Salt

I met you by the sea,
Waiting under a moon
Tinted by blood,
Surrounded by stars lit.
A million candles burning,
Tiny flames.

Your arms extended,
Waiting to take flight.
To swim the ocean before us,
To reach the horizon,
The twilight where sky and sea
Are home.

We took our shoes off
To feel the sand beneath.
Tiny rocks and shells
Grounded, softened by the waters
That we hoped would save us too.

Clothes strewn about,
Footprints swallowed by
Hungry foam.
The mouth of the Ocean
That craved us,
Beckoned us.

We jumped in head first,
Taking swift and hurried strokes
Forgetting our breaths,
Heartbeats steadying to a silent rhythm
So that our eyes could finally see
Home.

-Noemi E. Garcia Rigsby

The Meet

Waiting for  you,
Window watching.
Silent prayers
Muttered into coffee cups.

You know everything,
Already.
So I wonder why the meeting?
And I run through my head
The million things I need to say.

"I get it,
I mean I know.
Why I'm here,
Why you made it this way,
I know."

Silent tears.
How do I tell you,
That I'm getting lost in the way?
It was easier before,
To be me, to be right.
 But I know it's not enough.

Now I've walked a million miles
In the shoes of the broken, the faithless,
the lost, and the guilty.
I've walked a cross
Bleeding my way through a crowd
That thought me once a saint.

Fear grips my heart to think,
I'll never make my way back to you.
That this darkness, will persevere
That the empty, that the blind,
That I'll die here.

And I've seen your hand walk me through
You've seen it all,
You know it wall,
So why the meet?

 I pause my stuttered fast sentences,
Waiting for my sentence from your lips
How much longer? Is there any other way?

No words, His hands extended
Scars that answered, "No."
Scars that replied, "You can never value anything, unless it costs you something."
Scars that cried, "You can never know love until you've walked their cross, in their own shoes."
Scars that comforted, "To win, you first must lose."

-Noemi E. Garcia Rigsby