Her breath was a bouquet,
Stripped of thorns,
Cut down to size,
Convenient.
Her words a mere display
Left wilting
In a vase too small
To nourish so grand a soul.
He peeled her petals
And peddled her gifts
Looking for depths
She always hid.
Evasive, her scent was fleeting;
Hesitant to linger–
She pressed herself between pages,
Preferring to leave her love there.
A token of her memories,
Mere impressions of her heart,
Stained with ink and winter’s loss.
I ache for your sleepy voice
Tangled in dreams,
The scent of breakfast wafting in,
Eyes fluttering in half-surprise.
I long for the touch of your lips
Pulling me back to warmth,
The scent of cinnamon
Tickling our noses.
I crave that look on your face,
Joyous contentment,
Soft and real,
Beyond anything I could have imagined.
In my canoe I traverse forests,
Passing broken branches,
Leaves floating
Like detached limbs
Of a forgotten whole,
Whispers of a soul
In mosses green, and gray.
I trace within the mist
A shadow of a kiss
And reflect upon waters
Too crowded for my thoughts.
With an oar in hand,
I sweep the sleep from the surface
And shake cold memories awake.
While regrets tremble in my throat,
Then sink
Like neglected boots
On a Summer’s eve.
I breathe.
I keep rowing.
I don’t even know what to type;
Words are less than ink,
No longer real,
Just 1′s and 0′s
Dotting the expanse between
What once was
And what can never be.
Code caught in a cyclic redundancy error
Infinitely checking and rechecking
For corruption
Where once was etched,
Like stone,
A promise
Of something more than convenience.
But here we are,
Fragments of dreams
Sifting through fingers
Laced with crisscrossing scars
Threaded through stars
Like freckles
Kissed in the noonday sun.
We’ve reset.
Restarted.
Rebooted.
Begun afresh.
And yet,
We crash,
Fail the basic memory tests…
Simply cannot recall,
Retain,
Retrain ourselves to speak better,
Louder.
At all…
Until even the humming goes silent,
And our world spins no more.
Love is a thorny rose
Unfolding beauty
Caught in prose
With pinprick words
I suppose
Or else I’ve heard it said
For those that grasp without repose
To tear at hearts
Til mourning grows
With bloodstained hands
So it shows
The pain of those bereft.
Neutral expression
Will you ever be calming
Or always lightning,
A crash in-waiting,
A moment’s hesitation
Before the world ends?
Will I stop flinching
At a parting of the lips,
The taste of silence,
Where I hear nothing,
But feel each word that could be
As goosebumps within?
Neutral expression,
Without an affirming smile
How can I trust you
When all you have been
Is a pause between the storms,
Safe harbor for none?
“Charity thinketh no evil”
Repeats and repeats and repeats
No purer love than to trust
And, with arms clasped tight,
Fall without hesitation.
To leap off good intentions
And catch hold of another,
Wrist to wrist,
And wrest away the rest,
To pry from fingers stress
While gasping for relief.
Of such have fragile whispers no part,
Nor dust upon a misplaced photo,
Nor scratches on discarded albums
That skip each pleasant beat
All ashes, all ashes, and embers sweet.
Do not tiptoe around my heart;
It has seen far too many wars
To give merit to too soft a touch.
It hears sweetness
And flinches-
For so often are knives wrapped in velvet.
Sometimes tasting steel
As it slides between my ribs
Feels more familiar than my name.
And the scent of vanilla
Sours overnight…
Loneliness is a crowded mind
With no access tunnels,
Where words are shoveled
And piled into carts
But have nowhere to go.
Loneliness is an avalanche
Of everything you wish you could say
But never have enough time to
Or never feel safe to.
Loneliness is suffocating
So everyone else can breathe easier
Thinking maybe things are better
When you’re just quieter about it.
Loneliness is the realization
That it’s easier to go away
Than try to get someone to listen
Long enough for the weight to lessen.
Loneliness is the weight
Of living decades fighting yourself
Then trying to find yourself
In whatever pieces are left.
I like toothpaste on my cookies,
Because it takes away the guilt
Of anything sweet landing on my tongue.
The government is always slapping labels
Telling me that I cannot eat
Or cannot touch the things that I want.
On a completely unrelated note,
I’ve been in the emergency room
Five times this week.
I’m trying to find an excuse to leave
But the pudding is starting to taste
Like everything I’m missing.
I found your name in my fireplace
From letters you once wrote me
Paragraphs to rival Hamilton’s pen.
I curled up among the ashes
And breathed what was left of you in.
I’m looking in the kitchen
And all I’m finding are cupboards bare
Nothing but echoes in dust.
I close my eyes and feel,
I close my eyes and feel,
I close my mouth and feel.
I breathe…
A week has never felt so long.
Moonlit Poetry 