I wrote this poem and essay a long time ago. The poem is for my aunt and family.


To my Aunt and Family:


How do I say hello
After never forgiving
How do I say hello
After never forgetting
How, after never winning
But just always going on

With hello.

You said I was crazy
You said I was wrong
And I lived every day
Wondering how I belonged.

You, in your world of black and white
You, in your world, where you are always right
You, in your world, a world that was not mine,
Reigned.

In this world, you would go on right, and
In your eyes, I would always be wrong.
And you would have victory over a memory
That to me was so strong.


Don’t try to recreate memories
Don’t put someone down when they celebrate
Themselves.
Don’t you see then how you fly
And I’m left on the ground?


There’s a time in one’s life
When they have to find peace
And I finally found that
With my memories at ease.


Let me win.
Let me shine.
In a world where the sun went down and never rose again,
In a world that is finally mine.

November 15-20, 27,
December 13, 2002

He was the first person I loved since my mother had died. He was the first person who showed me love, by taking on my fears and feelings and telling me he couldn’t even handle some things, himself. He was the first person who could admit, to me, that he was human. He was the first person who showed care, who would stop what he was doing for me, and he wasn’t family. He wasn’t related. He was the first person who showed me with his eyes that I was allowed to fall and didn’t have to be so strong. He did all this with his eyes. It was the truest, most innocent yet magnetic, strong connection, in the way he’d look and the way he’d move. (ok Cindy, don’t get it back. Don’t get it back. Don’t see his eyes, and don’t see the toss of his shoulders and him lean back in the chair. Don’t sit in that seat again. Don’t be 23 again.) I knew I felt something for him. The warmth and strength he gave me was so nice. I felt ecstatic yet even frightened by it. I wasn’t making it up. It was real.

I said I didn’t think I’d be able to live if I couldn’t talk to him again, and I had too many people leave me. That’s what made all this so weird. All of a sudden, he did and said things that made no sense. The more people would say, “You were just (fill in with whatever demeaning verb phrase you can think of)” only made me think of my statement, “I don’t think I can live if I can’t talk to him again.” I didn’t believe it could be real. It was like somebody said, “You couldn’t live? Well, just watch yourself. You can do it.” Yeah, I did, but I didn’t want to. And as Celine Dion sings, “I’m alive.”

Sometimes, I’d feel that I had to prove something to people. Sometimes I’d think I had to prove my feelings to him and everyone else. Sometimes, I’d feel that if I achieved something great, I’d be able to have him back—allowed to have him back. I’d wonder if he knew what I was going through. I’d wonder if he ever wanted to rescue me from it, to feel the pain also. I felt “connected” to him through the pain I felt.

There were days I would awake and nothing made any sense to me. Nothing around me seemed real. I didn’t understand the past, and I sure didn’t understand the present. How could the future I hoped for and gripped onto ever happen if the present was true? He was nowhere to be found. Reality, sense and my faith clashed so many times, so many days.

I’d wonder if it was my fault in not being able to talk to him anymore. I’d wonder what I did wrong, if anything. When the family would say the things they’d say, I’d drop out of sight with them, wishing it would force him to call me. Stupid. I know. I was perpetually haunted by the last words he spoke to me, in a whisper, like he didn’t want anyone to hear, “See you later.” Why did he say it that way?
I knew that was a phrase people said that all the time, but not in a whisper. It reminded me of the Elton John and Leann Rimes song, “Written in the Stars,” came out, though I felt the crime spoken of was MINE. I felt like I had jinxed things. My oldest aunt would say, “You fell for him, but he didn’t fall for you,” in a grumpy way. The words of the song have rung loud and clear. I would feel I was drowning in it. Oddly, now, it’s a song of peace for me. It has become my answer.

“I am here to tell you, we can never meet again (ELTON)
Simple, really, isn’t it, a word or two and then
A lifetime of not knowing, where or how or why or when
You think of me or speak of me or wonder what befell
Someone that you once loved so long ago, so well

Never wonder what I feel as living shuffles by (LEANN)
You don’t have to ask me, and I need not reply.
Every moment of my life
From now until I die
I will think, or dream of you
And fail to understand
How a perfect love can be confounded out of hand

Is it written in the stars?
Are we paying for some crime (BOTH TOGETHER)
Is that all that we are good for
Just to stretch the mortal time
Is this God’s experiment
In which we have no say
In which we live in paradise
If only for a day.

Nothing can be altered
There is nothing to decide (ELTON)
No escape, no change of heart
Nor anyplace to hide

You are all I’ll ever want (LEANN)
But this I am denied
Sometimes, in my darkest thoughts, I wish I’d never learned
What it is to be in love and have that love returned

(TOGETHER, AGAIN, same words)

(GRAND CHORUS singing, Is it written in the stars, are we paying for some
crime…)

Is this God’s experiment, in which we have no say… (LEANN and ELTON) “


Stupid, I know. At the same time the ghost would live in my mind, I’d start to think, “What if he really was someone else and has this life that I can’t even imagine or bear to imagine?” What if my eyes lied? What if the essence of him just reduced down to that of a stranger? What if I was doing what everyone said I did? I didn’t believe I could have done those things. The Battle. As of late, my aunt said, “You chased him like a dog in heat.” It used to be that she’d say I made up stories or imagined things, which only made me wish more to know that my eyes to had seen the truth, but it wouldn’t have mattered if they had. She was intent on her belief. Those statements would open up the wound that was only barely healing. Maybe the line that says, “Sometimes, in my darkest thoughts, I wish I’d never learned what is to be in love and have that love returned” doesn’t even fit in my situation. Maybe everyone was right. Maybe my feelings weren’t returned, but I know what I saw, and I know what I felt. I know that if he was feeling something, too, and tried to approach it with me, I would have probably acted nervous and avoided it, but I felt. (I actually thought that was happening once.) I definitely Felt, and I sensed he did too, and that was awesome. Awesome. It was so awesome to actually think someone was feeling the exact thing I was feeling and at the same time. It was awesome. There are no other words to describe it.
A lot of the battle was the confusion—what I saw with my eyes and felt in my heart, and then, the outcome being completely the opposite. Part of getting through it---now, has been coming to a conclusion that my eyes did not lie, that he did all those things I said in the first paragraph. I’ve been able to finally accept every wonderful thing that happened without wondering what happened. I am now clear of most of the confusion. And, then it helped to realize that I’m getting older, children have gotten older (from ‘Landslide’ by Stevie Nicks), and if it was a dream--it had to go. I can’t run and play with fate anymore. I’m in its hands. And, lastly, realizing that he lost me—He lost me. I’m not wondering anymore, and I’m not longing anymore.

Oh, yeah. The Stevie Nicks song, which was released by The Dixie Chicks. ‘Landslide’--I was afraid of changing. I was so afraid of THIS. I did build my world around him and him around my dreams. I was afraid to really let go—so afraid.

If I was to have gained truth and insight and maturity through it all, I did. If when he spoke, “Take Care of Yourself,” at the end, meant that I was to set out on my own journey, alone, and survive, I did. I doubt I’ll see him again, and I don’t think he’d recognize me if he saw me. I’ve changed in many ways now.

I think I experienced something special, unlike anyone else I know. I think only I could have appreciated it, and I am thankful to have had it in my life. That’s why no one seemed to understand. It was only meant for me at that time.

Ending on a positive note, as Sir Elton sings in another song, “Don’t you know, I’m still standing better than I ever did, looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid? I’m still standing, after all this time, picking up the pieces of my life without you on my mind.” Yes, I’m still standing.