Souls

Traveling
Through
The Dark
Noe Pineda
 A Message to Any
Person Reading This:

First, thank you. Second, I hope you

enjoyed reading this in its entirety
as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Last, but not least, I hope that
when you read this, you think about
how much you are capable of. Each
one of you has an unlimited amount
of potential waiting to be
uncovered. Get up and do what you
want. Do not take your time for
granted; we do not have any say in
how much time we have left. We can
only do as much as we allow
ourselves to.
 Part 16
We speak in an ancient language.
Vibrations that caress us to each other.
We echoed through the universe.
Cosmic winds and solar flares.
Nothing would ever dilute our passion.
Nothing but ourselves.
I miss the way you shake.
Behind my eyelids must be projectors.
Every time I close them, I see you. I see
us. I see the way we were created. I see
the way the stars exploded to allow for
their atoms to shape you. Mold you. It’s
still molding you. The stars give their
lives to see you live another day.
Supernovae at the brink of disappearing.
And you haven’t disappeared from my mind
for a second. Space is so utterly
beautiful. You make it look so bad.
You’re made of the same basic structures.
Yet you are so complex love. Strange how
you’re made from the remnants of an
explosion but can be so peaceful in my
arms. It didn’t burn at all. Not until
you left.
Part 1
Someday, when the time is right, our
souls will meet again. Our vibrations are
the only two alike in the universe. In
this lifetime or the next. Our souls will
meet again.
And when they do...I need a promise to
mean something. We let our promises slip
through our fingers the way sand sneaks
its way in between our toes. Forgetting
"forevers" was difficult at first but now
it's second nature. Investing my essence
in something that I am always afraid will
steal what makes me, well, me. I tick and
talk and tick and tock and tick but
somehow we never got around to figuring
it out. You spoke in Latin and I spoke in
hieroglyphs so I can't blame you. I just
hope that by the next time we encounter
one another we can say hello and
understand the manner in which your lips
curve and the way my eardrums beat a
melody so sweet every time you breathe. I
want to remember your feeling not so much
your face.
 Part 2
And you will always be the most
beautifully destructive storm of my
life.
You came as quick as I could blink and
you tore me apart like a pack of wolves
who have been hunting for weeks. I can
imagine the way your teeth fastened
themselves around my neck and you latched
on for your own safety. We probably knew
that it would happen. Denial prolonged
the inevitable. Time was not on our side.
You were a storm set on a path and I just
happened to be visiting the island you
had set your eye on. Blow me away before
I make another decision. We were not of
the same species. Maybe in the future you
won't be as determined to feed yourself
and I won't be so determined to
extinguish the flames of a fire that
would have kept us alive for ages. But
again, you were the most beautifully
destructive storm of my life...
Part 15
It wasn't your lips or your hips. The way
you walked, or the way you talked. I just
knew, I knew it was you, I knew you. My soul
ached the same way the first time we met.
When I was Julius Caesar, and you were
Cleopatra. Then, I was Frederic Chopin and
you George Sand. Now I am afraid to say, I
recognize you for fear of losing you.
I’m afraid none of my words mean anything
anymore. I am afraid none of my actions
speak loud enough. I am afraid that my soul
will ache for too many lifetimes for me to
handle. Love transcends all boundaries they
say, but so does the pain you feel at the
loss of love. It hurts to answer questions
on inspiration. Heartbreaks should never be
an answer. Sadness should never be a muse. I
fear so many things nowadays. I fear your
smile. I fear your laugh. I fear the sound
of your voice. I fear the way you breathe on
my neck. I fear the way you smell. I fear
the way you whimper my name at the crack of
dawn. I fear all these things out of
selfishness. I fear them all because I fear
that someday I won’t recognize them. I fear
loss. I fear our past lives. I fear our
current one. I fear our future lives. I fear
knowing that you will always be an
inseparable piece of my being. I don’t want
to miss you for another millennia.
 Part 14
You are a universal idea. Figments in
many imaginations. Fragments of many
datum. Fixed anomalies in the universe.
Fractures in time. And yet I loved you
like you were a cancer consuming my
being.
Stars bound together by dark matter. And
you still come up in conversation.
Galaxies with black holes inside,
swirling and devouring each star by star.
And you still turn every one of my
thoughts into meteors, racing across my
mind, colliding, making a mess of me.
Terabytes of data compacted into you.
Flash drives, flash backs, fast forward,
fast feelings, fast endings. In the grand
scheme of time, we were specks of dust in
a whirlwind of events. We came, we saw,
we allowed ourselves to be conquered. We
lost sight of why the sun shines. We lost
sight of why love glows. We lost sight.
We lost ourselves. We were floating
through space looking for stars that
remind us of each other. We found stars
that felt like home. You found arms that
felt like mine. I found pain that felt
like this. I fear nothing. I fear
nothing. We were something.
Part 3
I can smell you on the strands of hair
you left on my bed centuries ago and I
can feel the pulsing of your heart on my
pillows when I sleep but I don't
understand why anymore.
I remember the day you left, every day
that you left. I was a hopeful desert
wanderer, hoping that your leave was
nothing more than a mirage. Hoping the
creases on my bed still had some piece of
you and I could unfold them and laugh at
the jokes you told me. Connections can be
made with anyone and as easily as they
are made they can be broken. Your
heartbeat is out of sync with mine but
somehow it still creates music for my
soul. Nothing is permanent they say, and
maybe this is one of those things that
shouldn't be understood completely. And
maybe something between us still exists.
Not here of course. But in a different or
distant future. We made as much sense as
colors do. We were cooling reds and
burning blues. Nostalgic yellows and
pensive purples. We could have been much
more but I'll settle for the smell of you
in my bed and the pulsing of your heart
on my pillows. I don't want to
understand. Not anymore.
 Part 4
They told me once that energy cannot be
created nor destroyed but you broke me
down back into the very dust I was made
from and swallowed me whole. We didn't
choose to love each other; we were just
trying to survive.
Physics was modeled around the way you
held me in your grasp. Always at a
distance but always the same distance.
The forces you imposed on me were
gravitational to say the least. Moments
of pain and pleasure separated by only
the memories that my mind chooses to
remember. I don't know how many Decembers
I've blocked out. But I know I'll
probably be better off forgetting
Christmas too. New Years is tougher, new
beginnings surround us and old habits
die. You were always my favorite habit.
But habits aren't necessary to survive...
Part 13
What a pitiful thing our pride is. You
won't admit it and I can't. Beauty isn't
skin deep and that's a cliché phrase and
I can't stop thinking of us. We saw the
lights from a distance and chose to walk
the tunnel anyway. Look for me in the
sky.
I’m so proud of you. I’m so proud of us.
I’m so proud. I have so much pride. I am
so proud. I am proud of you. I see you
moving on. I’m glad. I was no good. The
same way acid rain makes our skin melt. I
was the rain and the skin. I burned
myself down. I let you walk away. I made
you walk away. I’m walking away. Why are
we walking anyway? I ask myself a lot of
questions in the dark. It makes it easier
to think clearly because my eyes can’t
see anything so my mind looks for you. I
ask myself a lot of questions in the
dark. I’m not scared anymore. When you
realize how terrible you can be, monsters
don’t compare. Love isn’t scary. Love is
bliss. Love is considered scary because
we are fully aware that this bliss can
make us blind to the truth. Love isn’t
always marshmallows and campfires. It’s
the feeling right before drowning and
dying. I’m so proud of you.
 Part 12
You are the energy and mass and speed of
light that Einstein theorized about. You are
the flickering stars in the night sky as
well as the vibrant moon. You are the
deepest oceans and highest peaks. You are
the happy. You are the sad. You are the
unforgettable.
E equals MC squared, whatever that means.
Einstein was brilliant, but there were a few
things he didn’t explain. For example, why
do my eyes feel heavy at the thought of your
smile? Why do my feet trip over one another
at the thought of your eyes? Why does my
stomach forget to hold things down when I
smell your perfume? Why am I still trying to
find the words to say to you? Why do I try
to justify my reasons for being in love with
an idea that was disproved long ago? I waste
so much energy on these massive thoughts and
then came this idea; the big bang wasn’t a
cosmic event that created everything that we
are. It was the moment my eardrums vibrated
when they heard your name. I watched the
universe unravel from your lips. I saw the
stars align themselves in the same pattern
as your blinks. I saw the way the galaxy
wrapped around itself like it was trying to
hold on. And if the stars, moons and planets
couldn’t do it. What made me think I could?
Part 5
When did love become so complicated? When
we were nothing more than swirling
gushing stars in a distant galaxies on
opposite ends of the universe we knew we
belonged together. Yet now we don't know
each other. I still feel your energy. I
still see your light. Can you feel and
see mine too?
Complications are products of
expectations and routine. We became a
lump of hard clay. Stuck in our daily
dilemma of the constant. Change is
necessary but I wish we were still
supernovas ready to explode. That was my
favorite time with you. The way your
molecules smiled back at me from across
the universe. Your energy beckons me but
your light is still so dim. It's worse
than playing Marco Polo in the complete
darkness of the nights I spent without
you. I'm afraid you've really forgotten
my aura. The reason you were happy wasn't
me. It was the recognition of each
other's souls as unique and individual
but still one. There are reasons that you
think about me at 2 AM but the real
question is why do you think of me at 2
PM.
 Part 6
Do you remember when the pyramids were
being built? They built them pointing
directly at you, they worshipped you. You
were their queen and goddess, as you are
mine.
And who gave you the right to be so
beautiful. When my teeth grind together
before my lips speak your name or how my
spine tingles when you would say, "I love
you", was it real at all? My love for you
was eternal because eternity seemed to be
a reality but when that facade was ripped
apart my reality had become eternally
void of immortality. It all ends at one
point. I wish our point hadn't come so
soon. I'd have enjoyed another lifetime
with you. I thought I knew you. You
probably still believe I do. A message to
anyone thinking about falling in love: Do
it only if you must. Love is not kind or
patient it is unforgiving and can kill
you. But love can also bring new life
from within you. It can revitalize you.
It can bring you all the treasures you
have ever dreamt about. If you're
thinking about falling in love. It's
probably too late.
Part 11
Mention me by name and watch the moon
light up. It remembers our story far
better than we do, love.
If you were to run your fingers over the
surface of the moon, it would tell you the
story about us. Braille, telling anyone
who were able to read it the story about
how it tried everything in its power to
keep us together. It would tell you about
the times that smiles sprouted from kisses
and how there was morse code in the clicks
coming from our teeth crashing against
each other. It would tell you about the
way your goosebumps are pages out of a
series of poems about the way our pupils
dilated at the thought of each other. It
would tell you about the way that broken
things can be fixed. It would tell you
about the way that lost people can be
saved. It would tell you about how we
tried. It would tell you about how we
failed. You see the moon isn’t there to
light up the night sky and steal all the
attention. That would be selfish and
egotistic. The moon is there to remind us
of the things we used to be, in hopes of
inspiring us to remember what it felt like
the first time we made love. But gravity
wasn’t enough to keep you from running.
 Part 10
When did you become so distant love? We
meant the universe to each other and now
we hardly ever speak. We created the
tides together and were the guide home
for so many souls. When did you become so
distant love?
We are beings of rhythm. Naturally
inclined to analyze and reconstruct the
vibrations spewing from our mouths.
Understood that the air and gravity that
interact with those vibrations form what
our thoughts beg us to speak. Lost in the
sound waves maybe, or maybe you weren't
listening when I spoke. I love you must
have sounded like goodbye and you figured
it was only a matter of time and so did
I. We are beings of rhythm. Come and go
and come and go. Hello. I love you.
Goodbye. We are beings of rhythm.
Everything about us yells temporary. The
way our skin wrinkles. The way our eyes
blink. The way we wish we could take back
the words that broke us down in the first
place. So I guess when I asked when you
became so distant. I should have been
asking why.
Part 7
Rain clouds swelled in your eyes and your
stomach twisted with tornados and my
hands cracked like the skin of the earth
and my legs crashed down like tsunamis
and it was all because we were too
stubborn to speak.
Hello has become foreign to our tongues
and the "I love you"'s went back from to
where they came from. We used to talk for
hours about nothing and that used to be
enough. Substance was not the only thing
we needed. But we shouldn't have allowed
emptiness to take over. We lost sight of
what used to be our foundation. We flew
too close to the sun. We dug too deep
into what used to be a sacred place.
Matters of the heart are as delicate as
we allow them to be. The universe stopped
guiding us. Or we stopped following. I
don't know which one is more painful to
believe in any more. Maybe I was right.
Maybe I was wrong. Either way, a war
always leaves scars on the land it is
fought on. And I wish my apologies meant
something.
 Part 8
I still find myself stretching across my
bed searching for what used to be love
and it is no where to be found. Your
energy is still present and my mind still
wanders from time to time. Explanations
are not due.
I wonder if you remember what it feels
like to be in my arms. I wonder if you
still think of the times we would climb.
Axes chewing down the limbs we stood on.
Shaking and trembling. The bed smells so
much like you at times it's almost
unbearable. The moon won't stop mocking
me she smiles the same way you do. She
lights up the way you did. Why does she
light up the way you did. I remember
smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. I wonder
if you still remember the way it felt to
feel. You got so cold so fast. None of my
sweaters could help you. Under the covers
and no longer lovers but somehow we still
managed to smother one another. Go
figure, everything has its expiration
date. My milk isn't sour. It's just the
taste of you leaving. You don't have to
explain. I understand.
Part 9
You are the definition of a muse.
Trancing and hypnotizing, eventually a
source of pain for eternity. I'll love
you until my bones run dry and return to
dust.
I poured your body onto every canvas I
could find. I gave you all the colors I
saw when I thought of you. My blood,
sweat and tears mixed with every inch of
you. I made myself a weight and didn't
think I was drowning you. Time didn't
exist in the fabrics you dressed in. Love
meant giving up our identities at the
time and sometimes definitions are wrong.
My bones filled themselves with gold dust
and I used to think it was a good thing.
But now I am as heavy as your eyelids are
when your alarm rings at 5 in the
morning, and as heavy as your thoughts
are when you think of me, and as heavy as
your heart feels when you can't decide
whether you were right or wrong. I am
heavy. I am burdened. I am nothing but
dust yet I cannot seem to just slip away
into the corners of the room the way your
love did. I can't imagine gravity
apologizing for keeping you grounded but
I sunk you into quick sand. I wouldn't be
mad if you hated me. I'd just understand
how you could.