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Showing posts with label (grieving). Show all posts
Showing posts with label (grieving). Show all posts
These nights as they were.
Remember when we used to write ourselves to sleep at night? And managed somehow not to fall again awake? How our eyes stayed closed, all night, and we never had to try to remember how feeling so, felt.
It's hard for me to remember now. Now that you're not here to remind me. And by 'you', maybe I mean 'me', the way I used to be.
I watched an old YouTube video I'd made of myself, for M., singing to him on his birthday in 2009. God I looked young. And happy! Deliriously so, back before I knew any other way to be -- except vicariously. Such a bizarre peek into my own once-mind; once-energy; once-unrecognized fate.
Tonight one of your songs came through my headphones. Although it's always been there, all this time, it suddenly appeared as though lost for ages. Indeed, it had been, somehow. Lost amongst and amidst and underneath the many-blanketed boundaries of far less dangerous songs. And I heard it again. Tore into me briefly; too easily; still familiar. Before the numb set in again.
And it was like I realized for the first time how thick that blanket has become; how unavoidable. How indistinguishable. Only in contrast with a context that used to drench me in my own tears, could I see it as something separate from myself. Something I've not become, so much as am covered by. Perhaps shielded. Perhaps shrouded. As one would shroud the newly dead, as though not wishing that one to see. To see its own cessation.
But so as not to leave it there...
-L (9/9/13)
It's hard for me to remember now. Now that you're not here to remind me. And by 'you', maybe I mean 'me', the way I used to be.
I watched an old YouTube video I'd made of myself, for M., singing to him on his birthday in 2009. God I looked young. And happy! Deliriously so, back before I knew any other way to be -- except vicariously. Such a bizarre peek into my own once-mind; once-energy; once-unrecognized fate.
Tonight one of your songs came through my headphones. Although it's always been there, all this time, it suddenly appeared as though lost for ages. Indeed, it had been, somehow. Lost amongst and amidst and underneath the many-blanketed boundaries of far less dangerous songs. And I heard it again. Tore into me briefly; too easily; still familiar. Before the numb set in again.
And it was like I realized for the first time how thick that blanket has become; how unavoidable. How indistinguishable. Only in contrast with a context that used to drench me in my own tears, could I see it as something separate from myself. Something I've not become, so much as am covered by. Perhaps shielded. Perhaps shrouded. As one would shroud the newly dead, as though not wishing that one to see. To see its own cessation.
But so as not to leave it there...
-L (9/9/13)
"Counting my losses, wasn't sure if I should count you." -D
"Fear is the opposite of faith." But fuck faith. And fuck fear, too.
Luckily, when you've had your heart torn in a major way, all subsequent disappointments seem insignificant by comparison.
"But I refuse to be concerned with condescending advice, cuz I'm the only motherfucker that can change my life." -I.T.
-L (8/19/13)
Luckily, when you've had your heart torn in a major way, all subsequent disappointments seem insignificant by comparison.
"But I refuse to be concerned with condescending advice, cuz I'm the only motherfucker that can change my life." -I.T.
-L (8/19/13)
The allowance of life, happening to us; never the other way around.
Hmmm... One big wondering what the hell is going on, most of the time now. Putting ourselves in situations we haven't allowed for years; interviewing all over the state for the next stage of our lives; pretending to expect meaning to be gleaned from every glance/chance/near-arbitrary decision. One of the problems, I think, for people who now have trouble with seeing what's the purpose, is that everyone around us who doesn't seems so mystical, all-knowing, seductive in comparison. This can hardly be an acceptable way to operate.
"But take a minute now, think this through. Give it a second and a bird's-eye view. Think of the moments you've got left to lose - like how much time are you really down to do?!" -D
Themes, themes, themes. And metaphors. Maybe all this is just the Theme of Years? How many left, still yet to be seen. I wonder whether the sun wishes sometimes for the sweet dismal of darkness? I wonder whether it gets tired of shining, always oh-so-bright? I wonder if it hurts its own eyes; keeps itself awake all night? Even so, the dull moon would be the better companion, though lacking such timeless intensity. 'Least it'd have more than one thing to alwaysalwaysalways be talking about.
"Well I don't, don't need, need, need to know, but there's a set of my keys left under your door, and if you need a place to sleep tonight, well that's what family's for..." -D
-L (3/10/13)
"But take a minute now, think this through. Give it a second and a bird's-eye view. Think of the moments you've got left to lose - like how much time are you really down to do?!" -D
Themes, themes, themes. And metaphors. Maybe all this is just the Theme of Years? How many left, still yet to be seen. I wonder whether the sun wishes sometimes for the sweet dismal of darkness? I wonder whether it gets tired of shining, always oh-so-bright? I wonder if it hurts its own eyes; keeps itself awake all night? Even so, the dull moon would be the better companion, though lacking such timeless intensity. 'Least it'd have more than one thing to alwaysalwaysalways be talking about.
"Well I don't, don't need, need, need to know, but there's a set of my keys left under your door, and if you need a place to sleep tonight, well that's what family's for..." -D
-L (3/10/13)
"WHAT WILL YOU DO, HERMIT CRAB? WILL YOU PULL DOWN THE STARS? WILL YOU SMASH THE MOUNTAINS LIKE SHY COCONUTS TO FIND THEIR SECRETS? ... WHO ARE YOU TO DEMAND REASONS?"
"WHO ARE YOU?" -T.P.
I feel like I should re-learn to write/think/feel something else. Or else bury it to put it to rest, deeply in the soil of my words. Allow the 27 to fade/sprout/pale into 28...
For to beget flowers, perhaps? For to forget the unmemory of it all, and to pretend once more?
Or if not in pretending, then as an unwilling witness, remembering again what it feels like to see. To see something other than that thing - that thing she can't not see.
-L (12/10/12)
I feel like I should re-learn to write/think/feel something else. Or else bury it to put it to rest, deeply in the soil of my words. Allow the 27 to fade/sprout/pale into 28...
For to beget flowers, perhaps? For to forget the unmemory of it all, and to pretend once more?
Or if not in pretending, then as an unwilling witness, remembering again what it feels like to see. To see something other than that thing - that thing she can't not see.
-L (12/10/12)
"We. Featuring the words of Arundhati Roy." (Revisited.)
The grief is still deep. The rage still sharp. The tears have not dried. And a strange, deadly war is raging around the world. Yet, each person who has lost a loved one surely knows secretly, deeply, that no war, no act of revenge, no daisy-cutters dropped on someone else's loved ones or someone else's children, will blunt the edges of their pain or bring their own loved ones back. War cannot avenge those who have died. War is only a brutal desecration of their memory.
...
It's not a clever-enough subject to speak of from a public platform, but what I would really love to talk to you about is loss. Loss and losing. Grief, failure, brokenness, numbness, uncertainty, fear, the death of feeling, the death of dreaming. The absolute relentless, endless, habitual, unfairness of the world. What does loss mean to individuals? What does it mean to whole cultures, whole people who have learned to live with it as a constant companion?
...
Another world is not only possible, she's on her way. Maybe many of us won't be here to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing.
http//www.weroy.org
Just in case you missed it the first time.
-L (11/10/12)
...
It's not a clever-enough subject to speak of from a public platform, but what I would really love to talk to you about is loss. Loss and losing. Grief, failure, brokenness, numbness, uncertainty, fear, the death of feeling, the death of dreaming. The absolute relentless, endless, habitual, unfairness of the world. What does loss mean to individuals? What does it mean to whole cultures, whole people who have learned to live with it as a constant companion?
...
Another world is not only possible, she's on her way. Maybe many of us won't be here to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing.
(From Come September, by Arundhati Roy.)
http//www.weroy.org
Just in case you missed it the first time.
-L (11/10/12)
10/10/12
Sister,
Two years today. Two years too late. "I'm sorry but you missed her, Mr. Mystery to me. How lost you seem to be." This year, like last year. None like the year before. Everything, being changed now - and then what happened next.
Rather than fading or dulling or making sense, my missing you has become an empty thing, hungry like nothing living is. No memories seem able to fill it. And how limited they are, from the very get go. Sometimes I have to not look at them at all, knowing this well that they do not look back.
I'm sorry that I'm not lighter by now. I'm sorry that I've yet to let your sweet life make up for your bitter death, here in my own broken heart. So many things have happened that I'd like to share with you. But also, no time has passed at all. It's like you took it with you.
Every day I love you more. Everything feels exactly the same, and is altogether different.
"Still here. Still loving you more than life."
<3, -Sister
Two years today. Two years too late. "I'm sorry but you missed her, Mr. Mystery to me. How lost you seem to be." This year, like last year. None like the year before. Everything, being changed now - and then what happened next.
Rather than fading or dulling or making sense, my missing you has become an empty thing, hungry like nothing living is. No memories seem able to fill it. And how limited they are, from the very get go. Sometimes I have to not look at them at all, knowing this well that they do not look back.
I'm sorry that I'm not lighter by now. I'm sorry that I've yet to let your sweet life make up for your bitter death, here in my own broken heart. So many things have happened that I'd like to share with you. But also, no time has passed at all. It's like you took it with you.
Every day I love you more. Everything feels exactly the same, and is altogether different.
"Still here. Still loving you more than life."
<3, -Sister
[702]
[How she's just gone. How her absence rings truer in the presence of the context in which she belongs.]
[How the loneliness of missing her is compounded by the fact
that she was the person in this life who would have been able to lighten it.]
[How the places that comforted morph into reminders.]
[How the line between love-for-love and love-for-purpose is drawn
with as many peaks and descents as a machine upon which a life is measured.]
[While the living life still lives. Even if only slightly.]
[-L (9/10/12)]
[How the loneliness of missing her is compounded by the fact
that she was the person in this life who would have been able to lighten it.]
[How the places that comforted morph into reminders.]
[How the line between love-for-love and love-for-purpose is drawn
with as many peaks and descents as a machine upon which a life is measured.]
[While the living life still lives. Even if only slightly.]
[-L (9/10/12)]
"Out west is the only sky that's blue. So tell Katie that I'll see her soon."
That Much Further West (4:27)
by: Lucero
I tried but I can't run no more.
So tell Katie it's her that I adore.
As long as I love her best,
I'm that much further west.
And since she's been gone,
I've done less right than I've done wrong.
But I ain't that much worse than the rest,
just that much further west.
And the boys, they don't need my help.
They can play these songs by themselves.
Well I ain't that much worse than the rest,
just that much further west.
Out west is the only sky that's blue.
So tell Katie that I'll see her soon.
'Til then the thoughts that I have left,
are that much further west.
-L (8/10/12)
by: Lucero
I tried but I can't run no more.
So tell Katie it's her that I adore.
As long as I love her best,
I'm that much further west.
And since she's been gone,
I've done less right than I've done wrong.
But I ain't that much worse than the rest,
just that much further west.
And the boys, they don't need my help.
They can play these songs by themselves.
Well I ain't that much worse than the rest,
just that much further west.
Out west is the only sky that's blue.
So tell Katie that I'll see her soon.
'Til then the thoughts that I have left,
are that much further west.
-L (8/10/12)
[640]
[One year and nine months later, and today I found myself faking an exam, taking a risk, and getting a re-taste of perspective.]
[I went to my sibling grief group tonight. And A, who doesn't say too much, said this - speaking of her brother, dead at 14: "He missed everything. Everything. All the milestones. So then you just live them alone..."]
[Her voice breaking, right alongside my heart. It fell/twisted/pumped with understanding. Long after his had stopped beating.]
[She was 16 at the time. Seven years later, and her oft-held back tears flowed now just as freely, knowing what she knew. What she wished she didn't. Like how to this day, she said, she'd never been able to picture him as an adult. Or how her parents' ugly divorce had just kept right on going, even right after...]
[The sun this afternoon felt like it had a hot bone to pick with someone, and ignited all who dared cross its crosshairs. Was it you there? There behind the heat? I'd like to think that only your rage would deserve to burn so brightly.]
[-L (7/10/12)]
[I went to my sibling grief group tonight. And A, who doesn't say too much, said this - speaking of her brother, dead at 14: "He missed everything. Everything. All the milestones. So then you just live them alone..."]
[Her voice breaking, right alongside my heart. It fell/twisted/pumped with understanding. Long after his had stopped beating.]
[She was 16 at the time. Seven years later, and her oft-held back tears flowed now just as freely, knowing what she knew. What she wished she didn't. Like how to this day, she said, she'd never been able to picture him as an adult. Or how her parents' ugly divorce had just kept right on going, even right after...]
[The sun this afternoon felt like it had a hot bone to pick with someone, and ignited all who dared cross its crosshairs. Was it you there? There behind the heat? I'd like to think that only your rage would deserve to burn so brightly.]
[-L (7/10/12)]
"You learn to live on less."
The Crow
by: Dessa
That old crow came back today.
Sitting in my window, like a prophet,
out on the fire escape to say,
"Anger is just love, left out, gone to vinegar."
You wake up a stranger to yourself
and then you learn to live with her.
Sit in her clothing 'til you fill out her figure.
You know life's no bella telanovela,
the tightrope bows with your weight in the center.
The slide show, don't put all the pictures together.
You try to do it right though,
right though, until you let the kite go.
Death and romance, the riddles of our lifetimes.
Tryna get a slow dance, middle of a knife fight --
you get up and you, you give blood,
even on a good night. Even on a good night out.
You send signal, you listen for an echo,
and at the first splinters you run to tell Geppetto.
And in the worst winters the whole thing feels untenable.
Crow took me by the shoulder
and he told me, "Honey, don't let go."
Nobody fears the height, you all just fear the fall.
Go up to the edge some time
and prove your body wrong.
You land badly, but you crash standing.
You land badly, but you crash...
He took me to the workshop,
showed me where they built the bodies.
A blacksmith, a mason, a carpenter.
And in the darkroom, where the whole assembly started,
all the clothesline where the hearts hung to harden.
You come as fragile, soft machines,
and you're bound too fast, you're bound to grieve.
But you're built to balance on two feet,
so why you living this last year from your knees?
"Oh, please put me down again."
I know you lost a bet,
you had to catch your breath,
but when the worst relents
you learn to live on less.
You learn to live on less.
You learn to live on less.
You duck some, you take some square.
Your luck runs out, you're there in midair.
And when the big one comes
you'll know by the snare roll --
you can be too careful,
ignore all the scarecrows.
Time flies like the crow does,
no regard for the grid.
I can't ask you to show love,
but would it kill you if you did?
Nobody fears the height, you all just fear the fall.
Go up to the edge some time
and prove your body wrong.
You land badly, but you crash standing.
You land badly, but you crash...
-L (5/10/12)
by: Dessa
That old crow came back today.
Sitting in my window, like a prophet,
out on the fire escape to say,
"Anger is just love, left out, gone to vinegar."
You wake up a stranger to yourself
and then you learn to live with her.
Sit in her clothing 'til you fill out her figure.
You know life's no bella telanovela,
the tightrope bows with your weight in the center.
The slide show, don't put all the pictures together.
You try to do it right though,
right though, until you let the kite go.
Death and romance, the riddles of our lifetimes.
Tryna get a slow dance, middle of a knife fight --
you get up and you, you give blood,
even on a good night. Even on a good night out.
You send signal, you listen for an echo,
and at the first splinters you run to tell Geppetto.
And in the worst winters the whole thing feels untenable.
Crow took me by the shoulder
and he told me, "Honey, don't let go."
Nobody fears the height, you all just fear the fall.
Go up to the edge some time
and prove your body wrong.
You land badly, but you crash standing.
You land badly, but you crash...
He took me to the workshop,
showed me where they built the bodies.
A blacksmith, a mason, a carpenter.
And in the darkroom, where the whole assembly started,
all the clothesline where the hearts hung to harden.
You come as fragile, soft machines,
and you're bound too fast, you're bound to grieve.
But you're built to balance on two feet,
so why you living this last year from your knees?
"Oh, please put me down again."
I know you lost a bet,
you had to catch your breath,
but when the worst relents
you learn to live on less.
You learn to live on less.
You learn to live on less.
You duck some, you take some square.
Your luck runs out, you're there in midair.
And when the big one comes
you'll know by the snare roll --
you can be too careful,
ignore all the scarecrows.
Time flies like the crow does,
no regard for the grid.
I can't ask you to show love,
but would it kill you if you did?
Nobody fears the height, you all just fear the fall.
Go up to the edge some time
and prove your body wrong.
You land badly, but you crash standing.
You land badly, but you crash...
-L (5/10/12)
[572]
[Learning how to live with death is like learning a new language. It's a lesson in immersion. One must use every medium to get herself there -- that is, to the place she's now living -- and to do it consciously. Deliberately.]
[It's true that the language of death feels awkward on the tongue, sounds ostracizing to the ear. But even when you're in a place that's surrounded by strangers and ghosts, time plays the game of familiarizing, even with you.]
[Now all songs you hear sing it; all sights you see show it; all words you read say it; everything you feel tells it. Somehow it's happened, and suddenly you're fluent in a foreign language. And looking around you notice, now you're the foreigner.]
[-L (5/3/12)]
[It's true that the language of death feels awkward on the tongue, sounds ostracizing to the ear. But even when you're in a place that's surrounded by strangers and ghosts, time plays the game of familiarizing, even with you.]
[Now all songs you hear sing it; all sights you see show it; all words you read say it; everything you feel tells it. Somehow it's happened, and suddenly you're fluent in a foreign language. And looking around you notice, now you're the foreigner.]
[-L (5/3/12)]
"Happy Katie's birthday."
Beautiful,
I've lost your pink pen somehow. Sometime during the last move. I'm using the small silver one now, with "The Ritz-Carlton" written along the side. The one I ended up with after your memorial -- our celebration of your life -- from the hotel where we'd held it. I live in fear that the ink will run out; this is only the second time I've ever used it, here a year-and-a-half and seventeen days after your death.
"Your death." So wrong. Still. I keep envisioning the following exchange: "How are you today?" "Okay. Just a little sad since it's my sister's birthday." "Why should your sister's birthday make you sad?" "Because my sister's dead." ("... Oh. I'm sorry.") I'm not sure how to avoid both this scenario, and also the alternative, which would be me not mentioning it at all. So instead, I've set a little red blanket out in the back corner of the yard, and am lying here in the intense sun with its occasional breathy breeze, writing to you. Thinking about you. "Not forgetting." I've set-up that water-stained, not too old photo of you to my right, in my line of sight, and am listening to the songs which have by default and best guess become yours. I'm wearing clothes you gave me, which I can remember you once wearing yourself, and am drinking air-cooled, sun-warmed morning coffee. Trying my hand at allowance. Faking it 'til I make it.
(A spider just crawled up from the grass onto my leg and paused to cackle at me. Then she sped back off again.)
Sometimes I feel misunderstood. Which is typical of me; of anyone, really. The sadness in it only strikes at me now when immediately following this not-so-new feeling, I begin to feel with an awful new certainty that you would have understood. My eyes tear up to attest to the truth of this, because I miss you so much as it is... Why'd you have to be so utterly irreplaceable? To leave me feeling so suddenly sister-less, so much of the time; like an irredeemable tragedy before we even got started. You know the kind. The kind that began as a fairy tale, making the dark twist of an ending that much more impossible, and altogether disturbing. And yes, tragic...
But of course, this is the story where I play the lead. So what about your story? Jake texted this morning to all of us, "Happy Katie's birthday." 23, would be. (Should be. Still not over that old resentment of mine.) "Your life was 21 years long." Your beautiful life... 21 years long. (For better or worse.) But I wish I knew how your death is treating you. Especially on the day that marks your sweet birth.
(Later I will run along one of our beaches with Sierra; buy you pink and white balloons; Skype with our little nephew and most of our brothers; cut the crook of my finger while cutting a mini cake that should have been for you; and release a bright orange-colored Sky Lantern into the California night sky. On it read the generic but almost fitting inscription, "In Memory Of ______. In memory of those who have left us, may this light rise to the heavens to shine with you through all eternity." And then this, of course. A place for the hopes we had.)
Happy birthday, beautiful girl. Our well-loved, and greatly-missed, little sister. <3 <3 <3
-L (4/27/12)
I've lost your pink pen somehow. Sometime during the last move. I'm using the small silver one now, with "The Ritz-Carlton" written along the side. The one I ended up with after your memorial -- our celebration of your life -- from the hotel where we'd held it. I live in fear that the ink will run out; this is only the second time I've ever used it, here a year-and-a-half and seventeen days after your death.
"Your death." So wrong. Still. I keep envisioning the following exchange: "How are you today?" "Okay. Just a little sad since it's my sister's birthday." "Why should your sister's birthday make you sad?" "Because my sister's dead." ("... Oh. I'm sorry.") I'm not sure how to avoid both this scenario, and also the alternative, which would be me not mentioning it at all. So instead, I've set a little red blanket out in the back corner of the yard, and am lying here in the intense sun with its occasional breathy breeze, writing to you. Thinking about you. "Not forgetting." I've set-up that water-stained, not too old photo of you to my right, in my line of sight, and am listening to the songs which have by default and best guess become yours. I'm wearing clothes you gave me, which I can remember you once wearing yourself, and am drinking air-cooled, sun-warmed morning coffee. Trying my hand at allowance. Faking it 'til I make it.
(A spider just crawled up from the grass onto my leg and paused to cackle at me. Then she sped back off again.)
Sometimes I feel misunderstood. Which is typical of me; of anyone, really. The sadness in it only strikes at me now when immediately following this not-so-new feeling, I begin to feel with an awful new certainty that you would have understood. My eyes tear up to attest to the truth of this, because I miss you so much as it is... Why'd you have to be so utterly irreplaceable? To leave me feeling so suddenly sister-less, so much of the time; like an irredeemable tragedy before we even got started. You know the kind. The kind that began as a fairy tale, making the dark twist of an ending that much more impossible, and altogether disturbing. And yes, tragic...
But of course, this is the story where I play the lead. So what about your story? Jake texted this morning to all of us, "Happy Katie's birthday." 23, would be. (Should be. Still not over that old resentment of mine.) "Your life was 21 years long." Your beautiful life... 21 years long. (For better or worse.) But I wish I knew how your death is treating you. Especially on the day that marks your sweet birth.
(Later I will run along one of our beaches with Sierra; buy you pink and white balloons; Skype with our little nephew and most of our brothers; cut the crook of my finger while cutting a mini cake that should have been for you; and release a bright orange-colored Sky Lantern into the California night sky. On it read the generic but almost fitting inscription, "In Memory Of ______. In memory of those who have left us, may this light rise to the heavens to shine with you through all eternity." And then this, of course. A place for the hopes we had.)
Happy birthday, beautiful girl. Our well-loved, and greatly-missed, little sister. <3 <3 <3
-L (4/27/12)
"When I'm at the pearly gates, this'll be on my videotape...."
"This is one for the good days,
and I have it all here
in red blue green,
in red blue green."
[A year-and-a-half today.]
"You are my center when I spin away.
Out of control
on videotape,
on videotape."
[And the month of your birthday.]
"This is my way of saying goodbye...
Because I can't do it face to face,
I'm talking to you after it's too late."
[What should have been 23.]
"No matter what happens now
I shouldn't be afraid, because I know today
has been the most perfect day
I've ever seen."
[Now just a song I can't stop playing.]
-L (4/10/12)
and I have it all here
in red blue green,
in red blue green."
[A year-and-a-half today.]
"You are my center when I spin away.
Out of control
on videotape,
on videotape."
[And the month of your birthday.]
"This is my way of saying goodbye...
Because I can't do it face to face,
I'm talking to you after it's too late."
[What should have been 23.]
"No matter what happens now
I shouldn't be afraid, because I know today
has been the most perfect day
I've ever seen."
[Now just a song I can't stop playing.]
-L (4/10/12)
"And then one day they were done worshipping the landscape, and they just put down their hands, and moved into the sky."
Soft Shoulder
by: Ani DiFranco
I don't keep much stuff around.
I value my portability.
But I will say that I have saved
every letter you ever wrote to me.
The one you left on my windshield
outside of that little motel,
is in the pocket of my old gig bag
from back when life was more soft-shelled.
Letters littered with little lewd pictures,
drawn by the ghost of Woddy Guthrie,
who would use your big thick hand
just to draw one two for me...
And I think of your letters as love letters,
which is how I think of songs,
in that it is the writing of them
that tend to carry us along.
And I dance to one of your old tunes
with my true love on our wedding day.
And your voice sang the way my heart would sing,
if it finally knew just what to say.
Two people pulled over on the same night
to look up at the same stars.
And they both found their wheels were spinning
in a soft shoulder when they
both got back into their cars.
And they missed fate's appointed rendezvous,
and then a whole lotta time went by.
And then one day they were done
worshipping the landscape,
and they just put down their hands,
and moved into the sky.
And they had barely said 'hello'
and it was time to say 'goodbye'.
Goodbye...
-L (3/21/12)
by: Ani DiFranco
I don't keep much stuff around.
I value my portability.
But I will say that I have saved
every letter you ever wrote to me.
The one you left on my windshield
outside of that little motel,
is in the pocket of my old gig bag
from back when life was more soft-shelled.
Letters littered with little lewd pictures,
drawn by the ghost of Woddy Guthrie,
who would use your big thick hand
just to draw one two for me...
And I think of your letters as love letters,
which is how I think of songs,
in that it is the writing of them
that tend to carry us along.
And I dance to one of your old tunes
with my true love on our wedding day.
And your voice sang the way my heart would sing,
if it finally knew just what to say.
Two people pulled over on the same night
to look up at the same stars.
And they both found their wheels were spinning
in a soft shoulder when they
both got back into their cars.
And they missed fate's appointed rendezvous,
and then a whole lotta time went by.
And then one day they were done
worshipping the landscape,
and they just put down their hands,
and moved into the sky.
And they had barely said 'hello'
and it was time to say 'goodbye'.
Goodbye...
-L (3/21/12)
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