The hammock sways gently with the motions of my feet.
Excitement hits me like a drug—I short-circuit under too much light.
This is a gentle summer evening, and I am lost in the gush of Neruda’s love poetry.
—
Twenty Love Poems And A Song of Despair
I must have read this book about a thousand times. Writing love, or longing in the way he did always seemed just a bit out of reach to me. But the more I read the clearer it became to me, that I started to make love to his sonnets. And as the evening turned into black night, I began speaking to the stars, tenderly asking where everything I once wished for was.
Would they ever come my way?
Or did they, like so many other things, also get lost in the dust?
—
My boy sits beside me—classical guitar in hand—ready for a session of pop heartbreak under blue light. He sings as if he’s playing the blues—a low, raw tune that fills the air with heavy longing—
“I’ve been looking for someone to put up with my bullshit...”
He gets darker as the moments fly by—a mysterious heartburn turns into grief—and I can’t help myself—I’m inspired to write about the beauty of the moon.
I wonder, what hides behind the rasp of the chords?
What is it you won’t share with anyone?
—
The balcony presses inward, from freedom and lighthearted fun it turns into a cage—holding us hostage—to something with a beating pulse—that suffocates.
I watch, closely, I am an observer by nature.
And I notice everything.
I see the almost traceless tether that spreads halfway across the sea. Don’t bind me—to parts I never get to see. Shattered, exhausted, trembling.
I am reminded of me—when I put on a strong front, pretending to be tougher than nails, when in truth, I was just a kid.
A blessing was spoken, the day of your birth. The day of your christening, a miracle occurred. Sunshine broke a snowstorm that swept through your town. And your mother stood in the white, you in her arms, her dressed in blue gown. Your father was gone, and so was the wind. A system broken that birthed a rare kin.
—
My fingers run through the thick strands that he so loves. His head rested on my thighs, he’s drifting far away in some obscure dreamland—where his heart was not yet tainted by all he’d see in waking.
The knowing of another’s motives without them ever saying a word—is not an easy fit. His slumber ended, and our gazes met somewhere in the middle of our thoughts. Unfortunately for me, I can read between breaths and heartbeats—and I read yours like the newspaper I got in the mailbox this morning.
My sweetness—I can’t protect myself from the ether. This is the curse of a poet. Always following a compass quivering with doubt—leading us only deeper into the wilderness of our own undoing and fate.
When I am lost—I listen closely and follow the sound of your guitar—echoing somewhere in the distance—hoping you’re not already too far gone. Our paths seem to twist, in mysterious ways, yet they never intersect. I suppose this is the way this must be.
What if I never find the path that leads me back, to the quiet hush of our bed and to you?
What if it leads me to someone else instead?
Someone who never dared to miss me by the wrongdoing of his own device?
—
Poets put up with a lot but to each their own. To me—nothing carries more weight than my own serenity.
—
Farewell,
maybe in another dream.
