the better answers

you fell in love with an idea
of who you thought
i was

who you thought
i could be

what you thought
i could offer

light blazing through
your dark

joy slicing through
your pain

maybe your ideas
were all real

maybe i am
the answer
to all your
questions

but maybe
the better answers
already lie within
your own heart

©jmr/2009

pity

driving home to your little wife with her little mind and nothing nice to say…

no more good night kisses

nothing to look forward to

the reality of your misfortune hits you

this is it
too late to turn it around now
to start over
too embedded
too intertwined
too deep
too much

to undo

your own voice no longer makes sense

even to you as
you lay awake at night
beside a stranger
living inside a stranger’s skin

trying in vain
to sort out the events of the day

what was said

what was truth

your own meaning lost in the translation

perpetually suspended between
what you are
what you always dreamed you would be

and what you will never
become

©2008/jmr

you don’t have to call first…

Before I met you, I had no problem with admitting that this was it – my life… and everything in it was mine (by my own doing, my own choices, my own mistakes)… all that I have, I earned… fought for… kicking and screaming and it’s mine… achieved with my own two hands…my own intellect… my own strength.

I know I’ll never be 17 again; when the future was crisp like the morning air and my life waited ahead, as far as the eye could see.

When I could race without fear, when there was still abundant forgiveness for my wiley and curious ways, when I didn’t have a care in the world…

As the years flew by, I became resolute… I fell into routine and made amends with the young woman in my heart… Apologized to her for letting her believe I’d still be able to make her laugh wildly, let her run recklessly with the wind blowing through her hair… I packaged my acceptance up neatly in a gift box, affixed a bow and tucked it away into the furthest corner of my top closet shelf.

Then I met you. And you shook me up. You came out of nowhere and made me question everything I do, who I thought I was, why I’d given up.

You gave me love… real love; unconditional and unwavering. You expect greatness from me… and I am starting to believe that the me you see is the me I already am… you make me a better woman; you make me want more, everything, faster, fuller and NOW.

I feel anxious, but not in the way that you think. I feel like I’m waiting for the future to begin and it’s so close I can taste it but I can’t do anything to speed things along. I have my eyes on the one thing that will make me happy and every day wasted without moving toward it is another day I sit here in the same place wishing on the same star dreaming the same dream and doing nothing to make it come true.

I have climbed up and grabbed the box from the top shelf, tore open the wrapping and tried on all the wishes I tucked away. I’m sitting alone in my room wearing my party clothes with no place to go.

Just come get me, already – I only need to grab my shoes. You don’t have to call first – I’ll know it’s you before I even hear the doorbell ring…

©jmr/2002

night vs day

what just happened?

last night i felt like a woman

safe in your arms

confident in your love

today i am like a child

made to feel shame

for being a woman

with a voice

for needing you

for something deeper

© jmr/2009

no longer two different things…

flipping through channels this evening i stopped [absent mindedly] at a show i’d never even heard of before…  it was about complicated lives full of truth and lies…

and the intricate web that is the heart of a woman…  the heart of a mother… the heart of a lover… the heart of a friend.

two of the four women, who were obviously long time friends, were walking together and talking.

one of them, the vivacious glossy brown eyed and promiscuous one, [who i later learned had just begun to experiment with her sexuality and gender preferences] was lamenting about a feeling she had recently that she could not define, had never felt before, and didn’t know how she would find again…

she had tried to find it again over the previous several weeks of further experimentation in every combination she could think of, trying to detangle herself from her confusion… but the feeling was elusive –

her friend asked, “what did it feel like exactly?”

she answered, “overwhelming, but not in a bad way”

her friend replied, “was it like your emotions and your body were no longer two different things?”

the girl stared at her friend, a little shocked, yet relieved at the realization that she was completely and thoroughly understood, and nodded her head enthusiastically.

her friend said, simply, “you’re in love”.

I suppose there is no way to predict when love will come into your life, how swiftly it will take over your sensibilities, causing you to immediately throw self preservation to the far corners without question, making the impossible seem possible, nothing seem dangerous and everything seem right…

making the soul insatiable for more more more…

You can’t pre-determine how you will respond; how it will rip through your veins and tear apart the foundation of who you were and what you knew (or know)…  making it impossible to ever go backward and a shaky prospect, at best, to go forward – how will you ever know what’s real again after THIS if THIS isn’t the end all and be all…  and how presumptuous to assume that THIS is real when you obviously don’t know SHIT (after all [insert past here]…)

There isn’t a way to anticipate if you will be ready for it, who or what in your life might be impacted if the timing is wrong (or if the timing is right), how your mind will shift when you realize you’ve been living a lie but now you KNOW better, or what you would be willing to give up…

For the girl in the storyline, it wasn’t anything she was attempting to recreate on her own – not gender, or excitement of the chase, or even the experience itself that shook her.  it was, at the core, the connection and alignment of the different pieces of herself she’d been able to keep in their own perfect little boxes her whole life…  she was an expert before this at never spilling from one box to the other, and never confusing which contents belonged where.

It was the person.

For those of us who have never felt that perfect, simple, effortless unification of all the senses, mind body and spirit before, it’s easy to be blown away (and right onto our ass) by its introduction.

It’s easy to let the heart trick the mind into believing it means something it does not, and that both people involved have to be on the same page at the same pace at the exact same time, because, after all, it’s LOVE.

It’s easy to flood ourselves with dreams of “meant to be” and “this is magic”, rush to conclusions which might involve traditional things – a family, a home, forever after…

But it’s so hard to open ourselves to the notion of:

Simply enjoying the feeling

Letting it fill us completely

Until there is no more room inside

And then letting it fill us some more

Not caring about the outcome

Not considering the risks…

Just jumping, knowing full well

there is

no net

© jmr/2009

the more things change…

the moments fly by

til they become days

then years

and the reflection in the mirror

is no longer familiar

it isn’t the features that change

as much as the look

in my own eyes

and every move ahead

seems more and more like

history repeating itself

© jmr / 2009

all [we] are not

My anger has subsided
And now

I simply see you

For all you are
And all you are not

Without emotion
My gaze wanders over
Your features

As I wonder
What I used to see
There

That softened my heart
Stirred my libido

You are speaking
About work
About family
About something
About nothing

I pretend to hear you

Your eyes still sparkle
Your smile, still engaging
Your laughter, still infectious

Your skin tanned

You look healthy
You look happy

But I know you

To me, you are empty

You are soulless

You are someone who
I used to love

And I don’t love you anymore
You used to be able
To change my mood with a glance

Affect my attitude with yours

Blend all that was me
Like finger paints
Swirling the colors all around

Til I couldn’t recognize
Myself

I’m solid now
I can bend
But not to the will
Of anyone
But myself

And that, perhaps
Is the most intriguing thing
I am aware of
As I sit here with you
Tonight

© jmr/2005