Moments

Troy knew that the kiss was a risky proposition but he didn’t care. If she were to run away into the night never to return he would have this moment. And sometimes moments are all you get.

Sara folded into the kiss, letting down her studied defenses long enough to let the rest of the world mind its own business and let them be, and she felt, fleetingly anyway, safe and…loved…

“That’s all I wanted to say,” he said, hoping to bring some levity to the longing and the awkwardness of the stolen moment.

She looked into his eyes and then, feeling incredibly exposed and vulnerable, she buried her head against the comforting broadness of his chest. “You said it very nicely,” she said with more coyness than a woman of her age should be comfortable with. “I’m so glad that you’re my friend.”

He nodded and smiled, just a bit ruefully. “We aim to please,” he said kissing the top of her head. That moment was done and this moment…the “you know we’re just friends” moment…had taken its place.

They held each other…together and so far apart…and let the moment speak for itself.

Sometimes moments are all you get.

Sometimes...

Sometimes I get so selfish and self-pitying that I find myself getting so angry at you…angry and abandoned and alone…but those moments are few and far between and they pass like the wispy tendrils of a lazy morning mist…

Sometimes I still hear your laugh…sometimes I still look to share some bit of nonsense with you….sometimes I forget that you’ve been gone since a cold spring…you’ve been gone through a hard and heart-wounding summer…sometimes I forget…but those moments are few and far between…

Sometimes I smile wistfully…imagining what you would say…imagining what would make smile…imagining what cock your head to the side and say everything you needed to in a withering, knowing look…

Sometimes I rage against the heavens…sometimes I rage against the injustice…sometimes I rage, crying acid tears, because my friend is gone…sometimes…

Sometimes I remember all that was and not all that there should have been…sometimes I smile for having known you rather than cry for having lost you…

Sometimes I wish I had told you everything you meant to me…and sometimes I know that you already knew that…

Sometimes the gray envelops me…threatens to smother me…but sometimes…most times…the light breaks through and I move forward, healed and whole and so much better for having known you…

Sometimes I still hear your life…and sometimes it makes me cry…and sometimes…most times…it makes me smile.

- for M on what would have been his 62^nd birthday -

Eight Years Gone

Memory dims…time heals…life waxes and wanes...

life moves on like it has to do…

And we are here…eight years gone…and moving on with life like we have to do…

Yes I remember where I was…

Yes I remember how scared I felt…

Yes I remember how angry I felt…

Yes I remember how helpless I felt…

Yes I remember finding solace in the smile of a baby girl…

Yes I remember.

Eight years gone…so many yesterdays ago…

And we are here…remembering with comforting buffer of time and tide…

Eight years gone…and moving forward and looking back…moving on with life like we have to…

Flags flying…tear stains long dry…I remember…we all remember…

Eight years gone…so many lifetimes gone….so many lifetimes to go.