Write love letters with total abandon

Sweet thing
So coy
Like a little scatter bomb nestled between sheets

Goodness I can’t wait to watch the distance between us dissolve into unfathomably infinitesimally minute space and then touch.

My ex-boyfriend and I got back together about two weeks ago, and I wrote him a letter telling him how much I loved him and how happy I that we were back together and all the things I missed about not having him around.

The day after I mailed the letter, he broke up with me.

The letter is at this very moment making its way to his mailbox.

Oh, the hilarity.

Love is a spice that goes with everything unfortunately.

There are two types of love letters, at least. You write when things are going really, really well OR when things are going well, not as planned, but you think things could go really, really well. I’m in favor of writing the former. The latter just serves to make me feel worse (see my entry on singing the blues). Think Lord Byron and Lady Caroline – classic example of the latter. So, I think I’ll put away the pen until my love life improves. xo

I feel like I am in mourning. I feel that in losing you, i’ve lost everything. I’m grieving for you, for my life… but you are very much alive. This is my loss not yours.

You were my mirror, my reflection was you. Your happiness was my triumph and your pain was my disappointment. In you I saw everything that I could have ever wanted, dreamed of. There was not one thing that I wanted or disliked when it came to you. Maybe thats the tragedy. The pitty, your dissapointment that was me. That I couldnt be that for you. Well, ill never know, you never told me.

Im left in darkness and im waiting for you to save me, find me…but the one thing im waiting for is something I know is impossible. Yet knowing this, i open my eyes and its still dark

my heart pains the separation from your soul
tears flow like rivers from the melting earth
time flies past as my opportunity fades
to know true love
to live a life
my soul cries
time is unfair
do you feel the same
may your soul hum the same melody
that I may recognize the kindred spirit within
and with what strength I have
will walk the earth knowing my true love
though if we shall not be together
my soul will know she has found her spirit
and this will provide solstice like the sun
warms the earth
the sun sets but rises

You cut me to the quick and spilled out all that I wasn’t trying to hide. The strength to resist you bleeds right out in a sweet-warm flow until there is nothing but the hollow naked puddle of myself lying in your lap totally amazed. You must be made of star dust.

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s desire.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your sorrow,
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals,
or have become shriveled and closed for the fear of future pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain,
mine or your own,
without moving to hide it, fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy,
mine or your own,
if you can dance with wildness and let ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic,
or to remember the limitations of human beings.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you’re telling me is true.
I want to know if you disappoint another to be true to yourself,
if you can bear the accusations of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty,
even when it is not pretty every day,
and if you can source your life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure,
yours or mine,
and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver moon “Yes!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair,
weary and bruised to the bone,
and do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you are now or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,
and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments Your life is not a coincidence, it is a reflection of you.

- Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Past the point of no return.

San Francisco Bay, 12-8-05

Foggy shore, dirty and bleak. Empty of help, full of shallow hopes and forgotten promises. Steel tracks to follow over hills and dales like the fake safe path. The wind whips up a the hair on my neck. The water’s a bit cold but I’m determined as hell. I don’t even think about it. I just get in. I start swimming for Angel Island a little over a mile. Doable in a lake but these are famous currents. Dark deep.

Out in the water ships pass. A navel lane in fact. Very very big cargo ships making waves that would swallow a bus. Past that calm waters and a sunny shore where nothing bad seems to ever tread because there’s just no need for it there. Its full to the brim with something else. It sits there like a beacon out in the water all by its self, begging the question, “why do so few go there?” In the currents it might as well be Hawaii that I’m swimming for. Hands numb, the first thing to go. Feet working furious, ignoring all sensation from them. There’s no way I can listen to that. After a gallon or two of salt water up my nose, that horrid little voice starts to ask things like, is this possible? But the golden shores beacons. Its truly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It feels like total validation of who I am, who I want to be, where I want to go, how I want to live. It speaks and I seem to understand. I seem to get it so easily, without any effort. Its that thing I’ve been telling myself about for years and just haven’t come close to. There’s nothing left to do but swim for it. There is nothing but mystery ahead, but so clearly the one mystery I want to explore. The one mystery worth living for. No candy coated promise of easy life, no neon sign advertised life in a box, no McDonald’s pre-packaged way of thinking. This carte blanche; fields to plow, meadows to roam, beaches to conquer figure it out by your ass day by day dream land in reality mystery bliss in the sun everything you ever wanted. Just build it. Make it whatever & when was that ever a bad thing This is love, just on the other side of what everyone says is impossible to get to and impractical to think about. What a heart pounding thought that races through my mind. A slap in the face by another dark wave – reality check gasping for breath water in the lungs, loosing rhythm. Stopping. Feet sink down under me as I treading water feeling how much colder it is just 4 feet down, and how much colder it is than that 6 feet down. Black cold, tugging currents. One eye looks behind me, the other on the prize. Gasping, desperately trying to shake it off. Rubbing salt out of my eyes clearing my nose. Deep breathe returns as I float on my back looking at the sky. The sky is the same over water and over land. I measure the situation. 3/4 of the way there. What started as fuck it, lonely sucks, lets see what this is about; is now, you are deep mother fucker sink or swim past the point of no return. Elbos feel like bricks abused by the cold gossiping drift waters. My legs kick. My arms move hand over hand. I start. I just start. There really isn’t anything else I can do.