New dreams

[edited]

She said to him:
Go and make
your dreams come true.
She wiped her eyes
and held her ground.
But you must
do so without me.
She sighed and turned away.
I must dream
new dreams to chase,
for in all the dreams I had
once upon a time,
you were by my side.
I am learning to live
without you; to dream
without you; to love
without you.
She whispered to herself,
That is the lesson
I learnt, hard and well,
When he closed the door
between us.
She took a deep breath.
He closed the door.
I simply locked it.

Musings under the full moon

When I was out of my mind (and
I admit I often was not myself
no matter how much I wanted
to be, and not matter how hard

I tried) you told me often that
my actions were what mattered—not
the sincere apologies I offered
when I came back to myself. Yet now

when I am faced with your actions,
you ask me to accept your
words. Ask me to understand
your suffering. Do I know how

much you wanted to call? How many
things you wanted to share? How can
you ask such things? Why
am I expected simply to accept

your words as truth and give
them credence when the message from
your own mouth was actions are what
matter, even when we were together

and when we were in love? Not being
in my right mind never once
changed my love; but not being myself
made me incapable of stopping myself

hurting the one I cherished more
than my own life. Let me pose
my own questions, if I may.
Do you know how hard I tried to be

worthy of your love? How hard
I tried to earn your trust back?
How desperately I tried to keep
that madness at bay? Do you

understand I still wake from
nightmares and reach for you
only to remember I am all
alone with my terror and guilt?

Do you know how often I see
things that make me cry because
they remind me of you—of
the life I wanted to build,

of the future I finally felt
safe enough to start planning?
Do you understand I lost
the person I trusted more than

any other—the one man who
made me feel safe, the man
to whom I confided my deepest
secrets and darkest fears?

My dreams have been snatched
from me, one by one. And then
to experience the galling,
humiliating shame of realising

it all means nothing, because
in fact, I am replaceable.
You do not need me. Maybe you
want me, but your actions

reveal a truth different than
your words. You left. You
moved on. You have someone
new in your life, in your

heart, in your bed. If I were
worth being loved, should I not
have been worth staying for,
worth fighting for, worth the vows

I thought we would say
to one another when
we were hand-fasted—vows I will never
now hear from the only man

I ever truly wanted, the only
one I ever thought found me
worthy of swearing to me:
even though I am flawed,

I am small and plain and broken
sometimes completely, that he
loved me enough to stand by me,
to lend me his strength

and his heart when my own
faltered. For better or for worse.
Because with you, I could have been
more better than worse.

But now, I cannot have
my heart's desire, and I do not want
the consolation prize. There is
nothing consoling about losing

my heart, my dignity, my world
and having to stomach seeing the one
who gets to have the only thing
I wanted, that I never thought

I could have, but for one brief
moment. It will not keep me
warm at night. It will not
keep the monsters at bay.

It will not help put back together
the shattered shards and dust
that was my heart of fire:
once, whole and beating.

Not a love letter

(Written Friday 13 September 2013)

Yesterday was another
anniversary.
Do you remember?
Not that one.
The other one.
Just two years ago.
I was 25. You were 34.
We tried
with all our will
to move slowly
to step softly
to touch lightly
Desperate to convince
ourselves we could
let go.

Six months—that was
our limit, our shelf-life.
Until, 3 weeks
after the day
we met, 2 weeks
after that night
under the street lights

you touched my bare
skin in the darkness
of my bedroom.
As your fingertips traced
my curves in the dim light
shining through the window
you talked of how
you had new feeling
for the first time
since the accident.
A part of me
broke loose, and that small
fragment I entrusted
to you. Despite
the fact we tried
to cling to the idea
of casual,

in that moment
when all the barriers
were lowered—
when our truer selves
were laid bare
I knew we were taking
that first step down
a path neither of us
believed was
short term.

In that moment
we chose to laugh
in the face
of the odds stacked
against us.
We let ourselves
be consumed
and fire blazed
between us from
the spark we lit
in the moment
we first kissed.

And the reality—
sealed merest days later
when I stood
facing you with my back
to the kitchen sink.