The stone

It was her eyes that struck me, her toes and beautiful smile. At first I didn't even think too hard about her, just a nice person. Hello, nice to meet you. We played some guitar and talked about music. I was freshly wounded...wounded badly and tugging at sanity. Then she eased into my life and I was instantly healed like some wonderful magic had reached into my broken soul and instantly made it all better. I scared her with my appreciation, it was as if I had been given the most incredible gift but she didn't mean to or didn't realize how trans formative it was for me. My art soared, my passion soared, my hope was off and running wide open and so very happy. New ideas, new attitude, new approach...yes, I wanted this, I was living this. Love. Deep and desperate. Dripping with the weight of thousand lifetimes. Profound...on my side. Too much for her. Too intense. I try to hold my feelings at bay, but it was like holding back the ocean from the beach. She takes two steps back, one forward, and back again. She leaves for her home far away and I let her go...but we linger, we talk, we keep it alive, she takes a step closer. I go to visit and I am met with bliss. My heart, her eyes, finally. I wanted to feel like this forever...coma therapy. Completion of the universal need. And just then she dissolved under the weight of it all and said it wouldn't work. My painting changed. Down goes the ship. Another ride into the pit. The debilitating crash of my soul was at hand. Lower and harder than ever before. Big and terrible. I arrive home and awake to very real thoughts of suicide. I hide from the world. I cried for days without speaking to anyone. I didn't eat, I drank. I threw up and drank more and cried more. I was utterly alone and left my heart, my soul, and nearly my very life out on that road. Death was at my door asking to come in. The only thing I could motivate myself to do was to write music and record it. So for two weeks, I sat in my studio alone and wrote music and lyrics. I created an album worth of music out of the shear need to find a distraction from my pain. See if I care. I fell as far from love as a person can and spent months in the recovery room. I am permanantly changed from that experience, molded by the forging of some overwhelming new reality or broken down into a new form that behaves differently. I'm the one who survived and everyday I am aware of just how much stronger and wiser I am because of it. I am both more a defender of love and a defender of my own sanity. I am a believer, a survivor and the person you want on your side thanks to the stone set in my heart.