I awoke to a kiss, a whispered taste softly pressed upon my face, and in that moment, my soul, it wished to know once more that soulful kiss!
Yet it was a vapor of a waking dream. Nothing more; not what it seemed.
These wretched ghosts that find delight in morning’s light, dancing and playing betraying with the dust of sorrowed dreams promises broken, and vows false spoken!
Violently shaken in the sudden waking arms no more to hold me tight through winter nights…I am awake. I am awake.
Where, gentle caress of morning rain? that eases my pain; The merciful patter that shatters my hold on false dreamt love each drop above my window pane, slowly washing in rivulets the memories set under granite stone..I lie alone. I lie alone.
Enduring ink upon the page, how do I gauge What’s real? What’s myst? What’s relevant? Unlock the night, Release my dreams silence the screams, and write for me an ending poem, whereby I lie here not alone.
How sweet the dream that never ends? Where love ascends and kisses dealt are truly felt in dark of night.
Photo Credit: Jopet Arce’s photo of a pair of shoes
She spent half of her life wearing the same pair of shoes.
When she first saw them, they were dazzling… full of promise (and promises!) Tightly laced and polished, glistening like diamonds upon her feet.
They were immediately comfortable, and comforting.
At first, she walked through dark night forests and midnight-winding streets; breaking them in, smiling at the melody of new leather creaking in harmony with the violin-sawing of cricket wings, with the ruffling of the night owls feathers.
She dared to share her dreams, and danced in her new shoes with abandon and trust and hope.
The shoes spoke to her of wondrous things to come… making promises shoes should not make but new love demands –
of forever cradling her feet against sharpened stones; of warming her toes through winter’s storms; of lifting her heals in rapturous dance…
She fell in love with these shoes, flooded with dreams of where they might carry her. Each morning, she slipped them on with tenderness and love; each night, un-laced, she fell asleep clutching them to her breast…
…whispering sweet hallelujahs for all the miles they had shared, and would in all their ahead days walk, promising – until death do us part!
She loved her shoes with complete abandon and imagined they would always be as comfortable as the day she first placed them upon her trusting feet-
each day praying these shoes would always love her in return; with tenderness, truth, and above all else, never hurting her.
But the years went by, and those beautiful shoes began to wear. With time, they lost their gloss, and the leather cracked and hardened. She noticed, one morning, a tiny droplet of blood upon her sock; Later, a small cut upon her heel, a new pain within her heart.
Yet still, devoted, she continued to wear them though at night she began setting them beside her bed.
In the final year, she wept looking at these shoes; they were now ugly shoes, painful shoes.
“These shoes,” she tearfully whispered, “will never carry me to where I need to go.”
She could tell in other’s eyes that they
were glad these were her shoes and not theirs. They never talked about her shoes.
They looked away in embarrassed empathy. To learn how awful her shoes were might make them
… uncomfortable.
To truly understand these shoes you must walk in them. But, once you put them on, you can never take them off.
She began, for the first time, to hate her shoes; with guilt at first, then with an increasing passion until one day an awareness swept through her thoughts:
“I deserve a better pair of shoes.”
She looked around, and for the first time understood that she was not the only one who wore those shoes.
“There are many pairs in this world,” she thought. I can either learn how to walk in them, timidly, so they don’t hurt quite as much…
“…or I can throw them away.”
And she began to plan. “No woman deserves to wear these shoes,” she cried. So for the final few months, she gathered her courage …..to throw them away.
Ironically, it was these shoes that had made her a stronger woman. These shoes had given her the strength to face anything.
They helped make her who she now was.
One day, she slipped them on a final time feeling the worn leather against her savaged foot; then, flooded with the intensity of love one can only feel knowing love is forever lost…she kissed the shoe goodbye.
When the time was right, she took her shoes to a secluded ravine kissed them, and tossed them…like an old pair of shoes, into an abyss.
The shoes lay there broken, tattered, worn and useless. The shoes could not speak of the love they held for the woman For its tongue was torn. Left to decay with nothing but the scent of the woman’s tender hands scenting its laces, slowly fading.
As soon as the shoes were disposed of she went barefoot into tomorrow, pain-free and dancing and singing:
“I will forever walk the bare feet of a woman who has lost her shoes!”
But in exactly one year, she slipped on another pair, happy and in love again, dancing and laughing once more...
hoping against hope, forgetting old shoes, willing with all her heart for this shiny new pair to carry her home.
I have no thought of future love That’s a bridge I’m not ready to cross I need time yet to heal From the pain that I feel For the love I once had…and lost
It’s not that I don’t feel the need In truth, no need is greater But unless I survive What I’m feeling inside I’ll have no need for later
Be patient with me, please understand I’m not a man who’s made of stone I’ll deal with tomorrow When I’ve dealt with the sorrow Of living today all alone
I’m not giving up on the future I just have no time for the thought Of loving again While I’m still lost within All the love I once had…and lost