Give Thanks

Holidays are times for large families to get together and just ”be” together. They cook and talk about life and love, yesterday, today, and their hopes for tomorrow. For others, holidays are empty. There are no meals filled with turkey and dressing, family and friends, or love and laughter. Some people are surrounded by others and still feel alone. Everyone finds some way to give thanks. Today, I give thanks for Penny Umbers and Mark Bethel. Their story will soon be told through Story Terrace in the book ”Thirty-Nine Years in the Wilderness”, and it is a testament their journey, their connection, and proving it’s never too late to find your person.

Awaiting

Sometimes, it isn’t enough for her to know she isn’t alone in the world. There are times she yearns to see another reality. Traveling though life and time makes her wonder. Will this time or this day will be the day? Gripping the steering wheel she can feel her heart break as she stares at the road ahead. The memories flooding her eyes, rolling down her cheeks- are they enough. Sometimes awaiting just has to be.

Sands of Life ~

No matter how much time unfolds, love remains the driving force for the breath of each tomorrow. Yesterday gets lost in the sands of life, but you still are the beat in my heart, the sounds in my mind, and the touch I will never forget. Hold tight to the sands of time! I’ll never believe that’s all we had.

Fragments of the Heart

Life is hard. I understand not every person who comes into our lives are meant to stay. At times, we want more, and we cling to the hourglass, as the sands of each fragment are washed away by my tears. Whether it is my tortured mind, fragmented by moments and memories, or the ache of my body, replaying every tender caress. My mind, body, and soul fragmented by the feelings within, yearn to interlace our fingers with each other. The warmth of your hand, molded into mine and made just for me; how it haunts me, as mine lies empty, my arms lie empty, and body craves to feel your breath on my neck once again.

Day or night, I still feel your body pressed against mine in a loving embrace. I read the words etched on paper, and I hear the songs with hidden messages within. Maybe, it’s only the imagination that sees you- a glimpse of your shadow- as words are silenced in my throat, and I catch my breath as I look back. Was it you, or was it just me, again.

There are times when my brain rebels and says, “No more will you cling to hope, these memories are banished.” My body screams against it, and within the fire slowly dies in this cruel reality. Yes, there’s a reason for everything. It’s just that life is hard enough without the pain of this fragmented heart. Life is so hard, without you.

The One Who…

We will meet many people in our lifetimes. Each person you meet will serve some purpose, but not all of them will be positive. Each person is neatly tucked away with a label of our choosing. Some will be friends, some enemies, some acquaintances, and some we will choose to remain as strangers. Some will be a combination of each of these people, and we classify them as “people I know.” Each of these people will bring something or many things to your life. Perhaps it is confidence, laughter, shame, disappointment, or anger, but whatever they bring with them, they also leave something behind for you.  Regardless, they have each served a purpose or provided a lesson for you to hold. And you know these people are meant to be “people I know” for you are more comfortable with the memories, than the people.

There will be one person who you find who seems to be a four-leaf clover. This person may be that someone for whom you never looked. You just happened upon them, and no matter how much you long to, need to, or want to leave them as a stranger? Leaving them behind is as if you are losing a piece of you – your heart, your life, your light, and your soul. This person will be beautiful, even on their worst days. They will be stern and scolding at times, but you understand that they are only doing so in love. Everything about that person is as familiar to you as if you had known them your whole life. This person will feel they have no place in the world. They will feel cast aside, like an old comfortable blanket. Even on their worst day, your heart is full, and you only wish they could see themselves through your eyes. And no matter how many times you tell them you love them, you show them in the things you do; they still wonder “why me”? Sometimes it is all you can do to like them. For this is the person, you will feel in your heart every day of your life. This person makes you strong when you are vulnerable. This person you smell, feel, and long for when you are sad or hurt. This person you do not want to be without today, tonight or tomorrow.  Above all, this is the one person with whom you want to be weak.

 

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Poetry by adrian michael / @adrianmichaelgreen

 

We Are One

We call them partners, lost loves, a part of the past not gone from our heart; for some, this is merely a break-up. It is a means to an end that brings about the room in our lives for the person to whom we were “meant” to be. These people come along once in a lifetime. They are our “Sleepless in Seattle,” our “The Notebook,” our  “You’ve Got Mail” kind of love. Enter one person into your life who touches a part of you, not even you feel you knew you had.

You may have spent days, weeks, months, or years looking for that someone to be your other half. The other person who comes into your life and makes the two of you, a couple. Then, there are our soul mates. These people are not your ultimate desire. The soul mate is much broader than the physical. This person does not make you forget your life from before you met them but will change the way your saw life – it is as if life is more meaningful now. You consider the relationships before, and although, you have shared chemistry with others, it’s just no longer there, once your soulmate arrives. The term soul is what changes with your mate. You can have a mate who loves you, cares for you, and provides you with comfort. Your soul mate offers: 1) unconditional love, 2) brings a sense of peace to your world when you feel out of sorts, 3) supports your dreams even if they change, 4) provide you with nurturing and presence, 5) prepares your heart to live in contentment or full of grace, 6) the soul mate makes you a better person, 7) the soul mate encourages you to do right by you, by them, and by others, and most important, 8) the soul mate feels connected to you ~ they are known to you.  There is no greater love than when two soul mates meet. The passion of love found is one love that has been there all along. It’s as if you are waking up from a dream; that dream being the life you had before. The life where a couple or a mate from the past, seems to be a stranger at times. Once two people come together, they become a couple. Once two soul mates come together, they become one person, whole once again.

Perhaps we will all meet the one who confirms we are not alone in this world. We carry love in our hearts, our thoughts, our very souls. We know this person was not meant to be absent from our lives because once is just enough to remember every detail of every encounter you had with this person. From the moment you met, your heart began to beat, not as two lub-dubs, but as one. It’s so hard to explain how this feels, but the part that defies explanation is why? Why would we meet someone who would not be part of our lives? Why would a soulmate enter your life, make it worth living, and then exit, as if part of a game? Love is not a revolving door, but your heart will seek many turns, love many people; until you realize, “what is true love?” It’s a combination of so many things ~ “I love you,” “I miss you,” “I have been looking for you all of my life”; most certain of all is when the feelings for you, turn to us. Once those feelings turn to we, the two of you and I, will have become one.

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Musically Inclined

Always enjoyed listening to music, and some days it’s all I can do to find you still. New music doesn’t interest me as old songs do. Maybe it’s a fast song with a catchy beat that moves me to the edge of my seat; you would say, “It scares you.”  Perhaps, it’s slow and melancholy; enough to escape the sadness, but not enough to fill the emptiness. The songs of James Taylor that leave you breathless and spent. There are days I see you smile and others, and I hear you laugh. Some remind me of the worry in your eyes,  while sometimes, I wish I could feel you near, even though you are miles away. They say, “Music is the voice of the soul, and it can move you in ways mere words cannot.” Music moves me, but until it drives me back into your arms, where love seeps through my skin, warms my blood, and bonds to the soul in me? I can honestly say, I get through the day with words; although, I have lost my voice. Regardless of the music that plays, I have misplaced the very part of me that was at one time, musically inclined. And all that’s left are the words I write when I can’t get you out of my head.

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The One

Often we meet someone and ask, “Is this the “one”?Are you the “one”? We ourselves don’t even know what it means. Yet, we seek it. While we do, people come into our lives, show us attention, and we know we have fallen.

We don’t seek the “one”, but we stumble upon them. They weren’t dropped into our lives, just suddenly, they are there. We can go for days and not want to talk to anyone, but we need to tell them so much. We can stay in our little closet of the world, but something will happen and your two worlds will collide. Afterwards, not a day will pass that either of you will be able to let those feelings go. From the moment your hands meet and your fingers are gently interwoven; so will your souls.

You were not the first person to hold their hand, but they will be the only “one” to touch your soul, before your lips or your bodies meet. And that is a feeling you will never forget.

@mcpoems3

Still

At some point, people stop looking for love. The waiting for those moments of which fairytales are made, stops. Life is simple – just be present. Every day, as routine as life can get, until this person arrives; this someone, so familiar. No, it’s not a love at first sight. It’s a feeling of coming home. Everything, the touch, the warmth of the skin, the way the lips form a smirk, before the mouth chases that smile out of hiding. It’s the way the hand moves to fit perfectly, as if molded for that exact moment. It’s magic, right? No, magic is spontaneous, but this- this is not a deja vu moment. This is a tranquil place, where a sense of calmness feels the mind and heart with the affirmation that every road not taken was shrouded in meant to be.

Thoughts of yesterday encouraged wondering if, when, or why things happen as they do. Not knowing is painfully sobering and it makes every memory so lucid. Perhaps, it was an illusion of time? Wrapped in those arms was a place time didn’t exist. Nothing mattered at any moment- not today, yesterday, or tomorrow. Nothing other than being present with you. I’ve never felt so alive. Nothing could restrain my heart, nor could it be released- not even by time.

The peculiarities of time occur every day- each day it’s getting there early or running late. There’s something about the exact moment when this beautiful soul comes along; time ceases to matter. The hands of time echo loudly now, and the days and nights have become haunted by holding on to yesterday. And the only feeling left in this heart is hope. Perhaps, you felt it too? I pray if you didn’t, you will; you feel a love so great that no amount of time could ever be enough, but you’d give the last five minutes of your life holding on to whatever was offered. I pray when you awake with the timekeeper, you pause, and feel. After you have slipped on your watch, and make the drive to work, you wrap your hand around your coffee cup, and you feel it’s warmth. I hope it brings peace -quietness I know you need so much in your world. Most of all though, I pray you feel, me – still.

Fall

Moments suspended in time; how they linger in nature’s delicate hands. I often marvel at the simple reminders I encounter. From the discovery of conversations, holding your hand, or the warmth of your body as you held me close – all such little things that change like the seasons. From a Spring day in May, when meeting you felt oddly familiar. Summer welcomed every minute through each other’s eyes. What a magical place to be!

Why is it always something about the Fall? As time’s symbol of change, I should be prepared for it. The colors on the leaves, the falling through the air, so delicately touching the ground; and you drifting further away. Like looking through memories of time, photos remind me of a place where time stood still. You must travel back sometimes to revisit?

I suppose I stay in the cold Decembers of the year. There I feel the summer warmth, bask in the awe of Spring, and feel the autumn fall like rain, I still sense the cold, and I shudder. The cold rain falls and I remember that change was the only option we had. Throughout the days of tears and the feeling of my heart being torn into pieces; I still long for a harvest moon, the touch of your hand, and your smile.

I wonder, will visit me in my dreams tonight? Will I feel nature’s warmth, as the sun peeks through the clouds like Spring? Will the crispness of Winter freeze our hearts as it pushes the winds of change? Perhaps, the Summer sun will warm me as your embrace did; or it could just be the Fall. The rains of time could return and remind me of yesterday, and the tomorrow that misses us every day.

Do you feel the chill, as I do? The coldness that surrounds you and the warmth of my body in your arms stir the memories? And once again, when Autumn is upon us, my tears fall and I miss you. And for me, every rain of every season brings another day for me to remember the fall.