Day 10. Breaking Hearts

 

Day 10.  Talk about breaking someone else's heart, or having your own heart broken.

At first, I thought I would talk about having my heart broken because that is easier, in a way, to write about.  I know my own heart – knowing another’s is not so easy.  For those of you who have been reading my Scintilla responses, it will not come as a surprise that Brett and I broke each other’s hearts often.  Although, the memory of my brokenness is still vivid I am going to try and talk about the time I broke Brett’s heart:  The time that he still throws at me; sometimes teasing but sometimes, not.  

I met Brett when I was 17 and I fell in love with him when I was 19.  He confessed to me one evening that he had fallen in love with me.  He was married with small children.  I didn’t really get that.  I thought that love conquers all – after all, it always did in the books I read.  I assumed he would get a divorce and we would get married and life would be good.  I was so naïve.  During the time I was in college, we had a relationship.  We would break up over the wrongness of what we were doing, but we always got back together again.  Even when I transferred to a university that was five hours away, we continued through long letters and phone calls.  Periodically, I would cut class for the day and drive south to meet him somewhere.  As I neared graduation, I began to suspect that we were not going to marry as promised.  He was making no movements towards divorce and I wasn’t so naïve anymore.  When I confronted him, he admitted that while he wanted to be with me he couldn’t leave his children.  I was devastated.  I didn’t see him again for a couple of years – when my first marriage ended.  

By that time, I was living back in the LA area.  We started seeing each other sporadically.  He would call me and come over to my apartment.  Then he would disappear for weeks at a time.  It was wrong and it was painful.  I couldn’t move on with my life while I was emotionally wrapped up in him.  I started feeling cheap and used.  Eventually, I got to the point where I didn’t want that kind of life anymore.  I wanted to be more than occasional sex to someone.  He swore he loved me and couldn’t live without me but I didn’t believe him anymore.  

One evening, he called and wanted to come over for a couple hours.  I met him at my door, told him it was over and to never contact me again, and shut the door.  He left.  I stood behind the door in my apartment, shaking like a leaf.  An hour later the phone rang and it was him.  He said he understood, that he wouldn’t call again, but it was important to him that I know how much he loved me.  I had trouble talking as I was still shaking and I think he took the silence as coldness.  

I didn’t see, or talk to him, for ten years.  But, that’s another story.

For Brett: On His Birthday

I see your eyes teasing twinkle blue dancing light,
  or sparkle proud bright shiny wet 
    at the corners.
Your hands large, strong, busy building fences;
  and fingers thick, stiff, fish hook scarred
    with nails chewed short -
 rubbing my back and pulling me close.

Is it any wonder my heart swells
  like a tulip lifting its face to the sun
   and exploding orange red with happiness?


 

Desert Living

As I sink deeper into the arid years
  of menopause,
I feel my dry, cracked skin
  and cheeks red rough 
    from working in the wind.
I am a walking Sedona;
a scorched
rocky, brown
bleached bone
desert.
A hard packed hot flash.
I am an agave
 growing in an arroyo
    collecting dust and grit
    in the spines of my thick flesh.

--but--

I remember my moist youth
  soft, yielding flesh
  damp from swimming.
Sitting in the back seat of your car;
  the sweaty heat rising 
   off my chlorine drenched skin.
Burying my face in your neck
  and inhaling the musky aroma.
The windows foggy from
  our breath.

Oh yes!
I remember the moisture
  of my youth.


I wrote this poem using a prompt from Margo's Tuesday Tryout on Poetic Counterpoint.  I have to say that I had no idea the poem would end up going the direction it did -- not my usual style, that's for sure!

You in Parallel Lines

This poem was written using three different prompts.

First, from Margo's Tuesday Tryout  I used her prompt to find my focus.  
Jot down four lists: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Try for at least six items per category. Remember that you can be metaphorical as well as literal. You can be as creative and imaginative and as out of the box as you would like.
Take one item from each list and use the four in a poem. Allow the four to suggest your focus.
My four words were: fossils, saddle, t-shirt and sapphire.  I didn't end up using saddle and instead used another of my "old" words: redwoods.


Second, from We Write Poems prompt #64 which was:
No, not a lesson in geometry, but rather a method for reinforcing a phrase or idea within a poem. This form of “parallelism” employs either two lines expressing the same idea, or two lines presenting the opposing notions for contrast and refined exposition. We were asked by Nicole to write a poem using either or both of these two variants.

And third, from Jingle Poetry's Potluck which was to write a poem about Love and its not being there.

Like fossils found in the ground
Or redwoods reaching for the sky,
Our love has endured the passage of time.

Your eyes shine like the sapphire ocean, 
Like a clear blue California sky;
Welcoming and warm, blazing bright.

Laying in your arms, your scent surrounds me.
So I wear your t-shirt, soft and worn,
On the nights I sleep alone. 

The Flame Flares Up

Wednesday afternoon, I was scheduled to fly to Dallas for a meeting.  My flight was delayed.  A few hours later, it was cancelled.  Dallas was experiencing thunderstorms and lightening strikes so the airport shut down.  The next flight available was the following morning, out of Palm Springs.  The airline put me in a cab and sent me off to Palm Springs.  They paid for the cab.  I was on my own for a hotel that night.  I wasn’t unhappy.  There are worse places to spend the night than Palm Springs.  I used my Blackberry to find a hotel and made a reservation.  Then I called my husband and asked him to meet me at my hotel.  The cab ride was an hour – I had plenty of time to make arrangements.   Brett said he would start the two hour drive from our home to Palm Springs as soon as he finished the evening barn chores.   

I arrived at the hotel at 7:00.  It was small, hidden behind vines, and old.  It felt as though I was stepping back in time to the roaring 20s.  I followed a path of wide stones to my room.  The walkway meandered past the pool, under an Spanish archway, and then through a garden.   The fragrance of jasmine hung heavy in the air.  It was quiet – no traffic noise, no voices, just an occasional bird call.  The room was  Morocco meets old Hollywood.  There was a full bar complete with martini glasses and a shaker.  Whiskey, vodka, tequila, rum, mixers.   I opened the doors to the balcony and a warm breeze filled the room.  The anticipation of an unplanned night with Brett brought back memories of past furtive hotel rendezvous’.  I was filled with the old excitement and impatience for his arrival.  

We ate a late dinner, poolside.  The breeze was still warm as it washed us with the scent of jasmine and threatened to blow out the small candle lighting our table.  The wine was cool and crisp with just an edge of sweetness.   The meal was perfectly prepared.

Before daybreak the next morning, Brett dropped me off at the airport and drove back home.  As my plane climbed into the sky, I thought about the power of romance and about the happiness of a new memory created with an old flame – a flame that still burns true and bright.