PASSING FOR NORMAL

She is not a melody but a scream ...
A scream of desire of euphoria of rage of gut wrenching pain.
A scream of disbelief of surrender of loneliness of confusion …
she was not a melody to be repeated when he lost his rhythm,
she was a knot in his throat when he decided to cry …

In the night, in the crowd, in the distance, he saw her …
He saw the shine in her eyes,
the cryptic signs in her looks,
cheated him, defeated him, brought him to life …
like an affair,
like the memory of her voice,
like it was yesterday …
and she took him away,
she took him back, to where it all began,
she summoned his past on command, yet again …
to the day she decided to love him …
weak and trembling,
her hair hiding her shoulders,
her twisted wrist hiding her eyes …
to the day he decided to love her,
to leave her, to daunt her,
to haunt her pieces of the moon on her wrist …
A piece of him on her wrist …
circles of crystals on her wrist …

To where it all began
To walks with no end,
to the Sundays,
to cities that haunted them
and books that shaped their life together
and shaped their history apart,
to her fits and breakdowns and falls at night falls,
to his anxiety in the morning that numbed him senseless,
that went away at the sight of her face,
as she smiled to him with all the tenderness
and the playfulness she possessed,
to restlessness that dissipated as she let him be heard,
to strokes of luck and misfortune
strokes of his fingers on her door,
strokes of music he wrote for her,
to the feeling of being shared
and understood, no matter what.

In the crowd,
in the distance,
she tucked her hair under her collar,
she always did that on a rainy day …
she always complained about the rain …
she was leaving …
she could never stand still …
she always ran away …
she was evasive explosive frustrating arrhythmic
like a scream
like a dream …
she always came back, to start again,
she came back in the night
unannounced unplanned invasive chaotic
like a scream,
like he had prayed in a dream …
strokes on his door, knocks on his soul …
he always took her back …
like it was destined …
silent vows, bitter taste of surrender
to her malice to her obnoxious certitude,
like a hypnotic need, like a fact,
like the pain she was in …
like the pain she was …

She always ran away …
only to come back …
Except for that night …
a life ago …
The candles were still lit …
she vanished in the night …
he had imagined her …
far away,
drinking and dancing and loving and laughing
without him,
he had imagined how she looked into the night
for him,
how she looked younger and looked older,
how she stopped eating for days,
how she stopped sleeping night after night,
how she stopped crying stopped hurting and stopped writing.
Night after night,
he had imagined her in peace and it confused him.
Much worse,
he imagined her not needing him anymore and it killed him …
life had quieted down for him …
and it was deafening …

She had her coat on,
she was ready to leave somewhere,
she pushed her hair slowly …
slowly enough for him to see the circles on her wrist …
and she smiled …

He rushed home,
played their song on repeat,
sprayed the scent that she loves in the air
and left the door unlocked …

she never came home that night …

My darling you ....
like the circles that i find .. in the windmills of my mind ...
like the circles on my wrist,
like the vows i recited to always be yours,
the vows that repeated like the echo of my time
i always find you,
i always have you with me..
saving me each day at a time
wiping my tears
and holding my shattered wrist..