I like it when you smile. And your shoulders, god, your shoulders.
//
You should have come over, love.
I like it when you smile. And your shoulders, god, your shoulders.
//
You should have come over, love.
You don’t have to worry, not anymore.
You already know what you need to know, we’ve exhausted our positions. You’re right, we don’t have a hold on each other because that’s how it is supposed to be. So, let’s keep it this way.
We swore to be more careful, I think it’s time we push that a notch higher. We’ll keep pushing it up until we understand the gravity of all our actions. I said it once and I’ll say it again, this will be our little secret. Our very own understanding. When the time finally comes, pray that we’ve already recovered from the heavens that this brought to us. That we can answer confidently that this is nothing close to all our fears. That we can walk away gracefully, that when night comes we will sleep soundly.
I asked you before to help me because I don’t want a traitors mark. You asked me to help you make it right, and so we will. We’ll work on it because there’s nothing I want more than to do right by you. As we go along, no matter how they might sound, remember that it will never be my intention to threaten you, never will I trap you into making a choice, never will I stop you from doing what you need to do.
You asked me what I want from you and I told you I want nothing. But I want to help you be the person you aspire to be, not the person who leads you to darkness just because I cannot stand the thought of losing you. But I’ll have to stand it, and I’m slowly learning, I’d say take advantage of it.
It’s the risks that we try at that’s going to give us that priceless feeling. The future is not necessary at this point, don’t worry about it. Let’s deal with what we have to do now. Let’s dance to our favorite songs, let’s bask in the lines that we love, let’s drown in the emotions that nice films bring. If we do it together, let’s enjoy the moment and wake the next day like nothing happened. But I think that what we fail to see is that it’s okay if we don’t do it together. It won’t be a waste, none of it is.
I always loved watching people lose themselves over the things that make them alive. It’s what I live by. But I’ll try my best to be more careful this time. Be more careful around you.
I have to stop feeling the need of sharing everything I find beautiful with you, else I know how this’ll all spiral down in the end.
Listen: My Darling Sara by Shane Koyczan
“The failing use of my right hand
isn’t actually the failing use of my right hand
it’s just another way to tell the time
and I’m ticking
so I’ve been picking myself up at bars
with a bottle in each hand
but I never give myself any play
I only make plans with myself for the day after next
but by the time the sun swings back around into position
I forget the context of why I asked myself out
in the first place
did I think I was going to score?
I let a stranger pour me one more
she says
my name is Sara
doesn’t take much more than that
to start a relationship
My darling, Sara
cleans rooms for a living
giving her youth and beauty
to dirt and dust
understands more than most
that family must be the foot you put forward first
you must weather the worst together
but having never met her family
she places love above all else
then protests that I use the word love
too freely in poems
and I should really just say what I mean
and I suppose what I mean most is that
I’m trying
she’s been buying me time
on a maxed out credit card
arms scarred from selling her own blood
to pay down the debt
tells me she doesn’t mind going broke
just so long as I can give her a little sweat
she says
try
so I do my best impression
of a pen
and when every problem looks like a page
I commit ink to paper
the worth of the words that come out
determines my wage
I’ve been making enough
to pay her the compliment
of not quitting..
of not sitting
when standing is required
she only asks that I put the effort in
and in return she’s willing
to pin a paper heart to her chest
then do her best impression
of a target
She tells me that effort
is the siamese twin of success
so when everyone else looks like a wrong answer
she says she’ll settle for being my best guess
so we lie in bed like a mess
that someone’s been meaning to clean
for the large part
of a long while
we lie there like a pile of dirty laundry
and how we’ll ever come clean
is beyond me
so we don’t
she says
it’s supposed to be dirty
and if by the end you haven’t hurt me
then you didn’t try
so I do my best impression
of a surgeon
cutting purple hearts out of my own
use my veins like thread
then have hurt sewn to our skin like medals
because when the bleeding stops
and that dust settles
all we have are our wounds
to wear like decorations
upon our chest
Sara does her best impression of a war
tells me not to count my pride among casualties
because maybe faith means never keeping score
she says there’s more to effort than just switching gears
and in terms of what one should give in life
sweat holds more value than tears
you have to try
and even though
the failing use of my right hand
means I’ll never land a knockout punch
in the first round
life is composed of sound and fury
whatever noise is left in me
will be twice as loud when I try
so I plug myself into the idea of going the distance
and I amplify
My darling, Sara
has a throat like a vase
she sings her words into bloom
has voice like perfume
it’s been sticking to my clothes
so everyone knows where I’ve been sleeping
she’s been keeping me so close
you could use my body for evidence
pull her fingerprints as proof
that she’s been on top so often
she’s starting to look like my roof
but a real sexy roof
and she doesn’t leak
unless you count the crying
she does that sometimes
worries that she’s just a back up plan
My darling, Sara.
I’ve lived long enough to learn
too many choices can destroy a man
I will make no exodus
I’ll be around long enough
to watch uncertainty bid us farewell
the echo our names into the crater
caused by the impact
of when our lack of conviction fell
you’ve never had to sell me on the idea
of absolute certainty in the trustworthiness of another
the first and only time you met my mother
mom said
“I like the way she looks at you”
and I echoed back to her
that I liked it too.
eyes like recycle bin blue
Sara looks at broken things
as if she can make them new
more than a few times I’ve caught her staring
caught her wearing
a smile reserved for those busy making plans.
Sara believes that distance is a fundamental
that can be side-stepped by a piece of string
and two tin cans
and I remember when my tin can rang.
they said
there’s no family to speak of
so love is next in line
and there’s not a lot of time but
she’s asking for her boyfriend
in the cab to the hospital I feel my heart bend
as if bracing for impact
so I do my best impression of a man
and face fact.
it’s supposed to hurt.
a doctor does his best impression of the truth
and spares me his attempts to skirt around the issue.
they can’t stop the bleeding
and the failing use of Sara’s heart
isn’t actually
the failing use of Sara’s heart..
it’s just another way to tell the time.
My darling, Sara
I was holding your hand when you died
and even though the failing use of my right hand
prevented me from feeling you leave..
I tried.”
There will be bad days. Be calm. Loosen your grip, opening each palm slowly now. Let go. Be confident. Know that now is only a moment, and that if today is as bad as it gets, understand that by tomorrow, today will have ended. Be gracious. Accept each extended hand offered to pull you back from the somewhere you cannot escape. Be diligent. Scrape the gray sky clean. Realize every dark cloud is a smoke screen meant to blind us from the truth, and the truth is, whether we see them or not – the sun and moon are still there and always there is light.
Be forthright. Despite your instinct to say, “it’s alright, I’m okay” – be honest. Say how you feel without fear or guilt, without remorse or complexity. Be lucid in your explanation, be sterling in your oppose. If you think for one second no one knows what you’ve been going through; be accepting of the fact that you are wrong, that the long drawn and heavy breaths of despair have at times been felt by everyone – that pain is part of the human condition and that alone makes you a legion.
We hungry underdogs, we risers with dawn, we dissmissers of odds, we blessers of on – we will station ourselves to the calm. We will hold ourselves to the steady, be ready, player one. Life is going to come at you armed with hard times and tough choices, your voice is your weapon, your thoughts ammunition – there are no free extra men, be aware that as the instant now passes, it exists now as then. So be a mirror reflecting yourself back, and remembering the times when you thought all of this was too hard and that you’d never make it through.
Remember the times you could have pressed quit – but you hit continue. Be forgiving. Living with the burden of anger, is not living. Giving your focus to wrath will leave your entire self absent of what you need. Love and hate are beasts and the one that grows is the one you feed. Be persistent. Be the weed growing through the cracks in the cement, beautiful – because it doesn’t know it’s not supposed to grow there. Be resolute. Declare what you accept as true in a way that envisions the resolve with which you accept it.
If you are having a good day, be considerate. A simple smile could be the first-aid kit that someone has been looking for. If you believe with absolute honesty that you are doing everything you can – do more.
There will be bad days, times when the world weighs on you for so long it leaves you looking for an easy way out. There will be moments when the drought of joy seems unending. Instances spent pretending that everything is all right when it clearly is not, check your blind spot. See that love is still there, be patient. Every nightmare has a beginning, but every bad day has an end. Ignore what others have called you. I am calling you friend. Make us comprehend the urgency of your crisis. Silence left to its own devices, breed’s silence.
So speak and be heard. One word after the next, express yourself and put your life into context – if you find that no one is listening, be loud. Make noise. Stand in poise and be open. Hope in these situations is not enough and you will need someone to lean on. In the unlikely event that you have no one, look again. Everyone is blessed with the ability to listen. The deaf will hear you with their eyes. The blind will see you with their hands. Let your heart fill their newsstands, let them read all about it. Admit to the bad days, the impossible nights. Listen to the insights of those who have been there, but have come back. They’ll tell you; you can stack misery, you can pack despair, you can even wear your sorrow – but come tomorrow you must change your clothes.
Everyone knows pain. We are not meant to carry it forever. We were never meant to hold it so closely, so be certain in the belief that what pain belongs to now will belong soon to then. That when someone asks you how was your day, realize that for some of us – it’s the only way we know how to say, “Be calm. Loosen your grip, opening each palm, slowly now – let go.”