How do you teach your heart to fall in love again?

it seems that each one after him has been an imposter...that in some ways i am 'replacing' him with them. they lay there...next to me...in his spot...and they play the role well....their impersonations of someone i could love are flawless....oscar winning performances

it's not that i think about him so specifically..in fact, he never really occurs to me until moments like now...where i am alone with myself for awhile and i can ponder what it is that i am truly feeling.....and i realize, it's not even him that i'm mourning or feeling is being shadowed...but really just my ability to allow anything like him to ever exist in my heart again.

the motions are easy...the sweet kisses are still cherished...the carressing hands are still felt and appreciated...the connected looks are real...it's real and i feel it....but i don't know that it can ever be what we had again...

how do i express this, and accept this, and have this be ok? or...how do i get that back?

am i making sense here?

I will...

A glimpse into my life is startling for a minute...the constant overdrive.
My inability to take a breath and step back from myself is exhausting. I'm in a perpetual stumbling tumble...careening out of control down a hill of confusion...searching for something to stop my reckless fall...something to be there to halt this insanity that keeps growing...the building crescendo making my body tremble and rock in a dissonant rhythm.

But all you hear is silence.

Somewhere in amidst all of this I am conscious of my own responsibility to this....but the helplessness...the feeling that it's just grown to be 'too much' is smothering the blaze and the need for it all to halt.

One person...another...and yet another...all pulled into the tangled web of my own delirious reality.
He doesn't see me because he's too worried about himself
He doesn't care because I'm expendable like a piece of tissue paper he uses several times a day
To him...I'm just a fuck
To him....the love of his life that he'll just never be able to have because if I always stay 10 feet away maybe he can preserve my angelic halo

My ex-husband: The epitome of destruction and tragic ruin
The way that he acts innocent to the pain that I am in...pointing at me with a confused expression as I writhe on the floor, convulsing. It doesn't even occur to him to slip his hand beneath my head as it cracks repeatedly against the cement floor....he just stands and watches in disbelief.
His role in this is minor, in the scheme of things...but in this moment of admission I find him severely to blame for pushing me over the edge.
His silence in my screaming tumble...his looks of disbelief at how I react to his transgressions...his expectation of me to roll over, presenting a fresh side to beat...and most importantly, the same expectation of myself that was repeatedly fulfilled.

And within this internal war I realize there is nothing external on which to rely to stop all of this. There are no hands reaching between the cracks to pull me back...out.

Perhaps, somewhere along the line, I will:

unfinished

We are dancing ten feet off the ground
Laughing and tossing our hair around
The leaves are changing, falling, swirling at our feet. A sea of gold, rustling softly like whispered breath through a dewy haze.

Your smile clears this cluttered space
between my heart and yours.

pro-gress

if yesterday knew about today
the moment may have passed
without caution
the screen door closed
sun setting up for dawn

if your hands melted
against the glass, raised impressions
i would have pressed my body into it
imagining the cool return of the glass
was your dewy flesh, freshly showered

if the hollow echo of footsteps
didn't remind me of this emptiness
i might not have paused to feel
the monotony of this experience
within the pattern of likeness that
keeps me sane

you'd fill up this space
your presence would smooth the surface
the edges would be removed
replaced with effervescent laughter
jubilant tones trickling down the drains

and the morning's return to life
wouldn't pass, unsuspectingly modest
as it creeps onto my forehead
like wandering wisps of hair, misplaced
in the innocence of our sleepy tumble

if you knew this were possible
you would have waited to hold my hand
your eagerness for my body waiting with a knowingness
aging like wine, collecting a dust made up of memories

un-

it seems as though it would be simple
love
everything else seems so right
but in all that i have
there is nothing at all

full to the brim with compassion
heart as big as the sun
ready to hold and be held
and maybe that's it
i'm the only one waiting for it

the other shoe is half way dropped
pronated in its descent to the side of the bed
clanging and banging with indecency
one time, that's all you get

i don't have to prove myself to anyone
because i know what this is again
i know where this was, where it's going
it's been there before

stuck in the cycle of tenacious oblivion
merry merry merry
go round

damaged goods

a flash of our fate
reflected in the mirrored glass
staring back at me
i saw myself through my own eyes, and yours
mirror upon mirror upon mirror
look away

my shoulders are back, chin slightly lifted
my arms aren't visable but you see my fists, ready
braced for combat, battered and bloodied
drip drip drip onto the sandy concrete

when i open my mouth you hear screams
you cover your ears with invisible muffs, reflexive
repulsed by my putrid breath
dead on the inside
clawing clawing clawing at the packed earth, get out

then we're snapped back into this moment
a lingering look about to pass
and we seem to understand what hasn't been
walking away, you never even said hello

vora city

there he is, on the corner
of justus post and main
so you
put your hands in your pockets
you can't spare the change
or the shift in your consciousness
of what it might mean, to participate
in the complexity of this situation

it will be wrong
until you find your reference
in the search engine of your memory
generating the most relevant answer
evidence to back-up the truth

but you know already
the way, you hold your mouth
when you consider the next step
how it all will fall
dribbling into the styrofoam cup
swirling into the chocolate recess of his eyes

as you shift your awareness
to the conversion tables
where you sense your two cents
mean more than a slice of lemon
on the lip of your sparkling water
acutely aware that the bedsheet
on his shoulder is more than a separation
between a foam surface and goose feathers
but a cloak of protection, superman's donation
to the empty hand of the world