poem: Currency of Together

for CAC

 

 

You are the hardest apology of my life.

 

Amazed at how difficult it is

    and it's the chicken or egg thing, isn't it?

  what came first-

         the distance, or the distance creators,

those adherents of dissonance

                 always

     with their eye on a prize of disintegration.

 

A green eyed damsel stirs my heart.

 

Endure what really cannot be,

    apologize for spans of times we measured

   in broken promises. What is hardest for me-

       how sure it all was.

 Crossing continents the easy way

     running to, not from.

 

Hard. When I love, I know-

     I cannot help but write poetry,

         every morning

  starting with "good morning," letting

       the words be the song whispered with a

              dreamy kiss onto waiting lips.

   In the before,

        gardens bloomed at each sunrise

   in my words.

            In the after, none. Missing-

 and too ashamed to tell you.

      To proud to have been so very wrong?

 

f**k. f**k. f**k. This wasn't how I was

    told it would be- make it work, make it work

        make it work; there is more anyway

 than mutual satisfaction

 

Maybe I just never tried hard enough.

    Maybe I should have just acquiesced and

stopped asking questions, long ago.

 

Harder: Knowing she has the germinal you

    a bud of possibility breathing life-

          the new; not the bringing

       of 1000 hurts that came before,

           aching to be healed

with every brush's caress. Wishing so hard

       my breath stops on every desire;

      that could have been me, drinking from

   that beautiful cup, but instead I was always

                  the mender, in vain 

     repairing fissures as the rest

              crumbled in my hands- thinking

       with every despairing touch of

           even my gentlest finger,

   I could only ever be a fracturer of

all vessels, everywhere. Condemned goods,

     tainted wells. The water it was meant to hold

flowing as freely as the water on my cheek.

    Each accusation

            punctuated by the design of defeat:

 

yes, I know, I know, I know-

    It is not in me to love properly.

       It is just a pattern of attraction for me

nothing real, here or there.

 

and empty spaces click as unproductive hours 

    roll on by. and I simply sometimes

              still want your embrace.

        I just don't want to pay for it.

 

These are currencies never measured by human

    admission.

 

Hardest. Doors slammed in my heart.

    Chambers locked. Knowing the cat I left behind

   has your caress, and you, hers- collateral damage

       that she will love you more.

      Your blond-haired, blue-eyed tribe

  of miniature humans, too;

         never knowing how good I could

      have been, given just half a chance.

and all of this is unfair to you.

   wildly so. No man ever gave more

         of his heart, for less return payment.

          

Only I know how much is really owed.

 

There is much unknown. I never heard

   a whip-poor-whil with you. I would take

      the fragments lost when I fled

and assemble them. Into a gift maybe? At

    the very least, something

             worth giving back, giving on.

   I could hope that some part of you

    has more to offer, because of me.

Those days when it all went wrong,

     nothing came out right; negative spaces

   accentuated by holes in

        our conscience. Still, I love you-

     I do want there to be other gifts

for you to open. I mean that, even when,

    selfishly, maybe I don't.

 

And look at you now, so happy

   where you have found.

 

I kept telling you, you would go before me.

 

 

 

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

needed to open a vein a little today

Reviews

[Through the Gateway]

Driving all alone on a highway in July
Not quite sure what state I'm in
Never really knowing if it's hello or goodbye
Every sin is a blessing and every blessing a sin

Re-living all a life between sunrise and sunset
Every single moment marches before my eyes
Every moment of charity and every single debt
A thousand times we're born and a thousand times we die

Come along with me 'cause we're going Turnpikin'
8000 times will laugh, 1 million we'll cry
I can't promise we'll make it in the end
All I can say is we'll give it one hell of a try

Come along with me 'cause we're going Turnpikin'
100 miles down, a million to go
Listening to the Eagles and singing to Broadway
Trying to decide if we moved too fast or too slow

Family and friends and outlaws and in-laws
Wanna be lovers and future ex-wives
Our life on the road has a cast of thousands
Never really knowing how we've touched their lives

The touch and a kiss and the words of a lover
Crimes of passion and tears of pain
Maybe we needed this endless journey
To break the pattern and be ourselves again

Come along with me 'cause we're going Turnpikin'
8000 times will laugh, a million we'll cry
I can't promise we'll make it in the end
All I can say is we'll give it one hell of a try

Come along with me 'cause we're going Turnpikin'
100 miles down, a million to go
Listening to the Eagles and singing to Broadway
Trying to decide if we moved too fast or too slow

Shouted accusations and mumbled I'm sorrys
Shattered hearts and wounded pride
A million reasons to walk from each other
And yet I know I'll never leave your side

We both need love and we both need each other
We both can be blind and we both can see
So I'll pick up my phone and keep dialing your number
And ask,as a friend,to Turnpike with me.

Come along with me 'cause we're going Turnpikin'
8000 times will laugh, a million we'll cry
I can't promise we'll make it in the end
All I can say is we'll give it one hell of a try

Come along with me 'cause we're going Turnpikin'
100 miles down, a million to go
Listening to the Eagles and singing to Broadway
Trying to decide if we moved too fast or too slow.

[Marie Anzalone]

and one hell of a try is all we ever get
we could find a million ways to not say "I love you"
a million reasons to devour the other with pride
8000 ways to look at a path already forgotten and set.

But could an apology mumbled in the wind reprieve,
could we admit the destination itself was wrong,
could a friend tell a friend, we moved only ever as much
as the Universe herself was going to permit us to believe?

this was touching and beautiful and it will be treasured, forever.

"And even though it all went wrong/ I'll stand before the Lord of Song/ with nothing on my tongue/ but Hallelujah." -L. Cohen

[Tree]

Ode to what had once been. A remarkable piece. You have to be in the center of loss to bare witness to the words scrawled up there, there has to be an immense sacrifice ... Usually, by self. Beautifully honest piece, Marie.

Excellent work


Diego

[Marie Anzalone]

I know of nothing that hurts worse, my friend, than the severing of a soul connection with another human being. Shame, loss, pain, guilt, hopelessness, insecurity bubble t the surface in a miasma of boiling soup. I saw the severing of this connection coming a year ago. I am told it will happen today, roughly at 4:00 pm my time. I have no words for this kind of loss, of severing. Endure what cannot be endured, I wrote. We shall see.

[TL Boehm]

Holy cow. You opened several and bled out. Maybe its what we do. We specialize in loss instead of love. Such a powerful write. I felt it even more than I read it.

[Marie Anzalone]

This was hard, TL. I think we sometimes have to characterize our grief in order for it to be exorcised. And then we hope, that wide empty space left behind can hold a lifetime's worth of joy afterwards. I read recently something I always believed to be true, about breakups that were not instigated by frank abuse: you don't emotionally abandon someone you once loved or tried to love. It is not time that heals all wounds; it is only love that can do that. We can hold on to resentment or let it go.

Been thinking a lot recently. Decided it was time for some space clearing.

[s y e]

Sometimes the hardest writes are the best because it comes from your heart and you pour it onto the page ~ just like this write. This was a deep, emotional write and I can tell it was hard for you.

A little regret that went a long way with you, but realization as well, somtimes you realise that, that what happened was good in a way, other times it's not.

You really packed a punch with this one.

~ Noodle.

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you, my friend. Almost all of my writing is very autobiographical and very personal in nature. I did put a lot of myself into this one, and I appreciate the fact that you noted that. It was very hard to write, you are most correct on that.

[Ken Simm.]

Telling yourself things you don't want to know is the hardest. Opening yourself this far is like becoming a blood eagle to yourself and when you think the pain is deserved, it is never enough to assuage, or even cover. This I know.
You have gone beyond this and made it art. This is humbling. This is what the hermits on their desert poles felt. This is what the scourgers felt. This is more than Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa. This is art that bleeds and wishes it was not so. This is perhaps the good that comes from pain and by which we learn.

[Marie Anzalone]

I have described trying to love someone who you just cannot connect with as walking through life trying to replenish blood loss by sticking the other end of the catheter into your own heart. Your blood eagle is therefore an extremely poignant and apt metaphor, for me.

I find that, in order to move forward, we must examine and forgive both ourselves and our others for the role we played in the not becoming. This hurt as much as you thought in the writing, but I hope it starts an act of release that will let other doors open gracefully and without an ounce of regret or bitterness.

Thank you for being you, Ken. You bring great light and wisdom to a surprising variety of places.

[quinfinn]

this is a regret which goes very deeply, but i sense some realization and acceptance which wishes the beneficiary extended good will and much happiness. still, this is painted with desire and regret, and some smattering of apology. wow, you really cut loose with this one.

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you, Quin, for your gentle review on this tough piece. We find ourselves at a point sometimes where a decision must be made when things do not work out the way we had hoped. Move forward in thankfulness of what was, or hold onto the bitterness? A good man and I have parted ways; it took us more than a year to to so once we realized we had to. Every now and then, there are still pieces that need to be mended in order for life to progress after what we lost. How can writing ever be anything but honest examination?