What you feel is life, what you live is another story.

Category: Love Quips (Page 4 of 4)

The Simplicity of Such a Complexity (Letter to Her)

I have seen the future…and behold those pools of blue, the sultry waves of your smile, the nestled heart I feel beat in our tightest embrace.

There are no missions left to the simple man. I see, with as much simplicity as I can muster, the complexity of emotions when in the grasp your beautiful gaze. There, the purpose of a life reborn into simple terms takes a turn. There, a man finds himself, renewed with a vigor and a purpose, one that requires he love a woman regardless of the outcome.

Yes, I’ve seen the future, one possible outcome of a million potential stories. I’ve walked with you, hand-in-hand, over a million miles in my mind. I’ve kissed you throughout eternity in my dreams. I’ve held you countless minutes through countless storms and awesome sunny days in my heart. Most of all I’ve given you all you need and you, in turn, have shown me all I could ever be.

There I am…a misty form in one of many dreams, hugging you from behind, kissing your neck as your body surrenders into me. There I am…a man who has finally been realized in a one, true love. There I am…a simply man lost in hopeless complexity, or a complex man lost in absolute simplicity.

My life has never been one of shortcuts, of easy routes to the top of anything. So I wait, hoping beyond hope that you’ll finally lean your head against my shoulder, look up at me, and know you are right where you belong.

That’s all. A simple request in a complex world. A simple union of two hearts, of two blocks of marble molded into pieces that fit by the complexities of time and experience. We can share a simple kiss. A simple word. A simple, light touch in just the right place. The simplicity of all I’ll ever need to know.

Things like that seem so simple, but can be so complex. Things like that end up being so complex, but end up so simple. It all works out, the way it should, in its time. Yet, I’ll love you just the same. I’ll seek the best for you. I’ll carry you anytime you need to be carried.

That’s love, as I see it.

I Want to Know

I sit…

Wondering…

Forever lost in words without you.

I hear the wicked calls of nature whip throughout my body, calling me to a place where ample bits of flesh reside. I see the the subtle loss of memory, the missing parts of the story of my life, scattered about the grasslands and sultry beaches we have walked.

I stand…

Wondering…

Questions discovered in having found you.

I want to know what the world looks like through your eyes. I want to see the sunrise reflected in your heart. I want to see the sights that bring the greatest joys to your soul. I want to discover the canyons and plains on which you roam, and walk with you there.

I want to know what the songs sound like in your heart. I want to feel the rhythm of your existence, and know the temporal desires that vibrate through your flesh. I want to beat the drum with you, and know the echoes that bring life to the dreams in your night.

I want to know life lived within your space, and see the end of everything when you reach the mountain’s edge. I want to seek the breath you need as you crack the ocean’s surface, and feel the strain of love’s great cause as you dive there deep again.

I want to know love’s sweet taste again, and smell the fragrance of your scent as you demand the most of me. I want to know the fierceness of your call, and never forget the heat of passion you inspire. I want your lips, your heart, your soul…there.

I sigh…

Wondering…

About all the things I want to know.

Until You Ring Again (A Poem)

Absence...
Like I was some forgotten beginning to a long story,
A footnote, an unheard plea.
A long forgotten memory.

Her voice...
Like an echo returning to its home,
I smile, awakened in this time.
Such music, I know her somewhere else.

I know her...
Somewhere else beyond this earthly bound,
I feel her in the mist
In the sweet scent of springtime fields.

I've felt her...
Somewhere between my first life and my last
She's been the constant,
The very nectar that brings me home.

And in the darkness of absence,
A light, her sweet sound,
Jars me back to life,
Although she seems resistant to such things.

So an empty drop of sweat,
A silent moan, a long-lost whisper,
A forgotten time brought to the living
Once again...

I falter, 
Wanting to hear her song, 
Wanting more in a pitch she will not sing,
I feign tone deafness in this folly.

So, I say hello
In each and every goodbye,
I know somewhere there is love beyond the stars
A ringing truth in every heartbeat.

Until you ring again...
May my heart sing true your name,
My mind bring blue to this sunny sky,
My body stay strong to its course.

 

A Testament to You (A Sweet Awakening)

∞ Love [15/52]My breath is still gone, having escaped my body at the very sight of you…

Yes, I’m captured, bewildered, sunken in the sweet sands of adoration. I’ve fallen, softly landing on the ground at your feet, looking up as if gazing at the Sun, blinded by the light of something so very special. As I stand, my feet embrace the soft ground where you stand, and I know I am where I am supposed to be.

It’s not new. This energy has coursed through my body each and every time I’ve seen you. Even in the distance, every new moment is a testament to something I can’t explain, something I can’t describe. Waves of emotion cascade over my powerful form, taking the energy of time and experience and replacing it with something so much stronger, so much different. It’s as if I am remembering a lifetime I can’t recollect, living a dream that I know I’ve had before, yet can’t remember when.

I study the lonely clouds that swoon in the dark blue sky. I feel the light summer breeze tickle me, and share a moment with the Sun as it warms me with its touch. I feel alive in this moment, soaking in the power of each second, the potential of each minute, and the glory of each hour. I look up, again, in the direction my heart demands and there you are, smiling, reminding me of something I have no real memory of.

But the feeling…it’s there, and it’s real. 

I don’t know where it came from. I have no idea why it’s here. I just know it is very real, and the more present I get in the moment the more real it becomes. I don’t care about man-made obstacles. I don’t care about the rules others have written. I don’t care what “comfortable” feels like. I just know what is there, what is here, and I know I have very little control over its demands. It leads, and I must follow.

So, if you will have me I will take you. I will stroke your hair with loving hands. I will kiss your lips with an eager mouth. I will taste your body with unequaled desire. I will love you until you are spent, and then love you some more. Then I will lay with you, in the completeness of a harvest moon, and I will hear your words, embrace your thoughts, and absorb ever morsel of you that is offered.

I will see you naked and unashamed, and you will feel desire only insatiable emotion can provide. You will dance in the memory we share to a song we’ve written long ago until the moment picks us up again. Then, our sweat will again mix, our sounds echo through the empty caverns of our lives. You will know the liberation of a love that goes beyond our flesh, and you will fly in the realization that the wind loves you, and only embraces you to lift you upwards.

If only the mist would make you real. If only the desires of a man laid silent by the vastness of his dreams could have you rise up within them. If only the winds of love that course through my soul at the sight of you could lift you from your perch and leave you on this ledge with me. I would look into your eyes, beg of you to let go, and let love take us where it may.

So, please jump when we arrive. Let go and fall. I will catch you, and your landing will be glorious. Rest your head on my shoulder when the tired times come. Hold my hand when the demon rushes into your mind. Kiss me when you need to taste your lover, and then take me to the gates of ecstasy. There, will break those gates to pieces, and share the spoils of sweet surrender with the stars that guide us.

You will ask me what I see. I tell you tales of the power of happenstance; the power of possibility presenting itself like an unopened flower in the fields where you stand. I see the shedding of mortal ideas in my visions, replaced with the shroud of divine immortality. I see a tree not knowing itself until it touches the Earth, a bird not knowing who it is until it finally jumps and kisses the sky. I see you, smiling in a way that innocently sets my body on fire.

I feel you in my embrace, held tightly by arms made strong by time and powerful by desire. I feel you sink into me and let go, knowing that what is wrong to man is right by something much, much smarter. I feel you take me in your hands and guide me in, and I feel you filled with something only I can give and only you can take. I feel your flood of fulfillment, the release of my intention, and a sweet awakening showing itself in a bluer sky, a softer flame, and a harder stone on which we carve our names.

There we are…perhaps. One of a million possibilities, one straw in a haystack of potential. I can hold that single strand of hope tightly, or let it go in the winds that surround me. Either is a testament to you, and either is worth the risk of being wrong.

Wrong. I laugh at the suggestion. To which mind will I bow to that suggestion? To the one who clamors for security in an illusion? The one that creates rules to keep a beloved in a cage? Or the one that roams free among the imprisoned?

I like the rules of the rule-less, those who are built around a sense of discipline where words are never spoken and time is not a guide. Can’t we make a home there? Can’t we roam those spaces together, devoting ourselves to an inner truth not written by the hands of other men?

In the truest sense freedom is a testament to you. In the sacred sense liberation is the sweetest of awakenings. Taste it, live it, and never wear those chains again.

Smile, Please Smile

In the throes of some created despair, I watch her struggle. She is oblivious to the world around her, absorbed in the essence of suffering and living the lie so completely that all joy has escaped her face.

That beautiful face. I can image her smiling, and I can imagine my own smile in return. I can see her eyes light up with passion, and feel my own response as her full lips turn upward in the moment. I can almost hear her laugh like a song sung in forever’s chorus…

“Please, beautiful lady, smile. Find it, please, let it out. It’s all going to be fine, I promise.”

“You have no idea what I am going through,” I hear her respond.

“I know. I can’t imagine what it is that would keep that smile from rising. I can’t fathom the pressure that turns diamond into coal, that creates powder out of the strongest rock.”

“Don’t start with me,” I hear her say. “You can’t understand, you don’t know me.”

“I do know you,” I reply. “I’ve seen you dancing in vast fields of joy, playing with the flowers that light up the soil like stars in the sky. I’ve heard you laughing at the nothingness you’ve sought, felt you surrender to the dew that wipes the day’s dust from your feet. I’ve seen you tend to your wounds, and I’ve felt you make your way toward the Sun as it makes its way across your longing sky.

I’ve seen your prayers turn your knees red with angry retaliation. I’ve heard your sobs in the darkness of night, and I’ve felt your body heaving under the strain of really nothing at all. I’ve felt your tears run down my back in our embrace, and I’ve felt you leave a million times before this moment.”

“But…but I’ve never met you…”

“I’ve met you a thousand times in your dreams. I’ve seen you grasp at the enormity of what you see as failure, and I’ve seen you run toward the storm rather than face the uncertainty of sweet aloneness. I’ve watched you shackle your ankles to certain doom, and I’ve watched you clip your wings instead of using them to fly. Freedom scares you, and owning yourself in ways beyond the teachings of your masters makes you insane with fear. You fear losing the knife more than you fear the pain of cutting yourself.”

“How? You don’t know…,” her voice trailing off into some thought she would not share.

“You are me, sweet lady. I am you. Our fingers play the same strings, our voices lift up the same notes. I don’t know you as much as I know me.”

Then a kiss. A sweet, gentle kiss. Strong arms hold the fragile, powerful legs support the crumbling. Love is found in not knowing who has the strength, or who is the one falling to pieces. They are interchangeable and neither knows itself outside the fact that both stay standing, or both stumble, almost at the same time.

“Goodbye, beautiful lady. Hold me dear until we meet again, in some other form, in some other way. Please, I beg of you, smile. Just find something in your soul that sets your face ablaze. Go there, and fly.”

 

I Always Knew You’d Come

I knew you’d come.

I once heard you whisper through the trees as I bathed in the soothing mountain air. I heard you say the most wonderful things in a sunlight caress, and I felt you love me in the way you pulled the sweat from my skin, in the way you accepted my reply through the soft moan that involuntarily escaped my lips.

I know you are there. I can feel you in the ground beneath my feet, and in the desire I have to never quit the climb. I feel your hand gently on my back as I move upward and onward, your soft words reminding me of who I am when the world would like me to forget. I feel the unbridled passion between us, and know that someday, somehow, the river of life will take us to that special place where we can finally rest. Together.

Others wonder who you are, but I can see you in the sunlit reflection cast upon the still waters on which I gaze. I can see you in my own eyes burning with a passion brighter than a million suns. One can see you in the fierceness on which I walk this place, intently resolved to hold my space while the winds take me to another.

To know you they need only know me. Not the flesh that makes a man mortal in ambivalence, or the thoughts that take such a mortal to pretentious heights of mindlessness. No, to have met you they need to meet the Soul lying beneath those things. The Soul pulsing like an ocean, mighty because it lies beneath all waters. A Soul holding Itself like molten rock beneath a mountain, sure to explode when It must in a glorious thunder that quietly sings the song of immortality.

To know you they need know nothing more than Love. Sweet, unbridled, godly Love. All they need do is feel a baby’s hand tightly squeeze their outstretched finger. All they need pray are words of selfish adoration that lifts up another’s heart. All they need do is lie still, and listen, until the words they hear all make perfect sense.

Yes, I knew you’d come.

Even as a boy crying loudly in the darkness, I knew you’d come. Even as a young man struggling against himself, I knew you’d come. When the torrents came and I longed for dry land, I’d knew you’d come. When the failures fell all around me and I begged for it all to end, I knew you’d come. You are the reason I never left this place, and the reason why my heart still beats strongly within my chest.

It all makes so much sense to me now. I lived this life to find you, and found you so that I may live this life. Beyond the stories of average men lays a truth only lover’s know; that through the stumbles and falls of a life well lived they always knew you’d come.

Always. Even on the dark canvas of despair they’d paint a tiny ray of light. Even in the blackness of their thoughts there’d always be a beautiful stain of white. Even on the sheerest rock face they’d find the smallest handhold on which to climb. Lover’s just can’t quit, for in their lonely space and darkest hour they simply know.

One day when our flesh finally gets to feel what our souls have always known, it will all make perfect sense. Until then, this artist will make his rounds painting murals along the way, staining empty walls with scenes of the most beautiful mayhem. Finally we’ll meet in Rumi’s field, sensing the unimaginable, and you’ll sign your name beneath my own in this life’s great masterpiece.

Then, you’ll lean in on my longing ear and whisper the words I’ve always heard you sing…

I always knew you’d come.

The Nesting

From the mountain highs I’ve heard you sing. I have heard you from afar, and am ready in your arrival.

There were moments when the pieces seemed to fall away. I now know they were simply falling into place. Powerful is perspective, how when the glass breaks we suffer until the day we realize the stained-glass piece of art those pieces have become. Sad how we forget the tears when the smiles come, and forget the smiles when the tears come. Enlightening it is when we see how wonderful the journey has been, and how we could have never arrived at the destination without the pitfalls, without the stumbles, and without the will to continue to put one foot in front of the other.

It was in the moments when I wished for an end to it all that I realized the very beginning. It was in the bleakest darkness that I felt the enormity of a single star. It was at the very edge of the pit where I realized the end of the climb, and the beginnings of a journey into the world around me.

How glorious is that pit, that darkness, that end!! I could never have moved on had my feet not been willing to end each step and start anew. A new wave could not have crested on my beloved shore had another not receded. The tide could not have risen with its falling, and the Sun could not rise without the darkness that announces its arrival.

And now the Sun begins to rise. Rise in the realization that I know you. I’ve always known you.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.‘ ~Rumi

Imagine I’ve carried you my entire journey, never realizing that each end removed a layer to you, the core. Imagine that each end permitted another step in a journey that led to you. You are not the destination, but the trailhead I’ve been looking for. You are not the end, you are the wonderful beginning.

Now, I sit in a space uniquely mine and I see. I see the mountains rising high above the happy trees surrounded by the bluest sky I’ve ever seen. I feel the warm, dry air caressing my skin as the Sun warms me to my core. I hear the beautiful trail that calls my name, and the single note that draws my attention to the song you are singing. I know had I met my end back there, I would never have found this here, and my life would not have been fulfilled but rather become an experience left incomplete by my own insanity.

Yes, I hear you. Yes, I have arrived. Yes, you may now show yourself and kiss me in the sunlight. Yes, you may hold my hand and hug me under the fullest moon. Yes, you may make love to me in the plush grass where we sit. There is nothing not allowed here, for there is nothing we need disagree on.

The wind does not tell our wings “you are wrong.” The sky does not tell us in our flight, “you must go.” The Earth does not demand “leave me alone” upon our landing. We are meaningful in our togetherness, lustful in our want, and powerful in our individuality.

It seems we have  been building a nest, and we’ve met in the construction holding the same twig. It seems we have meant to be here, now, having been bumped and bruise but truly no worse for wear. It seems it all makes sense now as we view the stained glass art that our broken moments have created.

“No, don’t put me back together again!” screamed Humpty Dumpty. “I love myself as I am, broken as I may appear to you!” What worth would the King’s horsemen have when the soul of the supposed broken realize their own beauty in their pieces? We’d all realize that there is nothing left to fix, and the fixers would fade away. We’d all realize the pieces aren’t ugly remnants, but beautiful works of art.

There, I rise my soul to meet you before I kiss your tender lips. I love my pieces, and I love yours, too. Imagine what we can create when we mix them all like the ingredients to some great feast. Imagine what we can do in the realization that the parts of who you are fit quite nicely with my own, and no glue is necessary in their union. Sweet justice to the past, sweet love to the tears we once cried, and sweet reverence to the empty space we’ve held reserved for each other when sleep finally comes.

I smile at the idea, and marvel at the consequence. I will leave it there, for now, for the first step has been taken, the first ripples have been cast. The hike has just begun.

Love…

Is it me whom you write to tonight? (A Poem)

I watch lovers from afar
   And I wonder where you are
      If I'll ever see those wishes come true.

I feel the sweetness of her lips
   The soft caress of fingertips
      It's in heaven that we always knew.

There's an angel laying there
   Making words from mountain air
      Is it me whom you write to tonight?
      
In the wanting to clearly see
   I've heard a hopeful homily
      Written for lovebirds to sing.

Yet in certain irony
   It's the chains that set me free
      I am a poor man with riches to bring.

In the silence of the stars
   As you hum those sacred bars
      Is it me whom you write to tonight?

We are just strangers in the dark
   Two seagulls in a park
      Just wandering into the dawn.

As nothing happens there
   We move on to thinner air
      Screaming like sanity's gone.   

Yet there's a quiet part of me
   That wonders silently
      Is it me whom you write to tonight?


A Walk in the Schoolyard

Baby, please. Hold my hand.

Let’s walk around the schoolyard, and be teased by all the kids. Let’s move in our own world not fearing the mockery of those who only wish a finger would be held lovingly in their direction. Let’s smile tenderly at the moment regardless of a world set against our tide.

I’ll sneak a hug when they’re not looking, and then kiss you hard when they are. Such a kiss explodes with passion, so much so that they can only stutter in shock, left without the words to describe the passion they had witnessed.

We’ll avoid all of the dry places in the playground, choosing instead to jump joyfully in the puddles. We’ll slosh around in our soaked shoes making fun of the noises that follow every footfall. We’ll laugh at those who shake their heads in wonderful disbelief, and we’ll scoff at those who try to tell us how it is we should be walking. “Stay dry!” they’ll say. “Get out of the water!” they’ll demand. “Look at those fools!” they’ll say to one another to comfort their needy heart.

To them we’ll speak in our laughter. We’ll respond in the sounds of splashing as we leap. We’ll reassure their hearts that yes, this too is possible for you.

We’ll rarely see our differences. They will only serve to highlight where we stand together. Instead, we’ll share the laughter, the play, the effort, and the passion of a love shared without delay. Our footprints will look different but they will be side-by-side. Our hearts won’t always beat in synchronicity, but beat together they will. Our space is not one of humanness alone, but rather divine in its construction and faithful in its resolve.

There we stand, in our schoolyard, changing everything. Like great meteors, we ripple in the Sea. Like great quakes, we raise mountains from the flatlands. Like great lovers we create passion within the puddles, and bathe endlessly in the Sun.

Then, one day when times begins to end and all things cease to be, there will just be you, and there will just be me. What a journey that will be.

He asked “Why are you a writer?”, what came next changed his life forever.

“Why are you a writer?” he asked across the table.

“I needed to find my lover,” came the reply.

“How?”

A sigh, a moment, and then the letting go.

She came to me in words, in the music that flowed from somewhere out there, into me, and out through my fingers. She’d whisper to me in songs that set my mind to dancing, and in music that set my body into motions I have never known. She’d wake me from my sleep with rays of light peeking above my life’s horizon. 

She blinded me with love so that I would always, always, see. I write to paint the pictures of her that my open eyes now see. I use words to beat a path through the underbrush, a path that leads to me. I share bits of me that I leave laying on the ground, hoping she’ll follow that trail into my open arms.

She came to me a million moments before I met her, and I’ve loved her from the first. There is no rhyme or reason, or words set to page that can tell you how I really feel. Yet my words are not for you, they’re for her. She knows, and one day she will be, and my story will be complete. 

“Wow,” said he, “that’s amazing. How do you know she’ll come?”

Because she has to. She can’t help herself. Be it in this life or some other, she will come. Until then, I set my pen to page, my heart to beating, my soul to searching, and I love her just the same. 

I’ll never need to let her go because I will never have ever trapped her. She is, as we speak, flying freely and bathing in the choices of her design. When she comes, we’ll be ready. Until then, there is a life to live and a space that needs preparing. Love is, or should be, like that. We don’t find each other suddenly, we’re in each other all along.

“I wish you well,” said he. “Sounds like a fairy tale to me.”

Perhaps it is. One that ends, “and they lived happily ever after.” We all live in stories, I wish mine to end like that.

“Me too,” said he. “I never thought of it like that. Thank you. I don’t feel so bad about being single.”

We laughed, we toasted, and set to waiting once again.

 

Newer posts »