CHARLIE M ZAMARRIPA turns 50 on Emily Dickinson’s birthdate.  He currently resides in Calexico, California,  in the Imperial Valley.   He is a father of 4 (ages 25,24, 12 & 9).  He is a graduate of San Diego State University ,  where he earned a B.S. in English Literature and Applied Sciences.   He earned a California Single Subject Secondary School Teaching credential and taught in his hometown and neighboring cities for 6 years.  He has done Free -lance writing for the Calexico Chronicle and is working on a collection of flash fiction stories and book of poems . The only item on his bucket list is  to see the Aurora Borealis lights. 

HAD I KNOWN

Had I known that you

Would make such an impact

I could have been prepared

And I wouldn’t have been so awkward when I was introduced to you, because I never stuttered before

And I usually wasn’t as clumsy

The first day of the rest of my life

You were a natural disaster

I could never be prepared for

I knew on that embarrassing day, l knew that you would be my wife

Had I known you would leave me, on the eve of our anniversary, I was at your bed side, you asked,”why me?”

Just like you did the first time I

Asked you out on a date

Just like you did whenever you wanted me to profess my love to you..

And even when I confessed that I loved you with all my heart, I loved to hear you ask

“Why me?”

If only I had known

That it would be the last time

Your eyes would hold my image in them, or that your kisses would burn my defenses down every single time, and how each kiss was transcending, more vast than the sky up above

If I had known, that the worst day of my life would manifest itself on that day

I would have, maybe I could have ..

If only I had known

The helplessness one feels

When nature runs its course

Or how my heart loosed itself from the middle of my chest

And fell all the way down to the floor, like our dreams

Crashing hard to the ground

Had I known

Had I known then, that I could be so lucky to have found you that fateful night on September 21st, 28 years ago, I would say you were crazy

Because things like that don’t happen to a man like me

And here we are, In a dimly lit room, the silence broken Intermittently by my sobbing

and although my heart was broken and my life felt so insignificant, I answered,

Like I have always answered

“Because you are the most beautiful girl in this room!”

WHEN WE LOOKED INTO EACH OTHER’S EYES

When We looked into

each other’s eyes

our hearts crumbled

like old adobe walls

Because we didn’t see the enrapturing brightness of new love anymore, we didn’t see that magic that made our hearts sigh with never ending happiness

We looked into each other’s eyes and we knew

That our time had run its course

And there was nothing else we

Could do to force either of us into initiating the final push towards better days

We looked into each other’s eyes

And there was no more passion

-that flame had burned out many days and months beforehand

We went about our business, pretending,

We tried to start the fire again

We tried many times in vain

Too many times, until we knew that It was of no use, it could never be the same

Our live had a DNR on file

So, we watched as our love took its last breath, like a fish out of water, It gasped and look scared for a while

We looked in each other’ eyes and we couldn’t find any reason at all to try harder

we couldn’t find a damn thing

Despite so many beautiful memories, all gone, the drowned

In too many nightmares and arguments

Our love deserved more than this

We looked into each other’s eyes and saw someone

That we didn’t even care to understand anymore

Our love suffered too many internal injuries

To still be viable to either of us

So we took many steps back, and walked our own different way

Because when we looked into each other’s eyes..

We saw nothing