Still an Open Wound

Like a ghost unseen

you come from the shadows

and invade…

I can go an entire day

without thinking of you

but then

when I lay down at night

I still want you there with me

if not in body

then in memory

I want you to be thinking of me

like I am of you

remembering those days

even if they can't be restored

days filled

with you

and me

and promise…

Those wonder-filled days

back before vows were broken

smashed like a mason jar

on cement

destroying the bouquet

we had so carefully gathered

together

flowers were strewn

life-giving water spread

I tried to save it

but I got cut…

But that was then

this is now

the water evaporated long ago

faded flowers turned to brown

drying to a crumble

to be carried away like dust

by the wind of my soul

the broken jar

was kicked aside

the scene is clean

and yet

when everything is quiet

there's a deep moaning

as the wind blows past

those jagged fragments of glass

and I know that cut

is still an open wound…

Muddied Memories

Muddied Memories

She scribbled until not an inch of the sidewalk square shone grey. A mosaiced quilt of colored chalk taking its place.

Standing back she looked down upon the scene; a boy of roughly fourteen handing flowers to a little girl. They were the centerpiece in a carefully drawn heart surrounded with a wild tangle of bloom bearing branches. Only a smile was missing from where it had been before, when it all began so long ago on that cool spring day in that flower filled garden somewhere in Sweden or maybe it was France, she never knew, but him...
Him, she could never forget.

His eyes had shone like sweet black cherries, his hair  like dark melted chocolate and when he smiled, something she’d made him do with ease, dimples had dented his olive skinned cheeks.

Neither of them knew then that she would be his muse for he had yet to write a single song, but she would become the one…
The one that his mind and heart would hold while his pencil scribbled and his fingers strummed him all the way to fame.         

She'd planned to draw a chalky quilt parade, a tribute to those days, each square a moment she still remembered so clearly it was as if time stood still. But the memories stung more than she'd imagined. And drops like rain, but salty like the sea, splashed on the lifeless flowers, but were unable to drowned the pain

Her watery facade looked skyward, searching dark grey clouds threatening. Her ears hoping to hear rumbling thunder in the distance, signaling a rain that would wash it all away, but the storm remained inside and she couldn't stop the flood. Lightening bolts seared her heart as her sneakered foot stepped and smeared, ground and spread, mixing the colors to mud…

And then, her pockets filled with broken chalk and her heart with broken dreams, she turned and walked away. Dull brown footprints followed her for a few steps and then disappeared the way he had one cold autumn day...