You Kissed Me Goodbye

Last night you kissed me goodbye.
I wanted to wrap my arms around you and keep you all night. I wanted to close my eyes and live that moment, as small as it was perfect. I wanted to cry. Goodbye kisses are comfortable and last night you kissed me goodbye. I felt warm, alive and so ~ unbelievably so ~ good. I felt like I could sleep without my heart racing, I felt like I could breathe and not feel scared. I felt a smile, I knew you noticed ~ glow from deep in my heart. Goodbye kisses are for lovers and last night you kissed me goodbye. It was the first time you ever kissed me goodbye, leaned in and with your hand on my waist kissed my cheek. Paused for a second ~ your face only so far from my own, our foreheads touching. Smiled and said goodbye. Goodbye kisses are such small things, yet they mean so much ~ and last night you kissed me goodbye. I watched you walk to your car, the single butterfly which flutters every time I see you multiplied into a million. Dizzy, high ~ overwhelmed. Touched. I let myself inside and quietly settled onto the couch, breathless.
I wanted to whisper how much I could love you, I wanted to tell you how you make me feel, I wanted perfect words to give to you, I wanted words that had never been used by anyone ~ human or god. I wanted something new, and heavenly ~ that's what you are to me. I wanted all of that because last night you kissed me goodbye.

And For The Snow, Thank You

Do you know why no one could ever take your place? Not just the clear things like your ridiculously awesome smile or your beautiful face or your overwhelming (in the best way) eyes. Not just your voice, which I love and love more at night when it fills with sleep, not your fingers and their magic, how fucking hot it is when your teeth are on my skin ~ ALL of those things are phenomenal ~ but there is a reason even bigger than those. You make everything awesome, really ~ this year, 24,has felt so good and so big, in such a movie way. Do you remember when I was leaving your house on the night of my birthday and I was like, "I started and ended this birthday with you." You were like, "You sure did." The thought made me smile the whole way home. It was the best birthday ~ the best year ~ and it started with you. Then sitting in your car after not seeing you for a little while and I say to you,"Merry Christmas, it's Christmas!" but inside my head I think, Hey it's Christmas and I started it with you ~ it's going to be the best Christmas ever! After kissing you good bye I walk in the house and I am full of this ~ I don't know, but it's great and you fill me with it when no one else has ~ and I get about, hmmm 15m. of sleep but it doesn't matter I know this will be a great Christmas!Then Christmas day and everything seems the same,except that outside ~ New Orleans, deep south and SNOW! Not just slush and sleet ~ SNOW, flurries and flakes and real life, beautiful SNOW. I smile to myself and think ~ I knew when I started this day with her that it would just have to be better than any other!So there you go, I know you were cold, your poor lovely fingers turning red, your body covered in goose bumps and your face full of this obnoxiously beautiful pathetic-ness that makes me want you more, still I hope you watched it and I hope it made you smile.
Merry Christmas

Hello Again ~ Finding Your Kiss

I'm glad you came tonight ~ though I wasn't at first, glad I mean. I was finally starting to shake how much I missed your energy, breathing deep ~ embracing the freedom. More sad because without our nights I could not seem to write anything, than sad because I had lost you. After all, I never actually had you.
See, I tried so hard to look away from thoughts of you ~ not wanting to heal myself with your memories, for then I'd only hurt later on. I let myself miss you, your touch, your eyes ~ I even found it somewhat erotic to feel the tears I knew I would never cry sting my eyes. When you didn't call, or when you did but it wasn't the same, I was okay. I'm not stupid. I know that I am at least half of the magic in this insane pair. I know that you don't really glow when you dance ~ it's me seeing you that way.
When you said you were stopping by I laughed a little inside, that was fine ~ I would love to look at you for a moment. You walked up to my door and looked surprised as I opened it before you knocked, like I always do, I stepped out with you. For a second I thought you might truly stop by and continue on. I thought you might not linger, considering whether or not you wanted to stay longer. You say something silly about me replacing you and the horrified look of shock when I dare to answer, "Not yet." is absolutely adorable.
We laugh and play and pause ~ caught off guard by the others encapturing gaze. Magic when you notice how someone takes you in, praying they can memorize this moment. Before long I find myself forgetting the fact that I had decided to release this obsession, conquer this crush and fold it into a bundle of poetry to be held onto forever but never read again.
It's when you kiss me, in that moment that your lips melt my own, I feel myself filled with the fear that you might disappear again. My finger tips on your chin, my eyes closed tight ~ I don't care! Give me this and in the hours that you are lost to me I will use this to remember I was happy and to remember that I will always be happy in one way or another.
Like teenagers kissing in the cold, laughing and talking ~ I look into your eyes, their beautiful green glow always makes me fall in love with you, "You know ~" the words break quickly when you bite my neck, "You know you're the one I want." Breathless and honestly those words I never meant you to hear fall out of my heart. They change you, your touch softens, your kiss more truthful. Makes me believe that I might not be the only one falling.
Falling asleep will be so easy tonight, I'll just let my dreams of you take me away for awhile. Did I mention that I'm glad you came tonight? I am.

That Girl You Loved

A lot of time has passed, I hardly remember the girl that you loved
I know that she loved you, long after you had gone
and I know that she waited.
As the cold turned her fingers purple - still she held on.
You came to me in the days that passed, I gave myself to you.
Not that I could change this life, but it was the one thing I could do.

That girl you loved, the one that loved you.
She hung around dreaming until her dreams grew far too deep.
Then she started cranking,
her only way to escape the dangers of her darkened sleep.
Every man that passed me, I searched in hope that he was you.
My heart would stop and breath would halt, but only for a second or two.

Beautiful, she was, the one that you loved, the girl who loved you.
She had wanted to be your savior, as it seems you were to her.
She wrote letters to angels,
then she’d burn them, her very own offerings of poetry and myrrh.
I prayed in very language, in every way, using all that I knew.
I begged for a peace, our love, some miracle in life to bring me back to you.

Kiss Me ~ Save My Life

"I just had the strangest dream."
"Tell me." I know we love each other because we always talk about our dreams.
"You and I were in a purple room with a crystal ball. You looked in and started to cry. We left the room and I broke the ball, but still you cried. I took you far away and you climbed a cliff where you said you would waste away if I couldn't save you."
"Did you save me?" I asked, praying for my dream-self that she did.
"Yes." She smiled. "I sure did, I kissed you. That was all I had to do, kiss you." She laughed a little and sat up. "Do you think that a kiss could save someone?"
Without thinking I sat up and answered her. "If it were your kiss, yes."
We looked at each other for a long moment. Slowly she leaned into me. When we kissed it was like a language that only we knew. It was too quick and yet it was forever. We slept that night, dreamless. Because no dream could be better than that night.

"I think that I would die if I could not have you." It’s the way she makes me feel. We are laying in the overgrown park, in the shade of the largest oleander bush. The shade is cool, leafy-green, the flowers are toxic pink. She is lying so close to me that I can feel the electricity crackle between us, but it’s much too sticky-hot to actually touch. We look into each others eyes, in her deep green pools I can see a tiny, upside down me. A beautiful little me, beautiful because she looks at me this way. "I don’t know how I lived for twenty-three years before you."
She is quiet, thoughtful. "You will live after me, too." She curls over me, kissing me, touching me through my gauzy, black shirt. Everywhere she touches the material sticks to my sweaty skin, I feel weird, out of place. Her hair is silk on my finger tips.
I move away from her, slightly. "What do you mean after you?"
She smiles, "When you think of this whole life you must admit that this moment is small." Her eyes study her hands. I can’t tell if she believes that or not.
"No this moment is the largest one there is." I pull her back to me. "I love you."
We make love for the second time that afternoon. In the high grass, under the oleander. The sun warms our skin as we lay back. As she sleeps I can hear her laugh, I hear it all the time. I have been hearing it since we met.

Please Know, I Love You

I'm here, on my knees ~ begging you to please just let me forget you.
Lately you have been with me more than not, I've heard your voice and felt your touch and, baby, I have missed you. Maybe I miss how you loved me, how you cared for me, how you watched out for me ~ I might be scared that no one else ever will. I miss how we were such good friends more than anything else, I miss it because I loved it. Because I loved it so it hurt. It hurt os bad and now I'm scared to death of her ~ she has so quickly become such a good friend. I find myself smiling at your memory ~ alone in my car, crying into your soft t-shirt ~ without you in my bed. My eyes don't focus, like rain everywhere. What am I saying? Who am I? I don't know anything ~ I mean. There are things that I have figured out, like seeing everything with such clarity that I feel almost drunk with it and I have to blink my eyes. Then there is this, this sick ~ ridiculously sick ~ obsession. This drive to know you not to imagine myself living this life in all it's beauty with you. Raising our daughters, painting our walls with fairies and flowers and rain.
Sitting in the drivers seat, parked and talking to her. She makes me believe I might truly give myself again ~ love without self inflicted restraint. She brings out my smile and she rings in my laugher. Sitting there that night looking over at her and suddenly I wanted to be anywhere but there. I needed to get away from her smile and for my desire to hold her face in my hands and kiss her. I had to forget the stories she gave to me and erase the writings I would give to her. I had to lose this want to be her girlfriend, let it go and never let her think that it could happen. Why? Don't you know? You.
I love what we are, she and I. I love what we have, the fun and the energy. I adore that girl and love having her in my life. What if it was her warmth I became used to in bed at night? What if she were who I cooked diner for and she picked my child up from school? What if we grew to really love each other and we could see the same future ~ oh, oh. What if ~ this thought brings my tears and does burn my eyes ~ she and I were painting our walls with fairies and flowering vines and rain when our doorbell rings? What if I wipe my paint smeared hands on the bottom of her shirt, open my door finding you?
How could I look into her eyes and make her believe that I meant it every time I told her I loved her and that it was love every time I touched her, yet I can not push you away because of an age old mistake which created such a feeling of debt? I would hate myself for making that choice just as I hated myself for not making it last time.
That is insane, Jesus, can't anyone see how fucking crazy that is? I can! It's not even what I want, to be with you I mean ~ I just want to know you, to have you know me. I want you to be so close to me that I can call to cry and you can stop in when you need to feel safe. If it's her ~ oh, dear Lord, if it were her ~ or some other girl, or some other guy, even if it's no one but myself painting my walls and coming to diner ~ I just want it to be in a world where I know you in reality and not in a distorted memory that lives in the haze of sleepy awaking.
I just want you to know that some one still loves you.
I love you.

Melissa Rose

I wonder when you look at me
can you see the dreams that I have?
When I smile can you hear
all the things I wish I could say?

For sure when you get this close to me
you must feel all that's dying to be born

I wonder when you look at me
do you see all I see in what you are?
Do you watch me the way I watch you
do you memorize my smile?
Because I can draw your smile in my mind
recreate the way your eyes change
Imagine what your laughter feels like
bouncing off my skin

I wonder when you look at me
can you hear confessions of my day dreams?
Sunlight, star dust and all in between
Kissing all night long
Do you see how I'd let you touch me
how I'd give all of this over to you.

When you look at me I melt
I fear all those secrets blown away
Nervous I try to breathe and confused
I try to find all those magic words
Beautiful words suddenly lost on me
Faithful words I can no longer trust

When you look at me I want you to want me
The way my dreams want you
When I smile I'm inviting you in
I'm silently begging you to stay

~Written when I first met her, when I first learned her name and saw those green eyes light up. Some have said she is un-deserving. To them I say: You don't know the her I know, you do not see what she does for me. You have no idea what a lovely Leo she is. She Is the most deserving of them all, after all ~ I chose her.

Lie To Me

I'm going to keep my eyes closed
~ go right on kissing you.
I don't care if it's a sort of fairy's tale
~ don't care if nothing here is true.

I'd like for you to lie to me
~ while I pretend it's all real.
I'd like to forget the world of reality
And how it makes me feel.

I will be in love forever,
in this world my own dreams will make.
I will smile again and again,
never looking close enough to see that it's a fake.

So if you wouldn't mind making promises,
the kind you don't intend to keep.
I could use some false pretenses,
to help me get to sleep.

Elizabeth The Angel

Anabelle died yesterday at 6pm. She was exactly, having been born only seconds after midnight on Halloween, forty-four days and eighteen hours old. Her mother, Elizabeth, being one of awesomely rare spirits found on this earth, held her as her father held her sisters and let silent tears fall. He watched his wife as her warmth and love did what no medicine could, comforted his tiny sick daughter ~ quieted her crying and soothed her pain. Amazed and frightened by Elizabeth’s extraordinary strength and beauty. Anabelle closed her beautiful eyes and slept, bundled in the soft lavender blanket which had been her oldest sisters gift to her on the day she was born. When God took Anabelle home Elizabeth hugged her tightly and kissed her soft forehead, she held her hand out to her family and held them all in the safety of her arms. Her husband and his daughters, one without breath ~ her family which she loved.
When the people from the hospice came to take the baby away they wept. So used to finding the ruin and pain that only the death of a child can cause a family, so hardened against a mother’s agonizing cries or a father’s heart breaking choke ~ they were not ready to enter the home of this woman, they were not ready to believe in angels, as she made them do.
Elizabeth, her thin pink lips never losing their gentle smile, let her child be taken. Handing Anabelle over to a tall brunette nurse, and the way she delicately moved as though her daughter’s soul was still inside that small body and the overwhelming love and energy he felt from her when she placed her hand on his arm and whispered her appreciation for his coming out so late, those things made him a different person. He knew he’d never be the same, he knew he was better. He thought of going home and kissing his daughter while she slept, he thought he’d bring his wife flowers ~ tulips, she loved those.
As the people drifted away Elizabeth gathered her daughters into her lap, she kissed them both and told them that she was proud of them for they were both the best big sisters that Anabelle could have ever dreamed of. She took them to their bedroom and changed them into warm nightgowns. Together they said their prayers, the youngest squeezing her had as she thanked God for taking care of Anabelle. Elizabeth sat in their room, lit by the dim pink of their nightlight and hummed quietly until both her daughters slept deeply.
She walked down stairs and found her husband, crumpled near the Christmas tree, crying. She leaned over him and kissed his prematurely balding head. "Come to bed my love, Anabelle is safe and well ~ finally." When she said those words, her song like voice floating over him, her spellbinding vocals healing him, he believed her. He found the absolutely unfathomable thought that his dear sweet youngest had not been cheated, sold drastically short having been sick her whole terribly short life ~ that she had in fact had the best life ever. That she was in all reality safe now, well and happy, looking straight into the eyes of God, as only a child ~ truly innocent ~ could.
When Elizabeth slept a man came to her. A man so awfully pretty that he could have been a woman if it were not for his strong hands and his squared shoulders. His golden hair full and waved down to his waist. His white-blue eyes almost shown with as much light as the enormously full wings that hung from his back. He came to her and in his arms he held her daughter, her Anabelle. She was amazing, the rose in her cheeks, the strength in her tiny fist when she held Elizabeth’s fingers. She cooed and laughed as her mother kissed her and played with her plump baby feet.
For the second time Elizabeth handed her child over to a man, but this time she knew the peace that she had drained herself of as she gave it to all the others in her life. She kissed her Anabelle and she kissed her Anabelle’s angel. She knew that the sun was coming and that her family would always be good.
May the angels sing your song and the spirits tell your story ~
Anabelle
October 31'04 - December 15'04

I Might Walk Away

Last night you made me sad. Not the kind of sad that makes me want to take your beautiful face in my hands and kiss you; no, not that kind at all. It was the kind of sad that makes me want to walk away, the kind of sad that I can’t understand. How can such wonderful magic die without warning? Fading away as the last colors of an awesome firework display, one minute striking you quiet with its sparkling wonder and the next leaving you searching the sky in need of more than the empty feeling you’re filled with. What happened to the smile that I could hear crackling through the phone line? Where is the lust and electric curiosity which filled the nights with insanity? Vaguely insecure thoughts fill my head ~ have you no desire to know me better? Have you lost interest in what I am? Do you no longer want to visit my world, or be that lovely creature which enchants my dreams? Vaguely insecure thoughts but more so thoughts of severely sad disappointment, I absorbed you with so much passion, I don’t want you to fade away. I adored what you pulled out of my darkest depths; I loved the life I felt whenever you were near. I need to believe that this world has such delightful souls living in it day to day. I don’t want to walk away. More than that, I don’t want to stay while inside I * to walk away. I don’t have everything figured out just yet, but one thing I know is that once you start to look out at the world with that longing to be anywhere but where you are you will not ever again be happy there. So when I talk to you, and you are no longer that magical girl and you no longer make me feel like I could fly ~ worse, you make me look around with longing ~ it kills something beautiful. It kills the me that you set free and I can’t let that part of myself die. I don’t want to think of this world without your magic, I don’t want to know who you are after you’ve lost what I find so special ~ that might just break my heart. Would I rather lose you now and keep your memories, full of life and inspiration? No, I would rather you not lose your magic at all.
Sadly, the kind of sadly that makes me start to think that I might walk away, some things are beyond even me.

This Undertow

Everything I do, in everything I am, there is this constant current ~ undertow.
Just beneath the surface where you can not detect it, there it is this life crushing pull. I've seen it happen to the innocent ~ they step into my energy with love wetting their eyes and before they can catch their breath they are swept under the surface. I've watched as helplessly they fight to the smooth glass that hide this violent whirlpool ~ some have managed to keep atop for some time, but always they are swept away. It's my magic unharnessed ~ my electricity unleashed, I can't stop what I don't control.
I push away the very beautiful, knowing all to well what they will become once entangled. Please understand me, while I make no sense. Please love me, while I drift away uncaring. Please keep me grounded, as I fight you to fly. I want those things when I beg for them, but I hate them when they are given. There is no intent to destroy with in this heart, there is no malice in the spells that are cast ~ still it is darkness, somehow ~ glittering, beautiful, enchanting.
Could I be caught in my own undertow, can I? I, too, am lost in this ~ though it is my world and my creation. Sometimes, despite my true desire for honesty, I lie. Not to them, to myself ~ but I swear when I say such things they are not lies ~ it's only on the other side, after the night has past and life has changed my perspective.
If I do not believe in forever ~ why do I * for it? If I do not want someone ~ why do I * for them? If I want to be loved ~ why do I run from it? If I know myself ~ why am I still searching? If I love me ~ why do I * that you loved me?

Weekend Resurrection

I feel smashed and dead; today I am a zombie. This weekend was bad, it was down and hard and washed out. This weekend was cold wet mud, the kind you don't see and then once you've stepped in it you're stuck, pulling you foot from the whirling suckage of brown ick. After you have your foot out it's wet ~ soaked through ~ and you kick and rub against the cement, but
that residue of ick just stays, like a force field.
This weekend left a residue of ick, in my mind and over my body ~ good mood beware, there is a defining force field of nasty around me. I can't say the right things; I don't know them. I can't do the right things; I am incapable of them. I feel like the crumpled dead butterfly I stepped over coming into work. It always is this way after weeks or months, delay time varies on what I'm doing and if I continue to do it, of not sleeping. It's not altogether a void of sleep, everyone needs sleep ~ I sleep, but not much. I can always feel the jetlag coming; the dreams loose their edge, their stories, and their absolute concreteness. They become more and more impersonal, like a whore laid back pretending with one client while thinking absently of the next ~
they start to mean nothing. The images that are lush and wet with life, like the dark life in deep jungle, become white washed with florescent lights in which nothing is beautiful. Instead of feeling her breath on the side of my face and hearing her soft voice like waves I watch from across the dream, knowing I should feel it and it should feel great ~ instead searching for that constant buzzing noise that fills each beautiful image and I cannot stop hearing. It's the buzz of a power source almost tapped out. It's the buzz of a high that peaked long time back, of my brain trying to break apart dream from reality. Like a child
being torn from her mother the dream me cries, like a teenager with no way to make anyone understand the physical me sulks. My dreams are my answer to everything; they are my love and life source. When I start to lose them this way I get anxious and terribly sad, I start to hunt sleep with a vengeance that makes it impossible to drift off not matter how tired I am. Finally ending in one huge, unavoidable crash; the sadness and weakness and insanity and pain, the laughter and dancing and poetry and hysterics ~ all burning in the silent scream of a child who collapsed and found herself stuck in a silent, darkened coma
while those other things worked on themselves.
Awakened after hours, the world has continued without me. I missed her call, I hate that I missed it. I want her voice and her thoughts. I want to be awake with her losing time and sleep, but I want my dreams of her as well. I want those nights of passion that I give to her tucked inside of folded paper and decorated envelopes, I want the hopes those dreams give me ~ and I want the way they fill my with creative power for days and days on end. I don't call her back, I don't wait for sleep to steal me, and I lay myself down and start a dream.
Hello, how I've missed you.
"Where have you been?" Her dream beauty ails in comparison to her life beauty; her eyes are never as perfectly green.
Trying so hard to get back to this place, my darling ~ trying so hard.
"I'm glad you made it." Her lips are liquid heat on mine. So am I!
This weekend was bad, as every once in a while they must be, to get myself back to this place where sleep is only for her and for dreams to wrap like gifts for her.
At lunch I sit and smoke cigarettes one after another, inspecting my destroyed butterfly visitor. The color of his wings are still visible, still there and vibrant. His wings look like they would have been beautiful had they never met whatever fate caused him
to permanently land right here. My fingers feel like static, they want to write a letter, my heart feels full of rhythm ~ I have a poem inside of me. My head aches and I know I will sleep again tonight but by tomorrow I will be awake and aware and alive again.
I will keep her on the phone and all over the walls of my dreams.

Insomnia ~ I’m Losing It

Wait, wait, wait ~ you said that you loved me. No, that was a dream? Oh, but a beautiful one! Did you mean it when you whispered it hot and fast into my ear? Were you really there with me on the beach in the mountains? The pictures move and over lap so quickly I can’t keep up. Movie reels, silent films with white noise so loud I hurt. Dreams that made my sleep so irresistible now haunt it so that my eyes burn as my brain continues to open them. Your skin, my tongue ~ open them! Your smile, my laughter ~ open them again! Sit up! Sit up! Sit up! Each time not realizing that sleep even came, each time the sickness of this lack of sleep burning like acid down through my chest.
The sound of the phone, are you awake, too? "Shit! Are you out of your mind, baby, baby - it’s two in the morning!" I laugh, it’s three and I can’t sleep. "Looks like I’m not sleeping tonight, huh?" I’m sorry, does your insomnia have my name? Do thoughts of me inspire you to such rare greatness that your mind and body simply CAN NOT stop? These things you do to me, my insomnia has your name. My fingers they hold the pen so tight that writing makes my back hurt, they fly over the key board so fast that they can not keep up with themselves and they long for art, smeared paints and dusty chalks that stain. At night when I lay with nothing but the buzzing red lights of my gray and black alarm clock ~ which chimes a sound that would look like crystals and has the world biggest snooze button ~ at that night time, my hands empty, under my head, folded over my chest, where ever - they flinch with the need to keep moving, they want to worship you. Scribble a senseless letter of how badly I need to feel you, a poem or sketch of how you make me feel. Dial your number so that your voice, small and filled with sleep, will let me feel tired, will let me exhale ~ so that I may sleep vicariously through you. When you stay on the other end of that line and smile, I can hear your smile, you drive me crazy. It’s your voice and image, as the days ~ endless days that darken but never turn to night for me ~ draw more out from you. You talking of how tired you are and how you need sleep but do not want it right now. Makes me wonder if our magic could fix this siamese twin insomnia we seem to share. If your sleeplessness bears my name as my eternally awakening does yours then could we not find a way to give the other rest? With you I am relaxed, I am still as I watch and think in awe of you. With you is the only time that I am not consumed with thoughts of seeing you again, that I am not trying to find the most beautiful words to give to you. With you when I rest I could sleep, I could sleep forever or longer with you. I could write you such beautiful stories that your dreams would come to life, I could touch you in ways that would warm you beyond warm and then you could sleep. I would hold you so gently but you would know that you were safe ~ would you want your sleep then? Could you even try to with hold yourself from the sweetness of that special night world where you are the king? If I invite you with me and you take me there I know we would sleep ~ why then would we ever wake?