On Love

Raising the Dead — Breathing Life Back into Our Love

A bridge between the islands

Other than perhaps once, I hadn’t written a “true” poem in ages. I consider it “true” when it’s written organically. The words flow freely and are not forced to fit. A reader knows a “true” poem when they read one.

Jack is stoic. Both his happy and sad face look incredibly similar. And now that he’s older and his muscles are weaker, it takes all the more effort to change his expressions. It’s exhausting. Try staying married to that for 13 years. Now, that’s “true.”

He is Japanese and has these little brown lash-less eyes. In our whole time together, I’ve seen real tears from one of those eyes slide down his face. Guardians of the Galaxy. Nebula and Drax. Again, see what I’m dealing with here?

What I’m getting at is that it takes a lot to make this man cry. Since my taking on the “official” job title of “author,” he is now subjected to hearing iteration after iteration of my stories. Various tenses, points of view, protagonists, opinions, facts, opinions on facts, and facts about opinions. He has defended himself countless times. I’ve had to tell him to simmer down many times. All that stress is bad for his heart. The one that’s 10 years older than mine.

So, it was a bit unusual for him to ask me to write a poem about us. It was momentous for him to cry when he read it. So, I’m sharing a bit of our resurrection story, as summed up in what I hope you read as a “true” poem. It has definitely been written that way.

The Shimmer

I knelt, as if in prayer, head in hands, clinging onto a faint glimmer, a shimmer, in the retreating light ahead.

I had been left along the wayside some time ago. It was unclear for how long. Time had stopped, it seemed. I was frozen and had lost my way. The directions somehow misread.

Engulfed only in me, tethered merely to my own existence, my sight limited to my own little world; I had looked. There was nothing on the other side.

This was meant to be. My necessity. My penance.

Somewhere, I got lost while trying to find my light. I must have dropped it in the high grass days ago. I searched frantically but couldn’t find it. I had been walking around barefoot ever since in the night.

The sun never shone here. Time was immeasurable. I had silently retreated into my own little world. A terrified foreigner of my own mind. We spoke different languages. So much to learn.

It seemed an eternity passed each day, yet the glimmer, the shimmer ahead stayed. Never strayed. Never faded away. Did not falter. Did not alter my stance that there might still be a chance.

I watched you saunter. Skipping stones across the pond. You glanced up at the sky. There might be a storm coming. I see you shrug. I hear your quiet, absent-minded hum. What is that tune?

It looks like you may have also been on this path for a while. Perhaps even longer than I. Your clothes are a bit worn. Tattered. Memories scattered.

I can feel you, even in the distance. In your own little world. An island. Just like me. In all your ugly. In all your beauty.

But we are not one. Days at which I stare but we do not share. Dreams onto which I try to grasp but just aren’t there. I can’t catch them before they disappear in the air. My vision is so limited in the dusk and I’m not in your bubble. I convince myself that you just haven’t found me yet.

Did you lose your light in the woods too?

It’s too dark to see what might be intrigue in your eyes. Maybe it’s the shimmer you cradle in your hands. Soft words promising me that glimmer onto which I cling. By a delicate string, strung by an orb.

Do you have something for me?

I’ve been collecting all the stones you leave behind by nightfall each day. I fill my pockets full. I’m heavy from their burden. Weighing me down. I could drown. Or it could ground me.

Me. Two letters. One syllable. An utterance. A powerful possession.

I found a conflicting light that had lay dormant, pervasive, intrusive, blaming, shaming, craving, wanting, needing, waiting.

Eyes closed tight, I hugged myself and made promises to myself that I would keep. The ones I had the courage to even make. Despite the fear all over my face.

Every ounce of my own little mind held onto that shimmer, that glimmer ahead. My pockets full of stones kept me on the path. Held me in place. I was supposed to be here.

At the end of the trail, still from a distance, I saw you, even with my failing sight, the failing light of the coming night, clearer than ever. You turned your head and looked at me. You clever, curious boy.

I know you.

You would share your last piece of cake. You would fold my shirts out of the laundry. You’d sit close to me to watch a movie. With captions. You rubbed my thumb absent-mindedly when you held my hand.

I could love me. Count on me. Even amuse me and hold me. But only you can bemuse and behold me.

Your lines were more defined, more refined than before. They spoke of knowledge and power I had just begun to see. Your eyes were different, the hint of a smile on your typically stoic face. You stood in place.

Do I have something for you?

The breeze shifted. Something is new. I can feel the electricity in the air. The crickets aren’t chirping. Something is there. Along the forgotten trail on which I kneel, pockets full of stones, the packed earth begins to tremble. Like me. I am scared. I look down.

The dirt at my knee churned. The earth had opened and extended a small amount of light in the now midnight. Enough to have learned the stones in my opened fists looked different from what I had imagined. The foreigners in my own little world began to commune.

Like the slow flash of a lightning streak, the fissure travels down the long, hard, repeatedly trodden path. I hear its hum. What is that tune? My ears burn. Is someone talking about me?

There is a hesitant moan as the fissure expands. Extends. Pushing itself towards the coaxing glimmer ahead. Like a load of paint at the tip of a paintbrush. That shimmer you hold in your hands. It hadn’t been tossed across the pond.

Below us, between us, lay a lighted path in the night. Above us, in us, there are messages within the pinpoints of light.

You had something for me in your hands. I had something for you with my broken demands. There was something on the other side. I was relieved that shimmer had held true to my stance. And answered my desperate cries for another chance to which I desperately clung. Our own little worlds began to shift. A bridge between the islands.

I stood up, weighed down by all your stones and held out my arms. Grounded. Strong and true. What will you do?

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