woodandhoney

My house has flooded

the carpet is soaked and the wood boards are rotting

each step leaves footprints in the silence inhabiting the floors

each step squeezes out this dirty water emotion- look how quickly it seeps back into place

I could replace it all, but the pipes would still leak

Maybe once the resulting draft makes its way through my bones,

into my marrow, I won’t even notice the cold

or how the floor is contaminating the walls and breeding a swamp

No one sees it of course, but we all know it’s there

I can see the confusion briefly flash across the faces of my visitors

they leave anxiously

perhaps not wanting to leave me alone

or perhaps eager to make their exit

I loved you like I love words

So quickly, so irrational, so convoluted

I need them and words are a selfish lover

Sometimes I feel so full of words they cause a shaky fever until

I let them spill out of my hands

Sometimes words leave me and I am left barren,

mouthing my favorite words to remember the feel of them

My fingers flutter involuntarily, eager for their return

I believe they sit idly by and watch during these times,

They like to see me restless for them,

they like to see the need.

But how I need this burn and how I hated loving you

I have a secret to tell you-

The days have begun melting into each other.

Don’t laugh, it’s true!

So effortless too, like the rhythm of the waves, like the moon pulling the tides

and the things that I have lost,

that year when I was eleven and brave, that burning desire to leap, that certainty of life in the pulses of love from the grass beneath my feet, a tiny opal earring and my favorite pen

well, I swear I can see them float on by now.

They ride the cold on the winter days

and simmer in heat waves in the summer