Feelings

To feel anything is too dangerous
so I sit numb, alone.

A Happy Birthday - Ted Kooser

This evening, I sat by an open window
and read till the light was gone and the book
was no more than a part of the darkness.
I could easily have switched on a lamp,
but I wanted to ride this day down into night,
to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page
with the pale gray ghost of my hand.

I just turned 21. I've come a long way but still have so far to go!

Undefined Relationships

This misunderstanding feels like an ending
and the beginning we once had is now
only a memory. My mind reads the words
you wrote and remembers the things you spoke
and I have to wonder, "What is love".
You said you knew me but how can that be
when I did not even know myself.

I tried to define love but my mind
responded with "no definition available".
I tried to define you and I
but there was no vision and without
vision the people perish, we as a thing,
something, any thing become nothing.
We've been diminished into a state
of "I don't know".

And this goes on and on and on and on
but I've stopped believing
and I do not know what this feeling is.
I wanted to need you but I didn't
and somehow that is classified as
"too much ambition", at least, for
a woman. But I'm not even sorry that I
did not apologize about my desire
to carpe diem, seize the day,
because in the same way, I seized you.

Do you remember when you were added
as an extension to my heart?
It started to beat at an unusual pace
and if we stood face to face
there was an energy created between us.

I never claimed to know chemistry
but this formula of you plus me,
worked. I had hoped that this
combustion would last despite the
facts that we are so different.

But it didn't. So there you are minus
me and I am still wondering about definitions.
The only thing I am certain of is misunderstandings.

Walking Away

I count myself lucky to have known the way that you walk.
I heard the clump of your shoe approaching and I knew
there would be no restraint. I have no complaint,
not even now. But there exists a relief in the fading of your shoes.

Breathing

You have taken my breath away
with the words you say,
but I call that murder.
Since when is the weakening
of my life counted as success.
You have taken my breath away.
I struggle for oxygen and I am drained
of the inspiration you once gave.
You have taken my breath away,
like being punched in the stomach,
like being allergic to a scent, this scent
that some call relationships.
You have taken my breath away,
like my throat closing up
and the air is being released through
my fingertips as they tingle.
This is what death feels like.
In my own way of looking away
I am asking for someone to show
me how to inhale, exhale, again.
But there is no interest in my breathing.