Unbecoming.

So I have been seduced by your sights. Your amazing colours, scents, the arid vast lands that lock no sand, hold no roots. So I have been turned into someone else, a wiser, more accepting woman. Negligently, for a second, I mistook your beauty, making belief that I could hold it, have it. So I believed for a prolonged period of time that I could uproot myself and live in your abundant kingdom. Arrived how I left, in awe. Churned out body and soul to see the parts I have waited years to see.

I hold no regrets, openly claim my infidelity. I left the spring streets to roam deserts, towns destroyed, newly created, to see seas that grow and disappear. I shared sights with men and women who aver those lands, who bow continually, who make nothing of blind sighted fanatics dragging their heels. But my residency was only temporary. I missed the trees gloriously parading their petals of white and pink. I missed the bloom which they show only to a few. I ran away, hoped to find peace, hoped to find trees that were beautiful the same. Now, upon my return, like the prodigal son I beg for forgiveness. Beg to be let back in.

Here is my heart, swinging back and forth, swaying sideways, hoping to brush against yours. I learn where home is through great cost, through breaking fully to mend partially. I leave to return. I return to want to leave again. I say nothing of the battles fought, how peace never settles. But you suspect, maybe even know. Share the burden and allow my inexperienced heart to befriend grave injustices and bold untruths. Slowly the unbecoming descends, a bad fit, an uncomfortable disposition.

Then I learn. Build walls from pieces I have gathered. Respect sits highly on a wired fence and I have seen it. I slowly learn the how, capture each moment, forgive each misplaced step, one by one. I am yet the same, still somehow different. I have let go, but hope keeps me captive. Forces me to visit far away lands and cheers, mocks from the sidelines while I am childishly mesmerized by all I see. By men of devotion passing, by women in wigs of errors, by differences that only ridicule the sameness. I am much the same as I was a week ago. I am nothing to who I used to be last week. My eyes have seen hatred and peace. My eyes have seen divine building blocks. My eyes have seen trees as old as the good news.

Still, I beg for forgiveness. Silently, just like last time, I beg for your forgiveness. I left wanting to return, I have returned wanting to leave. All I know is your grace. All I know to do is beg for your forgiveness. I have been seduced, I have been unfaithful, I have been forever converted, my heart turned, my mind opened. I have foolishly given up rain washed lands for deserts of rocks, beige camouflaged battle grounds, sparkling reminders of faiths warring. I hoped to find you, but you wished not to be found. I have seen and now long to be allowed to come back down.

Laurence Alma-Tadema

If no one ever marries me,—

And I don't see why they should,

For nurse says I'm not pretty,

And I'm seldom very good—

If no one ever marries me

I shan't mind very much;

I shall buy a squirrel in a cage,

And a little rabbit-hutch:

I shall have a cottage near a wood,

And a pony all my own,

And a little lamb quite clean and tame,

That I can take to town:

And when I'm getting really old,—

At twenty-eight or nine—

I shall buy a little orphan-girl

And bring her up as mine.

gonna write it out. gonna wait it out

There are places of importance one should visit. Life changing streets, buildings, monuments, people, scents, skies, beliefs. In the back alleys is where the heart gets lost. Forever. Instilled with every footstep the magnificent grandness lurches above the endless spirit. To this place I must go. The pull of those dusty streets, the barren landscape, the scorching heat, the drought stricken, crackling earth is unending. Goes beyond any other pull I have ever known. I hope to find myself in those lands, find the wandering parts that have roamed unnoticed, unimportant to anyone but me.
 

If this place bestows confidence onto me, then I will turn to whisper my deepest secrets to its streets. If I will be allowed to unmask all that is unholy in me, if these parts would shelter the bare skin, the throbbing flesh of lies, the untruths that have marred the soul, then I would shrink to hear the growing roots, bend to see the careless winds, run to see the motionless rocks of a thousand years gone. Then I would try to be brave enough to listen and believe. To see sense in the one thing that is of truth. The one answer which outlives all other answers. The one love that outloves all other impostors.

The gentle bowing of these men of faith may help to shed the memories of you. Rid the past of your entrenching presence. I will let the winds rush through me, find their way through my fingers, blow from the deepest bellows, scare me into surrender. Your face will no longer linger. The thought of you will no longer haunt.

The deserted land, the soul emptied, these are what await. Stillness in havoc and unruly words flung at each other from arm’s length. I may not see the whole, I may miss the parts that have been veiled. I may visit the land and never see myself in it. But here is a chance. A decisive moment of power, a fate fulfilled, a destiny manifested. These burdened souls, these heavy hearted men of faith will aid my unsure steps towards the place, the time. Towards the other who will listen, who has waited, who has been just as unsure as we all in our unending walks.

This place is bigger than me. Bigger than my heart. Bigger than my soul. This place fills me, finds me, wants me, captures me, releases me. This place is where death equals life, where they will throw dust in my face, where they will embrace all my wounded memories. This place is where I will attempt to unload my burden, come clean about all my lies, find a soul, used a little, scarred in places, but hopeful and beautifully shining in the spring sun. From there on this place will have the best part of me. From there on home will mean something different every time I hear it ring. This journey you should take with me. This place entraps even the most hard of hearts. This place has entrapped me already. Entrapped me before I ever set foot on its dusty streets.   

Winter Has Left Unnoticed

It seems that you are inconsolable. The lights flickering at the almost unnoticed edges of contentment leave you sadder than you were before. Everywhere you turn, the traces of things once known come hurling at you. At break neck speed. The knowledge to evade has left, you have become the bull’s eye. Sadness is your kindest companion, a true ally in every hardship, a sincere friend in this wholly insincere world. Consoling words fall right off, court jesters face sure beheading upon this task presented: to chase the sadness from you heart. It seems comfortable, habituated and you seem at peace, content with the circumstance. Must you brave this cold night all alone? Must you wander these desperate streets without the warm words to balm your neck like a woolen scarf? You bow your head in agreement: that you must and you must alone and you must in gloom.
 

Some words can only surface from the dark. On a clear day, with the sun brightly shining, some thoughts will not form. The pool of sorrow creates them and catapults them into daylight when it has been long dark outside. The breeding ground for words that change is your inconsolable heart. The heart that has not been hurt, has not been pained, has not been broken. It has only been left alone, it is merely lonely. The lonely heart dips further into the pool of sorrow. Further and further until it is drowned then saved by a rope made up of truths that leak darkness. The page captures the drops, here a gasping wound, there a broken wing, all becoming inconsolable, with time passing ever more reluctant to dry on sun drenched beds amidst hearty, tall grass. Protect them I must, protect your broken parts I must. So I run in search of you to cover your shivering spirit with my warm, loving, unending tearful collection of words.

 

Will we ever see winter turn into spring together? Spend a day watching the trees grow their magnificent leaves? Muster all their strength to bring to life their most vulnerable parts. Then you mourn for winter has left unnoticed.  The frost, the snow, the ice have vanished without a teardrop. The trees are busy living, the sun is busy shining stronger, the lovely snowflakes have parted and may never return. Winter has accepted the constant abuse, the bitter reception when it arrives and the loud, joyful, shameless celebration when it leaves. Disdain at its every effort to decorate our lands. Winter’s soul is not broken, never drowns in the sadness but may one day decide to not come again. Visiting these lands where contempt reigns pushes winter further into the pool of sorrow. Winter, just like you, is inconsolable. Gently sweeps through, enters slowly and leaves abruptly, these people sing and dance too loud when it dies. Who will revive winter next time? You wonder as you stand alone somewhere near where winter has last been.

In all your sadness I see an unending beauty, an unthreatening willingness to document these emotions. Your love for the words that emerge one by one brings tenderness that can only live with an understanding for the sometimes dark birthplace. Please never forget to use these words wisely, make them lure you closer, make them give you freedom to explain the unending sorrow, the rightful sadness, the tears that uncontrollably flow at the sight of the seasons changing, people hating, love disappearing. Whisper to me that you see where I am even if I stand in darkness, trapped, unable to move except to the beat of your voice. Promise that we would run into the cold aimless, to save those who have never seen the dark, inconsolable truth that guides you and me. If we are two lonely words, I want my dark to cover yours.