Stu and I have lived happily together for over 1 year now. We just signed our second year's lease. I'm happy.

It's a strange feeling, that. To be in love is not like that I miss you all the time thing. It's not that at all. That was puppy love. It's not to worry all the time and think of all those things you said, but to sit in comfort knowing that he loves me too.

I feel like a completely different person.

Well, not quite. I'm still me. But I'm smiling from the inside and my eyes seem to just...sparkle. I feel a million times wiser (although I am by no means "knowing" that I am wiser) like someone who has been in on a secret. A thousand revelations to you, my dear! The extent of how I can feel is tenfold. Or should I say, incomparable. Like using real vanilla beans to make creame brulee instead of artificial vanilla extract. Life has taken on a new flavour and I can never go back to the same.

I used to write with my hand and my brain; those were my necessary tools. My heart was non-existent and my soul secondary in the equation. I have finally grown up, I guess, turning my book from introduction to chapter 1. There is something satisfying in saying that - like everything I have done before have prepared me to start my chapter. I remember when I was younger I would shed my earlier days away like a snake shedding its skin. But I am made of everything that happened in the past up to this point, and it helped me appreciate this new beginning.

When I look back on my past poetry and writing it feels as if my pen was governed by a history of great writers - read on, this isn't based on my ego, but a jest at my own poor imitation of the greats - like Elizabeth Browning and Oscar Wilde. As I uncovered more I realized I commited the mistakes that Wilde did in his poetry - I had nothing to say. Really. I tried to rhyme when it was proper to rhyme. I wrote down any feelings that I felt it was necessary to imitate; meanwhile I felt nothing at all. My emotions were a fiction and everything up to this point, an introduction. Like puppy loves and romantic dreams conjured by an early onset of romance novel reading - it was a farce of a life, entirely a fault of mine. I was too blind to see it.

Thank you, if you are reading this, that you have thrown that curtain aside and let me see the sky. You have made my heart ache in times of seperation and made me cry tears of joy at the realization of the extent of your love.

Juliet After the First Dance

No love is as sweet as forbidden love
When I do see you I can look into your eyes
and smile the way I'm meant to smile.
Feel the heat rise up in my cheeks and spreads
to a warm fiery glow on the tips of my ears.

We danced on a crowded floor
I threw back my head and laughed
And for a perfect moment frozen in time
The world stood still
We both can't win

I could lie to me forever but I can't lie to myself
Truth is we are in love with impossible
Wishing you'd appear everytime I raise my eyes
So I can smile, and laugh and dance the way
I only could with you

Dead Flowers

On my table i have dead flowers.
Roses to be exact.
thye are still red as if the life that once ran through them like blood was still there.
Filling them with all that gave them life now drained leaving them still and hard.
soft pedals once fell from their stem, providing a smooth caress for lovers with the right touch.
places forbbidon once ventured now memories like tales of trails traveld long time passed.
take nothing but pictures leave nothing but footprints they say.
i stepped to hard. i know, i feel it all the time when i look at those dead flowers.
makes me crazy. drives me utterly mad. like mad! not angry but for the mistakes i made to hurt you but mad like
the feeling you get when you have traveled for what seems like forever only to find yourself right back where you started.
oh what circles us mortals travel. circles. life is funny, aint it?
here i am. i mean here i am, and there you are in a jar far away from me but right there.
Dead flowers.
i onced smelled your bouquet, filling my nose with sweet smells. oh the memory. it hurts me to remember. even when many of my memories are nothing but good with moments of sad.
you gave me your all. all i could ever ask and much more. now look at you. im over here and your over there.
away from me like many nights i dreamed you never would be. if i only could take my tears and fill your jar. bring you back to life. fill your pedals like your heart with my love. bring you back to life.
but when you where alive did i see you in the same light. my eyes where so filled with your beauty that i perhaps was blinded by what was right in front of me. touch, smell, taste, hear. there now gone....
the golden tone of your silent sound gave my ears a reason to hear and to listen but the noise got in the way.
breath surrounded you. a song came from you that i may never may be able to hear the same way again.
when i saw you there on the stage of life full of life you gave me a reason to love music again and again.
now, each note stings me like the heat from a fire. burns me. i wish i could just jump in.
you never belonged to me. you belonged amoungst the beautiful pure things of this world like sunsets, the moon, tiny pebbles washed upon the shore. a kiss.
me i am like the thorns that run up and down you. hard and sharp. i tried to protect you but i failed.
i am sorry.
dead flowers, sitting there on my table. such sad sweet memories you bring me. such sad and sweet memories you bring me. never will i see a garden the same.
On my table i have dead flowers.
Roses to be exact.

love always
eric

Endless sessions of mascara trails and lip paintings
The spotlight, the stage, my spark of life

Quiver in my fingertips tasting the air carrying this sound
Eyes sparkling, heart singing, my one swan song -
Golden tone in my soul
The color coursing through my veins
To turn the world into my very love
To see what I see
Feel what I feel

The sound of applause deafens me
Heads turn on the dance floor
Shocked and smiling faces stare up from their plates
Their minutes forgot

This is my moment, my purpose, my meaning.
I made you see it.
My job is done.

Impressions of the World Beyond the City
For the Walters' Family

I pulled a blade of grass -
feeling the tension as I tore it from the ground,
smearing white onto my fingertips.

Wind rushes through the willowtrees
Making it sigh the way
the ocean cries.

If I could bottle this shade of green
and put my face against that veil of
ripples and hear a reflected birdsong
If I could bring home this serenity of an unchanging moment;
Write this down, this ethereal silence in words
unimagined;
To feed upon the scent of it day after day

Then I might perchance
be glad to see home again.

L'Esprit D'Escalier
Verses of things unsaid

Hey dad, how have you been these eight years?
I've been doing fine. I have a career plan a health plan
a plan to be bigger than you some day.
I've grown up now. Do you remember me?

When I was young there were
moments of silence between us so dense it was
Like the sound of the jet plane leaving the place of my birth.
Now the kids are all grown up, even
Tina is not so tiny anymore.

I got used to a lot of things like being alone and calling it

Solitude.

I had a lot of time and no time at all because I was always busy
I kept myself busy not thinking about you and the kids
and the kids being happy with you going to places with you
doing all sorts of things that kids should be doing with dads
with you.

I'm sorry you lost your mother today. I'm sorry that I was away.
I'm sorry that I never knew how to speak to you again.
Nice seeing you dad.

I still love you.