file this under l for “loss”; subtitled c for “can’t let go”

i am doused in restlessness
frustrated
at ‘theblock’ (damn the block!!!)
preventing

[my much taken for granted
normally comes so easily
.the.only.thing.i.truly.call.my.own.
that thing
that
saturates everything i am]

gift
curse
ability

to take chaos
and make order of it
translating my soul
into words
i know you’ll read
eventually

even though you’ll do it
under the guise of stealth
and never tell me so

this time…
i have not…
the energy
will
…

i guess i’m missing
the full body embrace
of acceptance
around the truth

i quite literally feel
as though
my heart will cave in
if i don’t say it

and so,
ugly and raw
here it is…

back to basics
without
elegance
or refinement:

i love you
still.

morethanieverknew.
waymorethanishould

more than you deserve
even on a good day
and i promise you

i cannot tell you why
i don’t understand it myself

but i can’t let go…

i breathe you in

like i am pressing an unwashed
plain white v neck tshirt
soaked with your scent
to my face

all day long

i can’t shake it

i.dream.you

without recollection of the particulars
and wake drenched
with sweat

this incredible sense of loss
when i wake enough to realize

you are not here/there

that hazy not quite reality state

even within that

ifeelyou…gone

i can’t close my eyes
without seeing you

can’t touch skin to skin
without longing for you

can’t keep going on this way

and yet…

i.can’t.hate.you
you.are.a.part.of.me

i promise you
i cannot tell you why
i don’t understand it myself

but i can’t let go…

©jmr/2010

something inexplicably mine

you hold your heart
close to your chest
even to the discerning eye
it’s nearly colorless

but to me

it’s vivid
brighter
than nature’s greens and blues
illuminated by the noon time sun

i see you
as a man
strong
unbreakable

the young boy
you used to be
beneath the soft
brown
in your eyes

you contradict you

unintentionally
willingly
beautifully

there is something
inexplicably mine

within you

i am desperately
unable
to resist you

© jmr/2009

uncle randy and the chevy

she was a constant presence
in the cool quiet cement encased garage
beneath the perfectly aligned
silver cover

you’d flip on the
fluorescent lights
shocking
the visual silence
as the brightness
traded center stage with
soft shaded sunlight
streaming in through the only window

with a flourish,
you’d remove the cover
and we’d stand…
staring…

i would run a single
finger along the
straight lines
of slick gunmetal gray

you never scolded me
for seeing her beauty
with my hands

for hours, i’d listen, as you
explained the mechanical details
of her big block engine
machined cam bearings
heavy pistons
fuel injection

i was distracted only
by your fingertips
permanently stained
smudges of black
from years of
creating this and
similar works of art

you would open the garage door
my tiny frame dwarfed by
your 6 feet
our shadows competing
as the sun kissed us
where we stood
together

i’d watch
you open the heavy
steel
suicide door
settle into the driver’s seat
and turn the key which lived permanently
in the ignition

the smell of gasoline
engine grease
smoky exhaust
rich leather
swirling
thick in the air
weighted in my lungs

the bass roar
of the engine
quite literally
stirred my soul
boiled my blood
quickened my pulse
made the back of
my neck tingle

i was never good
at hiding
the sheer joy
the rush
and excitement
i felt

but i didn’t have to
you always understood

“one day”, you’d tell me,
“when i’m gone,
this will be yours”

i’d always feel guilty
for instantly
picturing my bare
grown up hands
gripping the leather wrapped wheel
plowing hard through tree covered morning mountain roads

but only a little.

© jmr/2009

raw

you’re letting me love you
with my heart on my sleeve
and my eyes wide open

with honesty
and simplicity

in an
un-conventional
un.cookie.cutter’y
un-spectacular
yet

greatest love of all time
kinda way

hoping you can’t see
through to my soul
(and knowing you do)
(and amazed that you
still want to
even though
you see)
me

kinda way

laughing while making love
let’s inspire greatness in each other
thank you for parking in the driveway
kiss your eyelids while you’re sleeping

hand on my throat
heart in your hands

first and last thought
where’s my phone
in the morning

kinda way

through fear and doubt and
‘i.vowed.i.would.never.do.this.again’
i’m letting you love me too

cause baby,
this aint nothing like that
ever tried to be

© jmr/2010

nuance

you
listen
between
the lines

the way
you
respond
to each
unspoken
syllable

makes me feel
like the only
other person
in a world

bustling with chaos

© jmr/2009

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

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

all over again

the weight of your body
the taste of your tongue

i am alive
radiant

my heart… so full
my emotions… so exposed
i would give anything
to lie in your arms
forever

every time i leave you
my heart is broken
all over again

© jmr/2009