May We Live With Chalk On Our Hands

I started into a poem that just kept going and going... and it's really rough, but the end of it struck me enough to publish tonight because I don't know when I'll get to the edit with a full slate of work to do the next few days. Think of two people who have lived in the same place (not necessarily a physical place, but a place where they we're built for each other), but they've never met, as odd as it may seem, though they've definitely touched the same places and the same people.

The shortest distanceImage by a rancid amoeba via Flickr
Between two hearts
Is an embrace
As hearts verbally pound out
The breathless nature
Of holding each other a long time
And for the first time

We dip a weary soul
Into the flood of emotion
That runs from the sewers to the sea
Wary to be carried away
Without a wave

Our inertia to change
Must melt the resistance—
Give in to emotional magnetism—
And re-pour the foundation
Upon which we walk.

A satisfied life,
Never that which we intended to live,
When a blank slate lives
All around us—
A canvas built for chalk
Driven by hands,
Both large and small,
To create a life of love,
And a story that we will tell
To be told by those we loved
Long after we’re gone.

And when the weather comes
Or the sidewalks stumbles us again,
We’ll watch it wash away the art
And rise from a scraped knee.
We’ll hurt and heal,
Make mistakes that reveal,
A newly cleansed canvas
And a fresh patch of skin
That gives us what we always dreamed:
To wake up and start again.