When You Fall

When you fall,
there are times you won’t believe
you’ll ever stand on your own feet again.
When you’re trapped,
the space can get so tight
you’ll feel you’ll never breathe freely again.
When you’re hurting,
you can forget there’s a difference
between being alive and being in pain.
When you’re recovering,
you’ll feel like you’re moving so slowly
that you’ll be a hundred before you feel normal again.
When you’re yourself again,
you’ll realize, for no particular reason,
that it’s been months since you thought of that pain.

(Photo credit: "Sadness" from Dmitry Kalinin on Flickr)

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Wanderer

How did you get so lost?
You're not a ghost,
but just look how you've left your body
so far behind...
When did you forget to be here,
you wanderer?
Why do you speak to phantoms,
you dreamer,
and forget the sound of human voices?

Come back, you wonder.
Come back to yourself.
Come back to this moment.
Just breathe a while.
You may find you're good company
after all.
You may find you love yourself
after all.
You may find the courage to care.

How did you ever forget?
You treat life like a wound
or a disease to be suffered through.
Don't you know that life has always
been an adventure?
Don't you know a hero's heart
beats in your chest?
Don't you feel the wonder
shining in all things?

(Photo credit: "Wonder Remains" from mario on Flickr)

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Learning to Live

Hold my hand, you whisper-girl,
and remember how it was,
how it might have been,
should have been.
We should have walked by the lake
and weaved daisy-chains
in the shadow of the ash tree,
laughing the summer long.

What wonders this great world could give,
if only we could learn to live...

I wish we'd seen the sun set
into the glossy lake,
and that I'd handed you my coat
when you started to shiver.
I should have known what you wanted,
shouldn't have worried so much...
how was I supposed to know
you were waiting for my kiss?

What wonders this great world could give,
if only we could learn to live...

I should have heard your voice,
all the words you wouldn't say.
I should have guessed the meaning
of your silence.
We should have loved forever,
not thrashed and bruised each other
until we both collapsed
and fell like sudden death.

What wonders this great world could give,
if only we could learn to live...

Why must we hurt each other,
and why is love just a game
of who can hurt the other first?
I couldn't stand to lose your love,
I couldn't stand to miss you,
and couldn't stand to see you go.
I couldn't stand to lose your love,
and so I never loved you.

What wonders this great world could give,
if only we could learn to live...

(Photo credit: "Couple in the Water" from Indi Samarajiva on Flickr)

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Storm

Don't you hate
how we have to play these games?
I know what you want
and you know what I want,
but if you say it
the magic's lost,
like the princess in the story
who couldn't say her name.
So let your eyes do the talking,
the curve of your neck,
or the way you twirl your hair.
Let's just talk about the weather.
You could ask when the rain will start
while you smile over your wineglass.
I could wonder when the storm might break,
and tell you the clouds are full of lightning.
Your breath could be my barometer,
or your heartbeat just the same,
so when the rain comes
I can take you inside
to keep you wet.
Don't you hate
how we have to play these games?
Don't you love
how we get to play these games?

(Photo credit: "COUPLE" from marc falardeau on Flickr)

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What Happens With Time

When I was a boy,
I imagined you walked on mountaintops,
or in the clouds,
somewhere far off from the rest of us.
I know better now,
but those childhood dreams
never quite die.
I still admire you,
with your grace, your charm,
the way you set people at their ease
and keep things running so smoothly.

I'll be for you
what you were for me.
(Everything you were for me...)
You gave me hope in the darkness,
a shining constant light
I could believe in.
If I could make you feel
some tiny piece of what you've meant to me,
I know you wouldn't worry
or fear you'll never be good enough.
No need to worry, love.
None at all.

(Photo credit: "Closing Time" from Kevin Dooley on Flickr)

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Connection

"It's a good book," she said,
"But not what I was expecting."

Miles of black wire wind and enlace,
connecting conversations across continents.
The earth in an earpiece, squashed in a screen,
flat, compressed, and never sleeping.
And now? Remove the wires,
you're still tied up,
no night, no day,
only the vagueness of city time.
Wake before dawn and bed before sundown.
Bound by the clock and electric light,
the screen in every room,
the screen in your pocket.
It traps us,
yet it connects us
across a thousand empty miles.

Funny, when she was here
I would have killed to be more interesting
than the phone she's speaking into.

"There's a lot about farming and politics,"
she explained, "But I don't like politics.
I was reading for the love story."

(Photo credit: "the SMILE" from Prayitno on Flickr)

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Breathe You In

Love, I wish I could breathe you in,
and carry you in my pocket
so you'll always be with me.
I wish I could have all of you,
keep your essence in a flask
where none of you will ever slip away.
Love, you don't know how I want to have you,
every inch of you and more,
and how it kills me
that you're like sand through my fingers.

Love is such an awful pain,
where you run to hold another soul
and burn to touch it with your fingers...
I want to dissolve. Impossible desire,
such delicious agony.
Let it hurt a little more, please,
but annihilate me soon!
And how sweet it will be,
would be, impossible,
when our souls run together as one.

(Photo credit: "Lips" from AJC ajcann.wordpress.com on Flickr)

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