Things Lost and Understood

    by Chrystal Berche

You speak to me in a language I should know

the words rolling over me, through me

the power of them crashing against my soul, dissipating.

I love you but I can’t relate

not to the stories you tell of Los Sanfermines

or the way you just know when the Arroz con Coco is done.

Unlike me, who burns it, and stares at you with confused eyes

while you explain for the twentieth time what went wrong,

I listen, picking out every third word, praying it will be enough.

Pride-pricked, I duck my head, try again.

It isn’t as sweet as yours, it’s a little bitter and crunchy

and I think, this is us

the measure of our relationship boiled down to this scorched pan

and the sad look that flickers through eyes

that drift over my black-painted nails and blue-dyed hair

the “tisk” of your tongue clicking against the roof of your mouth

before you pray to Santa Monica to give you the strength

that all mothers wish for when dealing with an unruly child.

And that’s me, unruly, even at twenty-three

the gap between us growing with every word I miss

but I’ve never missed the meaning behind the prayers

or the way you pat my hand before I doggedly try again.

© 2014  Chrystal Berche

Hard times, troubled times, and the lives of her characters are never easy for Chrystal Berche, but then what life is?  The story is in the struggle, the journey, the triumphs and the falls.  She writes about artists, musicians, loners, drifters, dreamers, hippies, bikers, truckers, hunters and all the other things she knows and loves.  Sometimes she writes urban romance and sometimes its aliens crash landing near a roadside bar.  When she isn’t writing she’s taking pictures, or curled up with a good book and a kitty on her lap.