When relationships end, I lose pieces of myself

Hack away at pieces of my heart

leave behind the entwined limbs of better times

cut off the hands I used to hold

They’ve all left pieces too

open wounds and blunt ends

I take a needle and thread to the blow-ups, the breakdowns, the back offs

putting together a patchwork of all the pieces that I keep

I kept the look in your eyes seeing me that first time

the love letter he wrote me before he was even called mine

I kept long walks and longer talks

midnights and magic

the feeling some people call sparks

I stitch together compliments and competition, whispered thoughts, a bold vision

I kept falling hard and loving slow

hands on my hips and road trips with no place to go

There’s a patchwork of memories that know the right thing to say

of a man who’s willing to play the long game

It’s bloody and real

passion and zeal

a bit of a mess

but damn,

He makes me feel.

Swirling rolling mountain streams

Waterfall rapids, challenging dreams

A kayak, skims between rocks and cliffs

Nimble, certain, faster than skiffs

An eagle flips a sudden roll

A mere pinpoint, wings out of control

The falcon folds her feathers tight

Diving with unpredictable might

The first time a child is told no you can’t

A teenagers heart broken by furious rant

The loss of your soul mate through unfair fate

Turbulence counters faith and calm’s safe state

Osborne Reynolds, the Ninteenth Century scientist, lived his life in turbulence.

His "number," i.e., the "Reynolds Number," is the ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces within a fluid subjected to different fluid velocities.

You don't have to remember that.

At a low Reynolds Number, flows tend to be laminar—sheet-like; alternatively, a high Reynolds number portends for a flow that is turbulent.

You don't have to remember that, either.

Any bonafide turbulence involves intersection of different fluid speeds and directions. The chaos that results can even counter the direction of the flow, creating eddy currents.

That's funny, because my name is Eddie, and I am unable to go with the flow.Like my name, eddy currents churn the flow and increase the risk of cavitation. Not good.

That's what you should remember!

I take blood pressure medications because the eddy currents in my arteries risk cavitation, especially in my brain—relevant because of something that happened to me just this morning.

Right after my morning coffee (which, unfortunately, raised my Reynolds' Number), I was minding my own business, walking the short walk to work. Distance from work, pursposely orchestrated when considering a mortgage, can favorably impact one's Reynolds Number. Mine was short, countering my coffee-induced Reynolds Number increase.

That's when I crossed paths with my ex-wife.

It had been a particularly acrimonious divorce, fraught with bad arithmetic relegating me from the royalty of my castle (as, per Sir Edward Coke in 1604, when he wrote, “Every man’s home is his castle").

She approached. With another man on her arm. They looked good. Even royal. I retreated into my serfdom and my number rose.

"Hey," she offered with a wry smile, "how's it going?" For the record, wry raises the Reynolds Number.

Turbulence ensued.

Cavitation began. And while a cavity in your tooth, among the teeth you gnash, can be filled to make the tooth right, especially the eye tooth I would have willingly given up to never seen her again, cavitation in the brain is not so remediable.

I could have recovered from my stroke, but the fact that if I died, she'd get over it fast, pushed my number to the point where I did just that.

The eighties? I was in my (roaring) twenties and on the cusp of life. What a splendid and precipitous time, marked by days on the beach, graduating college, a first job, big hair, shoulder pads, stirrup pants, watching MTV......

Music has been a consistent theme through my years, and the 80’s offered some of the best: Prince, Michael Jackson, Bowie, Springsteen, Madonna, Depeche Mode and so many I don’t have the words (literally) to mention.

Oh, but to return with what wisdom and experience I’ve since gleaned would be truly, undeniably, overwhelmingly……fucking horrific.....with the exception of the music, of course......

When Richard died, he was a retired widower who'd grown his basement collection for decades. There were balls, tires, license plates, fasteners, and more. Innocuous junk, only the pile of hospital badges raised some suspicion.

But this was nothing diabolical. Richard was a collector, a Depression forged drive. He was also a God fearing man; if you jumped off the Twin Towers, well, "No faith!"

They cleared Richard's house after he died. So the new owner, a single mother, was surprised to find a bag behind the furnace. Indeed, even more surprised to discover, inside it, Richard's stash of dildos.

Every day in the Eighties, for me, was a lifetime. It was a time when I could still look to touch and smell and hear all of the beautiful world that was still there for anyone still able to see and feel and sniff and actually listen.

Before the great change in the world.

Things today can never be the same as they were back in the Eighties. Today it's as if I've been blinded with cataracts, set afire with pain, unable to smell, and deafened by hearing loss.

Today I turned 90. Oh, to be in my Eighties again.

The bubble of soft understanding goes on beyond that day in the 80s when the earth shook us off her mighty mantle like a mangy cur flinging itchy fleas out of her fur, snapping at our preciousness, stomping us into her hard ground, bridges flattening, coffee houses collapsing, bricks dropping away from on high. Oh, I remember the rumbling of the window frames, not from trucks passing by in the streets but magma flowing down deep, through cracks set by city planners of yore and misunderstandings of place and control gone to our human heads like something predestined yet forgotten.

I loved rain in the early eighties. In heavy rain, everything stopped on a council estate. Nobody went out, not even in cars. No-one, but me. My skinny bruised knees waded through thick downpours. The drumbeat of raindrops pounded their rhythm on my nit-itchy scalp, drowning out any other noises.

Such peaceful isolation. I wondered free. No kids at the park, and not even the travellers came out of their caravans to yell or set their dogs on me. Nobody followed me out into the rain. Nobody could hurt me out there. I sure loved rain in the early eighties.

A day in the eighties? In the eighties I was a kid. I had a good childhood but I was bullied and have felt like trash ever since. Eighty years old is alien to me. I’ll be lucky to make it through my forties. I don’t even think I want to be eighty. I hate being old. I never thought I’d live to see forty, let alone eighty. Eighty degrees is too hot. Eighty lonely days. More like years. See above. Eighty broken hearts. Eighty knives stabbing me in the back. Eighty bullets in my head. Yeah. I got nothin.

In the heat of the scorching day my mind wanders,

Flirting with a non-existent

Realm of being.

I am

Lawrence of Arabia,

The Sheikh of Araby,

Count László Almásy,

And Rudolph Valentino

All combined gloriously into one persona,

Surrounded by dunes, constructed towers

Of windswept sand amidst penetrating rays

Of eclipsed, non-filtered, bright, luminescent,

Scorching sunlight.

Sweat rolls in an overwhelming abundance

Of waves, rivulets infused with the dirt, the grime

Of mortal sin –

It moves, rippling across arching, aching muscles

Housed beneath a multitude of layers – and lies.

My mouth thirsts for more than mere water

Amidst the brutality found in nonending

Dunes of sand whilst I search for an oasis,

Seek shelter from the sweltering, oppressive heat

And infiltrating sand particles of resounding judgement.

I am alone, swept up and lost in a tumultuous storm,

Only an echo of a man who once existed,

My memory skirting my very life and breath

To traverse the hills of sand until it disappears,

Evaporating in distant ripples of mountainous dunes

Stretching as far as the eye can behold.

I am lost,

A vision of a man

Who once was.