It’s been a looooong time since I’ve tried my hand at poetry (most of it happened back in the angsty days of high school musings). I’ve been reading a book (for a day now) called Notes From the Tilt-a-Whirl, and it is this illuminating and refreshing, whimsical and weighty work of philosophy and apologetics and poetry in prose. But more on that later when I’ve finished the book and can give a full critique. In the meantime, I fell into a nap after reading it this evening, and I woke up composing poetry in my head. I jumped up, grabbed the computer, and connected head to hands and started typing. This is what I ended up with, and this should give a picture (albeit fuzzy and incomplete) of how I feel during this strange, frustrating, and hope-filled long-distance engagement.

Just As We Are

I needed to feel you tonight
to know you were near
to hold your hand
on this crazy twirling ball we call Earth,
But you were on the other side.

So I paused, closed my eyes
laid back against my pillow and remembered
dreamed of our seconds, our hours together:
beautiful, delicious, vibrant, real.
It was real, wasn’t it?

I’m grasping at anything
Breathing deep and hurting to remember
a life of red and turquoise and Niagara mist
while instead everything filters through sepia,
a brown haze in my mind.

The memories are slipping,
my mind tricks me into questions
so I flip through the pictures—
not flip, but click because this world is digital—
And I see the moments.

Click, click, click and the images appear
just as they were Frozen—
frozen isn’t right, it’s too cliché
and cold—no, preserved like a poignant rose
With petals pressed and fragrance lingering

Just as they were.
But we’ve changed, haven’t we?
Life together altered life apart
Here and There collided in a mystifying
kaleidoscope of one plus another

I’ve never been good at math,
but I hear that where we’re headed
one plus one equals one.
I smile at the thought because
the kiss of summer tells our story

Someday (soon, please) our oceans melt to trickles
and miles become minutes.
Fingers interlaced we’ll stroll together
And click click click
we’ll capture the moments just as we are.