By Heather    dreamheather@hotmail.com
Date: 1 June 1998

"DEAR HEART, BE STILL"

shhhh..
Dear heart, be still.
You've been this way before.
Confused, unwilling to make a move.
Wake up, it's time to decide.
Come out of this dream, aren't you tired of being alone?

So late at night when the phone rings,
and I pick it up.
After months of his silence,
when his voice comes through the line,
riling this love for him,
in you my heart, once more,
We will know, will have decided,
finally, what to do.
Decide on a direction,
instead of going around and around.

I know it's hard.
But when the next call comes,
I can say,
shhhh..
Dear heart, be still.
Nothing's changed.
I'll remind you, you've heard all this,
over and over, for over a year.
It's getting us nowhere.
I'll hope you will hear me and listen.

For just when you are hanging
by that last thread of hope.
Just when you, my heart, are finally ready to admit defeat, giveup.
His voice speaks, through that phone,
and you start weaving those broken threads of love,
of hope, together once again.
I ask for what?
You and he, just play this scene over and over.
Nothing comes of it.
Don't go forward.
Don't go backward.
Just stand still.
We start to lose hope, then he calls,
hope builds, all over again.
Is there no end?
Is this relationship with him, 
destined to be this way?

Dear heart, I pray not.
This time, how long will it take?
Remember?
For years you honored a commitment
to a man you didn't love.
You stayed too long.
Just where did it get you?
Only constant unhappiness.

So why, oh why, are you so insistant,
on now playing the other side?
Playing it the other way around?
Overstaying your time,
loving with all your heart someone,
that can not, will not, love you back,
the way we want, need to be loved.

A love that will never hold us.
Will never touch us.
Will never whisper to us,
cause our breath to catch.
Cause wave after wave, by just the sound of the love in his voice.
Will never again say he loves us because,
now for the last year he hasn't,
and he probably never will again.

His heart is too hurt, to expose it, risk it.
He's lost faith, the ability to dream, to believe,
that there is someone out there who,
wants to touch him,
to hold him,
to tell him she loves him,
with everything in her heart.
And is willing to tell him, hold him, touch him, again and again.

Dear heart, be still.
Once again we are 
between a rock and a hard place,
where we have been before, for years.
Maybe, just maybe, it is time to consider saying goodbye.
We lived the ending of this story before,
from the other side, for eighteen years.
Maybe, heart, we need to start moving, start looking,
start trying to find love once again.
Look for a mutual, supportive, all consuming, real love.
I don't think we will find it here,
no matter how much we wish it.

Shhh..
Dear heart, be still.
I know it hurts.
But it's time to decide.
Do we continue to live in this circle,
or do we break out??