Puzzles

So I lay awake at three in the morning, questioning life in a particular way. I look at the women that I’ve known over the past few years and my attempts at that dreaded word known as commitment. My friend Tracie always questions my ethics, in here high pitched tone asking, “why do you go back and then run away again?” That’s the exact thing that got me to start writing the next piece I put together, puzzles. I can’t answer directly what is in my heart or mind when I find myself perched on the barstool, drinking away the sorrows of another lost love affair. Instead I just take that drink and try not to think too much about what I gave up.


Relationships are like puzzles. You begin with scattered pieces and broken images you hope to put together. Starting with the corners you build a base and start filling everything in with rapid success. At first the pieces come easy and before you know it they snap together completing the frame. Then, intrigued on one corner, they continue to find their way in your hands; almost standing out alone. There shapes have minor contours that are simple to match by briefly rummaging thru the pile. You quickly moved forward and get a glimpse of a part of the picture; half the puzzle is laid out in front of you, showing what you so hoped for.

For a while you leave the puzzle as it is. Although not finished you enjoy what has become. while leaving the other pieces in a pile on the outskirts of the border. Then one day you realize you have not finished what you started and are no longer fulfilled with just that portion of the picture. There is the need to find out what the rest displays. So you begin attempting to build further.

This time, however, the puzzle pieces are different. Sharp edges, deep pockets and complicated shapes confuse you. There doesn’t seem to be any pieces that fit together right, no matter how many times you move things around, nothing now falls into place. Mental exhaustion and defeat befall you as the pieces are swept of the table and put back in the box. The picture you once enjoyed, pulled apart, framework collapses as you put the lid on the box and put away on the top shelf of your closet; feeling it was just to hard to finish.

A little while goes by and you come across that box again, dusting it off it’s decided that you miss that picture that you once created. Quickly, the pieces you completed before fall back into place, surprisingly effortless. After that picture has been re-established you realize those other pieces still sitting unsettled. For a while, again, you put those pieces out of sight and just enjoy the half completed puzzle.

Yet as time goes by those pieces find themselves being turned in your hands with scrutiny. Placed down this time, however, you just want the puzzle completed so begin making pieces fit together; pushing them together, with room left between, cutting edges to make things work. The puzzle is finally complete.


Yet, when you look on what you created it’s not the image that you had hoped for. Part of the picture lies clear before you, yet the other half looks like abstract art created from a demented painter. You’re eyes no longer focus on the part you enjoyed when by itself, instead focusing on the mess that was created thru hasty decisions and lack of reprucussions. The puzzle is again swept away into the box and placed back on that top shelf; while hoping someday, someone will know how to complete that puzzle, but it won’t be you.