Places I Have Left My Heart

In the mountains - the Rockies or Pyrenees, I’m not sure which. In the Mediterranean Sea during a long ago summer vacation. In the pauses of a conversation with friends. In the hands of the man I love, who is sadly no longer with us. At Death’s door before I was drawn back to life. In the watery graveyard that is Lake Superior. In the caskets of people I’ve loved, buried six feet under. Along the banks of the Seine, in the bell tower of Notre Dame, somewhere along the chaos of the Paris streets. At Meadowbrook during a Goo Goo Dolls concert, beneath the sounds of the song Iris. With friends, most of whom I’ve since drifted from. On a seat of a Light Rail train in Denver, that tattoo parlor off the 16th Street Mall I got my first tattoo, the bell tower of Colorado Heights University. Between the pages of my favorite books. On my iTunes playlist, somewhere between ‘radio, someone still loves you’ and ‘in your arms, I needed that.’ Somewhere between ‘sing us a song, you’re the piano man’ and ‘boy, you’ve got a prayer in Memphis.’ Between ‘she’s the giggle at a funeral’ and ‘the purest expression of grief.’ On my skin in the form of tattoos. In my dreams of faraway places.