Heart of a Man

For as long as I can remember, I have been in love with you. I mean, truly, passionately, unconditionally, head-over-heels… in love with you. I knew this even before we met because love sees with the heart, long before the mind sees through the eyes.

While the cynic may not believe in love at first sight, the romantic understands that it is simply the recognition of a soul mate. It's the difference between loving & living from being in love & feeling alive. It's possible, just not always salient to everyone.

Think of life…life, which existed long before we lived, just because we didn't experience it, doesn't mean it did not exist. However, once we draw our first breath, once we exhale a piece of ourselves, only to be inhaled by each other…our new life begins & the expression of how we have always felt becomes the love we live. I feel it, I crave it, I know it…I always have, because for as long as I can remember, I have been in love with you.



Before I saw you, the canvas of my heart was missing the most essential beauty of a masterpiece. Instead all I had were the transparent images that attempted to stoke the fires of my daydreams with paint-less brushes. Colors didn't exist & sight truly saw no vision through my eyes. My senses wasted away in the long hours of the day & the loneliness of quiet nights. What hope felt as "should have been," had yet to be; & what was a reality, I hoped was nothing more than a terrible dream. Alternatively, I realized that the dreams I dreamt were all I had to hold on to. Destiny was on a string & I was hanging on by a thread.



I was about to let go, I was on the verge of allowing myself to fall into the bottomless realms of hopelessness when you appeared; seemingly, out of thin air. Suddenly, I experienced a change of season…& the beauty of winter became the comfort of spring. You smiled at me once & I danced in the rain of April. I imagined the feeling of being in your embrace & I was swept away by a summer breeze. You said "hello" & autumn dawned…my green turned to gold & the falling of leaves represented so much more. You were an arm's length away & yet I could not touch you. I heard your voice yet I was not permitted to listen to your thoughts. Circumstances dictated fate, instead of it being the other way around. Still, regardless of what stood between us, it was beyond love at first sight; it was a re-kindling of emotions. My heart recognized yours & love simply made that connection. A connection that could not be, a connection that would not be…& it wasn't because we didn't want it to be; we just knew it shouldn't be, not under the circumstances. Seasons changed & we lived our lives a heart beat apart. Once again, I was about to let go…but then I realized that I was unable to let go of someone I never even held.



All these years' later, circumstances changed & still, we can't be together. Your smile haunts me when I close my eyes & your voice brings me comfort when I listen to you speak. Conventional wisdom warns that our conversations are forbidden; yet we disregard the cautionary whispers of our conscience. The sun sets on our pillow talk & a new dawn blankets our days of this distance, all while our thoughts dance to the serenade of our voices. Laughter chimes in on the occasional moment when we recollect the sweetness of yester-years memories & a silence lingers comfortably as we hope these dialogues don't end. Your soul makes love to my senses when you speak & your eyes kiss my heart when you smile…this is an intimacy that only you and I share. From this distance, from a safe distance, this is as close as I have ever been to you; & while circumstances change, my need to feel for you remains the same.



An ageless beauty, a timeless love, an endless dream…the essence of perfection that is you has captured my imagination & stolen my heart. The years will pass, time will continue to count the seconds into the inevitable of tomorrow & a piece of me will still reach out to you; knowing that I may never embrace you in my arms. A summer breeze will brush me with the scent of heavenly you & I will reminisce on what almost was. I will walk in the rain on a warm spring day & a flowerbed will remind me of the morning I watched you sleep. I will age with the trees & look upon the coming of autumn with a changed perspective, finding new beauty in the gold of each fall. A piece of my soul will escape me in a breath & you might see it in the crisp cool air on a winter day. You will return to me one night when the snow falls in the cold of December, kissing me on the forehead & melting into the depths of my mind. You will remind me of the love I feel, you will remind me of the life I lived. Not destined to have you in this lifetime, I will surely find you in the next. Although my heart will age & beat slower as I reach the senectitude in this cycle of life, I shall never grow tired of loving you because this feeling will never grow old. I will need you in my ripe old age as I needed you before we met & as I need you now. This isn't about, wanting what I can't have, this is simply about loving a lover with this heart of a man.

****So why did I write this piece? Well, for the most obvious of reasons...conflict! Stir up conflict, establish it & allow it to drive deep into the emotions of your characters. This is what makes us relate to them, root for them and believe they exist. Make them flawed, heartfelt individuals who care about others & suddenly your readers will want to accompany them along their journey. They will want to see them through this conflict in anticipation of the climax. Create the conflict and then determine how you will paint the picture of "happily ever after." If, that is, how you want it to end.

"The hottest love, has the coldest end." ~Socrates

Missing My Muse

It's been quite a long time since I've watched a sunset. I miss that.

Currently, I work the midnight shift so I'm usually wandering through the realm of my dreams, searching for the muse of my soul to discuss with her my next great idea. Wouldn't you know it, that lately she's been off frolicking with the nine daughters of Zeus when I need her most?! Women!

So here I am, waking up after (take your pick on the name): Atum, of the Egyptians; Helios, of the Greeks; Garuda, of the Hindus; Sunna, of the Norse; Utu, of the Mesopotamians; the sun has serenely drifted beyond the western horizon and allowed the heavens to give way to the beauty of night. I have to get ready for work and while I love gazing at the twinkling of stars, wondering what else lies beyond the borders of our galaxy (or within for that matter) I'm saddened by the thought that yet again, I missed the opportunity to watch the sun silently kiss the day goodbye. After all, you can't have a good night without a kiss, right?

Now, imagine if you will, my frustration as I continue to work on revising and editing my manuscript. Painstakingly combing through each page then stopping and re-reading books on revision and self-editing to make sure I'm doing everything that needs to be done, correctly. Then taking a break from that when words from my well of creative consciousness trickle through my thoughts and bleed through my fingers onto the keyboard. Here's where my multiple personalities emerge (note: I have not actually been clinically diagnosed as such, but I'm sure fellow creative minds will understand what I'm saying).

The perfectionist reads what I type and criticizes every thing! The insidiously insecure individual in me stares at what spilled out of me and lacking in complete confidence wonders if what I've written is even "good enough" to be taken seriously. I begin to worry that my idea is beyond redemption, that my characters aren't engaging enough, that my prose isn't poetic enough and that my plot is a flavorless pretzel!

Here, my muse is where I long for you.

Those who know me will tell you that my confidence borders on arrogance but that has hardly been the case in recent days. I feel like Rocky after he took that beating at the brutal hands of Clubber Lang, "I pity the fool! Grrr...!" in Rocky 3. Shaken to the core and unable to focus on what needs to be done.

I've refrained from further submissions over the past two weeks because I believe it's better to step back, breathe and regain composure to make sure you're doing things correctly than to distractedly send out queries that haven't been polished to perfection (or as close to it as possible).

The same has gone for any writing beyond the first few sentences of my next novel.

I'd love to travel the world and walk on the ancient sites of which I write about in order to have my senses caressed by the scent of legendary regions. I'd journey to Mount Olympus, the heavenly abode of the Greek gods, dwell with the spirits of the past and be revitalized after a conversation with Homer while the sun sets in the west.

Horace once said, "The Muse gave the Greeks genius and the art of well-turned phrase."

Perhaps Apollo may plea with Zeus on my behalf and convinces Kalliope, the highest ranking of his nine Muses, to return my muse to me. Surely, I have not offended them in any way because I dread being cursed to suffer the fate of Thamyris; because my soul has memories that I need to find, my heart has stories that I need to tell. My muse and I have much to discuss.

"The lie, as a virtue, a principle, is eternal; the lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend is immortal!" ~Mark Twain