Quoting Napoleon

 By John Salazar

 Chapter 1

"Rise and Fall"

 Climbing those stairs hand in hand at Laurelhurst Park, I never thought I'd be so happy. You closed your eyes and turned away so I couldn't see the tears you shed leaving the galaxy. Do you remember all the times I made you smile, while moving in on San Rafael? It's Harold and Maude at The Bagdad with friends in the dark, you choked on your gum and I broke your heart. You're moving on, and I'm long, long gone.

I packed away your keepsakes and sold our memories, to smiling passersby on the street. I gave you things that you know I couldn't afford, and we awoke to find that love had slipped out of the open door. And if this dream must end, then I can't stand to hear that I left you standing there, wrapped up in your mystery; and if the dead can dance, then this failed romance can find a place in another heart.

The sun may have been shining on the seventh of June in the thoughts of Clovis and Aline Marie, as the statues were polished in the late afternoon and the debutants danced with the merchant marines. The republican's wine was beginning to sour. His words would fall short and his tongue remain silent. When the latest Napoleon came into power, my mother wept softly in the arms of Saint Simon, as I clutched at the heart of the middle class world.

After four years in Peru I traded my youth for a man's few wisdoms and mediocre existence. But who will remember a stockbroker's successes, with a wife, five children, and an eye for investments? So I offered myself to the painted seductress, of Japanese flowers, medieval stained glass, and indigenous faces. Whose eyes had been saying: deny your perspectives. Believe without knowing. Where do we come from? What are we? And where are we going? All of these things held a new and secret meaning for me. So ruined and in debt I sailed for the South Seas…

I found your letter on the stairs, spelling out your grievances. The world kept spinning as it will, for strangers who were once good friends. I walked for hours in the pouring rain. I wondered how you're doing now. I stopped under the turner bridge, to slowly dry and clear my mind. After years of silence, the sound is deafening. In the growing darkness of the failing day, I watched the sky fill up with candles. I've seen them rise and fall, through a shadow covered window; a doorway to the night. And a slave to your caress has nothing to return to, when pleasantries have slipped into the past.

I passed the house on pleasant street, and saw our daughter standing there. I took here by her little hand, and said "baby is your mother home?" If you take those pictures, line them in a row and closely watch the colors while they shift and fade, you can see the fault lines form across our smiles. As we rise and fall, I want you to remember. I want you to believe, that I've lost all of those fears. I couldn't wait to tell you. I couldn't wait to say that I love you still.

You stood about 4'11 in your brand new shoes. The life of waiting was far too hard on a girl so young. Married at sixteen to hoping for love and for something more, and he walked right in to lift you out of your hungry haze. All the streets of clay just seemed to lead to the same tired place. Across the tracks the barrow boys skipped class and wasted time. At the pool halls and freight yards he didn't think he had a chance to find the dream that lived behind her lovely eyes.

Don't look back. Don't stop now. Don't give in. Don't slow down. Run until the road gives you away. Hold me as if this was is our last day. Sweltering days lead to cold nights. The price of freedom was a bitter fight. Nothing and no one could keep you from that lost horizon with no end in sight.

The world will fade away but this fateful night remains. I still love you just as well as I ever did before. Every time I hear you sigh, all of those memories will rush into my heart and mind. Everything you've given me, fragments of our future bliss. All the things we've yet to see, the tracings of a perfect kiss. When the light falls on your face, I find a path to love and grace. That river runs to you. This fire burns for you.

         When I found you, I didn't recognize your face from the remnants of forgotten dreams.If I could take back all those years that I spent without your beauty, I would trade them for the memory of a single kiss. When you were afraid, I held you close to me, wrapped up in the half light and the flickering. With our hands locked in the shadows, were we ever in danger of losing any more than our hearts tonight?

Those late night calls to whisper your secrets, are wringing emotion from a narrow line. If I could steal another moment, it would take another lifetime to tell you everything that I feel for you. If I lost my way, would you be here when I finally arrive? Threadbare and longing for the warmth of your arms, I'd search the whole world and all of my life to find you again.

          Somewhere a woman is leaving her broken heart behind. There's something about her. The same thing that's in her eyes was mine sixty years ago. My god, has it been that long since the day I lost my love? Something is burning. Somewhere within a human soul, hatred is turning into the thought that killed the doubts of a thousand men. But, I'll wear my pain like a rusting crown until it crumbles to the ground.

We will live, we will die. Under the veil a face of life; To find all the love we've been denied; For that moment of bliss we can't describe; In a torrent of hope and fear and pride. We will live and we will love though we may die. Am I flying or am I falling? Is she crying or is she calling my name? And it's something like the wind through a burning tree just before the rain. We will love and live and breathe and sleep and hope and dream and fly.

Safe inside her private cell, the dust collects and keeps her thoughts circling from room to room, in the sleepless arch of summer moons. Dressed in white, the silence prized; four walls, a page, and her auburn eyes. She poured her love out like the sky, so many lives untried. Quiet Amherst, hold your breath. Your lonely dove is leaving. Goodbye for now, her solitude has left you to your reading. Open the door. Walk in the sun. Set down your books. There are songs to be sung. Never mind Emily tomorrow will do just as well. There were two or three little things I wanted to talk with you about without witnesses...