The Shadow Ballet

In sleeping dust do playful shadows stir,
within the static they flicker; fierce, patient.
The breath of a step is as a voice that beckons,
the recognition of the anxious, delicate dance

Settled in the dust, shadow dreams of play linger
An ethereal ballet waiting to take stage, waiting,
waiting everlong for the shyest glimmer of light
The pitch darkness is as melancholy to shadow,
a despondency long overdue to be snuffed out

A rush of air, and a flood of empyrean light
sends the shadows to a frenzy, a lively dance
far separated from the lachrymose existence
no longer a laconic reply, but a rush of endless thougts

Oh the shadows that play in the corners of my mind
The thoughts that threaten to pull delicate threads
Would ignoble thoughts make their way through
to bring ache to a heart both vulnerable and unaware?

Leave the static pain as it were, disturb it not
That they would die into shadows that dare not dance
Let only euphoria be beckoned awake to its rare ballet
far from melancholy we were not meant to know

© copyright by Michèle Aimée Lahaie, 2011

Control vs. The Fates

Along this road,
my path was adjusted somewhere.
These are so many months of nothing,
months spent going in the wrong direction...
Where did I go wrong? Is it wrong?
Somewhere along the way, the road split.
I never noticed. And there I met you

You were never supposed to stay
you were never meant to come back
but somehow our paths crossed again
I found you at my doorstep once more
--two and three times more than expected!
Our paths are not aligned, only crossed
oh but crossed as star-crossed lovers!

Leave me please, no don't try to stay
So far it's thrice caused my heart pain
What can I say of your charm?
What can I ay against your loving kiss?
Though you are none of what my life requires
My heart finds you irresistible, ever kissable
but elusive, impossible to catch hold of
-and so difficult to love.

Your love breaks me. Makes me what?
Does it make me stronger? better? lovelier?
I think not. I feel as unlovely as ever.
It was not my path that was adjusted
It was yours. You altered your path
You made sure to land at my doorstep
oh yes, just once more. and then again.

You could not stay away - but cannot stay
Though you could manipulate your path
it was only temporarily. Another collision.
For a moment it lasted, but the moment? gone.
And with that moment, you are as gone too.
I know you'll come back soon, try to change things.
Adjust that path, try to cross the fates once more
But I'll be gone.

Why would you fight for control? Not love.
Oh so you said - it was not love, but control.
My heart broke at once - shattered thrice more.
How could I give you my heart this time?
How could I offer to let you in, without love,
and only with want for control. I never had you.
I never had your love - only your attention

I ensnared your thoughts in fantasy with words I wrote
and I? equally enraptured by you. until you broke the illusion
You broke the beauty and I looked through the mirror
and saw the danger that was in store. How it scared me!
It terrified me, more than I knew before! Would that be me?
Would that life be mine if I fought the fates for your love?
Not love at all, and not my life. All I dreamed of would be gone!

Go from me, dear heart. and speak not of your love or control.
Leave, back to your path. Make your own path, and I, mine.
Manipulate your path all you like, but dare not touch mine.
I will fight the fates on my own terms - with love and spirit
and not by the chances brought me by your lust for control...

© copyright by Michèle Aimée Lahaie, 2011

Unforgotten Dream

Like an unforgotten dream, he remains
The dream lingers, for I refuse to let go
If only I'll remember, hold tight, the dream will carry
but the memory fades, and I struggle to make out his face
Oh like a dream his face was, dreaming as all
His eyes enrapt by many a dream by others unseen,
so distant - yes, far away, but present, and so close to me
In his eyes he let me share his dreams, carried me far
Now his eyes are long gone - were the blue? brown?
His scent drifts past me at times, yet I find him not
Oh half-remembered dream, the way he was
was he ever real at all? Or did I dream him too?
I can scarce tell dream from the real
and now as the memory of him fades-
-just as dreams fade into morning light,
I wonder, did I dream this unforgotten boy?
did I ever know him at all?

© copyright by Michèle Aimée Lahaie, 2011

We need never be hopeless

I read it. all of it.
If it were possible to inhale words,
then one might say I inhaled the book
It was the book he had so begged me to read
before we disappeared, just as they had from the pages
And so it seemed, that I was just as she,
and perhaps he was no less than he.
The words on the pages spoke all
they revealed his very heart
his every essence.
So it goes, and so he is gone
gone as the words on the pages are here.
and I know what and why, without knowing anything at all.
But though I chose to put my thoughts to rest,
those words churned the dregs awake
and gave me final ease
in a way my heart against mind had not.
Perhaps he never knew, or never heard, and never will
but perhaps he chose in a way that was best.
It all happened so fast, a forced choice,
but now I choose more than drive,
more than a decision, is peace.
But I have stepped from my wearying maze,
with my heart calm, I know all is forgiven with me.
So gracefully, I lay it aside, knowing my energy has not left me.
Things were done and undone
and he would have been proud at the tears
all the tears I cried and spilled over the pages all at once
and I admit I loved my crooked neighbor
with all my crooked heart...

© copyright by Michèle Aimée Lahaie, 2011
(homage)

Rude Awakening...

Restlessness strikes our life from time to time. Our desires unmet, curiosity unsatiated, pain unmended, and weariness unended. There are times we attempt not to satisfy these things any longer because we have too oft been faced with disappointment. In these times, rather than working towards a goal, we linger far behind, and like trying to whitewash over a thing, we do not attempt more than to satisfy our craving for our truest life with other things. But the hunger never stops. The craving for life as we are meant to live it never leave our souls, because it is not a thing that can be separated -- it is within us, within our soul, a piece of our spirit. Our calling will not cease to call.
It is when we ignore our innermost self that it begins to cry the loudest. In this moment, we make the silliest mistakes, and act least like ourselves, and act out, until we are rudely wakened to that very realization.

I woke up recently. I had acted as unlike myself as possible, and felt disgusted. It was the sort of rude awakening in which I felt I had found myself in sludge instead of silk. I had to get out of that as quickly as possible. I realized I had ceased to be a lady -- even my pursuit to be a lady! I had allowed the inelegance of the charmless coffee shop at which I work to drain me of my elegance. I had allowed myself to slip into a lonely sadness, one so drained of energy that it sought attention or distraction where it would. My kindness began to fade, my gratitude embarrassing, and my self-control, lacking. And then came the unfortunate mistakes. Silly ones that I ought never have made. For these mistakes, I am deeply sorry. In my embarrassment I removed any element of distraction from my fingertips, and hastily began to right myself. Again I'm beginning to stand taller, speak more eloquently and feel the deep joy that comes only from answering my call. My burst of energy after my pursuits has quickly been answered, and I'm righting myself. I can't help but what wonder if I had not let me lose myself for even a moment, but such thoughts I realize are a waste of energy - a step backwards when I am trying to move forward. So here I am, glad to feel elegantly like myself once again, and very sorry to anyone I may have hurt (or more likely, left bewildered).

~ Aimée, 2010

"For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone." - Audrey Hepburn

Restored

All in one moment my heart was left
of love, of life and of romance bereft
Such speech ne'er left a soul so dead
No prose ere before left a spirit so black.
Deny it as I would, neither bleak spirit,
nor empty soul could stay secret for long
So loud it cried when to the surface it came
that to my rescue another romantic hied
How my heart unraveled at his words
a counterlogic my heart could not've spell'd
those words unwound these tight binds
and broke the darkness, lifted me to light
What magic is this? Only romantics could know
Yea fortune brought such tenderness to mend
a heart as hardened and broken as this
A heart that nigh swore it felt no longer
but a heart near cursed to die without love
Jamais, jamais, was the unhappy cry of my heart,
now toujours it says to romance, joy anew...

© copyright by Michèle Aimée Lahaie, 2010

Set Free

I want to run away
it's time to start anew
start a new life
without the memories
borrowed from the past
or old emotions so untrue
I want to revel in the now
with new lives to love
past positive is not enough
future dreamers, faux love

I want to live as I should
I want to live in the here. now.
Borrowed memories of the past
have held on too long,
I wonder why they last?
Let them not linger on.

No there is no closure
there is only life to be lived
only a new dance in my feet
a new voice in my throat
longing to be let free
to let me sing my new song
the one I've harbored so long
the one I've practiced in secret
in a silence I've abhorred
the silence where I'm ignored

My wings have grown strong
my feathers clipped no more
I'm watching the sun rise
as the light fills my new day
the new dawn over a sea
That separated life from me.

© copyright by Michèle Aimée Lahaie, 2010