I Fell in Love with Him in the Fall

Briana Ramirez

I fell in love with him in the fall...when the autumn tones were just beginning to sprout, and the evergreen trees were beginning to die...the same way my heart began to die, withering away almost as consistently as the winds. I was just so young and he was so experienced in all things considering that I had forgotten how to take care. I wanted him..I wanted him in the  same way a child longs for a soft spoken word at the shown of night.  Yes I remember it now, the leaves. The leaves were falling down right over the hill side. Bright and radiant colors they were; yes. He wanted to take me in for himself, once and for all. He took me as the sun set its stories in motion on the evening sky. He and I had our hands dyed with the colors we explored in each other's pallets. I had wondered in another life what he could've been; a da Vinci or a Rafeal.

I had reached my hands out to touch something so fragile and new, and as if almost simultaneously; he crumbled within my hands. Forging something completely foreign to my body. I am a painted canvas, only tinted with the colors that originate from him. I am the ocean that only follows his winds. And within our printed pasts, we found each other. Sailing nowhere but here, right where we belong...in each other's arms. The light creme of his skin pressing against mine, in this monastery of chaos I found safety. I want to cry, I truly do. Our life had converged into a work of immortality and art. I’d think he carried me away to his own symphony. The keys playing to my own words now. I fell in love with him in the fall. I fell in love with him when the autumn tones….

Can you hear the piano keys in the open breeze? Can you paint a canvas with oils and a bag full of ideas? Can you set a cinema production into the sky as the sun begins to set? No. So no one can tell me he wasn’t the one for me...because with him I made dreams into ideas. I turned ideas into projects, and those projects into ink that wrote it’s name on my dialogues of experience. I fell..

I fell in love with him in the fall...when the autumn tones were just beginning to sprout, and the evergreen trees were beginning to let go of their color...in this way I felt peace...because him and I weren’t meant to be together...in his eyes.

I suppose I had seen it coming from days on end. Waking up to witching hour only to find that he had already cursed me. Within only moments he had conjured a million of reasons why he couldn't come back to bed with me. I had become the reason.

No, in his eyes we weren't a work of controversial art...we were a dirt clay sculpture, molded together by amateurs. We weren't playing to our own sweet tune, but a broken harp in much need of a fix. A fix that I apparently could not supply with my one track, simple thinking mind.

So now I call upon the shadows to keep me warm. I beg the cold to forsaken me. To forsaken and leave my aching chest. I ask the sun to please remain where it is sent...and to stop showing me the rainbow…

Without a tinted canvas to call my own, a summer breeze to ride against the shore line...and a soft spoken word at the shown of night…

I am nothing but a cold hearted woman -- hiding from the sunlight.

Presents

Marcos Alvarado

It was like having a show broadcasted only to yourself.

It made me happy

made me complete.

But once you left this place you left me incomplete,

nothing more than a familiar face attached to a box of memories

that sat and mocked me of what was of what could've been.

No,no,no

instead you left me with only hope

an empty shadow of what you once were.

And I'm sorry I didn't visit.

And I'm sorry I never saw you, the “real” you.

And I'm sorry the tears that rolled down my face weren't for you.  

But it ate at my insides.

It continuously grew upon me like some dark,

unrelenting mold,

that gained control over my psyche for the better half of a year.

So I sat on the idea,

and all my unfiltered ideas came pouring out.

and I was free.

You see,

I could feel guilty about all the “love” you had.

you and I both know how that went.

I would never considered them memories,

you just happened to be in the same room when those memories were made.

Now what?

I'm supposed to feel guilty for the loss of connection between us?

For the countless hours of nonsense talking that happened between us?

When I had to continuously remind you of my name? But it was even before the disease

that the expensive vacations were nothing more than a means for my mom to stockpile your house with gifts and presents

that you easily passed on to my uncles

or for the countless hours of hard labor my mother put in to make you life three times more easier but you rode her off as some nuisance.

One million times inside of my head I've reworked this.

And it never was my fault.

All the visits.

All the small talk.

All the stupid times I had to say bye individually as a courtesy.

And for what?

To reconcile some shred of a “relationship”?

But you see,I've learned to fix it.

Endless night I didn't sleep alone, there was something there.

I'm glad to say that now when I go to bed, it's just me.

When I close my eyes, you're gone and my troubles fade.

Better yet when I wake, I am myself.

This void you left,

this golden ribbon

cascaded upon a glorious box you left at my front door is still there.

I just fixed it and sent it back to the shipper,

knowing you won't get the message.         

Fall/Winter 2015

Poetry Selections from Club Members

Look for a new posts throughout late November and early December.

The Phone Call

by Diamond Johnson

Saturday night on October 24th, I felt this profound desire for him.

I longed to hear the sound of his voice.

And so I asked if we could talk on the phone, if it wasn't any trouble.

Even if it would only be for a little while.

Though, I secretly knew whenever we said a little while, we'd stay talking for nearly three hours.

And so you called,

And we talked about it all.

Small things.

Random things.

Little, light-hearted stories from the past.

A few quietly uttered I-love-you's, statements implying that we'd last.

And then there were big things.

My usual rants about how

nobody really cares.

How,

to me,

it doesn't matter

that I don't matter

to others.

Because nothing's more scary

than the thought of not being wary

of the fact that calling someone a friend

doesn't guarantee

that they won't be temporary.

And then his silent sorries.

His quiet that

carried a cargo of care

which caressed my hurt

through the cadence of his vocal chords.

Oh, how he depicted his ability to understand it all.

The way that he told me his take on the topic.

He explained that, for him, no matter how close he had been to his best friends,

he always had this fear that when they all went their separate ways in life,

drifting apart would be inevitable.

And I cried.

My eyes welled up with tiny waters

waiting to make their way down my face.

And then they fell.

And moving the phone away from me to block the noise, I sobbed.

I did not mean to.

Nor did I want to.

But he said it in such a way that made it impossible for me not to.

There was no patent presence of pain in his voice,

but I knew a worry was there.

The words were so real, he truly believed them.

And I didn't want him to.

I guess you could say that it hurt, listening to him hurt.

So I stood silent for a seemingly long period of time before he declared that he was okay

and that those were just some 'sad thoughts'.

I tried to collect my voice as I choked out, 'yeah, those are really sad thoughts'.

And he kept asking me

with a tinge of alarm in his tone,

as if he was taken aback, if I were crying.

And I answered ‘no’.

My uneven voice repeatedly recited,

'no,

everything's fine,

I'm okay'.

And it was true, I was okay.

But I had been crying.

I was a bad liar,

I didn't want him to know

because my tears felt invalid.

Why, it barely made sense.

Until that second,

when the ridiculous reaction became rational:

Although being very emotional,

it wasn't because I was

too sensitive.

It was the simple fact that I loved him

with every essence of my existence.

And it shattered my heart to know that he felt this way.

It wasn't an overwhelming sadness that had taken over,

it was just this thing he dreaded.

It was like he knew it was bound to happen

no matter what,

and there was nothing he could do about it.

Like he had lost this hope that was never needed to begin with

because not a doubt in his friendships had even existed.

Not until now.

And it is just insane

how something so small

could have this much control over how I feel.

Because anyone could tell me their sad story.

People that talk to me in school have their own lives outside of what I know about them.

They have problems and things going on that probably hurt a lot.

And sometimes they'll tell me these things.

Sometimes,

they'll pour a fraction of their heart out

to a semi-stranger like me,

and I can only offer a partial amount of hope

from my half-full cup of optimism.

On the worst occurrences, I have witnessed my acquaintances cry.

But the best I can give is a few comforting words,

and a reassuring embrace

that might result in a thanks

that we both know is feigned,

because I can't make the situation okay.

But with my loved ones,

their pain elicits the most extreme, emotional reactions

on my end.

So,

no matter how big or small,

a dejected account from you

will not result in a simple response from me,

it's always going to hit hard.

and that is why I couldn't control the overflowing pools that had taken form.

Because when you love someone,

it pains you when they are hurting.