a note clothespinned

I lived in blue sky, you on your stomach smiling at some far away thing. I can't remember the last time I relaxed at a park with someone so new, so fresh, so lovely. And how a smile is like the fall, wiping away every bad memory of a hot summer of a blistering thought. Caught in the moments, this beautiful way of saving me in the smallest and most innocent of ways. Always near the brink, feeling and fearing the rocks might give way at a moment's notice, yet just in the nick of time a bold move and a fire inside can turn it all around. And here I am standing on the brink of something else, something foreign and old, something I boxed away a very long time ago, something good I purposely buried to bring out when the time is right. And that comes so natural, like water gathering on the leaf of a lily.

Remember how I said my heart is a prodigal son, coming back, limping back, barely beating but alive somehow? Well, it seems to have mended itself up quite a bit, some nasty gashes here and there, but ones that muscles memory has fixed and repurposed, like an old dress with new owners.

There is an old brick that sits somewhere at my place to remind me of solid ground, to remind me of the past, to show me what hard work can produce and how sturdy it can be. To never give up on some things, even when they give up on you. And all in all at the end of time, I think that I would like to be like that brick.

I wrote a poem the other day. It's short, maybe even sweet, but it works in this instance quite well. I'll share it just because I can:

Whether the world

ends in a bang

or a sigh

I'll turn to you

and kiss you goodbye.

I suppose that's what everything everywhere is all about.

fracture

Our bodies move with such grace sometimes, like children swimming underwater, hair flowing slowly behind them. We have this instrument we have been given, this practical mass which allows us to connect and touch and see and hear and taste and experience. And throughout our lives we learn how to walk correctly, not bang into corners, watch where we are going, how to properly jump into a body of water, and most of the times the reverse has to happen so we know how to do it correctly.

Scars fading on our bodies, bruises constantly fading, small knicks and cuts on our hands and knees, this constant reminder of how mortal we are, how fragile we can be, and how fleeting everything really is. I often sit at my desk and think about all the cuts and bruises and every trauma my body has ever taken and how I work fairly well, considering. And what if all those closed up places, those repaired spaces suddenly opened back up, if every wound I have ever taken decided in an unanimous state to undo. I would surely die. I think we all would of the shock of seeing how much we have been hurt, of how much the crux of that pain could be. Writhing on the floor, screaming for mercy from the walls and the furniture and the ceiling, only to be offered no comfort. It's a good thing we have mothers to bandage our wounds, salve and ointments to facilitate healing.

Yet we do this all the time with our hearts, we let a wound stay open and open and fester and hurt and never heal. We, or at least I, have been guilty of letting an old wound become a wrecking force in my life because I was afraid of how it would heal, what if I changed, what if I was different, what if I got hurt again? But the freedom of wisdom lies in the failure you had to achieve to see what is the right way and what is the wrong way.

So, my bandaged and long lost heart returns like prodigal sons, beaten, worn down, disconnected from reality, but nonetheless back. And I think that's a good start.