Folly Beach Love Story

by Paul Mount

Pranayama.

  The most critical mistake is to assume that running will always feel the way it does today. It might hurt today, it might be unpleasant, but that will diminish over time as your body gets stronger. Even then, you will have your good days and bad days, days of pain and days of joy.

  The idea is not to ignore your pain. The idea is that through breath and effort, the body falls away, and becomes chimera. You might have a body, or that might be a malicious lie you've been told. Any pain that phantom body may feel is of no more consequence to you than if Bigfoot stubs his toe.

  You have run past your pain. If you stop now, the pain will catch up with you, and hit you from behind.

  Do not squint and strain to see the finish line on the horizon. That is not the place to find what you seek, it is not where you're going. Your destination is as close as your next breath.

  In. Hold. Out out out. Pranayama.

  Religious Girl(contents)

  Just Got Home(contents)

  My hands still smell like yours

  The richness of lavender

  Crossed with your sweetness.

  In the cold rain of the evening,

  You wore my orange jacket.

  Its sad empty husk misses you,

  And clings to your scent.

  I inhale it deeply

  While dreaming of kissing your neck,

  Where it meets your shoulder,

  And feeling you lean into me.

  What sound would you make?

  Would your hands clutch me

  As tightly as I hold you?

  What would it feel like?

  To have you kiss me

  As urgently as I kiss you?

  Do I revel in an illusion

  Of what you feel for me?

  And if so, why?

  The specter of my past haunts you.

  But I cannot change my past

  Any more than I can change how you feel about it.

  I wonder if there is a limit to my hope.

  Hypertrophy(contents)

  The muscles in the upper arm

  When stressed over time

  Respond by thickening,

  And with their greater mass able to apply more force.

  The triceps, especially,

  Work to push things away

  The biceps work when you hold things in.

  Resistance builds muscles

  Carves the subtle flesh into unyielding strength.

  Tell me, darling one:

  Aren't your muscles getting tired

  From holding me at arm's length?

  Break-up Girl(contents)

  Kudu(contents)

  At the coffee shop

  Holding your hand

  It feels right, and natural.

  But in your eyes

  There's a sadness.

  Do you even know I can see it?

  I know you fight

  Wrestle with yourself

  Hold yourself back from what you're feeling.

  The attraction

  It's palpable

  Sensible to feeling as to sight.

  I know the words

  That would break down your resolve

  make you mine

  body and soul

  for fleeting, brutal, honest moments.

  But it's not right:

  I want more than the carnal,

  More than what's forbidden.

  There is more here.

  I want you to trust me.

  I'm good

  I'm right

  I will hold you as long as you want.

  All of this

  In my head

  And I try to convey by the way I touch your hand.

  Afterwords

  In the garage

  After I've walked you to your car

  I kiss you

  I feel you

  The smile you give astounds me.

  My turn to struggle

  To let you go

  And wait for the time when I can see you again.

  Wading in January(contents)

  To sight, inviting

  After a run

  In a day of warmth

  You beckon

  Surely the splash would refresh

  Redeem

  Replenish

  Renew

  I ignore your warnings

  The starfish, cast out

  Menhaden, fleeing your chill

  Wading feels good on my tortured feet

  Splashed on my head

  Yet while it soothes

  The heat o'pressed brain

  I dare not plunge in

  And with your cold

  You chase me out.

  The Third Point(contents)

  There are three points of connection:

  The head, the heart, and the body.

  My head and my heart agree:

  It's best to let you go.

  But my body

  Craves yours

  and betrays my best intentions.

  I awake in the morning wondering.

  Why you are on my mind

  When you should be in my bed?

  Coup de Gras(contents)

  You got what you wanted,

  Didn't you?

  You finally pushed me away

  With both arms

  Hard enough

  That I lack the strength

  to fight you.

  You said you couldn't.

  In fact, you wouldn't.

  I shouldn't love you

  I guess you finally talked me into it.

  Synesthesia(contents)

  How many times

  Have I been here,

  Reached this point,

  Known this truth?

  You keep telling me

  Let you go

  And I keep fighting it.

  Then,

  In moments of equilibrium

  I know the truth

  And it makes the world colder.

  I reach for a sweatshirt

  To fend against the chill

  It smells like you

  And the truth is forgotten.

  Transition Girl(contents)

  About Her(contents)

  Some people would describe her as hard.

  I disagree.

  Rather, she has never known what it is to be soft.

  She can no more reject softness than can one who does not know Him reject God.

  Hers is a life of walking into winds, and never knowing how it feels to have a breeze at her back to gently push her along.

  She has known only shelters, and lulls,

  Before the gale returns strong enough

  To peel flesh from bone,

  Little pieces of her blown away,

  And what is left is polished, and smooth, and beautiful.

  She lives leaning into the wind, as plants twist toward the sunlight

  Without the wind to lean against, she would topple and break.

  We have many of the same hard surfaces, she and I.

  But the places where we mesh are the places where she is soft, and I am hard.

  These places are few, and precious, and as valuable as the diamonds she resembles.

  Mystery Achievement(contents)

  The world can never know

  What we created today

  Anonymous donor

  Unknown recipient

  A mystery even unto ourselves

  Newly coined predator

  New found prey

  Neither knowing

  Which is which

  I peel off a layer of virtue

  You remove a layer of pretense

  Co-conspirator

  Collaborator

  I thrust with verse

  You parry with rhyme

  Indelicate meter

  Transition

  Quickening pace

  Primitive rhythm

  Brought together

  To come together

  And no one can kn
ow what is wrought

  Early(contents)

  I awake in the dark

  Knowing that sleep will not return

  A loud dripping outside

  A metronome

  To mark the rhythm of stopped time

  Thoughts tumble about

  Of you,

  And where you are

  And with whom

  I try to reach for you with my mind

  Thoughts reaching out

  Like bindweed

  Vines about the obstacles between us

  A vision of our aerie

  A future that exists only in my mind

  A folly of a folly on Folly.

  Before there can be us

  There must be a you

  And there must be a me

  And the me is already fading away

  Lost in the light of you.

  Tenuous and fragile

  But vital that we stand on our own

  Yet so much easier

  To lean on each other.

  The One I Broke(contents)

  This is my confession

  And my penance

  And my warning.

  I wrote this about you,

  But you are not the first.

  Stop me if you've heard this before:

  “I can fix this one!”

  It is my battle cry, a clarion call.

  Or perhaps it is the bony rattle

  Of Death's apparatus

  Wiping away all who dare trespass

  My radius of destruction.

  Your happiness

  Your stability

  Your future

  Your marriage

  Gone.

  Rendered to a consommé

  For a moment's consumption.

  Sinful and delicious!

  You wriggled in my web

  Bled in the water

  Your distress call,

  Answered by a predator.

  I awakened the you that lay dormant

  As you waited out the eons of him.

  Yes love, it's all about you,

  All for you!

  But also me.

  Me me me me me me me

  Have you lost all

  For my selfish gain?

  You lay now in your bed

  Heartbroken for the life you lost

  Fearful of the life you've gained

  Shrodenger's Cat is dead

  And the body is growing cold.

  And I remain me

  Searching for the next one I can fix.

  High Wind Advisory(contents)

  From my high safe place

  I can see the sand

  Flowing down the beach

  A writhing yellow torrent of silk

  Revealing the shape of the wind

  With a stick you scratched words into the beach

  A message to the world

  Now reclaimed and wiped clean

  The line you drew in the sand

  Is breached and swept away

  It tumbles down he beach

  like a lost green balloon

  Never to be seen again

  And a girl I once loved

  Who once loved me

  Is carried beyond the reach of my words

  She cringes and recoils now

  When I reach for her

  Hating me for trying

  And soon enough

  I am forgotten

  Erased by the drifting sand.

  Separation(contents)

  Roanoke... Morning(contents)

  The alarm clock has made

  Its unctuous wail.

  But I cannot move,

  Not even my eyes

  Which remain wide open.

  Fatigue is just another name

  For lack of motivation

  Both are symptoms of dread.

  There is a day to be faced

  And a journey to complete

  And a journey to begin.

  When I Return(contents)

  When I return,

  My beloved friend,

  We will sit and talk

  And drink together

  And be together.

  We will revel in our strength

  That we made it

  Through these days.

  I will tell you

  Of the cold days I've spent

  To remind you how to enjoy the sun.

  As my empty, humble shack grows dark

  We will hold hands

  And you will remind me

  How far we still need to go

  And I will reply that we are moving.

  When I return

  We will spend the night

  Renewing our will

  To fight for our lives

  Puppies

  Rainbows

  Hearts

  Balloons

  Kittens

  And pixie dust

  We will snatch a moment of joy

  When I return

  I am miles away right now.

  And I ask you only one favor:

  Hold on,

  And wait for me.

  I am on my way.

  Reunion(contents)

  Lessons Learned(contents)

  These are some lessons I've learned.

  Six words can explain the world.

  The April wind is a bully.

  It can be reasoned with, sometimes.

  The sun is a bully too.

  It is not open to negotiation.

  The tide is a patient thief.

  It will take what it wants.

  I can not solve your problems.

  You will not solve mine, either.

  I have no solutions to offer.

  I have ears, and a shoulder.

  You have my sympathy, and empathy.

  It will have to be enough.

  We can walk the beach, together.

  Portrait of the Poet's Folly Beach Shack(contents)

  You will know, before the car even stops, before your eye can focus on details, before you can even be sure what you are seeing, you will know.

  The house, my shack, is obscured from view as you drive down the road, by trees, and shrubs, and big modern houses. But then you pass a last row of hedges, and you see it, set back from the road. Old, dark wood, bleached gray by the relentless sun, with ivy claiming half the upper reaches with searching tentacles of green and brown. It seems the ivy holds the house together, even though one day it will rip it apart.

  The screened porch juts out at you, but plays a trick on your eyes: it pulls the focus forward, to the rose bush, to old-but-sturdy railing, to the stone steps, to the white house numbers. The three broke, but I was able to fix it with wood glue and patience.

  From the street, it is difficult to see the porch beyond the screen.

  Push open the outer screen door. It's a flimsy green skeleton, a leaning parallelogram hanging at an impossible, funhouse angle. The last step is taller than the first two, but when you step up and in the porch beacons you to stop and rest in it's shade. An old couch with a beige slipcover invites you to sit. Do not resist the temptation. Your back is to the house then, you are facing the street from which you've just come. In front of you is a table I fashioned from cinder blocks and a long wooden plank. Beyond the screen is a battlement of roses, with Carolina anoles patrolling the parapet. To your right a wall of figs shelters you. This couch is the perfect place to sit and write, to listen to the morning become the day, to experience connection to the world from a safe vantage. When the tide is high you can hear the ocean. though you cannot see it.

  Or perhaps you prefer the gentle sway of the hammock instead, nestled in the shadow of old palms, surrounded by the rustling busyness of birds. No one would fault you should your eyelids become heavy.

  The inner screen door is red, and the house seems dark inside, almost gloomy and foreboding. You can sense the wood paneling within. But open it, and step inside. You've been tricked again: the inside is bathed in
light from the large windows, and the living room, into which you enter, has three white walls facing the paneled wall. More wood paneling lead your eyes up the high vaulted ceilings, which take the day's heat and your spirits up to the ancient timbers that form the rafters.

  The living room has a dark blue industrial carpet, and a sisal rug the color of sand. A wicker couch has cushions which match it, and across from that a daybed of dark wood with electric blue wedge pillows. Turn and walk into the dining room, with its battered tile floor and ridiculous, endless natural light, and the small kitchen with blue counters that must have been the envy of the neighbors when disco ruled the world.

  As your guide, I am eager to point out the obvious quirks: the wall between the living room and the guest bedroom that doesn't make it even halfway to the ceiling. The large, fully-functional bathtub in that same guest room; the cubby holes high overhead, covered by linen drapes and holding no one knows what. But I would rather let you explore, because at every turn there are hidden whimsies, mysterious nooks, the seemingly random functioning of the plumbing fixtures. The joy is in discovering these things for yourself.

  It is a place full of contradictions and idiosyncrasies. And you knew, you knew, before the car even stopped, whether these were faults or treasures. You knew whether you appreciated the art that time labored to create, whether it is aged or just old. The shack challenges you to love it on its own terms, to accept its weirdness as charms, and to embrace the ramshackle. The shack defines you as it defies you. If you open yourself to it, it will surprise and delight you. If you don't, it will remain steadfast and unperturbed.

  This house survived Hugo, it will survive your opinion.

  The Magic Day(contents)

  It seems almost cruel to share this with you,

  My fellow seekers,

  Knowing how you search and long for it.

  But I am here to tell you that it is there for you,

  If you follow the omens,

  If you accept love as it is given,

  Rather than as you wish it to be.

  The day brought me gifts, and I was ready to receive them.

  I awoke, bleary, possibly still drunk,

  and angry at the world that my eyes had opened.

  I did not yet know what the day had to offer.

  The first gift was the words,

  which came unbidden,

  which formed something that brought me joy,

  even though I could not fathom from whence they had come.

  There was enchanted darkness in them,

  and yet it brought me light.

  Afterwords, she summoned me.

  And we talked and we shared,

  triumphs and burdens spilling out onto the floor.

  We spent time bringing a small amount of order to the tumble-dried universe.

  Then she closed the bedroom door,

  leaving the chaos outside,

  and we retreated to a haven of white linen.

  Rigorous energy,

  Quakes and spasms,

  Throes and cries,

  And bliss.

  I could not tell you which was better,

  The entanglement,

  Or the precious hours that followed,

  Entwined in sleep and wakefulness,

  The gentle breezes embracing us as I embraced her,

  The scent of her, the feel of her skin,

  The press of her body against mine.

  Outside, people were engaged in their wars,

  Warriors wish us to fight with them,

  or against them.

  It is all they know.

  But we chose not to engage,

  Only to honor their struggle:

  Namaste.

  The world intruded only long enough to let us know it was time to move,

  To nourish our bodies as we had our spirits.

  And the rainbows guided us where we needed to go next.

  That evening,

  Feet in sand,

  Walking into the wind,

  hand in hand,

  On a beach swept clean of all treasures,

  Except those we brought with us,

  The moon followed us.

  Reminding me again and again how beautiful her smile is in the moonlight,

  How her dark eyes gleam when she ruminates on hope and joy,

  When she remembers that her cluttered days are counting down,

  That they were always counting down,

  And she won't need to travel the long and stifling road,

  And she will have her own space, and her own light, and her own way.

  Finally, the couch on the porch,

  Silence building the way the night falls,

  Slowly.

  But not deafening silence,

  More the silence of coming to rest,

  And transition,

  And resurrection.

  Restored, we returned to our struggles,

  and the day was won.

  I am left with new words,

  And the duty to share them with you.

  To tell you, all of you,

  That magic is out there for you too.

  When you are ready to believe in it,

  When you stop trying to concoct it,

  When you no longer ask how it happens,

  When you are ready to understand that it is fleeting, yet permanent,

  When you do not plan for it, but accept it on its terms,

  It will be there, waiting.

  (contents)