#aspiring

byMeret

I do not fear the wolves and guns
Or dying before my time has come

I fear I’ll never live at all
And never fly for fear of the fall

I’ve never kissed out of the blue
I rarely try the fresh and new

I’m oh so close to seizing it
But scared and silent still I sit

I’ve never driven all night long
Searching, listening to sad songs

I’ve never seized life by the neck
I’m safe and warm, but I’m a wreck

I’ve never drunk too much to see
Fallen asleep with friends around me

Have I ever made someone cry?
Have I ever seen someone die?

I wish I could be present for that
When a soul departs, a pulse goes flat

Isn’t that something I need to see?
Before my own life leaves me?

I’ve got so much love and hate to give
But I go through motions and don’t live 

I haven’t found life’s highs and lows
And I could die tomorrow

byMeret

Who knew such torture
Would bring me back to art
Breaking writer’s block just cost
Breaking my own heart

With each falling tear
I pen a new line
No need to imagine pain
I can just draw from mine

I’ll be awake at midnight
I’ll be awake at dawn
Until the hurt’s poured out of me
I’ll be here scribbling on

ByMeret

I’ve slept alone
For all my life
Cool sheets in a solitary
Bed
Have happily been
My status quo

You and I
Only once slept
Side by side
But now every night
For the rest of my life
I’ll be aching with the question 
Why aren’t you here
Keeping me warm?

byMeret

Silver dusk erases shadows
Cast by unchangeable future acts

A damaged duo
On the same radio wavelength
Singing We Don’t Need No Education

Young by definition
Wild by expedition
Free from inhibition
In stolen stargazing revolutions

Giddiness from guiltiness
They’re actually getting away with it
They’re actually getting away!
Scrapes on her thighs
From crossing window sills
And parent’s rules

No shoes on wet grass
Because they didn’t know where they were going

Universe expanding
To a dark parked car
Where they debate dystopia
Masquerading worldliness
For the audience of same-searching friends
Clinging to the wishful-thinking steering wheel
Of the future

And they’re climbing asphalt mountains
Chasing the ideal sunrise.

byMeret

I know that it is over

I know he’s not for me

But false hope still grows

Far from reality.

I’ve seen he doesn’t love me

Seen it clear and plain

But I just can’t accept it

I just prolong the pain

I wish certainty would take me

Even if it makes me cry

It’s better to lose that hope

Than live in these hopeful lies.

byMeret

We are more
Than who we love
And love is more
Than mere romance

Not vital to our grand identity
Not a measure
Of our worth

Feelings made of pearls and
Lips and roses
Eclipse those built from
Trust and friendship
And family

Passion for
Creation. Admiration
For thought
Even the underrated love of
Self

Existing as an interest
Is not my core
Sure as hell not my headline
Not my last thought of daylight
Or my first dream of the night time
Expanded to a focus point
A central fiber of our existence
Magnified to the life-giving sun
When it’s a mere twinkling star

We are thinkers
We are souls
We are creators of new worlds
I don’t want a hand to hold
I need those free
For great things

And if I fall each night
In solitude
I will know it doesn’t mean
A damn thing because
I
Am more

byMeret

There’s this man on this bus
He’s sitting across from me
He’s got old withered skin
Only one tooth I can see

He’s got dirty old clothes
And holes in his jeans
And his coughs sound like he’s
Ripped at the seams

I don’t know where he’s going
I don’t know where he’s been
Has he got any friends?
Any kindred or kin?

He stares out the window
Like he has new eyes
He reads every billboard
Examines each sign

The bus groans like a beast
And sways like the sea
But it doesn’t shake
The man across from me.

When your characters all of a sudden start thinking for themselves

by Meret

I had never been the one
Who gave and who loved more
I never saw it coming
Because I’d never been hurt before

It’s clear I never mattered to you
While it tore me up inside
But I wanted to thank you
For proving that I can survive

And here I am, thriving
While you’re all alone
You are not the sun, I am
And I can shine bright on my own

I thought I needed you
But I was clearly wrong
You’re not my “one that got away”
You just showed me that I’m strong.

byMeret

And here I find myself
In a Willie Nelson song

I hear one-hit wonders
Mingled with the football commentary
Of men who’ve been paid well
For their brain damage

Strangers are temporarily familiar
Linked
Shackled, wrist to wrist,
By the glossy bar
Paying with future headaches
To hide from heartbreaks
In the past
Not caring if their lives tick shorter
By the glass
They don’t mind being deprived
Those extra years
Of being lonely

And they’re all worrying’
About the simple things

A man teaches his sons to play pool
With no rules and bare feet
As the game’s never been played and will never be again
He taught them the right way.

It all just smells like the American Dream
To me

The musician, unique in his sobriety
In this country bar
On this rainy night
Tuning his guitar to play for football fans

The bar wont close
Until the rain stops
And the rain pours on
Unending

In this life there must be
Some kind of real risk
Or else some precious moments
Of value can be missed

Without taking chances
Sure you might be alright
You might even be content
And sleep well at night

But life in contentment
Is not near enough
To ride life’s joyful wave
You must risk the rough

When you can just let loose
When you just don’t care
When you dance through the night
And shout into the air

That’s what I live for
The beautiful mystery
Will I crash or will I fly
I can’t wait to see

You don’t want to look a fool?
You’re terrified to fall?
If you never risk shame
You’ll never live at all.

By now I’m a concrete pessimist
When building love.
With each discovery, as I peel back
Another layer of assumed normality
I expect to find foulness
Something to rot all the steady and good
With a new negative viewpoint
But even the raw beneath
Which hasn’t seen the light of day
In many nights-
It draws be further
Down and down into genuine connection
And the joy of existing
Adjacent to him.

I breathe with the tides
Filling my lungs as it floods the beach below
Exhaling as it draws back from
Wet stones
Which have no time to dry before I
And the ocean
Breathe again.

As the sun descends
And the blue green water-color paint
Leaks out of the ocean
Replaced by spreading night-time shadow
Like a phantom oil spill
The tide rushes in with an increasing roar
Faster and faster
As if the ocean’s respiration has quickened
I wonder if it’s because she, the sea
Is afraid of the dark.

She asks me questions
As the afternoon light
Stripes up the wall
She gradually unlocks my psyche
Tapping keys onto
A screen turned carefully away from me.
I wonder why
I’m not allowed to see my answers
Did they gain new meaning
Transcribed on her display?
She asks
I answer
And a verbal piece of a mental puzzle
Is typed into place
But the goal isn’t a perfect picture this time
It’s finding where the table top
Peeks through the gaps
So I sit here
Rereading her degrees
And waiting
For her to find the cracks
That I can feel
Spreading

I hope you find someone
Who makes every song on the radio make sense
Whose existence makes you smile at stop lights
Who doesn’t think you need to be fixed or saved
Who looks at you like you’re the sun

I hope you find someone
Who never says “I’m bored” while holding your hand
Who makes a picnic table conversation priceless

I hope you find someone
Who can never be replaced
Who will never need to be

I hope you find someone
Who makes you want to live past thirty
Because growing old doesn’t look so bad
With someone like that along for the ride

This is a poem
For those undefined
Souls still sketched
With blurry lines

For those who look
In the wrong places
In beer bottles and
Their own mirrored faces

“Be who you are”
“Follow your heart”
But there’s no map
And you’re still in the dark

You dig so deep
You try so hard
But somehow you still
Can’t find who you are

Who knows if it’s different
For those all around
It seems to you
They must have been found

“Am I living wrong?”
That’s what you fear
That you have wasted
All these years

You search within
And wander outside
And still you don’t know
If you’re living a lie

So you look at your skin
There’s no label to find
So you look to the sky
And scream for a sign

A tree stands tall
In the plastic city
You think the tree is a metaphor
For individuality, don’t you?
Well, it’s not.
It’s just a tree, shit head.
Using cellular respiration
Converting sun to energy
As CO2 to that oxygen we need
Now be true to yourself
Make that oxygen worth it
Or whatever.