I may have broke his heart
But I saved him an ounce of hope
He shattered mine beatless
With no chance of revival.

all at once.

and all at once i felt it —

the butterflies from the touch of your lips,

the shock to my heart from the sight of his scorned face,

the pain of knowing it would never be the same,

the relief of having a secret exposed,

the fear of the violence that was to come,

the shame of cheating a friend out of what he deserved,

the warmth of your voice and comfort in your eyes.

numb.

He sped to the curb and flipped me the bird
before leaving me to burn
in the hell I’d made for myself.
I’d been numb to us,
yet, now, I was brokenhearted over losing him
– my best friend now nothing more
than a reminder of the shame and pain
I’d inflicted on myself from avoiding the inevitable.

If only I’d spoke my mind, stood my ground
our friendship could have been salvaged,
but I risked it all for something that made me feel
— alive, if even for just a moment.

And looking back, I’d take the pain,
the thrill and the heartache
over the numbness.

Deadly addiction

I was bruised and gasping for air at just the thought of you.

You’d already hurt me so many times before.

But, here I was crawling back for more.

I held onto this romantic image of you and I.

I’d run to you when no one else was around.

And you made me feel so free, so alive.

So vulnerable. And just then you took advantage of my ignorance.

You made me cry, tears rolled down my face as my knees collapsed under me.

There was something so addictive about it all.

The pain, the anger, the way you made me feel inside.

The physical and emotional harm you inflicted on me.

At the end of the day, you left me cut and covered in blood. I wanted to run away.

But, it is out of my control; when I close my eyes, I dream of you.

…

Love your asthmatic [lover] with bad knees.

Just a reflection

I picture those boots you wore that day,

the way you crossed your legs,

like I cross my fingers hoping you come back.

 

I should have known you were a runner,

the way you always kept your bag

slightly out of reach but never out of sight.

 

You set it down that morning,

and I thought you’d stay a while

but you were gone that afternoon without a word.

 

Now you’re just a reflection in my mind,

I try so hard to hold on to,

but the ripples of the water are carrying you away.

 

Your face has already faded from my memory

but I’ll hold on to those crossed legs of yours

cause I’m not ready to give up hope.

A different storm

 

[The following is the product of a 10-minute writing challenge on HitRecord.org. The prompt word: storm.]

They picture bright bolts of lightening striking the sky

and hear the rumble of the thunder in the clouds.

The wind blowing the leaves from the trees

and the rain pouring down on the ground.

Women shuffling their children inside the house,

grabbing towels to dry their babies’ wet hair.

Their puppies whimpering outside the bedroom door

beginning a night of rude awakenings.

 

I picture nothing but blurry red lights in a blanket of white

and hear the grinding of the anti-lock brakes beneath my feet.

I feel my heart starting to race and my breath escaping me.

The car swinging back and forth, fishtailing in the road.

Every muscle in my body tightening as I try to gain control.

I feel the sharp jolt as one cold box of metal slams into another.

The world going fuzzy as warm blood seeps out of my flesh,

the air freezing my entire body until the storm claims victory.

 

 

Static.

Sometimes I just need silence, so I can hear my insides screaming loud and clear.

I’ve become a balloon that’s just about to burst from too much air,

except, I often don’t have enough of that – air, I mean.

 

I crank the music to drown out the noise, but it’s too intense. My jaw clenches up,

and it’s like losing a child in a crowd, suddenly everything seems more chaotic

than it was just a moment before you lost sight of her.

 

I shut the music off and other sounds fill the air. The yelling of the neighbors,

the crying of the kids next door, the barking of the dogs down the hall. Silence, all I need is silence.

I close my eyes, breath and count to three.

 

With my mind, I build an impenetrable force field around my body to reflect the noise

Finally, I don’t hear a thing. Not the timer sounding for the apple pie cooking in the oven. Not my phone

beeping from my friend calling down the road. Not the alarm ringing throughout the building.

 

I open my eyes and see nothing but smoke and delicate colorful lights strung along the ceiling.

Red, yellow, blue, pink and green, my eyes burn from the heavy smoke causing me to squint.

The lights become star bursts of color. Color. I close my eyes and smile.

A failed escape

She sat and closed her eyes. Imagining the humming of the laptop was the whistling of the wind through the trees, she added calm waves crashing against the shore to the mix and transported herself to Lake Superior. She curled her cold toes and could suddenly feel the warmth of fine white sand squeezing through. She used the hair band on her wrist to pull her long blonde hair out of her face. This was all she needed. A quiet, empty beach she could escape to and release her thoughts.

For the first time in months, she felt like she could breath. She lifted herself on her toes, spread her arms like Rose on the Titanic, looked out into the lake and inhaled the promise of clarity.

Walking along the beach, she slipped her feet into the ice cold water. The numbing set in without warning, but she didn’t care. It was a relief to not feel something for awhile. She scanned the scattered pebbles looking for small flat rocks to skip into the lake. With each skip, she’d forget another worry, another frustration, another harming thought. But, she was never good at skipping rocks.

The numbness turned to pain. She retreated to the sand and began to run. Sprinting faster and faster, and faster along the beach, tears began to run uncontrollably down her face. When she approached the Misery, she was gasping for air. She fell to her knees and screamed.

Somehow even in her getaway, she couldn’t escape.

6 months later, 300 miles apart

He asks me to save him a spot. He’s talking about the bed, but I think about my heart. How his soft fingers tracing my skin used to send shivers up my body. How my heart froze when our lips would touch a year ago. Now, I’d turn my head and let them barely grace my cheek.

He used to have a place. That place was next to me, and we fit perfectly. Hand in hand, face to face. But something went wrong, something changed. One of us grew just a little and the pieces no longer fit together. We tried to force it, both laying uncomfortably, I’d squeeze my eyes shut and let a tear drop fall.

Distance didn’t make our hearts grow fonder. It just made it easy to stop trying. Stop trying to work things out. Stop trying to find time for one another in our busy schedules. Stop trying to talk on the phone without getting in a fight. Stop trying to feel something that was no longer there. Stop trying to make it right.

Now, 6 months later, 300 miles apart, we’ve both been searching for another piece, another place, anywhere to just fit in. I think he’s found his place, somewhere close to home, where he’s reconnected with old friends. Somehow I always knew that’s where he belonged.

Me, well, I took a detour to my destination and stopped the search. I figure, what’s the point in finding someone in the wrong place, right? Maybe I’m wrong. But, this is just the first of many stops. The next is planned, but who knows where I’ll end up after that. All I can hope is that the answer isn’t wherever he is when I’m done exploring, because God knows it’ll be too late by then.

When I can’t sleep, I write

You stole my heart at 4 a.m. on a Monday.
The realization was as toxic as the drink,
But the brandy faded down by the river
And my butterflies for you only grew.

Soon, you held my heart in both hands,
As gentle as a midnight mist.
Lying in the park, I was just dreaming.

But, you, you were etching plans in the stone.
You read too fast, and dragged me along,
We’d leave before the party started,
and walk out before the final goal.

And all the while, I felt your grip tightening.
Soon, I was suffocating in your clenched fist.
and my love for you was drying up like a raisin.

But just as my world was fading to black,
you moved for a job in the windy city.
And with each week that you were away
I fought and fought, prying each finger back.

Two months later, battered and bruised,
I let go. Finally, I could breathe.
But, alone, I watched my heart crumble.

I listened to songs that took me back to happy days.
Tried filling the holes with paper mâché.
But, like a piñata, another came along.
Knocked me around and stole all the sweets.
Each time leaving me alone and empty inside.

I’d dream about a prince who’d sweep me off my feet.
I needed saving but I was no Cinderella.
I was just a broken girl with a hopeless heart.