hisandhers’ blog

we are falling into the old cliches
that were always there, but we never knew
or maybe we did and we thought - hoped - love changed words
into something new
and we never felt like hope was thin
or that time was running out

and what's so special about going out
so we stayed in, until what we had turned into cliches;
your manipulations are beginning to wear thin
showing through to what we already knew
and underneath the lies, the truth seemed as if it could all be new
again but all along all we played at was nothing short of the words

almost made true- i'm growing tired of saying the same words
to try and appease you, to give you something out
of my heart when you only want something new
(no surprise there). the games were always part of the cliches
we tried to fool ourselves into believing (but we knew
that the blood in our hearts was already thin

like my love for you is thin)
it is a sliver in my palm, and everytime i close my fist, words
of pain spill out, but the blood is truth you never knew
i carried all this time. i want to hope that saying this out
loud will make it something more than the sum of the cliches
you always secretly thought i was. but you will say, i am nothing new

right now i wish that you could accept me in place of the new
fangled hopes and dreams. so many wishes that have been worn thin
by the time it took you to finally speak to me in more than a cliche,
to find any words
when now i have told you and it is all spilling out
and over into other people's lives when maybe you already knew

what i wanted to say: if all this turned out to be less than what we knew
at the start, love, but actually - all along - it was nothing new
at all. you were playing at loving me and now i am out
out of a job, out of a city, out of love, and thin
when i would much rather be in, in, in, surrounded by your words
that have already again become a cliche.

The city is my lover, feeding me words that are always new.
We always knew I would return here, so it never hurt when I went out
but now the cliche is a thread, unwound, and thin.

even when you taught me not to trust you

    Rain.

    Pain.

    Spain.

    Three words I could never separate, not in time nor space, for they are both one and the same to me now. I remember standing knee-deep in the waving fields of Al-Andalus, contemplating the sunset and the coming storm on the horizon. And you. I remember chasing you there, in my mind, after you left me way back when, in the springtime of our affair.
    Now, I looked upon a country I had never seen and the rain began to fall, first light, then heavily, and I held my breath. Waiting for the calm between the drops and standing on the thick sheets of rain, I almost slipped, I almost fell, I almost dropped. And with each drop, I felt a keen sense of appreciation, of remembrance, for your stare, the way your eyes would alight like candlelight in my hair, reflection off of the shimmer of skin so softly. I remember moonlight, twilight, and our bodies intertwined. I remember looking out your window, and wondering at the sublime. I remember a summer full of doubt, a fall filled with fear, and in between winter and spring, I could almost just picture holding you here[--or there].
    And I point. Water rolling, dripping, falling off of my nose. Cool, but not refreshing, and I want to hold you in your pose. I can see your outline cut into the air, like a shimmering reflection, a mirage, quivering in and out of focus like the tiny dancer I knew you always were. In private, you enchanted the very hair off of my head, made the hair of my skin quiver and dance into pinpricks of anticipation that I never thought were quite fair. Quite the opposite I hold your stare now, command a locked gaze to fight off the feeling of letting go, I hold out a hand to steady my pace, to steady my balance, even now knowing I will fall.
    I wanted to tell you all of those times, before you left, before we never got a chance to say our goodbyes, that I would never forget, never regret, never miss the sight of you. No. I would hold, cherish, and draw warmth from the fire you had started in me from the moment we first met, on the forgotten plains of Al-Andalus, waving to each other in the plain sunset.

---

love is you--
asphalt wet after rain
feels like the monsoon season is here again--
and it's spring we're singing of
gently speaking--
because growth is fragile
and must not be mishandled--
but tended, how does your garden grow?

---

people to understand--
and can you hear me now?

I'm speaking up--but apparently never loud enough
to get through to you

can you hear me now?
I'm loving the distance--
because it gives me the perfect chance
to daydream and fill in the gaps--
all of those awkward, empty silences between us
I eagerly, greedily fill up with something more--
always something more meaningful--
it doesn't have to be logical to make sense

---

you tell me to wake up--
to smell something--are you/can you cook?
and if you wrote your own book,
what would you call it--
the autobiography of your soul
I'd like to open it up and flip through it happenstance
and maybe I'd randomly end up where I needed to go--
I usually do

---

She doesn't want to be the one anymore,
as she thinks of a way to say the end,
who gives herself, placed full and round
a perfect circle,
to fit in the palm of his hand
like the story arcs he writes
on paper -
- even though he says it isn't them
(or maybe he says nothing
at all).
He has an idea in his mind of all
it's supposed to be, of their love
[on paper]
and she doesn't want to write that way anymore.

...

fighting like children unwilling to
let go
of a favorite bedtime story

...

So when she goes,
looking back,
in her mind she can already see:
there's never any gap in the narrative.
she's not the first to leave the forest,
go back,
and leave him waiting
for some one, hair as black as night lips as red as blood
to come along and pick up the pen again.

smoking cigarettes 'till they burn your fingertips
you laugh and shrug and flick the ash off
as if you were brushing your shoulders off
I watch it arc through the air like a fallen comet so
clear, fading fast into the dim light of another night come quickly to an end
without excitement, only average, to watch you spin and deposit your butt
on the ground like so much smut that can't be found in your head
you have your vice but keep it nice plain and clean and so dull average
like jack's beans but not magic I'm asking you please to hold me there...

I ask you, do you have any toothpaste with a smile
and you give me that "ugh" sort of look and role your eyes
but grudgingly (do I detect the hint of a smile?) enveloping your lips
(of course never in mine) you turn and search your room for the remedy to
my social faux pas...

your words don't make sense to me
to me anymore
slowly
                falling
                          the binding
what happened - unravelling

inside out
i want to turn myself
pulled taught and racing to figure out
out trying to find the balance
the equation to happiness
solution
               solve
                         the problem
of me.

trying too hard to see the pattern
without drawing in the lines
i can see without your lines
i'm brilliant
but still lost. monotone drones on in the background
television
distraction
i need it
                                        the pattern
                   want it.
? to tell me step one step two step step
when today's words don't matter anymore
meaningless shouting into the void
like drawing in the lines when the pictures already clear
sometimes it needs to be done
what needs to be said

won't say it.

---
and exer cise in futuli ty
or is it futurity?

"Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in."

Henry David Thoreau

---

round table
circled round with friends
faces I desperately try to remember
going around and around again

like a blurry picture
for the future when

I say goodbye

lone wolf hunting vicariously
watching the fish in the stream
and stealing from the bear
his sleep

at night I stalk
the farmer
the sheep
breaking the fold
the crease
in your life

our genes
don't fit us anymore
because we're growing up
and too old to run for
something

over the mountains and through the woods
we don't believe in
without proof of life
there are no more cowboys
on the scope of this range

I'm the target for the animals
to reel me in gasping for breath
I only manage to get the hook
and the crook yanks me off of the stage

they tell me
"dig deeper"
"furrow further"
your eyebrows to
"figure out"
what goes on in between

down and out
and in

swimming

up stream to old pictures
too faded to see myself

in

all I can offer you,
is an open hand,
yearning to be closed again...

---

they say that the Truth hurts,

and this feeling must come at a price,
otherwise, how would we know its true?

---

the Truth hurts—
and I feel the pain,
of this truth

sinking in my brain...

but this ship isn’t sinking,
only

to be 

Monday's child is fair of face,

Tuesday's child is full of grace,

Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,

Friday's child is loving and giving,

Saturday's child works hard for a living,

But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day
Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

November 23, 1985: Saturday

Sept, 1985: Wednesday

source: http://www25.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=November+23%2C+1985, http://www25.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=September+11+1985