It's been a long time. A very long time. And I suppose you would have never even received this letter if I had written it down. Mostly because I am afraid. The fearless, shameless girl you once knew is scared.

I wonder if you even remember me, or if I was just an insignificant friend among the many we both know you had. But I am to scared to confirm it because that will hurt. And I don't know what will hurt worse. Trying to forget you day after day, or reaching out and finding you didn't care enough to remember?

The place we would sit together alone under the sun remains unused. I can barely stand sitting there alone, staring at the town below it like we used to.

Even though it's been years, I cannot get over it. Almost like it was yesterday. I believe that there is such time as the right person, wrong time. But I fear there was never a right time, and that there never will be. Mostly because I don't know where you are. And also because I think I would be to scared to approach you again.

I think you will be happy, but now after years I have moved on. Sort of. He's nice, and funny like you are, or were. I don't know anymore. And sometimes when I'm with him laughing I can almost forget that there ever was a before. But still you stay, in my head living. Making me wonder that if I would have said what I always wanted to, maybe I would know the answers to all the questions in me now.

But, there was a before you, so there must also be an after. Although I cry, and try to forget, I won't. But, at least I have found a way to get around the constant memories. I haven't told him about you, and I probably never will because it's easier to pretend there was nobody before him. But just in case you were wondering, and if you've already forgotten that's fine. Because now you get a letter from a stranger you can ignore. But still, just in case. I found joy in the sunrises that were your favorite, and I will stare down at that town, but never from out place. From behind it, and pretend I can see two people sitting there, ahead, and living out their happy lives without it ever breaking.

Dear God,

I pray to you in whispers

And tired, weary sighs

My days are empty echoes

Of restless, night time cries

But I think on how You do collect

Each tear spilt from my eye

You keep them in a vessel

Because for me, You chose to die

—————————————

You keep track of all my sorrows.

You have collected all my tears in your bottle.

You have recorded each one in your book.

Psalm 56:8

Who or what are we waiting for

A normalcy bias

Or Godot?

There’s ominous signs

Plenty of cognitive dissonance

What are we hesitant about?

Something tangible

Or routine illusion?

Perhaps we suffer the

Impenetrability of ignorance

Can we still blame Godot?

Could it be instigated by the

Intellectual vulgarity of

Copious over analysis?

So many questions

With far too few answers

I guess we’ll just need to

Keep waiting for Godot

People, places, professions, and pets

Families' faces, wrongful regrets

Distractions, I think, and think nothing more

Exceptions to that which there is something for

We are our own captors caught in our nets

Living for loving or loving to live

Seeking the whole but the soul is a sieve

Extractions, I think, suggesting a core

Deceptions, and that ever-yearning for more

Free from these factors, what have we to give?

Strip them away--the whats which we love

Shed them or stow them--the whos we think of

Neighbors and labors all peeled away

Sailors of ships, weigh your anchors this day

Gone, gone forever--gone below, gone above

I feel you, feel them, feel nothing but pride

A fool's fleeting memories--memories died

Sabers within pierce what's left of a heart

Nailers in crypts enshrine every last part

Of a life pure and perfect--now nothing inside

And this hollow heart now has nothing to hide

Cast them away as a shimmering stone

Their funny little feet, her intrepid tone

The unwritten stanza, the unwanted strife

To teach ungrown children and unbeheld wife

How to love living life in a life all alone

Pictures prior to twenty-sixteen, March four

Emptiness knots up and rots in the core

Death's anniversary, penitence begs

The people and places, the dives and the dregs

Distractions, I think, and think nothing more

There is no point, in this pit, I opined

What is there left when we're left behind?

But in these dark places with people's bleak faces

On occasion will come solemn moments and graces

It occurred to me--weigh this anchor anchored in my mind

The strings of thought and things of stress

Whether purposeful or purposeless

All we do, all for whom, everything that we think,

And every sin we commit, have in common a link

They're made meaningful or stayed--meaningless

A dangerous thought had entered my mind

And a stranger one caught just before I could find

Any reason to see myself free from these kegs

Up off of my stool, away from the dregs

Sorted, though sordid, and onto my legs

Worrisome words, though cruelly kind

That this life was not meant to be lived in this way

A pall that it all could be ended this day

No more fractions, distractions, or the feeling that this...

That the soul is kept strained if sustained in false bliss

So it keeps coming back-- through endearing decay

Too hard to handle, too heavy to lift

To conceive that to leave is considered a gift

Absolving the world of incessant contention

The matter of making untimely ascension

To degrade the esprit and to dock those adrift

Whatever these worrisome words underscore

Wherever the winds therein blow heretofore

A vow must be made: Every move that I make

Every choice I should choose, every action I take

Must be meaningful, purposeful, thoughtful, and more--

Suspending, and perhaps upending, this never ending March four

Sometimes I think the bottom of me has fallen out.

I mean, I think I am never satisfied.

I have gotten to a point where I think I can love someone but then I choose to look at desserts on other plates that are pretty but will never, not really, satisfy the yearning within me.

What does it mean to be perpetually unsatisfied? 

I never thought I would be this way.

I did not think that I would let my heart/mind be put into something far less safe and sound, something that could sink me.

I still do not know if I am steering my ship in the right direction. I can tell you most certainly that the clouds look like they will bring rain and thunder but when they arrive… well that’s when the sun breaks through and shows me all the ways in which I don’t know a goddamn thing,

not one thing.

And in this… I am certain.

Turn around and let me

See you!...

Show me every nook, and

Cran...

I'll shine a light into your

Recess...

I aim to find that hill

You can't...

Let's name this darling dip

Of you...

This passion pasture

That you missed...

I ache to worship what

Fell through...

That unnamed dimple

On your wrist...

Tonight the moon

Is shining down

Like some lost lighthouse

That scans waves...

It trickles through

Forgotten buildings,

Down railroad tracks,

And alleyways...

I search you up and down

For clues...

Just how does one

Shrouded in myth...

A creature so divine as you

Pass here among

The hearts that drift within

Our limitless wild wonders?...

A spectrum of unending atoms

Snakes out from eyes

Where spirits roam...

Like waterfalls,

And babbling brooks...

I am transfixed inside your glow...

You dazzle, and you hide your gaze,

But I'll still find a tiny breach...

I'll try until my dying day

To find that stone

Upon your beach

That lies out of your scope

Of vision...

Perhaps you think I won't succeed,

But at this moment I'm off sleuthing

With looking glass amongst the weeds...

Turn around and let me

See you!...

Show me every nook, and

Cran...

I'll shine a light into your

Recess...

I aim to find that hill

You can't...

Let's name this darling dip

Of you...

This passion pasture

That you missed...

I ache to worship what

Fell through...

That unnamed dimple

On your wrist...

Bunny Villaire

9/21/23

Edit#2

For Mavia

a concept, finite:

Sin Cuentas withheld in All

~ wave & particle .

I am I am I

in Palindrome lineage

---Río of Being

...Encantas, silence

the world in one thou' and song

Leaves and needles crawl

Metamorphoses

belong to the Corazón,

bottled, blot; sparrows

what clouds hold heavy,

(in wind all is traveling)

una bebida

*Translation of Spanish & Author's Note:

aliento means breath

(the foreignness I believe speaks for itself)

Haiku 1: Sin Cuentas is the Infinite

the thought is of all as a point in motion, one in many/many in one

we begin (and end) cellular, a spark of light as if--

hence Einstein's wave and particle, illustrating a duality of Existence

(Sin Cuentas is in fact the inspiration "point" of my poem. I ran across it in a children's book "Papi, How Many Stars in the Sky?" and was struck by the Sin in Spanish meaning "without" and Cuentas translates literally to "accounts," but idiomatically the translation is "the Infinite" and so this powerful (in my perception!) link to being born without account of Sin, and Infinitely so! --that is how my mind ticks---in strange gestalt :)

Haiku 2: The dawning of Awareness, I

I as a beautiful most concise Palindrome of thought.

To me it is redundant to say I am, as I is enough. It already exists once marked as line.

It can only grow, or stop, i.e. die. So, again in my perception, the continuity suggests age, and visually a lineage, as that line may be passed. Hence, the subsequent imagery of the river; and a nod to Leonard Cohen, inevitably, as he uses this metaphor liberally, and with apt sexual overtone.  Río is River in Spanish, but it harkens to the ear like Royalty, a sound regal and proud. Thus, awareness as a life-giving force, internally, and in generations to come.

Haiku 3: Encantas is to sing.

In truth, I vaguely recalled it as Enchantas and was very hopeful that I recalled correctly, as might be obvious, for the "enchant us" that is alluded to-- I was wrong in that the h was not there, but that made me think of a gap of silence, and I was delighted with that insight! The contrast seems so fitting, as we grow to appreciate our ability to act, and to refrain from action. Thus, turning to the world inside oneself (thou) and outside (in song).

I was charmed by combination of one and thousand, as a single unit/ many simultaneously, and again how thousand can be abbreviated to thou, bringing in the notion of one "you," you, being either singular, or plural. Leaves and needles crawl, is an illustration mentally of the passage of time, evoking I hope, music, writing, visual arts, and in the changing of seasons from the emergence of these, literally, upon the trees in Spring, to their departure in the Fall. (*If you're picking up connotations of ink and vinyl, that is very astute! and intentional.)

Haiku 4: The key in this one is Corazón, meaning the Heart-- and I adore how much it reverberates in English as the core zone!! To me this the center, poetically, where all our changes personally occur. True growth, as it were, spiritually, emotionally-- our point of maturity. The content of our Hearts is bottled; it spills, like Rorschach blot tests, and we can let these visions fly as sparrows (i.e. like live arrows) if we let them go (from the cocoon). The incongruity of the release of a bird, rather than butterfly, did not escape me-- the idea is not to limit our Imagination.

Haiku 5: we are mostly air and water, and emotion, and this I hoped to convey in the verse, "what the clouds hold heavy," much as when we say the sky is pregnant, or the sky will break, and rain will come like tears, heaven sent in the winds (of change). And so, the suggestion of "bebida," which to the English ear suggests a baby, but is in Spanish in fact a drink, and in this case the sip of a final breath (of life/death). To optimistically end:

"Cheers!" to a life (well) lived.

*As a personal aside: I chose the Spanish, because my second Mom is in Mexico and her birthday is coming up so I thought I would share this with her <3

I’ll close the door to your bedroom

and turn the hall light off

I’ll keep down the volume

I’ll put your clothes in the wash

I won’t leave a note

it would smell like my perfume

I’ll leave my side of the bed cold

I’ll take my toothbrush from the sink in the bathroom

I’ll take my clothes from the closet

I’ll scribble out my name in your journal

put the tear-soaked tissues in my pocket

and burn all my letters, my words aren’t eternal

I’ll return your lighter

and wipe off my fingerprints off the counter

sear with every fibre

of my body - I’m out of power

I’ll find my scrunchie behind your bed

and wear it out on my wrist

let me join the dead

pretend we didn’t exist

I’ll tie my shoes outside

I’ll leave quickly this time

In the ancient times of Mirtholia, there dwelled a whimsical sea deity named Tidewoggle. With a twinkle in his eye and a chuckle that echoed across the ocean, Tidewoggle was known for his mischievous nature and love for laughter. He was the guardian of the tides, responsible for their rise and fall, and he took his role quite seriously, albeit with a playful twist.

You see, Tidewoggle had an insatiable fondness for jokes and jests. He would often play pranks on the sea creatures, causing waves to splash unexpectedly or sandcastles to vanish with a mischievous wink. The sea turtles would grumble, the seagulls squawked, and the crabs clicked their claws in mock annoyance.

One day, as Tidewoggle roamed the shores, he encountered a wise old seagull named Gulliver. Gulliver was renowned for his wisdom and always had a thoughtful perspective on the world.

"Ah, Tidewoggle, your laughter brings joy to the sea, but have you ever wondered why you control the tides?" Gulliver asked, gazing at the mischievous deity with a knowing glint in his eyes.

Tidewoggle, ever the jokester, replied with a grin, "Oh, Gulliver, my friend, it's all for the fun of it! I create the tides to see the sea creatures dance and the land-dwellers scramble."

Gulliver chuckled softly and said, "Indeed, your jests bring delight, but there is more to your gift than mere amusement. The tides, like life itself, have a deeper meaning."

Perplexed, Tidewoggle tilted his head, eager to hear Gulliver's wisdom.

"Look beyond the splash and foam," Gulliver advised, "The tides rise and fall with the dance of the moon and the sun. They symbolize the rhythm of life, the ebb, and flow of emotions, the cyclic nature of all things."

Tidewoggle listened attentively, and a glimmer of understanding flickered in his eyes.

"You control the tides, dear Tidewoggle, to remind all beings of the interconnectedness of laughter and tears, joy and sorrow," Gulliver continued. "In the highs and lows of the tides, we find the balance between mirth and contemplation, between playfulness and introspection."

A profound silence settled over the beach as Tidewoggle pondered Gulliver's words. The laughter that once echoed boisterously now had a hint of reflection.

From that day on, Tidewoggle's pranks and jokes took on a new depth. The sea creatures would laugh heartily when he playfully splashed them, but they would also pause and contemplate the meaning behind the tides' rise and fall.

And so, the tides of Mirtholia continued to dance to Tidewoggle's tune, a reminder of life's ever-changing cadence. The mischievous deity's laughter still resounded across the sea, but now, it held a profound meaning, touching the hearts of all who heard it.

For in the laughter of Tidewoggle, they found not just amusement but a profound lesson: that life's journey is a beautiful tapestry of highs and lows, of joy and reflection, and that through it all, laughter and meaning intertwine like the waves upon the shore.