darling, how are you today?
i'm months into my first heartbreak
and i wonder if you're the same.
mayhaps our souls haven't crossed yet
and your eyes haven't experienced
the first touch of color
if we look at each other,
or how the red string of fate
grows shorter and shorter
as we wade into a thousand years
brought about by
our constant reincarnations.
i would wait a hundred lifetimes,
swim through a sea of heartbreaks
(like now),
go through a life where
you don't exist,
or you drive a knife to my chest,
if it means there exists such a thing—
where there is even just a single timeline
where i get to touch your lips with my fingers
and hold you in my arms as you sleep soundly,
as our hearts beat closer and closer.

My grandma’s favorite holiday was groundhog day.

I don’t know if she just loved the fanfare of it all;
If she thought it was so trivial and fun;
If Pansawtukee Phil was just too adorable;

Or maybe she was just a fan of Bill Murray?

(Which I mean—who isn’t?)

My grandma always had a knack for everything, not just the weird holidays:

It was continuing to remind me that penguins have knees,
And instilling at least one of her grandchildren with a love of the X-Files that never faded,
(Me again)
And people watching
from the car outside of Byerley’s —
Insisting it was going to be her novel
“Tales from the Parking Lot.”

She also used to tell us that my grandfather had been reincarnated as a cardinal.

And she would tell us,
In the springtime,
He, (or the cardinal,)
Would come visit.

And, my grandma adored talking.

She would tell anyone her life story
Whether they wanted to hear it,

Or not.

This included:  
nurses,
doctors,
a man named David at the Jewelry store,
some of my friends when we were just driving through on a road trip from college and stopped to say, “hello,”

Really, anyone who would listen.

She called it her gift of gab.

And, she was also really into scrapbooking
and creating slideshows of pictures
Simple ways of preserving the memories of loved ones

I don’t quite remember when her memory started slipping
When Alzheimer’s started digging it’s claws into
The facts, the stories...

Even the reality she knew and loved.

I’m sure, looking back, it was slow at first.
Like those first moments when Bill Murray wakes to the song “I Got You Babe,”

Again.

Not quite sure what is happening,
But confused.

The fear doesn’t begin until later,
As the events repeat again and again.

I remember my mother telling me of a moment
Where my grandmother was reliving her
Junior prom.

She lived with us then, and my mom had a baby monitor set up in her mother-in-law suite.

My mom woke to a crash through the baby monitor.
And when she rushed downstairs,
She found my grandma’s robes were laid out all around the room.

My grandma was on the ground,
The TV on top of her.

Her explanation of what happened is she was trying to steal the TV to buy a prettier dress.

In her lucid moments,
We told my grandma this story.

And she laughed
and laughed,
With the same confidence Bill Murray
has later in the film

Having accepted reality,
having accepted this fate.

Reliving days past
Knowing that a future
may never come.

It might be that the reason
She loved groundhog’s day was

The promise that spring is coming,
And with it, the cardinals,
And with it, new life.

water   once   blossomed   into  microbes
into  blossoms,    into  little lost creatures
who bathed in  the light.   once, the trees
opened up  &  said     Let there be green!
                                        & there was

now   our breath
comes spilling
over with
whispers and sighs and
dust of the day  the red river
runs just under
our skin like the sea
that saw us
brought to be      in,  out
each breath i breathe, i can
feel her move with me

the river runs through,    skull meets earth
bones wear down to dust for 
inhale                                            exhale
pro­mised return.              one      again
with the worm  &  the whale.
welcome back by old friends
waving green

not an end                   no such thing

All my life the thought of you has led me upwards
The trail sometimes so hard to travel I’d almost give up
But I always managed to just make it to the next plateau.

Never did you lend a hand or reach out to catch me as I fell,
yet still I went on, enduring the hardships of my chosen path
and reaping the fruits of my labor, sewn along the way.

With each new level I would look over the last contemplation.
And think to myself there could be no higher ground
Then the fog would clear and another tier would come into view.

Again, I would load up my family and all our worldly possessions
and drag them kicking and screaming upwards, forever upwards
to this place I knew had to exist, our place at the top of it all.

I lost my wife on one leg of my journey, the kids on another
and somewhere along the way I was relieved of my possessions,
but I made it to the top of my mountain.

Stopping to catch my breath, I looked out over my world,
but I could see nothing. The clouds blocked my view to all below me.
I could see only the heavens and the small point of land beneath my feet.

In that instant, I knew. Life is not lived, from the top down.
Everything I am or I ever was, was behind me beneath the clouds
that lay so thick that I could not see the path from which I had come.

And there in that moment of realization and frustration you appeared to me.
Holding out your hand, beckoning me to step out away from known ground,
to take a leap of faith and trust that you would not let me fall.

My mind flashed back to all the times I needed you and you weren’t there.
Why now should I believe that you wouldn’t again just let me fall?
Perhaps the thin air at the top was causing me to hallucinate.

No, I decided, you couldn’t be trusted and I turned away from you.
In my haste I stumbled, and found myself falling away from your direction.
I fell through the clouds and I saw paths I had followed to the top.

I saw my children and my wife, I saw my belongings, all the things
that had been good in my life flashed before my eyes as I fell, downward.
I fell for what seemed like forever, and somewhere during my fall, I fell asleep.

And while I was sleeping, I dreamt that everything I was, was fading away
I no longer remembered how my journey to the top started, and now, I can almost remember where it ended, no, what was I thinking of…….I can’t remem…….

Hey! I just realized I’m awake, and I am looking into the eyes of the most beautiful
creature I have ever seen, smiling eyes that know me, and love me.
Eyes that draw my attention from all else, a soft voice so soothing.  

Suddenly it’s very noisy and there are more eyes, looking at me, smiling happy eyes. I am overwhelmed and I start to cry, feeling the warmth of flesh on my face, there’s something in my mouth and it’s tasty and fulfilling,

I stop crying and open my eyes again, looking up into those wonderful eyes that love me.

I guess you did catch me after all.

One day the moon will stop.
    Settling it's last motion unto eternal stillnes;
   And the ground will quake, craters will rattle

And we'll lift like lanterns, light as lit matchsticks
  As we rise to the final night sky.
   Joining the ranks of stars forever stillborn.

The oceans will quiver along one last circlet
  In ode to their past life and the lives they lived through,
   And we will look down at our old skin...

         Never feeling ready enough to properly reincarnate;

I was born from the breathe of Satan-I was formed underneath a tree in Salem
I was sworn to **** the king with swords of Cain-I was torn in-between infamy and destiny from my name
I'm a nameless hatred created from the twisted creator seizing an unforgiving lust and hunger for another miserable maiden wasting her worth with words of wishes longing the chance to dance with the duke of death
but the bet begs black
and I'm dressed in red restless dripping decisions of every maiden's sins ever since Satan brought me back from the depths of *** and a forever reincarnation of Hell's retrieving-unforgiving-sanatorium

to those who fear death
know that death
is the ultimate trip