Thou Shall Not...

She said what she wanted to say.  Went where she wanted to go.  Moving unconstrained with airs of simplicity, even though no one understood that.  Few could comprehend her motivations, probably because they were pure or mostly so.  Not everyone can handle freedom, she thought.  Most just want the absence of responsibility.  For freedom you must be willing to stand naked in your life, not letting it matter what the others might say.  She wanted to be and let be.  To embrace that which caught her attention and let go when it no longer served her heart.  She lived all of this with the same ease that the moon turns the tide.

Yet, you remain.  A disruption to the ocean.   She still didn't know how to handle you.  At times wishing you dead, so that the dream of you would be only that.  When she awoke, drenched from wrestling the lover ghost of you, it might bring her to weep but at least it would no longer be the impossible waking hope.

In the light, she could remember who she was, know confidence, walk with purpose.  Not wanting anyone, including you, to know the width and depth of her affection.  When he looked at her, she saw him in equal measures.  Hiding was not possible, their souls instantly, electrically entwined with each encounter.  That smile around his lips, eyes never losing their trace.  Piercing through to the whispers of her unveiled, raw, abandoned self that no one else seemed to see.

It is not easy to dissuade the heart.  God does not care either way.

Morning Coffee

She said it was the best cup of coffee she'd had since their trip to California.  She'd loved it there.  The wind in her hair from the ocean and the foggy nights filling up all of the space between them.  Dropping temperatures that made them huddle for warmth and appreciate those jeans like it was November, when in fact it was just another July in San Francisco.  The sound of trolley bells outside the hotel window and the hot taste of Thai food still on the tongue.

There is a difference you know between crying and weeping.  She said she'd learned it from personal experience.  And that if you were ever in a position to know the difference yourself, you should take it.  Weeping, she said comes from your soul.  It is like sap that flows from the roots of an ancient tree, moves through you with this fierce gentleness and makes you remember everything good that's befallen you, everything that holds you grounded.  All the people you've loved with your heart wide open.

She said she'd taken chances where others had fallen short, been afraid.  It helped, thinking this way.  Otherwise she was just a ponderous fool.