Wasted Wonders

How does this music manage to claw at me? It enters into my veins and serenades each cell to tears. All of me is dripping with the salted substance of reluctance. Dreaded introspection. I’m tired of thinking of myself.

You are everywhere in this place. The walls call for you, the particles of air surround me with whispers of your name and memories of your touch. They cry for you in my stead. This ache is too dull and steady. As if it had always been and as if you had never really been. I see you in each old man, each wise one that now carries the burden of a forgetful mind. I bled when I opened the birthday card. It was the first one that you hadn’t written, though I almost believed in would contain a formerly declared promise. Part of me felt abandoned that you hadn’t thought to prepare.

The rain falls steady now. The pressure turns to a constant tapping on the inside of my skull. Eyes widen with all that they can see and I wonder to myself, was the world always this breathtaking? What a pity that I missed it.

How much longer before I find myself contained? The year begins and I beg for only one thing, only a million things, only a million and one. Can you therefore fault me for my inability to limit my speech. Does a sudden change in atmosphere render the end of all that we have known. Do you mean it when you say you mean to move away, resettle in a place that I do not find familiar. Am I to be just a visiting soul, a traveling spark that got lost on the road. Will I forever depend on others to set my own limits, these thick black lines that I don’t know how to draw. Within reason.

Addictions come and go, flowing through me like wind through a ghost of a wall. Air against air, it’s a wonder they don’t lose themselves in the other. And for me, will there ever be that meeting of breezes. Will the baby in my arms ever be the one that was formed to match my own face.
What are these lies I tell myself daily. What empty glances that fill each glass. Blood replacing the heavy weight of the reddest wine. Sometimes a story is just a story, and sometimes it’s something so much more.

I held her close to me. I held her tight. I told her the single bedtime story that was never born and will never die. That one that will be recreated in each season, in each generation, from the loneliness of those that are still searching. "Once there was a girl who thought she was in love with a Republican." And I didn’t know you were listening in the hallway. I hadn’t known you were waiting to tell me.

Sweet dreams. Baby girl. Tucked in corners of soft pink comforters. Gentle music, you’re parents did not leave you lacking in anything. Suddenly a hand on my back. Smooth and so soft. Closer than I expected, gentle and so sure or yourself. Perfect kiss and then you were gone. All alone with my tears. All alone with my joy.

All alone with my dreams in the early morning sun. I do not wash the windows. I fear it will ruin the shadows of my painting. That masterpiece I piece together with the remnants of beauty I find abandoned in the street.


He calls. He's falling. They don't know exactly what to do. Oh yes, there's hope. Do not shed your tears just yet, my dears. And yet, so lacking. There is no name to give. He is not of us, of ours, and so his name may not be added to any list. I pray for him still, unsure it does any good. Your head can change what happens in your toes, but if he is not attached to this body how can I reach his little limbs.

"Baruch atah" I bend because I cannot stand. Your name alone gives me the strength to straighten my head.

"Masai timloch b'tzion" I do not know what else to ask. I see my weaknesses as clearly as I see the morning sky. I see my failures as plainly as I see the form of my face, the curves of my figure. You see my tears and each one is asking to end this. My skin starts to show the worry of these five thousand years. Wrinkles so deep.


Change is in the air. I feel it so close as it pushes aside everything else and forces me to breath it in. I am sure it will be us that brings this altered reality to the world. If only we would decide that it is what we wanted. Our power is limitless.