When we Swam in Sunshine

(for R, J.)

Last night, across the miles, she took me there.
On the spiritual plane, we transcended form

we passed through the world of body on a beam of silvery light
flew over that cove of water,
where we were once mermaid and merman together

and I embraced you, trembling.
We did not need words to know what had to be completed.

Where we could not be together physically, our bodies took form in another way
we each held the other’s body in our arms and rocked together, out there, in the place that has no name, the formless place.

Facilitated by this medium- this witchy woman- who was embarrassed to be there, seeing what she was seeing
she held the space for us and we came together.

I came to you, waiting for me there, as if you had called me; and you entered me so easily and we were joined in a holy communion,
your body inside me, the way it never was.

Spiritual synergy, as one we became what was meant by the world, in that sunny cove
under a vast blue sky in the green water, waist-deep; slippery rocks under our feet and
the rocks towering above us on either side were our spirit guides, holding us in that sacred space.

What we could not let ourselves have, we had.

Our spirit-hearts joined and our bodies melted into each other in that warm soup, that water which was formless, that warm/cool place

Which is before time, before birth, and after everything.

Now I know that I will always have you,
even though I cannot have you.

She's trying

She’s trying

Trying not let the shoulds get in the way of her heart’s truthful singing.
Trying not to walk away when the walking away is the hardest thing, but perhaps the most right thing. 
Maybe the staying is the hardest thing and the walking away will be easy.
She’s not fooled by this line of thinking. It will be hard. No way around that. But sometimes the hard way is the right way. 

She’s trying to be sorry that she found a new, better way to love and be loved. 
But she is not sorry. Her heart is singing now. She can’t quiet that song.

No, scratch that. She is sorry. More sorry than he will know, because his hurt will scream and it will drown out the apology that she feels he deserves. 
It will be the thing that overtakes the conversation and it will be the thing that gets thrown back

In her heart. In her face. She is afraid of the hurt that she will cause and she is afraid of 
her heart singing true. She is afraid to let herself be loved in the new way, although she already is, and it feels so amazing and light, like 1000 angelic voices singing in her soul. 

She is fearful to walk into the new light when she knows that the old habits are the thing 
that are breaking them. She is so afraid to let go of the past. Of the future that never was.

But she knows now that it is the right thing. She just keeps writing it down and then she can’t say it to him. She tries and then she can’t hurt him. Only she knows now that she is hurting him anyway.

Tonight she needs to say it. They have an appointment to talk about things. 
He thinks they are going to talk and solve their problems. She thinks it will take years of her life to solve these problems and she doesn’t want to spent it that way. 

She doesn’t want to spend her life solving someone else. Or being somone’s problem to solve.

She looks at the pictures that he took, of the event they attended together. All of his pictures are of another her. She does not begrudge him the new happiness but it stings. It hurts like a hammer hitting her in the stomach, to see his beautiful pictures of this “her” who is not her. 

She thinks, he never looked at me like that. He never aimed his camera at me

Like that. 

His eyes never saw the beauty that I possess on the outside. She knows he saw her true beauty. The internal souls-shining beauty. But that was not enough.

Keys to unknown places

~Inspired by Taylor Mali's "Labeling Keys"~

Sundays he would get up
before the rest of us.
He’d go out when
everyone was sleeping
and return with a paper
(always with a paper)
and a brown bag of sweets from La Boulangerie
sweet-smelling buttery pastries
which he’d cut into sixths
with his red pocketknife.

Dad kept gold bars, wrapped in a black
bandana.
Stuck them up in the attic through a hole
in his closet.
He’d pull them out and tell us, don’t tell anyone
we have these- Do you know how much
they are worth? Gold is $300 an ounce.

He didn’t trust the value of the dollar but
In Gold We Trust.

There was a box-
I think it was an old Sucrets tin-
in one of dad’s drawers.
It contained keys of different shapes
and sizes. I’d take
it out when dad was at work and
study them.
Feel the cool metal in my
fingers
and try to
guess where the locks were
and what secrets dad may have had hidden
there.

Dad had a scar on his belly,
& sometimes I would sit on his lap
after he had taken a shower in the evening
and I’d trace my finger along
the smooth silvery line
just above his belt buckle.

“Why do you have this?”
I’d ask, (when what I’d meant was
“How did you get it?”)
And he would turn away momentarily
from the Mets game he’d been watching
with a look in his eyes that I
could not place at the time (but I now
recognize as Regret.)
And he’d say
“you don’t want to hear that story.”

End of subject.

Dad had a purple heart
and a box of keys to unknown places

And stories
That I did

Want
To
hear.

copyright 2012 Omy Keyes (all rights reserved)

Vulnerability in a poem

She presses her heart to mine,
Puts her hands on my soul
Puts her trust in me.
I am endowed with a responsibility
I have never felt before.
to keep my promises
to protect her.
I let myself forget that she is full of this fragility when she is comforting me.

She seems so strong to me,
I can’t forget she is also delicate
&              I                can’t                     break
her.

The tear falls to the sheet
stays there on top
like a pearl
reflecting the sun
Then soaks in leaving a small
wet spot
below my cheek.

I need to be strong for her.
Hold her
Comfort her.
Let her cry into my shoulder
too.

copyright 2012 Omy Keyes (all rights reserved)

Untitled, for the Muse

You are my heart, my soul, my truth,
my god, my goddess, my love,
my lover, my muse, my Mistress, my slave,
my my my my my Reverend.

How can you be so much to me?
How can you not?
It seems impossible that I ever didn't know you.

It seems we have been following this journey
from two opposite sides of a long string,
until finally we met each other. Doesn't it seem
to you that we were always meant to be in each other's arms?

my Love. It is for you. It is of you.
It is in you and around you and it surrounds you
at all times like a bright cloud.
Like the shower water that ran over my body
in Hawaii and embodied your love for me.
Like the jets of the tub that became your hands
for me. You are my water, my life-giving liquid,
my need. My ocean. My Mer.
I am your air, your clouds, your oxygen.
I breathe you and you breathe me.

copyright 2012 Omy Keyes (all rights reserved)

Sleeping (#9 out of 100)

100 prompts in 100 days or less

She’s sick. Shivering in bed beside me. This is when it moves beyond
“the honeymoon” into Real Life. It’s not the 1st fight, it’s the first flu.
I can’t sleep, so I wrap another blanket over her, wrap my body around her for more warmth, even though she is so hot it’s making me sweat.
The light from the partially open curtains seeps into the room and I check the clock.
1:00 a.m. She shakes. Her head is sweaty.
I wish there was something more I could do for her than
just lay on top of her, shaking my head, smoothing the hair away from her clammy forehead.
She will not remember this in the morning, and I prepare myself to sleep again, rolling over to my other side, stare at the blank wall. Don’t sleep.

In the morning I wake and ready the kids for school. She told me she will call in to work, which meant that I got to stay in bed another half-hour, since I did not have to drive her to her office.
Her start time is 7:00 and that means I always lose a little sleep when she stays over because we set the alarms for 5:15 and 5:30 respectively.

Last night I worried for her. Slept so poorly next to her shivering/sweaty body. Wished I could take this away from her. But I know I cannot take away her illness no matter how many vitamin pills I give her to swallow or how many cups of tea I make. This is the part of love that is hard. Loving and giving even when you know what you are giving and doing isn’t having any physical effect.

It is worth it though, knowing that it may make her feel a bit better emotionally, to be taken care of. She keeps telling me that I am so good to her, when I run her a bath in the morning and sit with her, talking softly and pouring water over her naked thighs, giving her a soft pillow to lay her head on.

I drink my juice in the morning, make coffee, worry for her. Take the boy to school. Go to work and worry some more. Hope that she is feeling better. Wish I had gotten a little more sleep, my eyes are dry and burning. I wonder if her kiss of this morning will give me what she has, or if I already have it since we were kissing the day she came down with the fever.

It doesn’t matter. I know she will take care of me like I took care of her. She will get the boys ready for school. She will bring me juice and run me a bath. We take turns taking care of each other. This. This is the love that I feel when it moves beyond the honeymoon into the light of daily life, with all its struggles.

copyright 2012 Omy Keyes (all rights reserved)
 

Strange Bodies (#3 of 100)

100 prompts on 100 days or less

Her.
Her body.
In my bed.
Actually in the morning when i wake in the dark she is not there
although we had gone to bed together
the night before.
I know she is in the next room &
I go to her,
find her lying on top of crumpled sheets,
her arm thrown up over her head like a small child-
her body exposed, clothed in only
a small pair of black and white striped
bikini underwear.
I climb in with her, my body
pressing into hers in the small bed,
the room is still dark and she curls into me, with
the relaxed sigh
I know so well and the soft
purr of a cat. her skin so soft
on mine, she throws her leg gently
over my hip and i relax completely,
though I have no pillow for my head I do not care.
She is my pillow.
Her body, at once strange and familiar. She is part of me now.

My hand cups her breast and
I settle in to watch the sun rise
over her skin.

copyright 2012 Omy Keyes (all rights reserved)