#original poem
I can hear the wind howl in my ear, the crackling of the fire, the sound of my breathing, and my heart beating.
I stand still, the rain falling on my face, my blood running cold.
A speck of my past lightens my heart, a memory of a smile.
I remember his laugh and the way his body moved; The taste of his lips, the feeling of his skin.
In my head, he’s in the rain, a ghost, a memory of his hands in my hair.
He was so warm and heavy.
I lift my face, frozen, burning, and numb.
Staring into the sky and the clouds overhead, I cry.
You don’t know me anymore,
but I’m still here
in the corner of your mind,
a lamp you turn off and on
whenever you please.
You left me in silence, with thin, thin skin
and cracked lips that tasted like iron
and salt.
The sound of my car
escaping your street like a long-ago train,
still rings in my ears.
You say you regret what you’ve done to me,
but I’ve been broken in places you’ve never seen.
If I was already cracked, already estranged-
What is left of me?
The sun rises
at the same time,
but the shadows are all new.
I remember your fingers,
frozen in time, from the last moment I saw you.
I can still feel them on my skin,
cold, so cold, and that’s all they are now.
They’re not the same,
and you can’t warm me up from the inside out
again.
The night falls,
and the world is nothing but a room.
Light strays into the darkness
and gets lost.
I know what it’s like to go missing, too.
I could love you from the bone-deep
familiarity of childhood, from the startled
adventure of adolescence, I could love you
with all the joy and grief of womanhood.
Without turning away, without losing my place.
I could love you.
I’ve been loved
by men who’ve shown me how a heart can break
and still be lucky.
I’m lucky to have had the time
to be silent with you,
to feel your heart beating with mine.
Lucky to have you disappear,
to learn how I will go on,
and find myself still intact.
Lucky to have answered your silence,
your absence,
with my own.
I’m the echo of a canyon
that’s been emptied of its rock, its rivers
without water. I’m nothing to the plants
that need me to live.
Some people arrive, like guests,
and stay longer than welcome.
Without a hint of grievance,
they leave, taking with them a part of you.
They leave behind their scent
in the places they’ve inhabited.
You realize you can’t live without them,
and their absence makes you want to die.
The moonlight pours through the blinds and penetrates the air like a sharpened blade.
My frosty fingers gently reach for the window, sliding the glass to reveal a winter breeze.
The luminescent moon touches my face and caresses my cheeks like a lost lover.
I take a deep breath, and my cold hands stroke the beds’ woolen blankets.
I am pulled back into the safety and comfort of slumber, and I remind myself I will be okay.
I can’t taste the salt of my tears,
but I acknowledge them as my own.
Like I don’t need to see the moon
to know it’s full,
or to know that there’s a spoonful of light
sifting through the clouds over the bay.
I can tell from the heaviness of my eyes
that it’s time for bed.
I look out the window in my bedroom and stare above.
I try to imagine what it must be like to be a cloud,
dense as wool and shaped like cotton candy,
slipping between the stars.
What I wouldn’t give to be just another patch of darkness,
to fade into the sky.
But I can feel my body impounding me,
dragging me back to bed,
where I’ll sleep alone and wake up alone, too.
The sky changes colors like mood rings, each one
a testament to the pain of being seventeen.
Not a single tear,
but a continuous flow that runs down my face.
I catch it on my tongue,
and swallow it.
Without warning, the tide rolls in
and, for once, I don’t run for high ground.
I let the waves of sadness drown me,
and pull me under until I can’t breathe.
Until all I can feel is the cold of the world in its final moments,
and all I can see are my own dead eyes staring back at me.
And still, they’re beautiful.
The light blue irises in the murky depths of my own opaqueness.
The long eyelashes
that brush against my cheeks,
as I sink deeper into the sea.
The way the saltwater numbs
my lips, my face, and then my limbs.
Until I’m only waves,
and I become an extension of this world
that wants me to be something else.
we kissed to the beat of
voices in our heads
that said
this is forever, this is all there is
we ran off, away from the streetlights
into a pitch-black oasis
where we could see all of the stars
the way we wanted to then,
when we were seventeen again.
The boy in the old photograph
Is not the boy in the old photograph
I see you growing up
from the inside out
I see your beauty collide with your demons
and I’ll always wonder what it felt like
your body crashing against the pavement
with poison in your veins, leaving lost hope
scattered all over the sidewalk
River
Life bleeds into itself, intermixing
Oil and water into one messy whole flowing
One day into the next all the
Small triumphs and tribulations that define a day
Extend into a lifetime
As the tiniest particles fill a steam
Creating sticky clouds or shining clear paths
Through the ending river
Being swallowed by the sea
Struggling with Poetry
I’ve always loved poetry,
And never really understood it.
In bare terms the world is simple and beautiful
Poetry just dresses it up
To get down to the heart of it.
How can flowery layers reach down to the Earth?
Maybe if I just put down roots, lacey and strong
Down to the dense core as
Thick dirt imprinted dark moisture onto my fingers, maybe
Then I could understand and sip
From…
When the Rain Comes
When the Rain Comes
When the water comes back to the stream again
When the summer drought flows away,
And pained skin knows relief again,
Forgive yourself the sins born of thirst and fatigue
The cracked dirt of your life will be submerged
It is on you to wash, for the sake of your own ease,
But it is not moral burden. Forgive yourself
Your fatigue, you would not have chosen this
Had your choices been…
Drought
When the river bed begins to dry
Skin scratching on to stone
Bleeding heavy, numb blood
A poor imitation of sweet water
But all you have to give, thick and hot
In the buzz of your skull you know it’s not
Enough; follow the bends of the bed
Find the flow and parch your skin
Only the soft feeling can save you now
Though you have none to give
Every irritating contact too physical
Gritting…
Plot twist: you become your own hero
