my careless contagion

"Run away with me," she whispered. And so began their journey together. They ran away in their hearts with one another, into the wilds of whatever is beyond the ordinary. They breathed air that was rare and alive and saw sights reserved for only them. They were in love, and they were free. Those moments were so precious they seemed stolen. Those moments changed their whole lives because they basked in the afterglow of what was and simmered in the anticipation of what was to come. It was infinite, wide open, with no constraints. Their world changed when they fell in love, and when she whispered to him, "Run away with me."  They couldn't run far because they had lives and responsibilities. But the love for one another that coursed through their veins put a shine on everything, making the ordinary more beautiful and wild. She would drive away with kisses in her hair and on her neck and he could sense the lingering smell of her perfume on his fingers and lips. As re...

The phrase "on a Tuesday," to me, denotes something happening on an ordinary day. Does anything extraordinary happen on a Tuesday? Tuesdays used to be the worst at my old job. If anything bad was going to happen, it would be on a Tuesday. But something wonderful and unexpected happened the first Tuesday in August.  Tuesday was the day Cindy drove by while I was working in her neighborhood and stopped to say hello. I saw her smile and was already in a daze. The whole conversation lasted less than two minutes, but I walked away feeling like a different man. I no longer cared that I was swamped by work, was running out of energy, and was hot and thirsty.  I sent her a text that simply said, "I miss you" the day before. She said she missed me too and thought of me often. She said she couldn't move forward with me at the moment (I know, it was the one downer of the conversation) and I didn't have to wait. How much time did I have to rebut that? When the girl of y...

It's never too late to learn in God's schoolhouse. That's a good thing. What I'm learning now is hard stuff, but I never learned it along the way. If you fail to pass a test with God, He gives you chances to try again. I'm learning to trust. I'm learning to wait. That is where I am now. One of the important things about waiting is it creates assurance of a specific direction. Are you sure? No? Maybe you haven't waited long enough. God needs to know you'll follow through.  It is hard for me to do these things because of my background. I have a hard time trusting anyone, including myself. And God. Waiting goes against human nature and the flesh. But patience is a fruit of the spirit and is worth it. So, if anyone cares to pray for me, please do. I'm going through a hard time. I just have to be faithful. That's it. Please pray I do that. These things may be hard, but they are always worth it. I absolutely believe God has some really amazing blessing...

She doesn't exist beside me but she will  someday she will hold my hand through thick and thin through sickness and health through poverty and wealth Even if I have to create her breathe her to life somehow she will be there Even if I don't know how I will find a way and form her out of clay and quivering breath I ache for her Hope for her and wait for her to join me someday What she looks like I don't even care what she feels like in my arms doesn't even matter she is made for me and I will treat her as the best part of me Created by desire and thousands of prayers made out of love and hope and years of plaintive tears What a woman If I hold her hand will I feel flesh or her naked soul? If I embrace her will I feel warm skin or my soul touching hers It doesn't matter what the world tells me I know she's out there It doesn't matter what my thoughts tell me my heart knows I tell my heart to wait be patient, be still sit quietly before God But I feel my heart ...

It's true I took it hard when she left my life. It's true I continue to struggle, though not as much. I know why it hit me so hard, too. She is the thought I keep coming back to, but I will try not to beleaguer the point and test the patience of my readers. I thought, perhaps, there was something wrong with me. Why couldn't I move on?  The world is full of tragic love stories. It makes for great fiction, but too often it drives nonfiction storylines. The lives of many poor souls, including me, are a testament to that fact. There is something resolute in us that refuses to move on, to grasp for another branch, so to speak, and move forward through the forest of life. We're stuck on the one our heart has chosen. Amazingly, for us, it is better to love and not have the one we love instead of another.  There are many stories of a love that extends beyond the grave. Many people have even died of a broken heart to join a loved one who has passed on. The need for our b...

I loved her with a love that was bigger than me. It filled me up until it leaked out in messy ways, embarrassing ways, lovely ways, little ways, big ways, and forever ways. I loved her with a love that could have swayed any woman, but she was not any woman. She was a ghost by the time I realized it was all over and done with. When she left the room, I was still picking out baby names for our love child. When she put me down and put me away, I was scrawling poetry for her across the sky.  I must have been exceptionally dull or blind because she made her escape while I was dreaming about our future. When I said I wanted to marry her, she must have been terrified. When I told her I loved her, I can't even imagine how she felt. She ran from me with a purpose and speed that equaled the love I felt for her. The more I loved, the more she shrank away.   If I could love her like this — even with the sadness mixed in — how could I love her if our hearts were one? It wo...

I tried and I failed to walk away. There is something stitched into us stronger than anything I know, and it keeps pulling me back to her. Even though she is silent, and even though I have not a clue what thoughts pass through her mind, she is the vista at the end of the hike. She's the moon when I wonder if the sun will ever return. She's the coolness of the night when I've been burned by the sun. She's ice on a wound, calmness in a storm, a shadow to shield Me from the heat.  She's my only and my everything.    In my life, I've met many wonderful women, but she is the one I want. She is a lonely star in the sky when I gaze into the heavens. Other men see millions and billions of them, but she's the only one for me. I offer her neither riches nor status. I offer her a broken man who has had his heart broken too many times, but they say a broken heart loves bigger than one that has never seen pain. It knows what is at stake, and it loves anyway. M...

Here's a little gem from the pop culture abyss that is Breaking Dawn , one of the Twilight movies. I've seen this movie, of course. Vampires are cool, especially sparkly ones. This song made it to a billion views on YouTube, which seems utterly impossible to me. That's the power of a good teen movie/book/multimedia juggernaut, something that packages unbridled lust with romance and, uh, bloodlust. But, that's not my interest in this song.  The line that sticks out to me is, "I have died every day waiting for you." Although I don't consider myself a patient person, I've exhibited patience quite a bit in the past. I waited the greater part of two decades for a woman to come around and realize the kind of person I am and who she was callously abusing. My patience finally wore thin and, tragically, I realized that even if she came to her senses at some point in the future, my ability to trust her was irreparably damaged. Without trust, there ...