In my early years I heard a tale
Of woe and death and ache;
The high pitched screams
That made our houses quake.
All down the streets,
Parents awake
Grab their ears
And in silence shake;
Praying to old gods
And new for a break.
For piercing shrieks
These beasts would make,
Tearing through stone
Through roads and lake,
Till none knew escape
Though all ran for their sake.
The recorder, a foul curse
Whose song could slay a drake,
Played by that awful devil,
A 5-year-old named Jake.
A shot in the dark;
A shot through the heart,
Aimed with arrows and twine
And a bowed bow
That bows out before it’s loosed.
What a loss:
A loose goose
Caught by a noose in the caboose–
A tall tail tale,
Wouldn’t you tell,
If the shell by the sea sells
More sails for sales
Than whales that wail?
That’s enough of that though,
Wouldn’t you know,
We’ve come to a close,
And that was close, I suppose.
Before a rose rose out of my clothes,
But that’s just how it goes.
This is what it’s like to love a shadow:
A cluster of beauty,
A shell of a person,
A casing of personality traits
Woven specifically to fit your heart.
To see the mask shift as you leave
Or slip while she’s in your arms.
The phone lights up and she’s gone,
To another source to feed that void,
To dance and sing her praises.
You’re never enough,
Because it’s not you–
An unfillable heart
Against a finite supply of love.
No one wins;
And everything’s a game.
Bring any amount of light,
It’ll be snuffed out or shunned.
Truth is judgement;
Judgement is shame.
No matter how you phrase it,
It stings.
How do you love a shadow with no skin? Gently, my dear, gently…
But even cotton soft is tossed aside
For sandpaper phrases
Or honeyed promises of better days
With less work, less trying…
Less love.
When you love a shadow,
Embrace your light,
Embrace your right to shine.
For when she’s long gone,
That’s what you’ll have left.
Keep walking towards the Sun,
Feel the warmth again.
How do you love a shadow?
You let her find her own way,
Her own strength,
Her own life,
As you move on.
You left like it was nothing–
A breath in a storm,
Exhalation,
A slight pause after a misstep
Without looking back.
We spilled our souls
With crooked ladles,
Splashing counters,
Dripping secrets like stains
On white linen shirts.
You decried abandonment,
Screaming that true love would stay,
Would never ask you to change,
Wouldn’t want you happier,
Wouldn’t want you healthier.
One year of laughter,
One year of pain,
Then all I heard was silence.
It’s suffocating,
The weight of non-existence
Crushing my chest… .
But it’s nothing to you.
Maybe it never was.
Maybe it never will be.
Maybe it never is.
There are streaks on your nose where he struck,
Bruises on your back where his words found their mark;
Dark speckles dot your side where she spat her venom
And told you you’d never be enough.
You scrape underneath the pain,
Lifting years from a canvas once bright–
Leaving chips of the lies they told you
Scattered on the floor.
You’re tracing new lines now,
In skin forever yours,
With brushes untainted
With all of those sores.
You paint upon the surface,
With pigments black and blue,
Lines of orange on your shoulders
Muddled with red.
You’re filling your canvas,
And crafting your heart.
You’re filling your canvas
Finding your soul.
You’re filling your canvas,
And starting anew.
You’re filling your canvas,
And finding you.
Tell your heart to stop building homes
For each passerby
And vagrants who just stop to eat.
Rip up the welcome mat
And suffocate
On the dust of those long gone.
Shake out the curtains
Stained with mold;
Torch them on the stove.
Breathe deeply of the spores–
The only living things
Or loving things for miles.
Take a knife to the carpets
And carve every name you’ve lost;
Start in English, end in incoherent pain.
Fill the sinks with water
Til the floors are overrun,
Soaked as deeply as your scarlet sheets.
Sit before the fireplace,
Warm your hands on vacant letters–
Full of words and nothing else.
What are promises to the fleeting
Or foundations
For these already dead?
What are promises to the fleeting
Or foundations
For those already dead?
My legs are quiet;
I try to listen,
But they’re so still–
Afraid to even breathe.
I stretch them out,
Trying to reach them,
Pushing the bones to awaken
A voice that whimpers.
Instead of coursing like blood,
It trickles–
A leaky faucet
Dripping messages like
Morse code.
I press and hear them briefly,
An echo of pain
Imprinted like ink
Stamped in ages past.
They jump at the slightest noise;
They run when I am still.
My legs are quiet;
I try to listen…
I am not a moon to your planet,
Nor an asteroid,
A rock indeterminable from another–
With or without a rose
Orbiting,
Colliding indiscriminately,
Destroyed mercilessly
With barely a scratch on your surface.
I am flawed,
Yes.
Mixed up,
Yes.
Burning up in an atmosphere unknown,
Awaiting with consternation
A calculation from constellations
To give some form of direction
I await.
I am not a convenient friend
To take out of the freezer
When time permits–
A cryogenic miracle
To thaw when boredom sets in.
Remember or forget me;
Choose one.
I am not a moon to your planet;
I am a world on my own.
Remember this or forget me;
Choose one.
I breathe;
And it feels like September,
Shades of glass
Carved like leaves.
I breathe
And every moment in-between
Feels like my last–
A past too cemented
In bones unmade by trying.
I breathe
And choke on memories
That taste of ash
And scents too sweet
For a tongue so vile.
I breathe
And all alone
The lights twinkle out
And all around is calming down.
I breathe
And make out your voice
Your laughter.
I breathe
I breathe…
Your name I still seek after.
“Let me be your comfort”, he proposes
With words like sunflowers,
Riddled with seeds of something more
And arms outstretched like clouds.
She rests against his chest,
Breathing evenly for once,
Fingers testing the cotton between them,
Kneading with pointer and thumb.
He embraces her cheek
And traces lightly beneath her chin
Humming softly
Watching a smile pull at her lips.
It tugs on the right
Then to the left
She wiggles her nose,
But not in protest.
He feels her sigh,
Tension leaving her soul
Like an overstayed guest
When dawn is much too near.
Lightly nudging his palm,
She kisses his hand
With lavender lips
And a vanilla aftertaste.
His hand continues tracing
Sketching words of love and peace
Like calligraphy on her face
Caressing her lips
As if to refill an empty pen.
She nuzzles against his breast
Like home was never anywhere else
And pillows were a foreign concept.
He kisses her hair
Pressing a smile into her thoughts
Like joy could be shared
And exchanged with a touch.
His head relaxes
Her breathing slows
And all is still
Til morning glows.
Moonlit Poetry 