without halves of a whole.

​I see I take;

Your heart I break.

Loved so fiercely that it shattered.

Hurt and pain and hurricanes and rain.

Battering all that really mattered.

What is the end game ?

Is this past to be untrodden?

Laid in waste and not in haste to join at the hip either.

Moving on, following the fork that broke us.

Lives untainted by the other;

Flirting with failure, dancing with disaster.

​All these words spilling like I mean it,

Hurtling against the bones of my sensibility.

Crying for redemption, praying for exemption,

From the sins of the darkest place of your temptation.

Free and unbound like it was intended by God,

But mostly your fear.

Hidden eyes from the life that lies just over the horizon.

Maybe leaping is not worth it and waiting- a pain.

Swerving sharply, cutting into, unabashedly into my lane.

You can wait a few more laps and just a while longer;

Life can wait, it’s up to faith whether we should be together.

I wait for you by the setting sun, the rising of the moon,

And the starry goodbye to the galaxy sky when morn gives away to noon.

I’ll wait for you, feet dangling over the edge of beyond

Holding my breath until you’re here.

Distance is measured in feet and with hearts. You can be an inch from me and a world away at the same time.

We can be two heartbreaks away from a happy ending, and one kiss away from destruction.

We send our souls across the phones, and our hearts packaged in pretty boxes.

We wear and tear our voices shouting across the expanse trying to get it to the other side.

Yelling across a valley, letting our words fall into the infinite empty below.

A barely there you, a heartbroken me. A blink and miss painful memory. 

Why would you touch, what you can never hold. 

A lost breath, at just six months old. 

This whisper away from a life together. Floating away- a drifting feather.

Miniscule toes, translucent skin. A love that left, all too sudden.

This candle I’ll hold till it burns me through.

But nothing can soothe this space left by you.

Fists, and tears and hurt to the brink.

 Your life unlived; my lonely soul sinks.

I don’t know how long I can withstand;

Ø  Throw stuff at it- Pillows, poetry and yourself. If you’re lucky, it will smile.

Ø  Don’t drown in self-pity. It is not your fault it’s immovable.

Ø  Banging your fists against it screaming ‘say something’ will not make it say or do anything.

Ø  You can dress it up with paint, flowers and pretty words, but it will always be a wall.

Ø  Building your own barrier in defiance will not bring it down. Two walls don’t make a walkway.

Ø  Spend a day leaning against it, and whisper sweet nothings to the space between the bricks; if you’re lucky it will whisper back an acknowledgement.

Ø  Bombard the barricade with food and unending energy. Never show it how exhausted you are. If your wall is as pure as mine is, it will try to push you away.

Ø  Passive aggressiveness will only exhaust you. Think positive- because at the end of the day, you’re the only one struggling with the weight of the wall.  

Ø  Learn to appreciate the strength and the tenacity of your structure. Use its fortitude as your foundation.

Ø  Face facts. You probably will never get a peek behind it. Understand that what you see is probably what you will get.

Ø  Shower it with affection until you have nothing left.  Get up the next morning, and do it all over again.

Ø  Appreciate it. Your wall is unique- with its cracks and bruises. There is probably no other wall exactly like yours. So learn to love its unappreciated steadfastness, and its unwavering loyalty.

Ø  Don’t think of your wall as an obstacle to overcome. Be patient, and one day you may realize that the wall was slowly growing around you- your very own shelter from the storm.

Ø  Sledgehammers, drunken slurs and tears won’t break down the wall; but only build it higher and even more distant, and will eventually take you back to step 1.

My suitcase is a museum of faded stickers.Worn out leather holding in the ghost of holidays past. A crumpled up map hidden within it's depths. 

A map of tattered pages lined with naughts and crosses. Use your fingers and trace along the lines carved by pen on paper. These lines that reflect the roads my boots have tramped. 

The boots with the laces that have been tied and retied a thousand times. These soles that have tread sands and snow, puddles and pavements. These shoes that have followed people and chased sunsets. 

Uncover within me, the roads I have trudged, the mountains I have trekked, the waters I have tested. Touch the raindrops that have fallen from a sky far away, now trapped within the folds of my coat. This person you see here, with her worn out heels, and scraped up knees is a patchwork of cities, people, the sea and the stars. 

Do you remember those pages ? Stained with words from the heart? Rosy, and right. 

 Perfect prose for perfect people.

 We were so much more than what we are now. Layers of us, peeled away by the space between us.

 Do you remember the hurt ? The sting of a love's harsh bite. 

 The sharp hurt, that faded soon enough. Blisters without the bruises. 

 We don't hurt. We don't fight and forgive as much as we did then.

 And sometimes that's worse. 

All I have left of you, is a dull ache of what we could be and fossilised anger that will never be extinguished.

 Do you remember the future we planned ? Hypothetically, but wishful.

 A timeline of us, and all that we would accumulate along the way.

 We don't plan the way we did before. 

 The clear cut lines have grown dimmer. A fog of unresolved hurt now surrounds us, making it impossible to look ahead

. Do you remember the touch ? That electricity that flowed from fingertip to skin.

 That toe-curling, tremor causing touch.

 We can't make that magic like we used to.

 We hold hands and pull in different directions. 

Years of holding each other back, reduced that spark to a chain. 

 Do you remember us ? 

 We were endgame. 

We were everything. 

We were our future.

 But we aren't us anymore.