The View From Different Windows, Judy Colella [phonics readers txt] 📗

if you will,

If you can,

What hand it was that guided me that day,

That enticed me into the place

Where he was.

“An evening together?” he asked.

“I do not know you,” I replied.

“Yet. What do you say?” He smiled.

So tell me then, if you will,

If you can,

At whose bidding I responded to his enquiry with,

“Yes.”

 

AGAIN?

 A prince must be handsome,

A dream-prince more so.

My dream-prince, well, beyond description.

But he – he is almost…

Ugly.

“May I see you again?”

Oh, too soft a heart, that again says,

“Yes.”

 

THE PERFECT NUMBER SEVEN

 There is a purpose for everything,

A time, a season,

A reason.

So eight full seasons pass;

Eight centuries making history in my mind,

In my heart,

Because on the journey over the emotion’s peaks and valleys,

I have once again discovered love.

Eight million new awakenings to love

In all its forms.

Eight.

Is it coincidence that perfection was missed

By just one?

 

LOSS

I love to laugh in a wild array of adverbs –

Loudly, deeply, sensuously, childishly.

Only he could evoke this variety,

He who I once thought ugly,

He whose beauty I no longer dare think upon.

I still laugh, you know.

Like an empty house laughs.

Tell me a joke, make me smile

For a while.

My smile, my laugh,

Can be like cool, peaceful sunshine.

But kindly forgive the flame-hot downpour

Scalding the inner walls.

  

STEPS TOWARD THE DARKNESS 

“Do not be silent, my love!”

But silence persists

Until the stubborn self-deprecation is broken

By reason.

And love.

Not ever meaning to do so

I make him feel unworthy.

But love is stronger,

Longer…

So thought I.

 

THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF

He likes his coffee light with no sugar:

I provide that sweetness instead

By being there, he said.

When he was here with me.

When.

Such a melancholy word, “when.”

 

His idiosyncrasies match mine in number,

And I know them all – almost.

If I could forget, if I should forget,

I would.

  

LEMMINGS

Have you noticed how unwelcome memories

Are most painful

When remembered alone,

When they are not mutual;

When there is no one there

With whom to share?

Yet while I am alone in thought,

I am not alone in sorrow.

This peculiar brand of agony

Has a multitude of slaves

Like me.

And like him.

  

LIFE AT THE BASE OF THE CLIFF 

My grief has two parts:

Half is mine,

Half is his,

Combined in one heavy heart.

I am told that everything has a double.

So he, too, must carry this double-sided hurt,

Compounding mine, which increases his,

And so on.

 

Like two mirrors facing one another,

Reflecting endless depths,

Infinite hallways that are too lonely

For my mind to venture too far along

For too long.

I need someone’s hand to hold.

His hand…

But no! No! I must rip the thought of his touch

Out of my bruised mind

By the roots!

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Ah, yes. I can breathe again now.

Oh, weeding is such a horrid business!

 

MISERABLE COMFORT

Would you be kind to me?

Then speak not.

You may, all unknowing, use a phrase,

An expression or tone of voice

That conjures up a remembrance

Of my love.

 

Would you be helpful?

Then do not invite me anywhere.

You may, all unwitting, take me to a place

Where he and I once sat

And laughed

And planned

And kissed.

 

Would you show consideration?

Then allow me to read nothing –

My tear-drowned eyes may see

A word,

A quote,

An account of someone engaged in something

That we, my love and I,

Once did together, too.

 

Would you protect me from further hurt?

Then let me not think.

I might think

Of him.

  

REALITY

And so he is gone.

I feel the way a tree must feel

When all her leaves have died

And fallen at her feet.

The last time he left, I knew why.

We said goodbye and kissed quickly

But tenderly.

 

This time, he left too soon after

Too brief a return.

He left this time without saying why,

Without a kiss.

Without a word.

Without me.

 

My dreams of necessity must somehow be

Locked away,

My feelings held in abeyance.

And when I do some simple thing

Like painting my nails,

Washing my hair,

It is only for the me-half

Of the whole me.

 

He is the other half.

Perhaps he thinks he is doing me a favor.

I want no favors of that kind.

I want him.

 

ACCEPTANCE 

When a word is used too often,

It loses meaning and sounds odd.

“Closure” is such a word,

And I want none of it.

Meaningless and odd is what my life

Had itself become,

With the repetitious on-off-on-off

Of a relationship that kept bruising itself.

 

So now, instead, I have acceptance.

I accept what has happened as part of

The great Why.

 

That I have a purpose, I doubt not.

What that purpose is, I know not.

But none of it, I believe, involves him.

He has a purpose of his own

That doesn’t involve me.

So be it.

I can accept this and move forward.

 

The big strings have been cut by sorrow,

By mistakes that cannot be unmade.

All that remains is a thread or two

To remind me that even the greatest sadness

Has to have once lived in light as something joyful

For there to be contrast enough with the dark thing

It has become.

Why? Simple –

No contrast, no meaning.

And what is now my sadness in the form of a memory

Most certainly had, has, and always will have

Meaning.

 

I am at last and again

Moving with the flow of life’s crazy traffic.

And for the moment, I need no one

In the passenger seat.

Imprint

Publication Date: 06-05-2012

All Rights Reserved

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