Kiss me congratulations.

Kiss me congratulations

Because it’s always one foot in front of the other

And I’ve

Lost track

Of the days.

It’s the beauty of unbearable pain.

 

Kiss me congratulations

Because I got a new job

And I have a new apartment

And

      I.      Am.

Trying.

 

Kiss me congratulations

Because I can see and I can tell you

That the sky is as blue as the breeze

And the birds fly as high as the melodies.

I can see and I can tell you

That sometimes sight and speech

Can take a slight toll

On me.

It isn’t that everything is falling apart around me

It’s that I’m falling apart inside.

 

Kiss me congratulations

Because being strong has left me weak.

I promised that in my old age I would fill

The room around me

With all that is said and done.

Memories of a life lived and the people I lived it with.

Feelings I felt once before, not again,

And thoughts I only had back then.

 

Kiss me congratulations

Because maybe I don’t need to

Be in my old age to need to

Fill the room around me.

Maybe right now, more than anything,

I need a room full of phantom bodies dancing in the woods

To make me want to dance again.

 

So kiss me congratulations

And do it like you mean it.

 

~

Ella

 

“And we won’t place any stock in old days, let’s save up for something new.” -Rusty Clanton

 

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Displaced.

 

It’s okay to be afraid to leave the first place I’ve ever truly been happy.

 

The microwave outside the door that we kept the spare key in.

The nighttime and the relief it brought with it.

The criss-cross paths around my office and the new staircases I discovered every day.

The watermelon and coal store.

The roof where I worked out under sunset skies.

The delicate brush on the light rail door.

The blue-pink-white-green-gray horizon from my bedroom window.

The gap at the bottom of the shower door that let all the water out.

The approximately 12 people it felt like I lived with.

The glass and marble table.

The pedestrian rage when tourists walked too slowly.

The park on Saturday afternoons and the market on Friday mornings.

The breeze that always played with the hemline of my dress..

The shop owners who knew my order.

The top step.

The beep that meant the laundry cycle was done.

The road I parked my car on – half an hour away from my apartment.

The trucks and cars and busses and ambulances and motorcycles – the noise I filtered out.

All the other noise I tried to filter out.

The spur-of-the-moment excursions that didn’t always make much sense.

The sunlight or the moonlight.

The view.

From the porch.

The porch, the porch, the porch.

With the swing.

The swing, the swing, the swing.

 

I’m really going to miss it.

 

I’ve left.

I’ve left the first place I’ve ever truly been happy

And now

I feel a little bit displaced.

 

~

Ella

 

“There is a place where I can go, when I feel low, when I feel blue, and it’s my mind, and there’s no time when I’m alone.” -The Beatles

Sunlight.

Sunlight, it

Shines bright in my eyes,

Paints me in bronze,

Gifts me with

Glistening, golden, effervescent eyelashes and

Fluttering, autumn, amber eyelids and now

Everything I see is hazy and psychedelic as the –

 

Sunlight, it

Washes over me and

Pseudo-solves all of

My woes

Now, I am nothing but an ethereal extension

Of the brilliant, luminous ball of flame

That gleams with the promise

My woes

Won’t come back when the –

 

Sunlight, it

Smothers me with sprawling warmth

That catches on my breathe and

Settles in my pores and

Coats my core and

Drips off my limbs

As I turn every surface of me towards the –

 

Sunlight, it

Shatters, as the rays reach me and splinter

Into the thinnest whispers of copper threads

That I see everywhere I look and

I see even with my eyes closed as they

Find and fill every crevice around

As the sounds

Hush

And the movements

Still

And nothing in the world exists

Except

This single split second in time and the –

Sunlight.

~~~

Ella

Song Quote:

It goes and it’s golden like sands of time. -Golden, Zayn

Silk.

We stole

A day.

To make everything

Okay

Again.

 

Plans out the window and

I can’t control my thoughts,

Foot on the pedal and

My nerves are doused in rain.

 

Just this once,

There’s no need for

The endless chain of

Busses and trains.

Just this once,

My car

Will transport

My body and

My baggage

(And my heart

Is already,

Always,

Wherever you are.)

 

Now I’m on

My way

To you.

 

I tried

Not to

But I

Scripted

Myself

A vision

Of how this would go.

I was so sure

I had lost you.

 

I know you told me

You’re back

I know you told me

You aren’t out

I know you told me

This is it and

The reason is me.

 

I know everything you’ve said

And everything you say.

It’s just that

You can’t possibly fathom

How hard it is

For me to believe

You feel the way

You say you do.

 

And I don’t know why that is.

 

But you should know

I left

The words I sketched

Outside, in the parked

Locked

Car.

 

This is a relationship

On steroids.

You move so quickly

I can’t always keep up.

Sometimes I forget

What it was like

Before

I had you.

 

But I never forget you existed

And lived and loved

Before I knew you

Existed, lived and loved.

 

That night,

I made you promise

That we would stay up

Until

We felt close again

Like before.

 

But –

That night,

After hours

Of staring into your eyes,

Silk laced thoughts

Tracing our silhouettes,

There were other

Promises

On my mind.

 

We stole

A day.

And made everything

Okay

Again.

 

~~~

Ella

Song Quote:

We had time against us, miles between us, the heavens cried, I know I left you speechless. But now the sky has cleared and it’s blue and I see my future in you. -I’ll Be Waiting, Adele

Run For Me?

Oh, what I would give to run again.

I wonder, had I realized then

(Then, as a younger person)

That I would one day not be able to run…

Would I have done it differently?

Would I have gone quicker, longer, farther, harder, freer?

Do you go quicker, longer, farther, harder, freer?

Because I go slowly. I ache as I walk. If I were to run, I would cry as I ran. Can you run for me? Can you satisfy this burning dullness in the pit of my inner athlete by running for me?

I can’t run. Sometimes it feels like I can’t live. Sometimes I need to write this down in the middle of the night because all I want to do is run. Sometimes all I want is for someone to figure out the truth of why I can’t run and to fix me. Cure me. Save me.

Someone. Do it. I can’t run until you do. Can you take extra footsteps for me? Extra footfalls, heavy breaths, aching ribs, rippling muscles, sweaty palms, frizzy hair. Make up for my lack.

I’ll watch you run. I’ll sit here in a chair and track you with my eyes as you run by me, around me in circles, on top of me, because I can’t run for myself and I’m nothing to you. Nothing. Just a nothing who can’t run.

Make me run.

Ella.

Song quote:

Run until you feel your lungs bleeding. -Run, Hozier

 

Shining, Elegant, Weightless White

In an uninspired moment, I tried to think of something to write. My brain seemed to be tired of words. I’m scared fibro is taking over. I wrote this:

Like a thin sheet of aluminum foil,

Wrapped tightly around my forehead.

It’s thin,

But heavy, heavy, heavy.

Pain has turned it into a dark, somber, rusted gray.

 

I imagine white acrylic paint and a paintbrush.

I painstakingly paint every millimeter,

Over and over,

Until the layers are threefold thick.

It’s a shining, elegant, weightless white. 

 

I wave my magic wand,

Wingardium Leviosa,

And it floats before me,

As I observe it in all its glory.

 

When time comes to me,

I open up a stark white pouch,

Place the luminous pain within,

Open up my drawer,

Slide the pouch inside,

And bid it good bye.

 

Until I see you again.

Yours truly,

Ella

Song Quote:

Try and stay out of your head, I have seen you invent the damnedest things there. –Take a Bow, Greg Laswell

(My new ‘song of the week’ is waiting for you on the right side of your screen)