Sky Like a Sea Above

Fictional non-fiction. Or non-fictional fiction. It will depend on the day and what makes a better story.

[skylikeasea]

Connect

How do you come in here? You come in here like a tornado. Like a car crash. Like lightning. I can’t move. I can’t think. I can’t be right. We come together because a wall couldn’t keep us apart. We come together because 10,000 miles isn’t far enough. We come together because we can’t live without it. And then you go. And I need a drink. And I don’t know what happened. Feels like something happened but maybe I dreamed it. Come back Come back Come back

[skylikeasea]

The Woman Upstairs is like that. We keep it together. You don’t make a mess and you don’t make mistakes and you don’t call people weeping at four in the morning. You don’t reveal secrets it would be unseemly for you to have. You turn forty and you laugh about it, and make jokes about needing martinis and how forty is the new thirty, and you don’t say aloud and nobody else says aloud what all of you are thinking which is “Well I guess she’s never going to have kids now!” and then, still less admissibly, “Is that because she didn’t think she wanted them, or because she didn’t get around to it (silly fool, a failure of time management) or is it, poor lamb, because of some physical impediment (pitiable case)? Why is she single, anyhow? It’s not as if her career has been so spectacular—she’s only a schoolteacher, and among schoolteachers she’s not even Shauna McPhee.

[skylikeasea]

Butterflies

You get me when you open my door and come in. I’m washing the dishes with my back to the door, and I turn around and you’re already in the hall, and the butterflies take flight. Still. You search for a glass and open the wrong cabinet every single time. I like that you always get it wrong. It’s reassuring. You stand with your back at the sink and I come in close. Your new uniform has the vest over your shirt, which lets me weave my hands in under it, and I get to something softer and unarmored. Thank God. You can kiss me now, the butterflies have landed. We move through the kitchen. You open my vitamin bottles and smell them, as if they’d be something else. That’s not me, but it makes me laugh. If we ever had clarity or direction, we’ve surely lost our way now. There are things I need to remind myself of; I wasn’t always this lost. A year ago, I was happy and strong, and couldn’t have imagined the heartbreak to come. Two smart people making stupid decisions. Do they teach common sense at your fancy college? There isn’t a bad choice we don’t make. Regret is a funny thing, though. Serves no human purpose. Doesn’t inform future decisions for most of us. Just makes us sad and hard.  So don’t bother. I pray every night to keep you safe at work. You look down and get soft and kiss me thanks when I tell you this. Last night I added that I’m so very grateful to have had you with me this year.   You’re the only person I’d really want to fuck up with anyway.

[skylikeasea]

Folie

Folie a deux A madness shared by two. Where have we gone? What have we done? Why do I let you put your hands around my throat? Because you may as well do it. Your hands are there whether we’re together or not. This is our world now And it’s as fucked up and psychotic as anything could be. Pull me to you. I don’t resist anything. You laugh because I bend for nobody      except you. You laugh because you don’t know how bad it has gotten. I laugh because I do. This is the new future.

[skylikeasea]

I See

I see what’s happened here now. I’ve given you all my power. I’ve loved too greatly. I’ve loved too big I’ve sucked the air out. It’s all I know how to do. I can’t play small. You come in the room and my skin heats up, my heart remembers, and I stop being afraid. And when you go I’m worse. This is untenable. This is no way to live. No love survives this. Does it?

[skylikeasea]

The Afternoon

We made love in the afternoon before I went on a date with another man.

    You thought that was funny.

And by love, I mean,

    we’re fusion.

We heat up and burn down the house.

We’re two people in a desert who found a pool of water in each other.

And we drink.

And we choke.

And we grip.

We hold so tightly that you’d have to think we are afraid of falling apart.

Or falling. a. part.

Apart. Parts. Parting. No.

We’re cosmic.

We’re ruined.

You can’t deny you love me. We knew that anyway. A deaf man could hear that in your voice.

So you mark me for the night. Because it is perverse, and it is power, and it is

 you.

And you want me to be on a date with you still in me.

Because you know that you can. You know I’ll barely wash up before I go.

  We’re so sick.

We have to stop this.

We can’t stay like this.

But we don’t know any other way.

[skylikeasea]

"Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us." ~ Samuel Smiles

[skylikeasea]

The Heart of the House

Oh come into my kitchen already

You’ve taken so long now.

Come sit at my counter

I’ll sit with you.

Just hang here.

We’ll talk about your father and how I never mention to him that I’m in love with his son.

I’ll look into your eyes and see his son get quiet.

Feign ignorance.

I’m going to kiss you. You’re not going to stop me

You’ll almost stop me but that will last one moment and then you’ll kiss me back

Feel my lips, smell my hair, pull me to you

There’s nothing like us.

Be here with me in this space

Let it nourish us. Stop starving.

Hand in my hand, arms around me, in front of God and the neighbors.

Just don’t stop kissing me.

Don’t ever.

[skylikeasea]

Karma

Sometimes my karma comes to me whispered by a child who doesn’t know what he’s saying.

His words are innocent and benign, but they are sharp little daggers into my heart.

Sometimes my karma is all-encompassing like a hurricane or a flood.

It strips away the things I thought I needed, and uncovers the things I didn’t know were there.

Tonight my karma is a million texts coming in and none from you.

This is the danger hour. This was our time. This is when I’m now alone and we’re not speaking. This is when I’m tempted to try to communicate something witty or dirty to remind you of how wonderful and sexy and fantastic I am,

      and what you’re missing.

This is when my mind races with the possibility that in two days, you’ve suddenly changed everything and you’re not on your couch watching bad TV alone. This is when my mind tells me you’re fine without me. This is when my nerves fray and I wander around my room, restless.

This time—now—this is the worst part.

[skylikeasea]

"Don't cry--there's always a way. Here in November in this House of Leaves we'll pray." ~Poe

[skylikeasea]

"Love is like dew that falls on both nettles and lilies." ~Swedish proverb

[skylikeasea]

"Never waste any amount of time doing anything important when there is a sunset outside that you should be sitting under!"

[skylikeasea]

"I know sometimes it's still hard to let me see you in all your cracked perfection, but please know: whether it's the days you burn more brilliant than the sun or the nights you collapse into my lap your body broken into a thousand questions, You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I will love you when you are a still day. I will love you when you are a hurricane."

[skylikeasea]

Floorboards

Stand in my kitchen with me where the floorboards creak

and kiss me.

Make it slow and soft and warm.

We’ll sway back and forth and the boards will be our music

Hold me close here

Our hearts are here

Keep kissing me here.

Lift me up onto the counter

Now just one song on my floorboards

Stand here and love me

The boards will always creak for you.

[skylikeasea]

Cinco de Savior

I just want to know--

Before we were born, did they whisper to you that you’d save me

time and time and time again?

It doesn’t worry me when you’re missing for weeks at a time--

It doesn’t surprise me anymore that you show up when I need you most.

You’ll always be there when it is important.

And when I see you my soul wakes up and my heart beats again and my eyes well up.

Some days your words are water on parched soil

Other days your face is sunshine.

So let’s talk a while in front of God and everyone

and be a vision.

Let’s be electric.

Nobody walking by will know anything.

The sensitive ones will know everything.

Rain or sun, I’m going to soak us up. For a time.

Hug me goodbye before you go.

Without realizing it, I’m going to reach up and hold the back of your head and neck in a way that is far too familiar and intimate to fool anyone.

And I’ll hold you a second too long, but you won’t mind.

Because before we were born,

they whispered to me that I would save you, too.

[skylikeasea]

Why not?

[skylikeasea]

Half

How do you tell your soul mate you’ll never be together?

How do you tell him that every decision he’s made in the past 10 years has made that so?

How do you tell him he ignored every road that led to you?

How do you tell him there was a time you would have tried to save him but didn’t

            And now, even though you can, you won’t?

How do you tell him what thinking about going through this life without him does to your head? To your heart?

How do you tell him about the places you’ll never see and the children you’ll never have?

How do you tell him you’re not angry and make that sound believable?

How do you tell him you’ll live your half of the life you were meant to share alone?

How do you tell him your heart isn’t broken?

How?