You said to go where?

I have a working compass for one city alone. Everywhere else, I'm perpetually lost. However, this tends to lend itself well for stories, meeting new people and long walks. (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-53549733-1', 'auto'); ga('send', 'pageview');

[whitember]

Foreigners

When I am low

Maybe I’ll hide the high

Of heights I felt with you

The light can dim,

Wander to another side

Of the distant valley

Tracing the sheets which

Cover our limbs.

Why this fall seeps into

Our shared speed, not sure

But aware of the slow down

I cave to the traction

Beneath our restless actions.

[whitember]

Two Step

Erase the self Forget the feels Eradicate any memory Can’t know the truth Never understood your core Couldn’t deal Any semblance of Remembrance tore deeply Any shred of evidence That we ever had a two step Any etiquette of a she said You said we’d be fine But even so What we wanted was too much Never enough realistic Together we fell apart A lost art Never not losing the idea Of one day maybe We could try to be

[whitember]

Little / Acts

So I am learning this funny little thing About humans like you and me We see what we see We act how we act And we try as we might There are reasons and seasons For acting the way that we do Never a promise that it’s the right or wrong Just a constant push and pull You may not be for me nor I for you But in fact and not turning back We’ll keep doing what we do Seeing what we see Being who we want to be Till there’s eventually just a you and me

[whitember]

Partings

I feel things too I opened my heart wide I was prepared to be corrected To be teased To own myself So here I am available for the onslaught A full frontal attack And you are no where A lack of sound Of feeling Of abject being You abandoned ship As soon as I found mooring Where did my captain disappear to? In the fog and dusky lights It is me who takes position Guiding my own siren song To everything warm and right

[whitember]

Rise and Fall

Salt coated lashes Leftover vibes from a love Lost Too much wagered On such short time Reckless nomadic behavior We’re not gonna survive The bloodshed is on Our horizon I can see that this is not The way things work out For me You had this at second hellos Tacit I knows But isn’t it true you don’t Have a clue the battles I’ve survived Echos of words Ghosts of bodies Let them flood the boundaries Of what is and isn’t We’re going to crash But doesn’t it feel so good Rising and falling so fast It’s just the best To feel weightless for seconds

[whitember]

Half Hearted

Subtly was never a strong suit Just wanted to get under your skin Tell you the ways we'd work Hand in hand Hand to heart Heart on wrist I ripped off my only lifeline The last bit of cover I had To shield me from you Your ever present charisma Which never crossed orbits I was out of range of your sojourns We were once a thought Now a failed memory It's all I can do to scratch away At a half healed wound Waiting for something of a fix To mend an exposed Laid bare for you to ignore Solo heart.

[whitember]

All the sighs

I am not figuring out adulthood -- I am stumbling through it, hands outstretched attempting to minimize as much self harm and outward damage as possible.

People are collateral damage in all of this. I have zero pets to abandon, which means all the (in)attention is reflexive.

All attempts to make life Whole are valiant, but seem to miss the mark. While I can go through the motions, my heart is not always in the day to day -- who is all of the time, however? Nothing is perfect, but how I do wish sometimes the process of relationship building were an easier, more clear one. Why the hearts and minds have to get so twisted I do not know, but maybe it is the case because it's not the right relationship. Do we work hard for what we want or should the right fit be easy and come naturally?

[whitember]

Untitled 1

Blind turns You twisted the status quo Hid beneath Yet came through unlike another. Who are we And what are we doing? We know it This is something Or is it? Maybe we want it to be But what is the cost To flee To make an ode To commit soul to soul For friends for moments Time lapses. They only happen every day Commonplace yet Held so high Standing solemn Ready for the let down 'Cause they always happen. Never one for reckless abandon Heart in hand For this moment I reckon I've given willful faith. No guarantee Insurance policy. You are far apart From where I sit Our world are months apart Brought together by Flicking algorithms And we care We try We want But emboldened not here. Silence has dropped. Still, alone. Quiet here Maybe blurred visions Permeated the line Of knowing how To decipher Our rhyme or reason For ignoring all warning Signs. Sticking to known roads Avoiding all unlawful turns.

[whitember]

Amber Blue / Midnight Waves

Smoke hazed up our visions Blocked all the way through No where to go hands out Fingers spread feeling The bumps, peaks and valleys Of our time spent Throwing stones, waging a war Of words, ideologues we were Killing off any hope of Compromise One way Solid Undefeated Steadfast We continued Nothing left in our steady wake Just silence Wash of sound, wind hollowed Out, from our retreat Off our backs, we were To be determined on our own. No last song, or simple Soliloquy

[whitember]

Decline/Incline

Never mind the solid decline Constantly rewinding images Pictures, the catalysts Neverending artifices of What we held Gone Tomorrow is fresh Lingering in air Blooms seemed to fair Better than our hearts Lost on later pairs Of couples, people Lairs of yesteryear. Tumbling over & into Another morrow, field To keep Namesake. We leave nothing And take everything To heart To hearth To bed To mind Never out of sight Never totally blurred Fractured Erred and waiting For one more morning Feeling Yearning.

[whitember]

Nonfiction

Another set of lovers

Paired by feelings

Thoughts we stopped selling

To one another we became

Yesterday’s news and

Tired, weakened

Sinister ghosts, leftover bookmarks

Delineating pages, paragraphs

Of characters killed off --

Reborn in an epilogue

Far away genres

Half hidden mantras, catch phrases

Seasons of used books blended with new

Bestsellers promising contentment years long.

[whitember]

LB

With words and worlds apart So hard to start To form the perfect Mix of right and wrong Left for long Too long are we Left yearning for maybe Captured imperfectly Difficult thoughts, emotions Notions of what could be We glimpse so called ideals Crushed amongst the rubble Of everyday life Never lasted too long And the hearts hurt Trying hard to mend What was ripped by the Riptide leftover from yesterday. Today's love is somewhat Laid bare for tomorrow's Beacon or last spoken omen Knowing not which direction The wind will whip Our homecoming sound Of what it means To settle into our threadbare Heart's snare.

[whitember]

I didn’t realize what it meant to be in a supportive relationship until months later, after the dust from the breakup had settled. It took meeting a few never-gonna-happen-but-let’s-murder-the-hell-out-of-this-weekend-love-affair types to begin to see the key differences, the red flags and the initial gut reactions that had been saying all along that, no, this isn’t right. 

I wasn’t mad after the breakup, I was confused. I was confused because while I’m not exceptional as humans go, I am pretty great in ways that many others are not. Taking a hard and raw look, I’ve done well and I have a kind and thoughtful heart. But it wasn’t enough. My talents were not enough either. The acts of kindness, the extra consideration and flexibility never moved the dial on that relationship. 

When it was abundantly clear that he did not give a shit about me, I turned the cheek and took the crumbs like a good, grateful and noble young woman. But there was nothing noble in giving yourself up, relinquishing control. I won’t waste time thinking it would have ever worked if I had only done this or that differently. Why spend the head space and very valuable education I’ve garnered on a very clear and plain thesis: Respect, value, appreciation and commitment should not be things to earn or fight for; they simply exist with the person who loves you. 

So the next time I show someone the new roll of film I’ve developed, and they flip through the stack in chunks, leaving out prints without any mercy for the art I’ve put time and heart into, I’ll know real quick that relationship is never going to stick.

[whitember]

Threadbare

Crimes left unspun

At the cusp

We’re strung along

Playing at the edges

Only to be left undone

Half hearted attempts

Broken, idle scripts

Of let’s see

Be together

Keep the lines open

Communications spoken

But nothing flows

All signals have weakened

And i don’t know how to

Say

That we, you or I

Are one and the same

A pair or three meant to be

Lifelines gone,

The break is inevitable

A sudden hem

To bridge neither whim

Nor unsaid lifetimes of

Beleaguered friends

Is done.

And tightly wound

And shut quietly

We dismiss it all.

[whitember]

4.

You bring the rage, the burning tears, the I don't knows and who are we kidding ourselves. I tried to remind myself of your light, summer, random one - that we were a ticking time bomb. Yet you stayed. Embraced. What dangled so happily before my face. And without a trace, you zip, zoomed onto a second race. Not my time or pace. Out run, you caught me at long last undone.

[whitember]

with grit

Grit. I would have said Indpendence. But after tears After sweat After long days spent Then I would amend, That what makes this Bittersweet is not the Singularly me, But the tumult, That made all of this The pinnacle. The most More clear version Of grit, The girl who came to be.

[whitember]

north shore

Taps

Clicks

Quick misses

Hidden matches

Flames unlit

Burning my night down

We shone

Bright

Fast

Climbing streets

Expectations

Nothing wagered

All gains

One whiskey

One scotch

Bourbon evenings

Sweet mornings

Loved it

Our simplicity

The quick and subtle

No faking it

Just clean

Nothing but

Footprints in raindrops

Evaporating

We existed in

The mist

The warmth

Of sunrises lit

Above us