pictures and poems of lost time
danielle van werkhoven
Š2017 Danielle van Werkhoven. All rights Reserved ISBN 978-0-244-90935-2
Contents
the love ............................................................ 8
the transition ................................................... 28
the loss ........................................................... 42
the recovery ..................................................... 60
for the boy who found me and lost me, the boy who helped me find myself again, and all of the people who listened to me when I needed it most. This is all made possible by your love and support for the things that I do.
Note from the Author This book holds a special place in my heart. It explores the hills and valleys of love and loss, the good times and the bad. My hope is that you can read these poems and images and find yourself somewhere within them. I hope that they can help you overcome the hurt and appreciate the moments that matter the most. I am always searching to find words and phrases to explain the way that I feel. I am constantly searching for ways to understand what is really going through my head, so I guess in a way this is a culmination of my mind overflowing with thoughts. I hope you enjoy experiencing it as much as I did creating it.
I never want the memories of you to become hazy. I want them vividly imprinted in my mind until I can’t take the thought of you ever again.
One summer, I bought a dress drowining in a pattern of roses, that flew up over subway grates, and clinched my torso tightly. The zipper never got stuck, and when I inhaled my chest felt tight. You told me I looked beautiful when I wore it. I’ll never forget when you first saw me in it.
Your breath raises the hairs on the back of my neck as your arms loop around my waist and your nose brushes my shoulder. Your chest presses into my back but you don’t push me towards the bed. You inhale, taking in every little detail you can so you will never be able to forget me.
Your fingertips smooth the stray hairs away from my face while the wind blows them right back into a mess. I love when you’re thoughtful and lost in a moment like this.
The alarm sounds but I’m already awake and aware of your arm around my waist and the heat under the covers. You tell me to hit snooze and pull me closer, burying your nose in my hair.
I can feel your fingers drawing shapes on my skin, counting my freckles, analyzing the indents and imperfections. But even my imperfections are beautiful to you, and the idea that you’ll return to me someday makes me believe in love.
It’s hot and sweaty as we sleep but your hand reaches for my face and draws our lips together. I have no clue the hour but I can never refuse the taste of your lips.
I can feel my back against your chest, my entire body forming the same line as yours. Your face scratches my shoulder and your hand reaches towards my pants, undoing my sanity.
I want to mess up your hair and make your green eyes crinkle in the corners when you smile. I want you to pull my lower lip with your index finger and laugh along with me.
The pace of your breathing as you stare up at the sky, lost in the endless blue, is soothing. Your lips are slightly parted and your eyelashes create a small breeze as they blink every so often.
You look so calm.
When you kiss me it’s like you’re trying to inhale me with every breath that you take. The difference is I know you don’t want nor need more than just my lips.
I hope that I make your heart skip a beat with just one look.
I don’t even need to see you for mine to.
Your skin is soft like how I’d imagine a cloud to feel. Your touch is restless like the ocean, always begging to drown me in its enticing storm.
I can feel the pace of my breath match yours as we lay side by side. I can’t feel your fingers on me, but I can feel your eyes blazing through my barriers, undressing me without any assitance.
I miss the way we could sit in silence and stare at the origami birds hanging from my ceiling with delicate thread. The laughter that they inspired when you tried to move them with your breath and proceeded to try and reach them with your feet. The way they eventually defeated you and your arms found their way around me instead, distracted.
I can’t imagine your face anymore. I need photographs that we took that summer to remember. When I look at the images my heart lurches, and I end up falling in love with you all over again.
New hands try to explore my body but never find anything the way your fingertips did. They become lost in my curves and try to escape with the attention of their lips. An attempt to distract my thoughts and desires, but I feel nothing as they try to break my shell open. -----------If your skin were on mine, there would be sparks flying.
It comes in waves. One moment, I lose my breath, the next you disappear. My chest is heavy, like I’m at the bottom of the ocean, and there’s no light letting me know where the surface is.
It hurts today. More than usual. I miss your presence. I don’t need you here, I just need to know if you care about me anymore.
We were never smooth. Our relationship was a storm at sea; rough and cold but full of beauty. So striking it rendered me speechless.
You remind me of summer days and stifiling heat. The cloudless sky offered no shelter from the sun as it kissed my skin. It burned me, just like the kisses from your lips did. But my burn faded into a tan and the scars you left behind will eventually fade too.
You broke me like glass and made my edges soft over time. Now I’m seaglass lost in the water. I only have the next wave to take me where I need to go.
Nobody will ever be able to reach me. I’m lost in the clouds above, but I know exactly where I’m going. I don’t need your directions.
There was a moment when I had finally stopped thinking about you. You were gone like the leaves departed from the trees but all of a sudden I saw a single snowflake falling to the ground, and there you were all over again.
It’s funny how I can look at the ocean and my thoughts are consumed by you. Maybe it’s the endless feeling of emptiness you left behind that is so bitterly familiar.
I can’t seem to fill my mind with anyone else while the possibility of you still exists.
That’s the thing about temporary. You can always think something will never turn into more than once until there you are, sitting on the floor in the barely lit hallway of your apartment, sobbing over the boy that never had time for you and never will.
I’m slowly starting to realize the impact that you had on my life. The memories that you left behind will always repeat over and over in my thoughts and find their way into my writing. What we have will forever exist on these pages but will fade in reality. I hope you never have to feel the way I did when I had to watch you leave with my heart in your hands.
I never understood the lyrics of poems or songs until I had loved and lost you. You taught me the feeling within their words and the words taught me how to put the pieces back together after you left.
You meant everything to me until you meant nothing at all.
It’s okay that that I’m not as important to you as you became to me.
It is scary when you feel like you don’t deserve someone. I wasn’t hesitant but now I am scared to reach for your hand because I should let you be free.
The pieces of my heart that I thought I had lost are slowly coming back to me. It’s as if you have gathered them up and you’re putting me back together one piece after another.
Something is so soft about you and I don’t think it’s because you are so new to me. I believe it is somewhere inside you. I have never met anyone quite like you before.
There’s a silence hanging in the air but it is welcome. I could stare into your eyes forever, your fingers tucking my hair behind my ears and brushing the inches of skin between the hem of my shirt and waist of my pants.
You are the dream that I never want to wake up from.
About the Author Danielle van Werkhoven is a Canadian born, Toronto based photographer who found her love for words through her passion for photography. She is currently studying Photography at Ryerson University in pursuit of a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She is inspired by the outdoors, sunlight and the idea of placelessness. Her addiction to coffee is well known and she often has her head and eyes in the clouds, searching for anything she can.