The House That We Built

"Come in," you said, door propped open wide,
I hadn't seen you in years, or days, or was it just
moments since we had last gazed into the houses
in each other's eyes, and been invited there?

It had been time, to be sure, time between us,
time the consistency of rough plastic that
slowly was made malleable by the hammers
of distance, and subtle healing.

But I knew that house was still there, unfinished,
when I gazed back at you the moment we
met for the (second, third, fourth?) first time.
(how many first times until the right time?)
We had agreed to meet here again, and
I remarked, as I entered, as you held open
the door for me, as I wiped my feet on the rug
I remember buying long ago, when cleanliness
mattered,

That the walls hadn't changed; the lighting fixtures
still hung, half installed, the windows open
and letting a dry breeze waken and stir the sheets
that covered the furniture. The spot on the wall
where you painted you loved me still showing through
the layers of paint we'd used to try to cover it all.
This is what it's like to revisit old haunts,
former loves and former spaces,
former memories, and former faces.

We sat down to tea there, on the sofa we bought
together, and talked about the renovations
we never finished. I suppose, I would say, that
it was my fear that kept the walls from going up,
while we agreed that communication, like time
like space like distance, often becomes insurmountable
when you allow walls to be built elsewhere,
protecting your own heart from someone who wasn't planning
on hurting you in the first place, instead of building walls
to protect the home that would have housed them both.

And here we sit, and I gaze in your eyes,
Or here I sit, and write about that gazing, the looking,
and dream of the day I'll revisit the porticos and hallways
I began building with you, sitting with you perhaps (only perhaps)
with plans to continue our renovation,
Perhaps with plans to take away from there the memories
we made, like one does to the homes of loved ones after their passing,
and allow time and memory and space to rot
the wood and dissolve it back into a nothingness
more suitable than the lurking pain of its lonely presence.

But I hope the loneliness doesn't come in.

And I hope you know that, in all actuality, you wouldn't
be opening the door for me, as I've decided to stay here,
for now, at least, and keep a fire burning in the fireplace
for you. Keep the furniture warm and dusted,
and slowly repair those parts of myself that would help
hold these walls up should you ever knock on the door.
But perhaps this house will become mine, and mine alone.
Perhaps (only perhaps) your feet will never again walk this floor,
and I'll box it up, along with the walls, the lights, the paint,
my memories, your letters to me, my journal entries,
my poems about you, keeping it safe for the sake of the
warmth I always feel when I reminisce on you and I.
I won't dismantle it for a long time from now, though,
as each and every word I ever wrote to you has bled
into these walls and into these cracks and crevices,
and there isn't an eraser big enough to pull them out.

No one understands love. Some people understand these words.
Everyone needs walls to protect their hearts.

I remember first taking your hand and guiding you inside.
In this house were some of the happiest days of my life.
The walls, however half-built, are still walls in which I built
a home. And I will await your knock, however long I have to wait,
and I'll keep the kettle on for that cup of tea with you,
that fresh gaze into your eyes, as the future washes over
and over us and decides what to do with
the house that we built.

From the Feet Up

Written 8/3 and 8/8

It's times like these I think of your feet
(the most beautiful feet in the world).
I never told you about the vulnerability
and safety I would feel
Seeing the bare feet of the man I
loved quietly trodding along in
the spaces we occupied together;
feet that could walk up to me and
stand inside mine, on tiptoe, or
stretch across my lap as you fell asleep
on the couch, betraying your sense of comfort
as I massaged out the day's wear and tear.

I never told you how I watched you
from behind, those days we'd trek
to the local market for food to feed ourselves,
you traveling unadorned, simply dressed,
basketball shorts and baseball cap turned backwards,
your familiar brown flip-flops
smacking the ground as you shuffled
in your own quiet, elegant way beside me.

That watching you, in that one moment
etched now forever in my mind, 
I looked at your feet, sidling up your porch steps,
and I smiled to myself in quiet contemplation,
transported to other porch steps, our porch steps,
in some remote and undisturbed, unmentioned future,
where we would be equally yet more
comfortable and unadorned together
in a quieter love, a majestic stillness.
A stillness whose secret I kept,
just in case I would betray it, and somehow
mar that perfect image.

I never told you that watching you, then,
In that now-frozen moment where you are
forever poised to ascend those steps,
I saw the feet of the father of my children.
And taking you all in, all at once, from the feet up,
was what I did then, and what I wanted to do,
in that moment, and secretly 
in each quiet moment since,
in which your feet and mine would walk
up some porch steps, somewhere,
and through whatever doors would open for us,
into the certain vulnerable spaces
we would occupy together.

Just-After

8/5

We crashed into each other like waves
And, submerged in you, I came up for air,
Only to take you inside me, in turn, to twist
Beneath the surface like snakes
Wrapped over and over again in the sheets of your bed.

And the waves broke, crested and white,
In that just-before, just-before, just-before moment,
When the electric horizon hushes before
The intake of wind before the first peal of thunder.

And, on the sand, we lie broken together,
The salt blinding my eyes, my fingers dislocated,
Located somewhere else, digging into the sand
And finding nothing but clumps of air.

And as we lost our grips, and lost each other,
I remember, holding you in my lap,
Still twisted in the sheets of your bed,
And that just-before, just-before, just-before moment
Becomes the just-after, just-after, just-after leaving,

When I tell you I love you, but the words are lost
To the wind, and the waves drown out the noise;
As our own waterworks start flowing, and we
Cling to wet sand and driftwood and each other;

As my heart keeps time, even still now,
With the violent, aching beat of thunder,
When the storm broke over our heads and swept
Our time and memories back into the restless waves.

What is This Thing Called Love?*

8/1

*a conversation with Kim Addonizio's book of Poetry, What is This Thing Called Love?

So what, what is this thing called love?
It's a subtle ache that begins in your chest,
beginning with the heart, making its journey through
the avenues and highways of your inner cracks
and crevices,

Up through the aorta, up, down, and out, spilling
everywhere, creeping slowly, crawling along
the arteries, along the walls of every vessel,
warring with blood cells and plasma and blocking them
from reaching your limbs and extremities,

the prickling sensations beginning to spread toward
the shoulders and down the arms,
succeeded by shortness of breath as you feel the heart
pound harder through your ribs, trying to
outrace the painful encroachment of what may
very well be an enemy invasion,
as it reaches the tips of your fingers

and all you can do is move, reaching for
something, anything, whatever's within reach, but only
that one person will do, the person whose magnets
of the body have called to yours, whose stamp is on
your wrist and forehead, consigned to a fate akin
to death as you can't get away except through the
ripping of bones and skin to get it out of you.

It is this ache that clutches the lonely, holding themselves,
holding pillows, holding bottles, holding vices,
and it is this pain, this ache, that grips me now,
as I reach for you in your absence, and the
air I grab is set on fire by the memory of your presence,
and only your body, your small frame that
fit so neatly into mine
can calm or quell this burning,

and only the coolness of your lips that wouldn't leave my side
all those nights is the antidote for the crazed cleaving
of this tired, tired soul.

Wine Talks

8/1

"Do you want him back?" The question put to me, late last night,
staring up at me from the pages of my book of Kim Addonizio's poetry,
The same question put to me some previous night, riding back from
who knows where, the wine still sloshing in my stomach,

but instead of saying something belittling, like, "No shit, Sherlock,
Where the hell have you been all while I was crying into my glass,
watching that movie that reminded me so much of him"
(... hell, it could be any movie and I would still see his face).

I just sit there and stare straight ahead and think of something
else to say - though thinking, thank god, is less of an accomplishment
right now than it is an achievement or unhappy accident.

Ask me when, later, I'll sit in bed and write these words,
(being extra careful not to censor myself - the wine still talking, surely)
lying next to the stuffed animal he bought me that I
couldn't even bring myself to take home until it was all of him I had,

When later I wake in the middle of the night to the sounds
of our hearts breaking, across frozen distances,
the violent sound of a tornado encapsulated in the
fragile tinkling of shattering crystal,

a sound familiar both to my ears and to my soul.
I'll remember, certainly, when, in the morning, I see these words
I've written, perhaps forgetting the writing, the process of tearing
apart my arm and pulling these sentiments

down onto the paper from the sinew that had trapped them far too long,
and I'll nod my head in agreement at the words, the sentences,
as I cast out even more lines to the upcoming day,
partly to drag myself into it, partly to catch hold

Of anything good for my heart to eat and feel full again.
"Do I want him back?" The wine is no longer answering
when I tell you, truthfully,
you have no idea. and please don't ask again.

Tonight I Took Two Sleeping Pills

8/1

Tonight, instead of one, I took two sleeping pills,
One for each of us, as if in swallowing this
Bitter pill I could send to you, through waves,

Through circuits, through the wind, through
Whatever goddamned avenue the air and ether
Could provide, this feeling of letting go

And the drop that precedes the thud of darkness
Behind eyelids who must be tricked into sleep,
Because they're not finished searching for

The missing puzzle pieces laid across the living room
Table of our repressed and tired psyches.
I drank bedtime tea, too, just for good measure,

So that the thoughts that cloud my day 
And creep up over the sides of my bed at night, 
Tugging at my pillow, my comforter,

At all the corners and the fabrics of my mind,
Could at least be pacified for a few hours
And leave me with my empty, empty sleep.

These Houses, These Words

7/31

These houses are mine.
These walls and turrets of sinew and ether.
I built them myself, many times before,
Conjuring them like fortresses from the
Reservoirs of my emotions.

I never knew these hands could craft
The shelter for all that my heart held -
You were the first to believe that strength,
And you showed me the firmness of the
Rafters, the grandeur of the gilded halls,

The halls I built with these very words,
But down which you were the first to guide me
With eyes wide open;
These walls are supple, they stretch,
They've attempted to cross borders, cross rivers,
Even cross oceans.

I allowed them to crumble, grow weary,
When I no longer believed I had control.
But with one look and a word you
Raised them up, stronger than they were,
Or, rather, you pulled the cords inside my chest
That caused these bones and heart to stir,

And would you could know the power of your glance
To set these towers singing
As once more I use them to send out
A ferocious call to you,
Wherever you lay,
Wherever you are,

That at least from a distance,
I can be a protector,
And that you might sense my arms there,
With these houses, with these words,
And think, for a moment, of me.