Objects are Farther Away Than They Appear – prose poetry by Bonnie Raphael

Objects are Farther Away Than They Appear

All day there were tears about to come about to burst or leak or crash through something that sits in my heart a full magenta red vermillion blood crimson water balloon pulsing bouncing soft and consistent. This private gentle thudding of remembering pushing membrane walls. Always I have been this way swimming diving deeper seeing only those lighted sea creatures soundless and electric, thinking I would land somewhere but never stopping.    When you were here there were always moments of relief from my no-reason-for-it sadness.  Moments of forgetting. Bliss and quiet. 

All day I remember I am getting wherever I am going without you. No wonder I didn’t want to start this thing. Getting out of bed alone. Now decades long the filament between us more real than not. Precious metal fishing line transparent silver violet yellow gold citrine sparkling.  The water deep beneath my feet lapping.  Together we knew each rock and its echoing vibrations. In the mountain only we could walk. Paired footsteps in its memory.

Alone the journey gets so dark. Velvet black. Now blind I am feeling less and less afraid. Just curious.  The antennae of my skin leading me with love down inside the mountain. Nestled. Protected in its caves, in the wet sulfur smells. The expanse of water lapping along our rocks. I see these things and say these things. I am an inch away from seventy.  

Release the morning. 

Open to light.

Release the tears of a thousand seas. 

Heal me.

Bonnie Raphael is an artist and writer living in Thousand Oaks, California. She holds a master’s degree in art from California State University, Northridge, and a bachelor’s from Immaculate Heart College, formerly in Hollywood California – now closed, but very much alive in spirit. She is semi-retired from teaching, This is her first published poem. A lifelong Buddhist, she is grateful to Amethyst Review for the opportunity to share her work.