He was a walking mystery
The analogue to every metaphor
My hands have written
And my lips have released
An effervescent aura
Surrounds him as he sauntered
Looking like a god
To my very mortal eyes
One tilt of his head and
Then his gaze found mine
Suddenly the embers within
Were blown by a gasp
The fire had been ignited
Heartbeat had skyrocketed
Time had been paused by
Intangible forces but
Then he looked elsewhere
And yet another blow
Diminished the bantam flame

Take my hand
Squeeze it tight
And I beg you
Don’t speak
Talk is child’s play
And the words
Lovers share
Are wasted
In the air
So I beg you
If you really
Do love me
Don’t speak

And his eyes spoke to me
Telling me not to let go
But I drew back just as quick
As the flicker of passion in his eyes

I was saving myself from ruin
But by saving my drowning soul
I left him to sink in his own ocean
Gasping for air and grasping nothing

tineeweeenee:

Flesh to flesh
We lay in bed

My problems drift
As our bodies sway
You eat up my heart
And clutch my brain

Skin to skin
We dive in foreign waters

My inhibitions vanish
As you caress my face
You rip a hollow piece
And tuck it away

Heart to nothing
We look pass the truth

My dream-state slips
As you stand by the door
You steal a part of me
But I will need it no more

Forever is ephemeral,  and so are my breaths, for my lungs will fail on the day of my death. But love is eternal, though not yours and mine. I hope you’d remember, our time in your mind .So ‘forever’, I reckon, is nothing but a song. Just locutions that ring, yet never everlong.

They’re a hindrance.
Snaking alongside the streets with their
Crooked edges
Where I live, you know life is good
When you don’t have to take the sidewalk.

As I wander through old stones and dark, loved places,
I want to be
Alone,
to hear the city like a fading drum
Played by June’s lazy heat.
The high walls are the best concert hall for my humming soles

And it feels best, alone with your mind, to wander
Where cars don’t push you against the sidewalk’s slither.

–
My poem for July 17th’s Pardy Prompt, ‘Sidewalks’.

Wish upon a star

Once upon a shooting star

A green young lass laid eyes

‘This is how wishes are born’, she said

‘When stars decide to die.’

She dreamt wide and dreamt afar

Of ruby kisses and pale blue skies,

Of buttered caramel on fresh brown bread

And silent chamomile smiles.

A love that holds no bar,

She said, one that brings no lies.

A clear-crystal conscience at night stead

And a sleep that bears no sighs.

As I walk through this stone and tar

Strength to my sinews and thighs

The gaze that knows exactly what’s ahead

Expertly slicing through every guise.

Faith in my convictions, oh yonder star!

And thoughts woven and wise

A lily pad, at death, to rest my head

And to wake up to paradise.

‘Oh dear’ exclaimed the falling star

‘Who painted your wit with lies?’

These ephemeral hopes upon which you are fed

But there are no hands rolling the dice.

You sit dreaming with your eyelids ajar

But pay attention to this advice

Because reality is like the silver thread

Which will close in on you like a vise.

Love is fickle, just because people are

And love isn’t life’s grand prize.

Falling out of love is so easy a tread

Sometimes you’ll be the first to say goodbye.

Your beliefs, my dear, can inflict scars

Don’t ever try to hold on too tight

You will see sickness and stand by death beds

And suckle spirits to forget the cries

Not one path but millions stretch afar

And winding, your true destiny belie

Look at me, helpless in my own fall

So how can I help you survive?

Genderfluid

Someone once told me

To package myself into a little box

Like bits in a computer: 0 or 1

Courageous or compassionate

Mini skirts or oversized hoodies

Star Wars or Legally Blonde

Black or white

Ultimately: pink or blue

And I stop to wonder

Why I have to always be one or the other

If I’m made of the stuff of stars

And starlight can be both a particle and a wave.

How well did you sleep last night?

Did the vagrant tears you collect

Fill up the chasm to the brim

Or did you stay up to their noise

The way they drip drip drip

Like Chinese water torture

Did you convince yourself

That your own heartache warranted

The sweet sounds the breaking hearts made

When you dropped them - glass meet floor

Or did you stay up till morn

Burning your thoughts for warmth

While they burned you back

With sceptres of missed chances

Slinking around like shadows

Close enough to graze the fingertips

But too far to grasp

Or did you slumber dreamless

In the embrace of the day’s sweat

The guilt, the anxiety and dread

Waiting like the feathered pillows

To wake you up and whisper “Morning”

So, my darling dearest,

How well did you sleep last night?

Closure

I remember a time when I thought

That how much I loved you would kill me

That I would choke on the unsaid words

And that the ones I did manage to say

Would weigh on my throat like vices

But it’s funny how this feeling seems like a lifetime away

When it was but days since I felt lost without you

Because maybe it’s just infatuation

If I could forget about you when I choose to

How now it doesn’t matter to me whether you’re hungry or sad or just terribly lonely

But what if it was love?

But what if you could fall out of love that easily?

Now that terrifies me more than anything

The idea that some day, some man I’ve called soulmate

Would wake up one day and wouldn’t care if I like my tea with honey

Or if I leave the lights on, because I read myself to sleep?

What if the most genuine things that you thought you felt

The things you promised you’d feel forever

Could just disappear without a trace, without you knowing why?

Because then, then I would know it wouldn’t even be his fault

And that would be the thing that finally kills me.

This is for the first ever patient I got to take care of, who isn’t with us anymore.

What is a last breath made of?
Well, 78% nitrogen, 16% oxygen and 5% carbon dioxide, and water vapour if we’re trying to be specific
But what is a last breath really made of?
As the body tries it’s damndest to survive
But overwhelmed, releases its grip on life
Finger after agonising finger
Do all the hopes you nurtured through life
Saturate that tiny little puff of air?
Or do you get to keep all those dreams tight within your brain?
Because, let’s face it, they’re just dopamine and serotonin anyway
But then, as it all boils down to carbon and hydrogen and oxygen
In dizzying variations and permutations and combinations
It comforts me and reassures me to believe
That your thoughts were made from volcanic dust
And that the vibrations made by your words still resonate
Across the surface universe and always will, trying to find that endless end
That the neurotransmitters that once guided your smiles
Will bloom as timid flowers from freshly rained earth
As your anger becomes blinding flashes of lightning
And your tears become the tiny particles of dust refracting the light just right
And painting the sky blue, red or violet : your whim, your fancy
And then I know what a last breath is really made of
It’s made of a secret code
A code that finally unveils your deepest desires in all their magnificence
And make you rage across this infinite existence
Unlimited, just the way you were always meant to be.

- Copyrighted, Christianez Dennis, April 2017

Dusting off memories and wondering if you still think about me
Feels like looking at the starlight piercing the night sky
And wondering whether the star survived the billions of years the light took to reach my eyes
And knowing it probably didn’t.

Forged by the thrumming and whirring levers
She was blindfolded and led through mazes in darkness
And told that the monotonous sheen of metal
Will be the only hue that made her beautiful
And turning side to side, she sees, women like her
Retouching and revising, scrubbing their colours away
And quickly sets to work, to make herself look like them
Her blasphemous thoughts pigmented otherwise
Of Garnet, Peacock, Butterscotch and Orchid
She snatches, iridescent, and hides away
Like butterflies trapped in a polythene bag
And hopes to let them fly someday.

- © 2016, Christianez Dennis, all rights reserved.

When people told me to protect my heart
They didn’t stop to say that it didn’t mean
That I had to stitch the armour to my skin
Until that process was well underway
That now though it guards my bosom from arrows askew
From icy glares and honeyed whispers alike
It makes its presence known, a numbness so exquisite
That now I think humanity’s natural state is apathy
For I know nothing more and nothing less.

Like a wayward truant
You stumbled over the castle of my heart
Picked it apart like Lego blocks
And forgot to put them back together
And even today, as I try to rebuild it and fail
I turn to look at you, with a new toy in your hand
Hiding the pieces behind me, lest you’d see
That I’d never go back to being pristine
And smear on a smile when you wave hello.

To love or to be loved?
Is the plague of our generation
Where something that couldn’t be encompassed
In sonnets born of sleepless nights
And couldn’t be explained
In tears framing reddened eyes
Has now been contained in tiny blue boxes
Of 140 character text messages
And to make or break your chances
With the stranger behind the screen
Matching your lies with his
And pretending not to be keen
As the one that loves less,
That unfairly blessed soul
Holds the reins to the future (of which he doesn’t care much)
And the ones that sowed their hearts
And nourished them with their tears
Have to leave them buried forever
Under fears of double texting being desperate
And so is replying too soon
And if you’re the one who texted first
Oh god, are you a loon?
And the pain of watching them lose interest
Smiley after smiley till it stops
And looking at your reflection, painfully tousled
And thinking, I’ll dump the next guy first.

I want to know the real you, you say
Opening my mind’s door, I show you the way.
The initial path is a sprightly jaunt
Coloured with childhood memories and favorite haunts.
Of blowing rainbow bubbles and chasing glitterbugs
Connecting stars like dots, lazing on hammocks.
And yet, when you walk still, the air gets chilly
The music, slows, stills, an eerie soliloquy.
The shades seem washed out (you pretend not to notice)
And find some forgotten patch of sunshine to shift your focus.
You mask the hesitation in your steps, that unsure sway
But I’ve known the signs (Oh how familiarly!), so I know it anyway.
And so we walk hand in hand, the darkness slowly sets
The hurt, the pain, like unpaid debts.
You trip on thoughts, forgotten like unfinished sketches
And skin your knee on my unpolished edges.
The roar of a million ideas whizzing like bees
Make you cover your ears and your brain freeze.
The walls close in, leave you breathless
(Your eyes unfocused, your gaze helpless)
I try to make you see, as the patterns go round and round
But your fist on my hand tightens painfully, as I realize you’ve lost your ground.
The effort of holding on to your mask is getting overwhelming
The noise is getting louder, your patience is wearing thin.
And amidst them all, you hear footsteps
My demons awakening, shaking off cobwebs.
With one last look to me, you take off running
(There’s an ache in my heart, even though I’d seen it coming)
You stumble your way out, lungs burning for air
Holding on to the walls, to the things about which you pretended to care.
And after you’ve beat your retreat, hasty and sore
You turn to look at my colors, and don’t find them beautiful anymore.
So, you turn and walk away, mourning your careless wish come true
And my demons laugh, at the bit of my darkness, that you now carry with you.

I’m certain that when you leave this world
You leave behind traces of your being
In the rush of flavour on your daughters tongue
As an original plum parfait recipe
And sultry whispers in your husband’s ears
As your favourite tune on the radio
In your best friend’s lazy thoughts
As a forgotten book recommendation
That she has finally gotten around to
And on every page of your son’s notebook
Curling the ’S’, just the way you taught him to
Your kindness, as your mother feeds the pigeons
Re enacting the times that you did
In the little pearls that mists their eyes
Upon realising the mysteries you hid.

Sometimes I stop and ask myself why
Why it had to be you and no one else
On moments that my eyes come to rest
On faces more chiseled and handsome
Than yours could ever hope to be
When I taste minds sharp enough to cut
With voices deep enough to cradle
I wonder why my heartbeat never dances
And my chest never twinges and aches
The way it melts to your fragrance
And why the blue eyes and the green
Don’t steal my gaze and hold it
Like your soft, ordinary brown does
And why my highly sophisticated brain
Shirks off logical whispers of caution
Taking to the skies, a bird and its first flight.

kisses in dreams
are soft like wet cotton
warm like coffee
crisp like powdered sugar
kisses in dreams
are kinder to my cracked soul
than the kisses awake
of whiskey and smoke

My mind weaves moonbeams
When handed a yard of thread
And builds castles of glass
Delicate as a butterfly’s flutter
Hears languages long dead
In a single kind word
And a thousand love letters
Even in a seemingly wayward glance
And that is why, it’s reflected glory
Like a hall full of brilliant mirrors
Falls suddenly and completely dark
When the light of your smile is gone.

I wonder why we run
Towards and away from love
At the same time.

How unfair of me
To expect you to get over me
When I’m still pining for him
And blaming him for not returning my love
Knowing perfectly well that I wouldn’t return yours
Hurting after every message he forgets to reply to
When I haven’t replied to your messages in weeks
And hoping that someday I will end up with him
Knowing that your similar hopes will never come true.

What do you do?
When your will to live
Just trickles down your eyes
And leaves your mouth as sobs
When your heartbeats slow
And the fire’s no more
The memories and the mistakes
That made you laugh out loud
Don’t even warrant a smile anymore
And when the things that set
Your wandering eyes to flames
Become pathetic and sorry
Embers only by name
When you wait for sleep
Not for peace and quiet
But when you wake up another morn
You know you’re closer to dying