Church Hill Sonnets (VII of VII)

Sonnet LII (Church Hill VII)

Walking back beneath the bowed boughs above,

Climbing the hill I descended amazed,

Trying to escape the beauty I razed,

Hands torn from wielding this axe with no glove,

Seeking no leaf, nor return of my dove,

And finding no sign of God to be praised,

My mechanized body has become crazed,

Tired and defeated with no faith in love.

I drop the instrument guilty of death

That I swung to fell the tree of my life

That I climbed in search of my love, my wife,

For the axe is dull and I’m out of breath.

I can no longer tread this steep incline;

Whose are these steps that are making mine?

Church Hill Sonnets (VI of VII)

Sonnet LI (Church Hill VI)

I gather my dreams from where they are strewn.

I tidy the mess I made in my haste,

Take one last look in the light of the moon,

And turn to return to my life of waste.

The portal swings open of your accord.

You pass with a smile, your family trailing,

You all are now home and I feel abhorred

Found in the branches I have been scaling

And snapped budding twigs to blossom no more;

There will be a poorer harvest this year

Unless someone tends to the limbs I tore.

I’m ashamed to have become what I fear.

Sap runs down the hilt of the axe I hold

And sticks to my hands out here in the cold.

Church Hill Sonnets (V of VII)

Sonnet L (Church Hill V)

My journey ends in your room on your bed.

To no other end but rest from my mind.

I lie, covered by the claims that I’ve said.

I sleep, toss and turn; your flannel sheets bind.

From this cocoon I will stir and awake,

Slice a current in the sea I'm swimming,

I will carve in this deception I make

A hollow to collect limbs I'm trimming.

I hear the scratching peeling paint away,

The bark, from Woofy, pawing at your door,

He whines and cries until he gets his way,

Then looking at me, falls onto the floor.

I don’t want to hold the axe in my hand

That will fell the tree of this precious land.

Church Hill Sonnets (IV of VII)

Sonnet XLIX (Church Hill IV)

I walk through the kitchen on creaking planks,

Away from the entrance and my entrance

Induced by the shrine of so many thanks,

Each step heralding my cautious advance,

Past the old stove with the pilot light lit,

That eternal flame ever set to spark,

Just turn up the gas and stand back a bit,

Make circles that burn bright blue in the dark,

To the upright piano where I pause.

The yellowed ivory, faded ebony,

Disobedient to musical laws,

Without you here to bring your harmony,

Still rings with memories of string and song.

I continue hoping you won’t be long.

Church Hill Sonnets (III of VII)

Sonnet XLVIII (Church Hill III)

There’s something sacred about this table,

Oak, like the door, rooted in love and time;

Like a lesson from some ancient fable;

The beauty of nature is made sublime.

It frightens me, this comfortable peace,

The fabric of tears, happiness and joy,

Encompassing me like the softest fleece

Making me feel like a lost little boy

Who is finally home... and yet, not so,

For though I am welcomed with open arms,

As often as I arrive I must go

Face this world alone and endure its harms.

I don’t understand why your family bloomed

When mine died long ago; I still feel doomed.

Phil's Story, Final Chapter

The Truth.

I thought I was doing the right thing when I threw Phillip off of his ninth floor balcony. Phillip had to die. I didn’t understand him. He scared me. I was convinced that there was no good outside of God, and I still believe it, but there was good in Phil and there is bad in me. What would Hyde have been if Jekyll were more flawed in his fundamental character? Who am I without my conflicting inhibitions? What is there of value in me? God’s image… what else is it that intrinsically imbues this world and it’s fallen, fallible, occupants with the ability to seek this evasive love that not one has the means to give…

I thought that if Phil was out of my life I would be free and able to pursue and discover real love without the hindrance of the knowledge that there was one so akin and yet so unlike me living in this world. Phil posed the threat of discrediting my need for God. I needed God. I still do. There is no justification for the taking of another human’s life, nothing that could be said that would make such an act excusable, nor can we end our own existence without eternal consequences, but I thought I could dispose of Phil… I thought that that part of me was expendable, even detrimental, and so I could dispose of it without repercussions. I tried to do it subtly. I tried to reason with him, I tried to frighten him away, I tried to overpower him, I tried to kill him. I was wrong.

It took some time to realize the effects of denying an identity that was so influential for so long. There are aspects of all of us we’d rather do without. Inaction can be just as deliberate and purposeful as action. Phil’s presence was my suffering… vice versa, no doubt. His passion and his imaginings, his emotions, his doubt, and his reason, all of who he was suffocated my understanding and perception and my belief. His unconscious unwillingness to proceed was my deliberate influence, and my insatiable desire for companionship and rest in the arms of another, is his legacy. Phil is alive in spite of my best efforts to quell his cumbersome existence. If I could be content to seek higher eternal principals alone I would be free. My humanity, my longing of longing, my desire of desire, my pursuit of pursuit, my love of love… all have their origins in the human emptiness we all seek to fill. I keep trying to convince myself that the next rejection will be the last. After all, the standard can’t be perpetually raised, but the measure isn’t linear and so there will always emerge someone whom I will believe is the potential one. I’ve come to learn through Phil’s death the value that is Phil’s life. It’s good to be in love in Love. I’ve become convinced just now, that in some non-heretic sense (if it could be articulated) that the human need for companionship and the spiritual need for God can be sated through one person… the person. If there is evidence of God in others, there is the fulfillment of that love available in and through tangible relationships. If there is no evidence of God in humanity, there is no God. My solitary conviction is that once I’m with the definitive one, all other potential ones will be revoked. I am of the persuasion that God is in love and life and everything and anything worth anything… God is.

I wonder if anyone can relate to this struggle… if anyone, having come this far, will be able to sift through these crystalline grains and find anything worth keeping in me.

There are so many decisions in life. So few are important. So few of those that are important are decided upon.

I’m so confused.

If it were you, if you knew that I loved you, what would you do? If any one of us knew the end before the beginning, would we continue? Love and pain are symbiotic, so are hope and despair, care and indifference, depth and superficiality, reality and appearances… the list goes on; all dichotomies require pairing antonyms. All we can do is risk and wait, living by habit and intuition according to any given situation at any given time in any given manner as our character deems the circumstances’ necessity. How depressingly inconclusive. At least there’s love to look forward to.

The divisive internal monologue so long rampant due to my unwillingness to interrupt his musings was finally taken off guard by an external distraction… a whisper in my ear:

“How could you…”

I exhaled, opened my eyes, and the response came, just as before, without any advance directive, of its own accord:

“How could anyone not love you?”

And there she stood before me, my Hope, Angelica. I can’t deny that I was hurt. The episode of living in constant intellectual stagnation, the promise it proposed of a bleak, lifeless, future, had almost succeeded in driving me from this temporal structured embodiment and my pain redoubled, started all over again, if it had even yet occurred … nor could I deny that I had hurt her. She must have her issues too; we had some things in common. Of course, to any degree that two lives are infused, their separation is bound to leave scars. It was apparent that my bounding confession had left her somewhere behind me in the dance we danced. We had connected, but now it would seem that Hope had cut in with me and Fear, or Phil, or some unnamed creature, had cut in with her. She stood in my doorway, shocked and appalled that I could say such a thing. My finger on her lips, my attempt to silence her protest, seemed to hurt her all the more. This time… being the first genuine time, my decision to kiss her was based solely on the belief that I would never have another chance to do so. She slapped me. She left. Three days later, failed attempt after failed attempt to know why, I stood outside on the balcony, dusk settling in for another night to be passed in despair. It would be too much. I looked over the inviting edge below and wondered what anyone would miss. No answer came soon enough so I straddled the barrier. I couldn’t believe how acutely I had perceived all of what was happening. Except I had no one to write my story to. Both Phil and Foster were over the edge. I was teetering, filling my lungs, leaning forward, and letting go. All of a sudden I was gripped. It wasn’t about a girl. It was about what she embodied. Not her body, but the potential of what it could contain. It’s about Love, Truth, Freedom, Joy, all the capital letter virtues. It’s about God, and God’s willingness, not just willingness but preference, to dwell within these temporal flawed (some more than others and all subjectively) broken vessels. I had opened up… something… something that wasn’t pretty, within the one I loved, and in myself. I had found room… room for more God… I was about to make a lot more too, for myself, because I was out of control now and pavement had a tendency to breach a number of physical enclosures. My momentum was being manipulated by gravity. I was falling. That’s when he caught me. He caught my hand and effortlessly lifted me up and set my feet back upon the concrete floor of my ninth story balcony. I had yet to see my savior, but I felt his hand on my shoulder, firm and engrossing. And I fell… this time to my knees, and I prayed to God; I don’t yet know what that means, but I did it. I communicated. No more games with time. I just closed my eyes and an all-consuming peace, which confirmed that this was neither the beginning nor the end, came to dwell inside me and reunited my broken heart with my hemorrhaging mind… I felt more myself than I had felt in a long time. I embraced my friend, glad to be together again… glad to be whole.

I heard the phone ring. I didn’t know what had transpired. I was sitting on a chair on the balcony. The sun was setting. The phone was ringing. The sirens passed along the nearby roadway. People were about below; invisible voices were sharing their stories. A plane flew somewhere above. The phone was ringing. It was beautiful… For the first time in the long moment-years of the past day-hours spent in introverted extroversion, spanning two lives, two loves, a death, and countless manipulated amalgamated musings of terror-bliss, I was honestly happy to be alive. The phone was ringing. How long had the phone been ringing? Without anxiety, without fear, and with a new placid confidence, I answered the call:

“Hello.”

Nothing. Then a dial tone. Oh well. I went to go and dig up a Bible but it rang again… the phone. This time I caught it pretty quickly.

“Hello?”

Still nothing… which was good. No dial tone, no click, no defaming remarks… just silence.

“Angelica?”

I figured that whoever it was remaining on the line was either sick or she… I took my chances and voiced, with as much tact as I could muster, my thoughts and feelings towards my Hope…

“I do love you. I was right. And I still love you, Angelica. And do you know what it is that I love the most about you? The possibility you represent. I love our shared potential… I love the prospect of us… I love the Hope… I love all of that right now… and I believe that I could grow to love you even more, with every passing day I spend with you, especially since I have come to love you increasingly every time I’ve been with you… and I sense a pattern developing. I want to know you Angelica… I want you to know me. I think you need to know that. At the same time, I don’t want to put anything on you that will cause you any grief. As it stands, I can’t help but choose you… and I’ll continue to do so even if I have to wait for you. Because I value my decision to love you. I’ll wait if there’s so much as a chance that you could love me too… but, if you know now that there is no place in your heart, nor will there ever be, where I may come to reside, just speak the word and I’ll bear my sorrow, and I’ll be ok… but whatever you think of me, know that I’ll always be available should you need a friend; the rest is a limited time offer.”

I couldn’t help but grimace at that last line… but I think my point was made.

It seemed like I was left holding the receiver for some time. But I was still. Not a single dialog was being recorded in my mind. I was only aware of a gentle breeze, the door to the balcony having been left ajar, but it didn’t smell like the city. It smelled like a rose. Then came the response.

“Phillip … We need to talk.”

A still, small voice… but her voice. Definitely, decidedly hers.

Still, God was God… is God, working things out for good. In full knowledge of my heart’s desires, on the brink of realizing one, I expressed my mustard seed of faith and lo and behold a mountain moved. I had no idea what would come of it, but I was believing that God was in her, that God was in me, and that the possibilities were endless.

“How about a chai?”

Phil's Story, Chapters 20 & 21

To Hope.

I didn’t think that there could ever be any sort of good birthed from the despair that was spawned by the disintegration of my parents’ marriage. Then I met you. This is my proposal: I want to try and live up to what I think you deserve. I want to believe that I can be the best for you. I want to trust myself to trust you. I want to invest the time, however much is necessary, into whatever it is we have, to nurture it into more.

It’s funny where a journey ends. A train of thought that boarded at death has led me here. Sometimes it’s good to lose your baggage on a trip. I’ll never forget the first train ride after I met you. I can’t recall a single face or scene that reflected or passed through the pane, but I still have the sketches, poems, lines and prayers that were penned those hours. Some have been worked into this story, others will surface in future havens, but all have their source in you and your source. I’m learning ever so slowly that there is so much more to you and me and life and love than I can record on discs or drives or print on paper.

I know that this was an odd way to come to terms with something of this nature, but I’m a little odd by my own admission. If you are my Hope, I pray that you might come to know me. There is more to me than is bound in these pages. Many of these pages can probably be cut away in due time too.

As much as I want you to know me, I want to know you. I want to read your story. I want you to read it to me. I know it may take a while, but I can’t think of time better spent. If you are to remain Hope, then I want you to know that I have no desire to create for you an identity of someone you’re not, such as Love, which leaves but two more things to say.

If this scares you, or leaves you wondering why you’re such a rotten judge of character, or why you always attract the wrong element, please, just tell me, that I might seek the Hope that will become my Love.

If this leaves you wondering, give me a chance to wonder with you, seeking out together what ever comes next.

If you’re reading this and you are the Hope of another… take whatever you can apply as my gift to you. But don’t you dare allow what possibilities may exist to stagnate or rot or even ferment. Tell whoever it is now, while the idea is fresh and true and pure, while there is still Hope; I may already be too late.

To Love.

Nothing scares me more than these evasive ideas; what is love, and who is Love; these two realizations are presently beyond my understanding; I think I know why. I can’t have this aspiration before me and the secret I’ve been harboring behind me; secrets are too quick, they are always before us, and they’re too big, insurmountable, and so before so much as the prospect begins, I have a confession to make…

There is something that you need to know…