The Universe of Us, Page 2

  A Winter Love

  We were like

  the raging sea,

  a winter love

  that could not be.

  Our voices were

  the ocean’s roar,

  we cried until

  we could cry no more.

  We mocked the storms

  and they fell the trees,

  our broken limbs

  among scattered leaves.

  The tides had shown

  what we did not heed,

  the water holds—

  and then recedes.

  Her Time

  She has been feeling it for awhile—that sense of awakening. There is a gentle rage simmering inside her, and it is getting stronger by the day. She will hold it close to her—she will nurture it and let it grow. She won’t let anyone take it away from her. It is her rocket fuel and finally, she is going places. She can feel it down to her very core—this is her time. She will not only climb mountains—she will move them too.

  The Chaos of Love

  I have walked through the ruins of an empire as it fell through the passageway of time. I have witnessed star after star exploding like fireworks, as I fixed my gaze light-years into the sky. And I was only a pinprick of dust on the day they split the atom. I had yet to learn the most destructive thing in the world is the quiet yearning between two people who long to find their way back to each other.

  Anything Else

  I want to plant a seed in your mind, some tiny particle of thought that bears a remnant of me. So little by little, day by day, you find yourself thinking of me, until one morning, you will wake up and realize you can’t think of anything else.

  Know Me

  I remember when I met you

  the hands of time stood still;

  you and your camera smile—

  a flash of something real.

  We talked until the evening,

  the moon came out for awhile;

  the clock resumed its ticking

  and my heart was on the dial.

  The morning came to claim you,

  and as far as I can tell—

  there will never be another,

  who will know me quite as well.

  When

  When did you stop caring? he asked.

  When did you start noticing? she replied.

  A Field of Flowers

  He spoke to her once about a field of flowers and a warm spring day. He, with his thoughts spilled onto paper, and she, with a sketchbook and pencil in hand. And she pictured them there, with her head on his shoulder and his hand resting on her thigh. She heard the contented chatter of birds and the slow, rhythmic hum of bees. If she could describe happiness to you, it would be that vision he conjured up for her. If she could take from all the possibilities, that moment would be the one she would bring into fruition. And yet the world spins too quickly and it turns too slowly as she waits and waits for the dream to transact into memory. Until the day comes when she can no longer tell the difference.

  Until It’s Gone

  “Some people don’t know what they have until it’s gone.”

  “But what about the ones who do know? The ones who never took a damn thing for granted? Who tried their hardest to hold on, yet could only look on helplessly while they lost the thing they loved the most.”

  “Isn’t it so much worse for them?”

  The One

  I don’t want you to love me because I’m good for you, because I say and do all the right things. Because I am everything you have been looking for.

  I want to be the one that you didn’t see coming. The one who gets under your skin. Who makes you unsteady. Who makes you question everything you have ever believed about love. Who makes you feel reckless and out of control. The one you are infuriatingly and inexplicably drawn to.

  I don’t want to be the one who tucks you into bed—I want to be the reason why you can’t sleep at night.

  Jupiter’s Moon

  I had a dream last night where you and I were standing on the surface of Jupiter’s moon. We ascended weightless and free, our bodies no longer tethered to the rules of gravity.

  Take my hand and come with me. Let’s go to Callisto. Our feet will never have to touch the ground.

  Lover’s Paradox

  Tell me that story again—the one where the world ends how it began with a boy who loves a girl and a girl who loves a boy. And she is deaf and he is blind and he tells her he loves her over and over and she writes him every day but never hears a thing back.

  All I Want

  I’m not asking for a grand declaration of love. I’ve stopped entertaining those thoughts long ago. You see, I have resigned myself to where I am now, hanging by a thin, tenuous thread. I can feel it twisting above me, gently fraying, slowly giving way. I’m not asking for promises or tenure—I just want a hand to reach for at the breaking point.

  The Redwood Tree

  My father once told me a story about an old redwood tree—how she stood tall and proud—her sprawling limbs clothed in emerald green. With a smile, he described her as a mere sapling, sheltered by her elders and basking in the safety of the warm, dappled light. But as this tree grew taller, she found herself at the mercy of the cruel wind and the vicious rain. Together, they tore relentlessly at her pretty boughs, until she felt as though her heart would split in two.

  After a long, thoughtful pause, my father turned to me and said, “My daughter, one day the same thing will happen to you. And when that time comes, remember the redwood tree. Do not worry about the cruel wind or the vicious rain—but do as that tree did and just keep growing.”

  A Whole Universe

  The days catapult before me. The world is spinning too quickly. It gets harder and harder to retrace my steps. To figure out how I got to be here.

  The years expand into eons. It gets easier for me to imagine my mother as a girl. To think about her worn-out heart—breaking for the things she couldn’t hold on to. And I wonder if I’ve let the wrong people go. When you lose a person, a whole universe goes along with them.

  Sometimes I picture all my other selves, standing in line like a row of dominoes; separate but part of the same disjointed whole. How can I hold a single one accountable? No one ever walks away from love, knowing they can never go back.

  Heroes

  I was never one to believe in superheroes. I always thought they belonged solely within the pages of a book. Until the day one showed up in my life and changed my point of view.

  Like some fairy-tale knight, he turned up when I needed him the most. He pulled me out of the mire with his big, strong arms and for the first time in awhile, I felt solid ground beneath my feet. I was as unsteady as a newborn—it was as though my legs had forgotten the simple task of walking. And I clung to him like he was the second coming, and I was the world’s newest convert.

  I think he hung up his cape a long time ago. I can signal my torch against the window or send a flare up into the sky, and it wouldn’t make a difference. No one is coming to save me this time. I guess I’ll just have to save myself.

  Epiphany

  Here are the words that have brought me to a new understanding. Here are the words that will bind us forever. From this day forward, I will speak your name with gratitude, knowing it is the mantra of my soul. I will let you go, knowing we are eternal. We were born to walk this world in intersecting lines. We are circles and signposts and parallels. I have left markers for you at every turn. Look for me in everything that catches your breath. Let the simple miracle of your own presence overwhelm you. For you are beautiful, in ways that can’t be described. And we are love at its most inexplicable. With these words, I am one with divinity. With these words, I am one with you.

  Ode to Writers

  The greatest plight

  of one who wr
ites

  is the irrational fear,

  that what they write

  possibly won’t—

  ever be quite as good

  as what they wrote.

  Gone

  “The sad thing is,” she said, “the moment you start to miss someone, it means they’re already gone.”

  An Insomniac’s Dream

  I missed you today. Between waking and sleeping, I thought of you.

  We met somewhere inside an insomniac’s dream, in a world so precarious—it could crumble at any given time—folding at the slightest touch.

  I wish I could have a day with you, where the sun never went past noon. Or a night, where the stars could go on forming their constellations; until the sky was filled with stories of how I loved you.

  You once told me that you had to bend time and space to be at my side. But it would only be for a moment, you had said.

  How long? I asked.

  But it was already over, long before the answer could leave your lips.

  Once

  I loved you once and now I must spend my whole life explaining why.

  Too Much

  Are you like me? Do you give too much, too quickly? Do you throw yourself blindly at the world, thinking that it will always open its arms up to you?

  Do you feel the slow turning beneath your feet, the shifting plates? Do you sense the streams of fissures roaring underneath like unrequited love, desperate for somewhere to go?

  Do you feel the wind pulling back and forth, constricting and expanding, a perpetual cycle as vicious as it is tender, like when it hurts you to breathe but it’s the only thing that sustains you?

  Are you like me? Do you live with the dial turned up at full volume? Can you taste the salt of the sea when you’re miles inland and the ocean feels like a fractured memory?

  Are you like me? Are you alive or just pretending?

  Dark Thoughts

  My idle hands

  and restless mind—

  into darkness,

  begin to delve.

  Seldom do I think of you,

  but today I thought

  of little else.

  Awake

  I was loved in my dreams last night. It echoed through me like thunder—I felt it through and through.

  When I woke up, I couldn’t shake the feeling of his arms around me and the sound of his voice, already half forgotten.

  The loss was indescribable. And I couldn’t help that feeling of certainty that I have felt this way before. Somewhere in time, throughout the ages, I was loved—I was loved and my eyes were wide open.

  Her Love Letters

  The truth is there are pieces of me in everything I have written to you, for you. After all, what is a poet but a composite of her love letters?

  I Will Cry

  Tomorrow I’ll cry for all the world,

  for all the things gone wrong;

  I will cry for every tethered bird,

  who has lost her joyful song.

  Tomorrow I’ll cry for every heart,

  that has broken, like boughs, in two,

  but today, my love, you have my tears—

  today I will cry for you.

  Salve

  “You’ve made your choice, and there’s nothing I can do,” she said. “I don’t think you want me in your life anymore, and I have to find a way to live with that. You said you would still be there for me, but I don’t want to be a mere courtesy—a salve for your guilt. You won’t hear from me again after today, and I don’t want you to worry. I’ll be okay. Because I have to be.”

  Time Stands Still

  In cemeteries

  of memories

  our love will lie

  in caskets.

  My time with he

  an eternity—

  neither present

  nor future

  can past it.

  My heart still kept

  where it was left—

  if ever he were

  to ask it.

  Territory

  I think there is a sense of ownership in knowing, isn’t there? You let people in, and they claim parts of you—they fly their flag over uncharted territory and from then onward—you cease to belong wholly to yourself.

  A Premonition

  There are some people who you look at, and you can just tell how their story will end. I don’t know what it is; they have everything going for them, yet it will never be enough. But when I look at you, I just know instinctively, that despite the odds against you and although life will always find a way to test you, someday you’ll have everything you want. Your ending will be a happy one.

  Nine Lives

  Does the past ever appear before you, like a bolt in the blue? Something or someone from many lives ago. It knocks you right off your feet, just when you thought you’d found solid ground. But it’s only an illusion, isn’t it? All this time, the plates have been shifting beneath you and the world keeps spinning round and round like the plates in a circus act. Yet you still can’t leave it behind; that one thing that was kept from you. No matter what you are given, it still scratches at the corner of your mind, like a cat begging to be let in.

  Blue

  You begin to invent things after awhile. I suppose it’s only human nature to add and subtract from our memories; to recall them the way we feel they should be remembered. After all, our lives are a living work of art—shouldn’t we be allowed to shape it in any way we choose?

  I remember the first time I saw my favorite painting, how its fragile beauty caught my breath. And I thought if the artist had painted just one brushstroke less, he could have told an entirely different story. If he began with a smear of red instead of blue, it could have been a chapter instead of an era.

  Self-love

  Once when I was running,

  from all that haunted me;

  to the dark I was succumbing—

  to what hurt unbearably.

  Searching for the one thing,

  that would set my sad soul free.

  In time I stumbled upon it,

  an inner calm and peace;

  and now I am beginning,

  to see and to believe,

  in who I am becoming—

  and all I’ve yet to be.

  The Edge of the World

  You think falling in love is about holding on, but it isn’t. It is about hands gripping the edge of the world and letting go, one finger at a time.

  Take a deep breath—here comes the drop. I know it’s your first time here, but soon you will get used to the motion; the headlong dive into the deep. Just go with it. You only get one chance to fall in love with your heart still whole.

  The Loneliest Place

  I believe there is penance in yearning. There is poverty in giving away too much of your heart. When the desire for another is not returned in equal measure—nothing in the world could compensate for the shortfall. Sometimes the loneliest place to be is in love.

  A Beautiful Collision

  There was a feeling of inevitability when I met you. The sense that we would be together; that there would be a moment when you would look at me in a certain way, and we would cross the threshold from friendship into something so much more.

  We spoke once about lovers who kept finding each other, no matter how many times the world came between them. And I think I had to break your heart, and you had to break mine. How else could we know the worth of what we were given?

  I think you were always meant to know me a little better than anyone else. And our lives were fated to converge like some cosmic dance. I know there is a terrible distance between us. But our bodies are made of stardust, and we are hurtling through space and time, toward the most beautiful collision.

  Hea
rt and Mind

  Do you think the mind answers to the heart? The way it keeps conjuring up what is no longer there. When in love, we swing like a pendulum between the two. We want the mirage knowing it will never be enough. But the heart does not have eyes and the mind cannot resist when it asks, tell me just one more time.

  Wandering Star

  She walks the earth freely, yet her feet never touch the ground. Many hands will reach for her, but she cannot be anchored. She belongs to no one, to nothing, to nowhere. When you meet her, you will recognize her for who she is—a free spirit, a wandering star. She will fit in your arms like she was made to be there. And she will show you what it means to hold something you can never hold on to.