Media Naranja (Prose Poem)

Media Naranja

In the beginning we were all just whole—we were sweet oranges, rolling around, content. But all it took was one divine decision—a split—and now we search every wrinkle of the earth for our Media Naranja. But if you were anything but an orange, that’d be okay too. If you were a tree, shocked to the core by a lightning strike, left smoldering and broken—or if you were one half of the grand canyon, yawning and yearning to be reunited. Or even if you were half of a grapefruit—I would just want to be a grapefruit too.

A Toast

A Toast

For all the times I baked a pie for you

Knowing you’d tilt your smile my direction—

For all the times I asked and you said soon,

And by avoiding you thought that you had won.

For all the times I slept against your breath

And hoped you’d stay to keep my feet warm.

For all the times I thought I’d fix that mess

Of spines and blinders without getting torn.

But even with the blinks and all the smiles

That never quite rang true, I know I tried—

But even with your heartless, heatless guile

It wasn’t ‘til you left I learned to cry.

            We both had orbits never quite our own—

            We caused the brick walls to crumble and drown. 

Ginger

The ceiling above my bed

Was cracked the night we met

By the storm that turned this

House onto an x axis.

I couldn’t stop staring,

Freckle-counting and still caring

For the constellation-faced

Boy with impeccable taste.

I piled my books up high from the floor,

Fortress walls, like I’d always done before.

Do you remember laying like stars

On the concrete, comparing our scars?

I remember singing Billie Holiday

Classics, and dreaming one day

We’d fall asleep on each other

The way you always said we would.

Above

I don’t know if you have ever looked at the sky—

Sometimes, when I do

All I can see are rabbits in the clouds,

Or mermaids.

Or even mammoth creatures.

But usually, just clouds.

Every once in a while the sky

Turns purple. And we all have

To wait awhile

Before climbing trees.

Even oftener still,

The sky lets loose

A magnificent barrage

Of water.

And we should all stand in amazement.

But,

We don’t.

All of this,

To say that I will always love you. 

What I Saw From the Bed

It was a crack on the ceiling above me that stole my attention. O what a strange shift in the sky, this oddly shaped crack. I couldn’t decide if it was a rabbit, hopping along through the grass, or a seagull, flying along the horizon. But whatever it was, I felt a familiarity with its character. I looked with perfect concentration, hoping to discern the spirit of it, although the quaking underneath me was disconcertingly distracting. I felt the earth move and shake beneath but I was determined to ignore it. A light danced about the room, bouncing across my face and into my eyes from its perch on the desk—too far to be knocked over by an errant hand. It blinded me momentarily with a bright flash of energy and I blinked with the eyes of a reborn woman. I lifted myself slightly, hoping to catch another glimpse of the glorious light, but alas it evaded me, forcing me to settle back into my skin. But instead I stared at the break in the sky again, wondering again, only in my head, what sort of secret mischief it was hiding. I almost began to giggle, hoping I could tell the crack that I too had secrets, that I too was holding a secret in my corner in the corner of my mouth in the corner of my innermost corners where even I dare not venture. And O sweet mark on the ceiling, here to distract and to occupy, and to comfort. I look at it now and see a horse, bucking and bucking and bucking until the rider is motionless beside him! I want to ask why, but the horse whimpers away with his tail between his legs while I’m bucked away as well. I think we share a story, the rider and I. The shaking continues. The walls are bumped and thumped and O I want to shake them with my fists but they won’t let me be no matter how many times I thrash and wriggle and push them away. My eyes follow the shaking walls up to the meeting place and O there is my mark, that glorious eyesore on the ceiling, which has transformed in front of my very eyes into a wave, crashing against the shore. The waves draw me away from the shaking and the breaking and I can’t help but stare in wonder at the beauty that it becomes. How did it get there? How did the waves make their way onto the ceiling to rest in an ever unresting fury of change and motion? They motion to me with old lady fingers bending at the knuckle beckoning me closer and closer with only their fingers and the small whispers. The waves look dangerous as though any moment the boat floating innocently on them will be dashed to pieces on the rocks nearby. But who are the waves and who is the boat and why do they want me so near? Are they here to cause me harm? Suddenly, the crack does not look so welcoming. I almost shout to it, asking if it has malicious intent, but instead I am overtaken by the shaking and the rocking and the bed underneath me that will not simply lie still! I almost have seasickness staring up at the waves and feeling the waves underneath. I glare in fury at the waves which are no longer waves but are dancers, making their way aggressively across the ceiling, dancing and leaping and curtsying and moving their wanton bodies swifter and swifter and faster and faster until I want to shout in fury and in fear at them until they stop. But I open my mouth to scream out my terrifying yelp but fall back before the sound comes out. There is straining above me and straining inside me and the dancers mock me with their elegant hands and their elegant feet and their elegant, elongated, evasive faces. There is jeering from them, forcing its way into my heart while they force themselves upon me. I am forced, I am broken, I am no longer here. The weight on my body cannot stop pushing me further and further away from myself. No! I want to wrap my hands in the quilts and yell no, O no, O no, O no! The dancers are a stampede, a stampede of elephants screaming no in mocking mirth, laughing at my crying face with all of the no and O let me be. But they will not let me be! They will not leave, and he will not leave, and my heart is all the way up into my throat, in my cold straining throat that whispers out prayers into the night of O let me be. No I will not he growls with his body, and no the elephants laugh at me. No I sob for mercy and receive none and no I do not want to be here, staring at the elephants with their eyes staring back, cold and unfeeling. O that the no I cry were heard by anyone, anyone but the elephants who care not at all for my plight. My keening has reached the ears of none. The elephants are no longer what they were—they have transformed, one more time, into a cage. Deep in the jungle and the mountains they are a cage made of ten thousand elephants and just one simple woman with her eyes screwed shut tight and her hands banging against the tall the tall lines that keep her inside and she cannot help but scream no as she tries to force them away and away and off and nothing is stopping them no! She is wild and amazing and I can feel her reaching towards me as I cry no against the rising tides, the untidy ride, the dark black light that pushes me further and no, and no, I cannot be here no.  Lines run up and down and up and down and push together, pinning and crushing and hiding me between the bars of my prison no and I do not know how to stop from suffocating no. And no again and a no as I rise up up up against the sky in one final no!

I float down like a paper doll burnt up by the sun, my wax wings melting. No is no, I am on the bed again, waiting to occupy myself once more. 

Saturday Morning Showers

I

Saturday morning showers

Are my favorite.

With not a care in

The world

At only nine years old

I already used

Showers to

Contemplate.

II

Plinking and dropping

All over my

Hair and my

Face and my

Eyes and my

Teeth.

Water, water, everywhere.

I’m much too happy

To ever care

If the hot water runs into my face

Or if the water turns cold

For even one split second.

Because I secretly like

The cool, clear streams for just that one moment

Pouring down and down and down

Enough to make me shiver

But not enough for me

To cry.

But only in a Saturday morning

Shower.

III

I always complain

About showering at night.

Mornings are better.

IV

The air is

Always too cold

After a long

Saturday shower.

There are goosebumps everywhere

When I step out.

I quickly run,

Light-footed

With towels galore

Wrapped tightly so

As not to sneak a peek.

And land myself in a still and shivering pile right on the carpet in the living room in the sunspot of sunlight as it slips through the pulled back curtains and the dingy glass window so that I can warm myself like a cat because even cats need baths every once in a while when they get themselves all slippery and slick with the mud of a brand-new day.

V

I have to move

From my sunspot

So that mama

Can vacuum.

She puts on some old

Synthesized music

And begins to dance,

Swaying her hips back and forth

To the time.

Her hips no longer slim

Like a youth

But widened.

A badge of honor

For birthing four

Screaming and

Laughing

Babies

Into a world

Of Saturday morning showers

And lilac trees

And dead-end streets

With blackberries to pick and

Thorns to scratch.

She always cleans on Saturdays.

Lit Up

My skin was filled with

All of the star monsters who

Taught me how to glow

Snip Snip Snip

You set to work, like a painter at an easel, or a cellist with his instrument—and I the work of art.

Hours pass, me posing, both of us reading

The world slipping by in an endless tunnel of

Your walls and my heart.

This large and looming circle of love with your name written on it,

And the minuscule square you expect me to work with.

A snip snip snip here,

And a snip snip snip there.

I cut down my circle of love to fit inside the square.

The changes are gradual, but the

Possibilities are endless.

I close my eyes in an effort to stem

The terrifying thought that I am less than a person

To you.

Each limb has been redrawn on drafting sheets, with pattern pieces

Cut to fit my oddly shaped person.

And on the assembly line I go—

You charge it up,

Cutting me out as I move through the stages of production.

Snip snip snip here.

Snip snip snip there.

One night I fall asleep with your words

Painted on the inside of my eyes

And I awake with the sun,

Unblinking—

Because my eyes no longer blink.

They’re just open.

Painted bright and painted happy

On the flat face of a paper doll

Arms not meant to move

And heart not meant to beat

And blood not meant to flow

And eyes not meant to cry

And a smile as permanent as

A mountain.

I can feel the flutter of the paper birds as their wings move me up

And up and up and up.

Towards the sun where my new wings will melt

And the ocean will catch my gently

Dropping paper

Body.

Snip snip snip

Snip snip snip.

I was too human for you.

The Dive

All around me girls dove hands first, head second, followed lastly by the feet, all creating a smooth, arching slice through the air and into the dark water. Their feet took them up and off the dock, propelling them into the coolness beneath us. Sunshine walked across the dimpled surface that their heads broke through when they finally came up for air. Each time someone dove, from the moment they bent their legs and thrust themselves deep into the lake, until the moment they surfaced with a gasp and a shake of their hair, I held my breath in anxiety.

The water didn't scare me. I had slid from my sitting position on the dock many times, first slipping a toe in and then pushing myself carefully off the wood and lowering my torso into the water. There were salamanders in the water, and sticks that sometimes cut my feet. I spent hours moving through the shallows, playing in the canoes, and floating slowly across the surface, dipping my ears just below the waterline to block out the noise. The water didn't scare me.

When I was five years old, or somewhere around that age, I stepped off the edge of a pool, jumping in eagerly, without reservation. Five feet of chlorine and water closed over my head, four feet of water below. And I just kept sinking. My little thighs worked with all their might, picking me back up towards the surface until I frantically came through and opened my mouth. My lungs filled to their breaking point with the air around me, causing coughs and sputters and general movements of relief.

At some point in my childhood I read a scary story—the kind your parents don’t let you read but you get in an under-the-table manner from the kid at school who wore the same sweatpants every day and always looked defiant. A high school boy in the story told a girl he loved her, and later that night she came to his house. He was outside by the pool, waiting for her in the dark. “Jump” he told her—and she obeyed him. She dove into the pool, and hit the empty floor with a crack. Unsuspecting and now dead on the floor of a pool.

Camp only lasted a week. At times it felt like an entire glorious summer, stretching forth forever. Other times I could feel the seconds slipping by, and I wondered how time could move so quickly away from me.  The days had escaped me, and my time at camp was coming to an end. The last day was emotional, despite having only spent a week with these people. On that final day I spent my time at the lake, sitting on the edge with my toes dipped into the water, letting the wet lap against my heels as they swung suspended above the surface. All around bodies were leaping into the air with shrieks of laughter that ended abruptly when they plunged deep down beneath the water only to resurface with eyes shut tight and smiles stretching from ear to ear. My heart pounded in response. None of them were scared, and nothing was holding them back. They were happy. They were brave.

Unbidden, I was suddenly standing, walking backwards from the edge. I stood, poised and ready to jump. My legs bent, my arms stuck out awkwardly above my head, and I threw myself off without thinking. I flailed slightly, my legs couldn't straighten, and my mouth was open when I dropped below the surface. I went down and down, losing sight of the light above me, and eventually turning myself to drift back up. A feeling of panic shot through me as the graceful and malicious stems of seaweed wrapped themselves around and around my ankles. Panic was unnecessary—it took a few kicks to free myself from the tangles. The feeling of slime and darkness lingered even as I made my way desperately to the sunshine. I clawed out of the water, choking and self-consciously aware of the giggles of anyone who had seen my ungraceful attempt at diving.

The dock loomed next to me and I pulled myself up, hand over foot over leg over head over toes until I collapsed in a heap on the ancient wood. I spread my body out, and lay in silence, letting the air cool my burning skin and blinking up into the sun. Spots of light danced across my vision and in my peripherals the thick trees burst upward towards the clear sky, permeating the magnificent blue that hung in a perfect suspension. My heart rate slowed to a soft meandering pace, allowing me to breathe again. In and out, and in and out again, my lungs welcomed anything but water. I was stillness, even though around me the chaos charged on without a second thought. Suddenly, I felt a longing to rise. I stood carefully, peeling my body away from the boards and checking my bare thighs for slivers.

The lake sparkled out in front of me, beckoning me to join, to try again. I raised my arms in triumph and bent at the knees to prepare. I couldn't help the grin that rose up from my heart as I jumped forward and down, into the leagues of beauty below. 

I Can't Take my Mind Off of You

Nothing about you caught me off-guard. Not the way you held yourself, or the listening face that most people did not expect. I wasn't surprised by your fear or the crinkle of your eyes when you smiled. But only when you smiled at me. Me, me, the glorious me, the me of dreams and puppy tails and snails and Mary Quite Contrary, and the public railway line.

“I can’t take my eyes off of you

I can’t take my eyes off of you.

I can’t take my eyes off of you

I can’t take my eyes off of you”

I can see the noises of our farewell rising from the sidewalk with a vengeance. Was there anyone else home? Any soul to see my severely miscalculated attempt at religious freedom? But I did escape, unscathed, an unsightly, esoteric Esther. With a seat before the King, or the Queen.  With my head held high and my hands held higher, praising the tears I cried and the hardness in your voice. O, lo and behold, I can’t be what I've been. Not anymore.

Take a look at me, and where I’m standing. I’m nothing, just a ghost of what used to be, and all of the artifacts that my fingers and toes dug into with all I knew. With the wind blowing one way, and the trees blowing the other, I’ll be tossed around in the middle.

Can you take your eyes off of me?

A quick, gray, dip into the sea for me. A dip and a swim, and a cold unfettered jump away from you, until the salt and the seaweed and the sand are my bones, and my blood, and my hair. Now I can move, now I can breathe; now I can run away from the prying eyes and the sightless stares into my shivering soul and the sighing, the sighing, the sighing that breaks my ears at night.

“I can’t take my mind off of you”.

There’s so much to open, and so much to fear. And so much to find, and so much to hear.

So much to learn, so much to be near. And so much to love, and so much to mirror.

“My mind… my mind…

‘Til I find somebody new”.

I Count Myself as Lucky

I have this great and terrible fear. It hits me when I least expect it—at work, or while I’m cleaning, when I’m baking, when I’m reading. Nothing is amiss, yet in one fell swoop I’m overtaken by a moment of clairvoyant vision. I look forward on the years ahead, knowing that someday, I will meet someone. He’ll be important, and beautiful, and in the ways that matter to everyone else, he’ll be perfect. So I’ll smile, and count myself lucky, and let him love me. The world will fall into a subtle harmony. I shall not want for comfort, or affection, or respect, or attention. I will count myself lucky.

And the best laid plans will go according to plan. Nothing out of place, nothing scary, nothing unexpected. I’ll be fine, he’ll be fine, we’ll be fine.

I’ll know, with every sinew and bone in my exhausted body, that I've found the one I’ll be with forever, if only because I know it’s what he wants. But I’ll be happy! I’ll be happy enough to sleep at night, most nights, but not every night. At times, I’ll wake up with a nightmare clawing at my brain, taking hold, making noise and digging in. I’ll reach out my hand, palm stretched, fingers open—but he won’t be there. He’ll be there, but not him. Never him. And that’s okay, I’ll tell myself through the night visions, the tossy-turnies, the midnight wake-ups. He wasn't great at comfort anyway.

But in the waking hours, when the night is gone, I’ll count myself lucky. Surrounded by my love, and my kids, and the life we've built together. I’ll remind myself that I am the winner—I have a family, and a world that is not just mine. I won. He’ll never be the victor, because I’m the one who came out on top. He hasn't found a person to hold him at night, and if he has it was for one night. Does he have sticky hands and sweet baby cheeks to sing to, to love on, to remind him that he’s done it right? Because I will. All the countless hours spent holding them close and smiling at him, and staying up to keep them safe and to make the nightmares they inherited from their mother dissipate with kisses and stories.  Those will be my trophies, my proof of the battle being won, of besting him with my dreams come true. I’ll be all aglow with marital bliss and plastered on smiles, and genuine joy because my little ones are climbing up and up onto the tippy top of my heart.

Everything will come tumbling down one day—in the minutest of ways. I’ll find out, casually because no one will mean to hurt me, that he is happy. He found a girl, a girl with blonde hair, a girl with big happy eyes and a hint of mystery in her smile, a girl with long legs and a soft smart mouth. He finally chose, finally found a reason to stay still. A reason to stop running. A reason to let the castle walls fall with a vengeance, and a reason to change. A ton of bricks will fall right on me, crushing me and pinning me. The bricks catch my breath as it runs away from my body. I’ll just lay on the floor, the chaos turning to dust around me, spiraling back to the way I once felt. All the thoughts, all the feelings. It’s time for dinner, so I go through the motions. Smile at him, smile at them, load the dishwasher, brush my teeth. Do it all over again. Over and over and over, where it stops, no one knows.

Then and then only, I’ll realize why I’m not the winner.  I had it first, I found a new home before he did, I built myself back up. He’s practically old! This wizened, withered, weathered human who finally wound up happy, is the winner.

At the end of the day, I may have more, and I had it first. But at the end of the day, he’ll look into her eyes and see her and only her. I’ll look into his eyes and see a blank slate for a life I did not have. He doesn’t think of me, and I think of him relentlessly. I’m still sad, and he’s just fine. Now what does that say about me? Winners don’t dwell, and winners forget. It’s only the unluckiest of the bunch who still want to win, who still feel at a loss when they find out he is finally happy.

I can recall with perfect clarity, and I’m sure I always will, the time when I set myself on the floor next to him. I felt shy, all of a sudden, so I kept my distance. You pouted, and beckoned me closer. I hastily obliged. I had so rarely felt like this. One could even say, I’d never felt cherished that way, and that I’d never had such a case of butterflies in my life. O the butterflies! They wouldn't stop their dizzying circles, racing around and around my body, reminding me that you were special. And I listened to the butterflies, those damn, unyielding butterflies. I believed every word they spoke. I looked at you that night with stars in my eyes, and stars on the ceiling. Enchanting, was the word of the evening. An entire world had been painted in my eyes that night.

When I glimpse at the future, I know to count myself as lucky. 

Diary Excerpts Series: Part One

I wonder what will happen if we do this. Will he wake up and roll away from me in the morning, and make it obvious that I am intruding on his perfect morning world, where he always eats Lucky Charms, and now feels obligated to share those Lucky Charms with me? Or will he sleep and sleep until I’m finally already showered and dressed, and he rolls over in confusion, and then falls back quickly to sleep before I can say a word?

What if he wakes up before me and kisses me awake? What if we both stay awake all night, pretending to sleep, but wanting to be a half inch closer, and being too frightened to move?

Or maybe, we’ll wake up slowly, calmly? He’ll smile lazily at my blinking eyes whilst yawning. I’ll giggle nervously before burrowing deeper under the covers, and he’ll roll onto me, pinning me beneath as he reaches across the bed for his phone to check the time. Then he’ll nibble my ear and mess with my hair on his journey back to his side of the bed.

O Nymphet

O fighting Nymphet!

Your passion is still burning

And on your knees I fell.

I’m glancing into broken mirrors

Where nymphets cast their spell.

O lovely Nymphet!

Lights of twisted solitude

Are the background to my gain,

And all you see is my stone face

Because you’ll just ignore the pain.

O angry Nymphet!

Be scared! Be sad! Be your old-fashioned

Dreams! Be the fear of being right!

Sweet girl onstage, take a bow and stay,

For he is running from your sight.

O broken Nymphet!

Not enough, and not too far,

You’re falling short of him.

She mesmerized his wandering gaze,

And now she dances on his whim.

O drunken Nymphet!

O the web is real and the bond is tight,

And you’ve surveyed all you thought you could.

The race is won, and you’ve waved the flag,

Just like everyone knew you would.

O precocious Nymphet—

You’re the fire and light of nobody’s world,

So lean your chest towards me.

The heart of this, is your saddest gasp—

There is nothing left to see.

O graceful Nymphet.

I look at you with your eyes here

But I’m drowning in the rush.

Good luck, sweet girl, for it’s all a blur—

And sometimes, the world is too much.

A Study in Character

I had to write about myself as though I was a character in my new writing group. It was... revealing.

The door of the café opened with the delicate ringing of a bell and a girl bustled through. She was small, but not in a child-like way—merely diminutive. She made her way through the crowded room, her dark hair glinting under the overhead lighting, her feet taking small but deliberate steps towards a table full of familiar faces. Her eyes disappeared when she smiled at all of her friends—her cheeks were round enough to obscure all other features. She took her seat and immediately fretted over her decision—should she order the turkey on rye? Or the BLT—the sandwich the shop was famous for. And although she was parched, and wanted a cool glass of coke, she resigned herself to water with lemons, as was the acceptable order. The pressure of ordering overcame her for a moment and her hands fluttered about, flipping pages while she asked around her what everyone else was eating.

The waiter was her constrict, and when he arrived she made a snap decision—chicken Caesar salad it would be. The conversation picked up after he left, and the woman found herself involved in several different debates and tangents, turning quickly from one face to another, trying to hear everyone at once, but of course, being in a seat at the far end of the table she was excluded from many a story, and she found her tales falling on deaf, far away ears.

As the night wore on, the water in her glass was refilled many times. Lack of alcohol did not stop her behavior from descending into loudness and exhibitionist tendencies. The effect of social gatherings on her mannerisms was detrimental. Determined to be noticed, she resorted to behaviors more akin to drunken women seeking the attention of the man at the bar. Her coat was shed in the ever-warming room and her skin glowed bright and soft in the light. Her voice rose above the din, while everyone else had settled into the calm of the evening. Although they were tired, her friends smiled at her antics and allowed her to enjoy her night; they slowly tuned her out and gave way to the distractions in their pockets. She left the café on the arm of a man she had met that night, peering into his eyes with hope and optimism. 

To Everyone Else (Again)

Here's a fun little print of the last lines of the poem "To Everyone Else"

Hope you enjoy! Feel free to use it anywhere you like

Love, Sarai

Let's Be the Naked

I want to know what makes you,

You.

Here’s a bone

Here’s a breath

Here’s the mighty sinew!

Let’s be the naked,

Be the brave, and the bold.

I’ll see all the fears that

Have made you feel old.

Shed all convention,

Let the loving flag fly!

All the world is your stage

When you’re learning to cry.

Let’s be the naked,

Be the bold, be the brave.

You’ve given so much,

Now it’s our turn to save.

I’ll see each old scar

And I’ll know of the new.

I’m finding out now

What a friend ought to do.

When you’re fighting for air

At the edge of a boat

Standing like you’re not scared,

When I know that you’ll jump.

Let’s be the naked!

Be the scared and the ready!

I’ll see all I see,

I don’t care if it’s messy.

Let’s be the naked!

Don’t you cover in shame!

For all the reasons you’re scared,

It’s not you who’s to blame.

Let’s not cover up

All that you have to share.

Let’s be the naked;

Let’s be real, if you dare.

Let’s be the naked.

Just be brave, just be bold.

You Are My Sunshine

From now on

You’ll just be another

Music box

To me.

“You Are My Sunshine”

Because that’s what

It comes down to.

You were the

Sun and the moon

The stars and the rains

The comets and the shooting stars

The planets and their shadows

And the beating of my heart.

You’ll forever be the

Crank-style box

As it sings our moments.

From now on,

You’re just a piece of

Metal making music—

And I’m finally okay

With that.

Halo

I miss my friend—

Is he in there somewhere?

And I miss the way you cared.

Life’s a dream when the color’s up—

All the world will stop and stare.

And that’s the worst!

I know how you think—

It’s their prying eyes

That make you compromise

The feelings I know that you feel.

An open shut case on my

Head and my heart are the

Most civilized of all.

That’s not how it worked

And I’m calling your bluff—

Don’t pretend that this isn’t a wall.

Run along coward

And try not to think.

You’ve gotten so tangled in this.

Blame I won’t share in our timely demise—

It’s your fault that there’s something to miss.

Running makes sense for someone like you.

A man who has shame to spare.

You weren’t alone,

But you made it that way

When you decided life isn’t to share.

Your halo was right there in my sight

And no one that I knew could compare.

But halos fall and that’s not all.

Please remember, it was you—

You’re the one who made me feel small.

Your Face

We lay on the floor,

And the shooting stars were fake—

But your face was love

Inch by Inch

Inch by inch

I felt my way

Through the dark spots in your mind.

Excavation helped me know

Who we were,

And how we fell.

Every day I’d

Hold you tight.

Succumbing when you left.

The atlas game

Of where you went;

It always left me spent.

My feet stayed stuck

On dreams I had

Of you and I so strong.

I wasn’t scared

And you held still

While I lifted up my voice.

Step by step

I found the path

Through all your troubled halls.

I took the time

To learn your heart;

But how were you with mine?

Fingertips stretched

Out to walls—

The holes are filled with fear.

The long dark road

Of your bothered mind

Is all that brought me here.

I’d take the pain;

And I guess I did.

I never once gave up!

My steps were small

And the road was long,

I didn’t really need an end.

Just your smile,

Your listening smile.

As we turned into more than friends.

That’s what I got,

That’s how it was.

At least for a moment I lived.

No apologies here,

Not from this girl—

What have I to apologize for?

I loved you!

That hurts to say.

I hear you laughed at me.

Is it just this?

Are we now gone?

You closed the maze of doors.

I’m just a girl

You held close once—

It’s on your face that you don’t care.

Are you okay?

I’d like to hear

The newest ups and downs.

Can we be friends?

Now that it’s done—

Strangely you won’t look at me.

Here’s my face—

This brave one’s on!

It’s fake cause that’s your game.

Inch by inch

I felt my way

Through halls I did not own.

Inch by inch

I touched your face

And thought your heart would grow.

Inch by inch

And step by step

We never learned our way.

Inch by inch

Let’s go again

And take our time this round.

Inch by inch

I’m reaching now

For the latest page in mine.

Inch by inch

I’ll go along—

I’ll feel okay in time.