She Is Back…Sort Of

The man caught the woman checking in on him. He first noticed it on his birthday and then saw repeated visits time and time again.

He wondered what she wanted and considered she might not have a clue.

She made him angry not just because she had mistreated him but because he wanted to know what she wanted and why she was checking on him. Was it curiosity or was it something more.

Part of him wasn’t surprised to see her and part of him wondered if she had any idea how mean it was to just stand there where she knew she would be noticed.

And part of him thought about what she would say when they ended up in bed together again.

The Woman Walked Away

The woman walked away and the man let her go. He thought about running after her but she gave no indication she cared and so he watched.

He started a new life that was marked by his almost dying, a very surreal experience that included four days in a hospital just minutes from her home.

But he didn’t call, write or engage. Who he was had died and who he was becoming was being born.

He had learned never to say never about her and him but he held no stock in rekindling a fire she tried to stamp out.

If it ever came back it would be a surprise to him.

At The End Of The Day

So much to say and yet no desire to write it down…yet.

A Few More Words

The man listened to Lou Rawls sing You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine and shook his head because he ached.

You’ll never find as long as you live
Someone who loves you tender like I do
You’ll never find, no matter where you search
Someone who cares about you the way I do
Whoa, I’m not braggin’ on myself, baby (ooh, oh)
But I’m the one who loves you (ooh, oh)
And there’s no one else! No, one else
You’ll never find, it’ll take the end of all time
Someone to understand you like I do
You’ll never find the rhythm, the rhyme
All the magic we shared, just us two

It surprised him. He thought he was further along but he supposed he wasn’t. He missed her. 

That didn’t mean he wasn’t furious with her for refusing to have the conversation they needed to have or for taking up with a different man.

But it didn’t change the bottom line, he could hear her in the wires and feel her presence. It made him wonder if she felt it too but tried to convince herself it she didn’t.

He could see her keeping herself busy and making lists of reasons why they couldn’t or shouldn’t be but he didn’t know if any of that was true.

Maybe she had moved on, it was certainly possible.

Maybe she didn’t care that he ached.

He wasn’t entirely downtrodden because he knew he could live without her. If they got back together he wasn’t sure if they had changed so much the magic was gone, though he was pretty sure it hadn’t.

So he focused on what he could control and that was himself. He focused upon his personal growth, health and vision for the future.

The ache would fade again, growth was the focus.

I Am Here Part II

Twelve years ago the man wrote the words below:

It is not a game, a joke or a fabrication of any sort.

I am here.

Call it thirty minutes or so by freeway–a whole world closer than the airplane ride it used to require to turn telephone calls into face -to-face.

This is home now. This is where I live and where I work.

Everything has changed and nothing has changed.

There is a fog obscuring the view and my perspective is blurred and my head uncertain.

So I stand in the shadows where I can observe and wait because even though I might be interested in pushing ahead and rushing to see what might or might not be, I don’t have to run.

Don’t have to because I live here and I don’t know that running would make any sort of sense.

Hell, most things don’t make sense so I let them unfold as they will.

I wander outside and stare at the moon I used to watch from thousands of miles away. I look at the moon and remember how I wondered if you were looking at it too and if maybe that provided some sort of connection.

I still wonder about it, except now I know all it would take is a short car ride and we’d watch together.

Won’t predict a thing one way or another. Won’t speculate or engage in prognostication because it just doesn’t matter. Ten years ago I never would have predicted any of the things that followed so why would things be any different now.

Twelve years later he sat at the dining room table and contemplated all that had happened.

The woman who said he was the love of her life, who said they had been through hell and was his forever was with another man. In one of the great contradictions of life he was devastated and confident about the future.

He had run into her and the new guy at a movie theater. He had almost walked out before the picture started but decided to talk to her first.

He waited for the new guy to go to the candy counter and then had a very pleasant conversation with her until the new guy returned and she suddenly blurted something about not being comfortable. He had barked back at her something about this being the perfect example of why conversations are useful.

Then he moved seats and fumed.

When the film ended she got up to go to the bathroom but he intentionally waited for her to exit before he left and made his own visit to the restroom.

Upon his exit he ran into the new guy in the lobby and avoided making eye contact with him, not because he was afraid of the new guy but because the new guy was stupid.

He was trying to engage the man and had no idea he was risking the ability to walk out with functional body parts.

The man knew that was a juvenile response, but he was hurt, jealous and angry. So he intentionally hustled by the new guy stopping for a moment to bare his teeth at as he passed by.

He wondered if the new guy recognized that as a throwback to ancient times when men weren’t worried about laws but focused on the danger of wild animals.

Months had passed since then and he hadn’t tried to communicate with the woman nor she with him.

Sometimes he didn’t think about her and sometimes she occupied his thoughts. It made him wonder if she was the same or if she had just moved on.

His gut said no and that it was good for her to be with this guy while she worked out shit from a prior relationship. But it didn’t stop him from wondering if he was making a mistake by being quiet.

They had been best friends and he missed her terribly. He wondered if the new guy had heard about him and if he knew that with one call the woman could bring the man down upon him.

If he so much as laid a finger upon her in the wrong way the man was prepared to rip off the new guys arms.

*****

Most days the man focused on building a different future without her. He figured if it was meant to be they would find their way back to each other as they had multiple times.

A medical procedure had made it clear he needed to focus on his health. So had changed his diet and increased his exercise.

Twenty five pounds had dropped in a short time and more was falling off of him. People had started to notice and comment upon his looking like a younger, newer stronger version of himself.

At the gym he was throwing around the iron like he was 20 years younger and hitting the treadmill with regularity.

He had a vision of what he wanted to look like and he was determined to get as close as possible. He wasn’t ever going to be 25 again, but he could do much to turn the clock back and slow it down.

If she never came back she might not ever know what he had done and the challenges he had conquered. He wanted her to see that even though she had seriously hurt him he hadn’t laid down and died.

Regardless of what she did or didn’t do the focus on his health would continue. It wasn’t being done for anyone but him and he was ok with it.

In the quiet of the night he sat back and thought about the past, present and future. He couldn’t have predicted much of it but he could say he had moved heaven and earth to make things happen.

There was satisfaction in that.

Life & Movies

There was a time when I was certain twin flames were real and nothing could stop them. There was a time when I was told twin flames come together, grow apart and then come back together.

Now I can’t say what I believe. Ask me in 20 years.

Fragments That Might Be Used In A Story

I don’t know if we know the words, but the melody has already been written upon our hearts and we have sung it together. Perhaps one day we shall again and when that day comes to pass you can tell everybody that this is your song. Until then keep looking up at the moon and know that when you are thinking about me I am thinking of you.

****

“…and in her guilt she questions her worth and why a man would love her,
wonders how it could be and so she punishes herself by rejecting him and in the process breaks his heart,

for she doesn’t see the reflection of her beauty in his eyes,
and cannot feel the love he carries in his heart,

and in the end all that we were crumbles to dust…”

*******

Sometimes love makes us into something more than we are. It changes us, molds and inspires us into being more than we could be without it. And when it is withdrawn we are diminished and less than we once were.

But the great challenge and adventure of our lives is to find a way to climb back to those heights without the assistance of that who makes our heart soar. For those who find that path are granted an extra measure of happiness and contentment than those who do not.

Still, a half measure is granted to those who try but fail in the process for the lessons that are learned in the quest still offer some special benefits.

*******

A girl once told a boy that she would never say “I love you first.” The boy laughed and said that was ok. He knew that this was merely something she said to try and draw him out. It wasn’t a game in the traditional sense, but still it was an opening feint in a game of Chess.

While he wasn’t a master of romance, he knew enough not to give in immediately. So he pulled her pony tail and teased her about her dress. It was one thing too many. Had he only pulled her pony tail or teased her he would have been fine, but the combination pushed her to a different place.

And instead he found himself begging for her forgiveness. Surprised by how badly he felt he immediately swore never to do it again and begged for the opportunity to take care of her. Smiling she said that she would think about it. Frustrated by her response he stood up and began to walk away.

She called out to him, but he ignored her. Later he would turn to see if she was watching him. When he discovered that she was not he grew frustrated and angry. But more than anything else he found himself confused.

Confused as was she. His behavior made no sense to her. She thought it was illogical and irrational. He didn’t was too angry to give her credit for logic. He though of her as playing a stupid game and wondered why she just didn’t say what she meant.

Had they been forced to spend some time alone together they would have sorted out their misunderstanding quite quickly.Instead time passed and the idea of talking became awkward, or so they viewed it and so they kept on walking away from each other. Instead of walking towards love they ran towards fear- they just didn’t know it.

Love Between The Lines

I wrote this in 2016, felt like time to run it here.

The great loves of our lives change us.

Sometimes they make us into bigger and better people than we once were because their faith in our abilities is so unshakable we don’t question whether we can reach that next rung.

And sometimes they break our hearts and leave us wondering if there was really a time when we could feel the warmth of the sun upon our backs and laugh wholeheartedly.

The common mythology makes some of us long for love at first sight because it makes for a great story.

The moment I saw her I knew I would never want to be with another man/woman.

But not me, I never cared or needed that.

Maybe it is because the few great loves of my life were unsought and unexpected.

They caught me off guard and unaware and blew me away. They taught me things about life and myself I never could have otherwise learned.

The most important things I know about sex, love and true intimacy came from those experiences.

The knowledge that if you truly gave your heart to someone they could level you and make you feel like the lowliest worm was eye opening.

I never believed such a thing was possible. It had sounded like the hyperbolic claims of writers of cheap romance novels and weak people.

And then I was one of those weak people.

Heartbroken, confused and lonely, unsure of what had happened but aware that something had.

Time passed and I figured out how to put my heart back together and learned to enjoy the sunlight and laughter.

I figured that I would take some time off from the whole love thing, I’d have fun and it wouldn’t be a big deal because I wasn’t in any rush.

Love would come again one day, long from then and I’d deal with it when it happened.

But then it happened faster and sooner than expected, can’t say how much sooner cuz I hadn’t mapped it out.

Hadn’t tried to really plan it out, just figured it would be a while.

Unsought and unexpected I was ensnared again.

We were together. I forget the rest.
• Walt Whitman

If you haven’t been there you might not understand it. You might not realize that it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you do it together.

You might not understand the ache that comes from separation and how silly you both feel because you are old enough to know better because you have loved and been in love before.

Sometimes in the quiet moments you look at each other and ask in a soft voice if it sounds stupid to say it feels as magical as the first time, but better because you appreciate it more.

And this time, this even more surprising and more unexpected time you decide you are going to go for it, you are going to lay your soul completely bare and give them the chance to really wreck you.

Because you know from experience how magical it is and figure that you don’t get that many turns at bat so you need to live and love hard.

But it has to be now, not later, but now because life is fickle and shit happens so you don’t know, cannot know what might happen.

You share more poetry, that of those who are considered masters.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you/ That you may be my poem/ I whisper with my lips close to your ear/ I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you. • Walt Whitman

As well as a few words by someone who never says aloud but secretly hopes that maybe one day he’ll be considered such as well.

So he’ll whisper the words and hope that a soft warm wind will send them into the ears of those who will best appreciate them and say he dared to fly higher than Icarus.

Dared to rise to the places where the sun might melt his wings because the hope and promise of past moments might be enough to make the fall that would come less painful.

And when that fall came, it took a while to dust himself off.

When he decided to stand again he figured it was best to remember the lessons and smile at the memories.

No reason to do more than that.

And though he was ready to just walk away his heart refused to accept what was fed to his ears.

Heart and head battled for a while until he came across an old story and remembered.

I never should have kissed her. The memory of her damn lips and that electric spark!

He walked off into the sunshine not knowing what he was going to do but knowing exactly what he wouldn’t.

He wouldn’t just forget and wouldn’t just pretend that nothing had happened.

You may not know when love starts but you always know when it is really over and when it is not.

Could Be Johnny & June or Harry & Sue

The man spent time processing all that he thought he knew and all that he had learned and just shook his head.

He wondered if they were like Johnny and June or Harry and Sue.

He stared up at the sky and told the man in the moon that he still loved her.

“I don’t know that I am in love with her, but I still love her and I suppose it wouldn’t take much for us to fall in love again”

Then he snorted, laughed and said to himself, “hard to fall in love with someone who won’t talk to you. What makes you think she would let that happen? She has fought it tooth and nail, assuming that she didn’t just let go of that.”

And then he wondered if that other guy was someone special to her or just a placeholder.

Part of what made him so crazy was they had never broken up for the typical reasons. It hadn’t happened because they so disliked aspects of the other they couldn’t deal with.

Their dealbreaker had been circumstances.

He had read a note she sent him saying that she wanted to be with him in their special love nest for at least the year they had, if not forever.

But that was a decade earlier. It was partnered with another note where she thanked him for not having given up and having convinced her to give it a go even though she wasn’t sure.

When he looked back at it they had 21 years of a mix of time together and time apart.

There had been rumors that Harry was going to write a third part in which Harry and Sue ended up together but he wasn’t sure if there was any truth to those rumors.

That got him thinking about Johnny and June and he realized he wasn’t sure how long Johnny chased June before she let herself get caught.

He thought about writing her a letter about it and considered what sort of response it would get. When her heart was open to him she would be very soft and loving about it.

She might say it was romantic.

But if her heart wasn’t open to it he would either get silence or something about how one couple were fictional and the other was a nice story about something that happened to someone else.

Still he was convinced that if she would allow herself to step into his arms and melt into him that her memories would return and this self imposed amnesia would go away.

But he wasn’t going to rely or work on that. If she was determined to go her own way she might find a time where he was no longer available.

He was in the middle of some kind of transformation and who knew where that might take him.

It Is Very Painful

The man came across what looked like news about the woman and it rocked him to his core. He was surprised by just how painful it felt and wondered what to do with it.

She had gone from communicating daily to almost no communication and this threw him because even though they had been through that in the past it was different now.

The woman had been free to make her own choices and when she had gone silent he had followed her lead figuring she needed time. He thought maybe it was what she needed to heal.

There had been moments where he thought he sensed the presence of another man but hadn’t said anything because surely she would come to him first and talk.

Surely they would have the conversation about unfulfilled potential and why two people who had been so deeply in love weren’t taking a shot at finding out more. Two people who had been as honest and intimate as man and woman could be in every way that mattered.

But if what he had come across was accurate he hadn’t been given that chance and now it felt like he was on fire with no easy way to put it out.

He wanted to reach out and ask her what the fuck was going on in those terms but he wasn’t sure she would respond well. He wanted to say he didn’t like the idea of being a back up plan.

He had tried multiple times to get the opportunity to have the conversation but she had refused. And even though they had seen each other multiple times she had avoided being alone with him.

That made him certain she was afraid that things would happen. He knew she didn’t fear him or worry he would force himself upon her because he wouldn’t.

But if he tried to kiss her there was no doubt she would kiss him back. Every part of him believed that and even when he looked himself in the mirror and said “you’re a fool, her behavior doesn’t demonstrate that” he knew he was right.

She probably didn’t want to hurt him. She probably had no intention of tearing at his heart but she did and she was. He wasn’t even sure how he could still be vulnerable to her but he was.

It infuriated him because he could be angry and stay angry with almost anyone without much effort. He could fight through very painful things and be ok.

But the idea here that another man was in his place and he hadn’t gotten the chance hurt.

It hurt because he knew her at her best and her worst. He had accepted all of her for who she was and wanted to see if that is still who she is.

He knew the various looks and the treatment the other guy was getting and it killed him.

Maybe too much time had passed, maybe they had changed. He didn’t really think so but he had wanted to find out and then if things hadn’t worked he could walk away knowing he did everything he could.

But now that might not happen. Kind of made him think about taking a riff from The Graduate and showing up at her door on her birthday or sending her flowers so the other guy would know he existed.

He wasn’t sure what he would do or if she cared that he had tried to fight for her and it hurt.