Pour red wine
Pour red wine and I’ll be fine
Share some bread
Share some bread before we’re dead
Talk all night
Talk all night we’ll be alright
I want you to know
I want you to know I could never go
Tag Archives: love
An Opportunity
Everything changed with what he saw. In that moment it was like a broken mirror was placed against his heart. The reflection wasn’t what he expected and he was pained by its revelation. There was dirt along with selfishness; however it was the need for love that broke his heart.
Rain gushed out of already overflowing drainpipes that ran down the brick wall of the building where he had just spent the last couple of nights. Cigarette butts and plastic bottles were among the litter that rode the torrent which rushed around his shoes and into a cracked sewer entrance a few meters away between the road and footpath. As he ran towards the subway station he decided he wouldn’t let this weather deter him, it was the last night in this city and he had made plans.
He felt weak as he reflected on what he saw. Not just what he saw with his eyes, but his intentions that brought him to that place. He wondered if he was partly to blame.
The streetlights had lit up the roadside well before the sun had gone down. There was plenty of natural light to guide him out of the station and into some of the smaller city streets. Street vendors lined the entrance ways to the narrow paths that separated the large mono colored city blocks. Water was running off their canvas coverings with the sounds of steam sizzling from the drops that found a path to the hot plates with frying chicken, rice dishes and other snacks. As he looked around he felt his senses heighted, the smell, the view, as well as the sense of being completely carefree.
All he could feel now was a strange sense of love, a sad love, not traditional, more like compassion. Like the way God must feel when he sees our secret hurts. He didn’t set out with this love and he never intended to display it. He felt guilty. The night was for taking an opportunity that was often associated with love but in this situation really isn’t.
He paced through the alley. Quick enough to try and make time, but not too quick as to kick up water onto his clothes and wet his shoes more than they already were. He considered this event to be the perfect way to cap off a good holiday, and was pleased he made friends who introduced other friends who, well, led to this evening. He was brimming with self-confidence when he approached the building, and while walking had been running through smart ways to make a good first impression. He was fairly sure it would be a successful night, considering the conversations he’d had and the photos he’d seen.
True love will set you free and he knew he wasn’t there to offer any.
As she opened the door he liked the low cut dress she was wearing and knew things were looking good for him. She stretched out her arm to greet him. It was here he suddenly acquired those eyes of God. Everything changed with what he saw. In that moment it was like a broken mirror was placed against his heart. The reflection wasn’t what he expected and he was pained by its revelation. In it there was dirt along with selfishness; however it was a new sense of the need for love that broke his heart. Her open weakness and evident cry for love was written with black stitching that held together the fresh wounds seen on her wrist. “Don’t worry about that, I’m fine,” she looked at him. “Are you going to come in or just stand in the rain?” He didn’t move.
True love would set her free and he knew he wasn’t there to offer any.
The Speed of Summer
The last of their summer arrived and the world and its wonders felt distant. Like warmth leaving their season’s skin to question if they were ever in the sun at all. Pink clouds that consisted barely a breath wandered carelessly towards the sea and slowly dissipated, leaving an open blue horizon cut with white jet streams from far passing planes. As they walked their hands glided across grass and flower stems, gently making a cupping movement when contact came upon petals. This field was a place held close to him, a reality of an old dream. To her it was more ideal; a place she dreamed existed and hadn’t realized it had blossomed for many seasons before she imagined it.
The field was beside a hill with an old Spanish fort built atop that looked out over the ocean and had presumably been an outpost for troops keeping watch of sea and land. The fort was in ruins, plaster broken on walls revealing stone brick. The outer wall was close to eight meters high and easy to climb in sections where it had eroded. Olive trees lined the perimeter between the fort and the field although not in a neat-planted order but a couple here and there as if olives had been thrown from the wall and took to soil in that way. The field itself was long unmaintained and nature joyfully repossessed it.
Saying nothing they instead stood looking past the olive trees and fort to the sea. The late afternoon brought a golden hue that spread itself out across the field and leaned against the fort wall like a blanket set out by the sun before evening’s arrival. By the fingertips he held her hand, not quite holding firm or letting go. She wanted him to stay longer in the field with her, but not like this. He fought with his mind. As long as he could remember he fought for her. If life is a puzzle then maybe love is a dance and he tried to put the steps together in his mind. She saw his distraction and without speaking to it directly walked a few steps from him and picked flowers. He glanced toward her and noticed a flower tucked in her hair above her ear. Facing away from him, she looked down past the field across a small green plain and toward the hills, which seemed to grow with definition in the afternoon light. He stared back towards the sea with thoughts that stretched beyond it.
He had nothing to offer her here and she could not come with him. The field was their joy and sorrow, the convergence and breaking of desire and reality. Their field dreams cannot last. He sat in the grass. First with his arms out and eyes shut and when he opened his eyes he looked again to the sea and placed his arms around his legs his left hand on top of his right, toes pointed to the horizon. She came and knelt behind him, her knees and feet in grass. She loved him and he loved her. The last of summer and their parting came like the split in the seasons. Leaning forward she put both arms around him, her left arm over his shoulder and her right under his arm, both hands meeting over his chest. “If you are planning on leaving, please don’t take long to do so”.
allprosenocons 