Good Fool

I will not be a butterfly in a lidded
mason jar
won't lean back so comfortable that I tip me over
can't be your summer dying softly like
a dirty dandelion
what lies behind my eyes is sacred 

I am a good fool, one with heart, the best kind

sweetness of all we were
was it enough to have it once?
missing-
simple, lazy incurable romanticism
it had its own temperance 
changing everything 
when all we desired was escape
filling up on beautiful fantasy that never led
to anyplace, now a cinematic mistake

I am a good fool, one with dreams, July Sunday's

closeness we sought to keep wasn't meant to stay
and being unhappy with you was the best
sadness I have ever had I think
I could become recluse for you
or bore holes in the ceiling, let the stars 
burn through the pictures that we made
but I think I'll place them by the river bank

quietly slip away telling no one
I once had everything I ever thought I'd want



Ever been sad with someone you love? Ever known that letting go was the only choice? Ever missed the days you longed for the thing that's been given you & when you got it, it just wasn't enough? Ever hurt so secretly that pain felt like such a selfish sin? 
Maybe longing is its own story, a call in our heart one that sometimes goes on and on until it's perfectly answered. Here's to all the good fools out there, we're going to keep looking for our palimpsest hope alive, rewriting as we go.

Hands of a Blue Eyed Boy

your hands were fists that learned how 
to clench and fight
before they learned how to love
you learned to run because walking was too slow
losing more of yourself in strange cities than
you ever found
apologized out loud to everyone for your full lips
and all the conversations that you ruined
dark nights became your preference
there no one could see you didn't fit into
the categories they prearranged for you
you grew a hatred for your own morning greetings
as they were barely met with
gritted silence of your peers
or sometimes an almost barely audible grunt

the walls to your mothers clapboard shack fell apart
but you still miss the rhythms of life there that were
wired to the circle space of a clock
the windows rebelled
swelling shut from rain refusing entry
epiphanies were already transforming
your blue eyes
like light shards from
the most brilliant, translucent glass
sleep was not a luxury
in an attic where you dreamed and awoke
after the midday hour covered in sweat
illuminating your terrors

you fell in love with the rain 
the sound pounding on your metal roof
and it eased erratic racing thoughts because it
demanded nothing
and after all the fights and the afterglow of craved
for flickering lights
you realized you've been carrying sadness
far too long
and loving its weight
happiness was irrelevant for the boy
with sky blue eyes
who learned blue rooms are sad rooms and
the wind
in the pine trees will always know your name
the eye of the storm became the only thing you
could expect
pain is recommended for you
because that's the way a boy like you learns to love

words that mattered never arrived
kisses were too absent
and dreaming is a beautiful thing but a boy like you
wastes too much time counting the circles engraved
on his fingers wondering
will his hands ever be clean enough to make love
make sense
he says
"at least the sky is clean out of my reach" 


A poem from Sad Romantics. 

Glass December

you like the ocean
only at a distance
and you're not breathing
you say
'cause when it's December
that's the only time
you can see it 

so where will you go

the walls you've built
no longer hold
'cause those you've loved
have killed you
buried you
a long time ago

have you forgotten dear
the iron doors that broke
the ash you breathed
the love that choked
blood on the floor
and your hands so small
that you never found a way
to find a chance it would take
to break the chain

June is slipping away 
to a glass December
and you only know how to break 
 
 

wanting moonlight

I want us to be
champagne and orchids 
in the courtyard

I want to spoonfeed
on moonlight in your eyes

I want the sky to memorize
how it becomes violet
and I ashes beneath your touch

I want to send roses to God
thank him for you 
my love
but I don't know if the dove
can fly that distance
and maybe he's not even home
anymore 

Memorist Goes Back Home

light fell across the room so beautifully
where you used to sleep
the last place I would have you next to me
the rooms were bigger then
maybe because we had love living in them
our path is gone
the door was locked
the windows dirty but I brushed them off
and looked back across the years
looking for a trace of us 
and of course you weren't there
the spring house was abandoned too
where I used to scoop cool water
out for you
the road was new, the gravel gone
so too the oak tree roots I read
"Seventeenth Summer" on
I looked around me lost in memories
"Summer Breeze," coming from my brother's
bedroom window blowing down the stairs
that song still touches me
your pretty flowers all gone now
your garden's just a tangled meadow full
of weeds but still remain a few old lovely trees
I saw my bedroom, empty now, nothing there
but I remember rain song on that old tin roof
still needing no repair 
vines have stolen up the side where lilacs used to grow
and fragrance the night outside our windows
and the porch where you used to sit with your coffee
and your cigarette, well it's still there not destroyed yet
the sun was still beating down the silence
so hot, hungry and heavy
the desperation that you surely felt
I could feel it swallow me
the mailbox gone
the fence is too
the clothesline now removed
I came back looking for something of you
but now I know it's not around the curve
that my mind keeps coming back to
in my heart that's where you reside
where this memorist shelters you

Have you ever felt a place pull you backward in time ? Some places hold so much of who we were, clues of who we are going to become. I felt the urge to go home once more to the last place I lived with my mother and siblings. It still felt like home but I realized later that it wasn't the home I was looking for but those that are gone from me and maybe I was trying to connect to the girl I was that was on a different path, wondering what would have been different if things had turned out opposite the way it did. How different would my life have turned out? I don't think I'll return again, what or who I'm looking for is no longer there but in my memories.
 

Blue Exhale

the burns stains on  your favorite crimson chair
your Winston painting blue clouds in a room
large enough to seat fifteen
it wasn't the smoke that choked me
angry days were behind you, I think
grieving days were shelved for when you
were alone
memories were aired
you remembered loving someone whose 
only want was to break you
blue was the color of our world
sadness tinged with resigned loneliness
mornings were on repeat
walking on ice
cold indoors
colder outdoors
taking that walk that may lead
to a better somewhere or nowhere at all
but you were sitting there so beautiful
in your blue exhale 
 

Wicked Orchids

Our love is as destructive
as the match we are going 
to light
We're going to live and love
deceitfully rearrange one another
and no one will know
the orchids are an artificial infusion
of time passed
No, we can't possibly be
who they think we are

Darling, let's live out our madness passionately

Star Fall

he knew you were a sky lover
magnified your romanticism
loved you from a distance

was it that July heat that made him
want to crawl inside the mouth of another
did he ever see what you looked like 
in the moonlight of his rear view mirror

it was parked beneath the broad old oak 
that he cast his summer spell
as the radio light made you his
he smelled like young heaven
taming winter with his kiss
decimating your heart with betrayal

you wish the stars would fall on you
they were the most sacred thing
to witness your deepest pain 

 

Goodnight, Goodbye, Sweet Dreams

we had wheels for sky racing
but the clouds always won 
mountains before us to climb
but they built us strong
hungry for laughter
for the movement of a life going somewhere
adjusting to knowing we were the no one's
of this world going nowhere
barbed wire boundaries left scars
and wine presses were visible, but not ours 
too young to be broken
by words on youthful battlefields
didn't mean we didn't realize we were on the 
outside
didn't mean we didn't feel
dancing they said was a sin
but inside us the music was always playing
control isn't love, neither is fear
hearts are indestructible
but flesh always tears
you can't break someone who knows who and what
and believes in all they are
cause we're all made from the same particles
of universe and stars

love you from a distance they say
but their silence tells on them when they never say a thing
that's all right 
we're strong enough for this kind of sting
can't say you know us when you've drifted for years
and we were thirsty and without
and you never cared enough to care
well here's to the good life you never bothered to share
drink up my dear
one day you'll be older and the walls will be
too tight for your soul
everyone that you've forsaken 
will never let you walk alone
in ghost form, their smile, their name, their face
too late now
can't blame, can't erase
so
goodnight, goodbye, sweet dreams 


If you've ever been forsaken, forgotten or left behind this poem is for you.

Love and Summer's End

The love there in the corner with the steel gray eyes, is he yours?
the one you paint your lips the perfect red for, perfume the sheets of your shared bed
tell me 
is he the song you carry in your head
the one who measures your nights with his hands combed in your hair, kissing winter from your hands
you silly summer girl
do you memorize the whispering he beds you with
do you still blush with pleasure because this man of your dreams is no longer a shy school boy
does he sing you awake and rub your body with heat that knows how to make a woman's body dream a dream full of unending love laws that you two only know
do you want to be his fool
love him and erase yourself in all he is just because you can
does he make your heart feel like a tiny bird
as it thunders and comes quickly to life
is your day a jealous lullaby as you get drunk on his scent and close your eyes
do you live half asleep when you're not with him
his name on your breath and the sky a kiss that never satisfies 
you pray that time won't end until you're rooted in his mapped out dreaming soul that loves you like an ivory ghost
is he a symphony of moonlight as it sheds the day's sky colors 
are you his flame, the place his mind and untamed hands browse as you light up the night
weightless afternoons, you and your Summer love
your ribs vibrate as he kisses you like a hungry angel
time apart will only crucify the yellow days of Autumn and you're not ready for Summer to end 

What's One More Time

we've been over this before...

your mother's weakness -
your father's power
your nightmares -
because absence of lighthouses
the ticking in your pillow 
just your fear has won a scholarship 
to teach you you'll never have your hands
around its neck
your silence -
the way you hide when you can't run
your hair in your eyes 
cause you don't feel like smiling at anyone
your novels, your wine and your pens
are crutches, props and freedom
the news is a Hollywood sign you don't worship any
longer, your heart's too tired
your sensitivity 
because you released the elephants 
and everyone got mad for years
your locked doors -
you want a safe ending
exhale
and shatter until
the myths and the rumors and dreaming
don't want you anymore
no, you are not hungry
you're too starved for life to die
and we've been over this before
what's one more time
 
 
 

Sad Romantics

world falls apart
it's all going to burn

nobody's gonna sleep anymore
too many strangers, not enough doors
nights are ours
streets own us

we're dreaming of houses that broke
no where to go
in love with a reckless soul

we're just harlequin dreams
rolling around in mental romantic
occupancy
becoming a yellow love letter to the moon
we split our souls and conjure up
conversations with our guardian angels
asking
what shall we choose
who shall we be
the sad romantics are sometimes
speechless
running the hourglass down
leaving wonder and questions
for our own hearts to hallucinate
the answers we are denied

rock and roll will cure us
the sad mad house that broke us
will burn
but we will never wish to return
we'll be euphoric in our
medicated heaven that separates us
from a living hell
and who needs sleep
oh well

we'll run in the streets and pretend we
are fully clothed and desired
we'll electrify the angelic ones
with barbed wire hair
sad romantics with glass in hand
tear in our eye and nostalgia 
for a lover
we'll live in reclusive asylums 
writing poems about skyscrapers and
pavements 
walk down corridors that shun us
and on shiny streets slick with rain
the light will swallow our lonely footsteps
the sunsets will make us cry
our new houses now prisons
the sky is a dream
and we're all just meandering
we'll sit and wonder
become restless and we were sifting
miracles surely
but they turned into sawdust

one train ride away from mama and
sunshine to another somewhere
another sometime
but the skeletons are already in place
you will never be an angel
and the old books that you cradle
on rainy haunted midnights
smell like the tears of a saint
those tunnels can't take us back
those clocks won't kiss us young again
our bodies will remember
when our mouths forget to speak

and maybe the fairytales have died
or maybe they are in a cab disappearing
around a strange corner somewhere
beneath a winter moon 


I wrote this on a sleepless night in the summer of 2016. It became the title of a chapbook I wrote and published on Create Space. Although my little chapbook never found its audience it was on my bucket list to do. Success doesn't always have a dollar sign, it is the completing what one sets out to do.
So whether you are sad, lonely, romantic or neither or maybe life has taken so much from you that makes no sense at all and yet you are still brave enough to be here and live this life, this poem is for you.

The Taste of War

you shall not talk in bed
no whisperings of prayers
or poetry recitings
you shall not sing in bed
or chew gum or sleeping pills
you may not swing from the ceiling
from happiness or from woe
do not bring your pens to bed
or your store receipts and grocery lists
do not worry that you left the lid
off the jar of honey
or if the milk is out of date
do not think of rain or snow
or somewhere new to go
don't speak please
you'll frighten the tipsy mouse
you never admit you see 
no thinking of food or dirty laundry
or what you'll next eat
forget your debt and who hasn't repaid you yet 
and everything you're not good at
you should not think of the madness
that you're sure you suffer from
or who is out to get you
of all the places you'll never hurry to
or of the faces you'll never see again
not of the mosquitoes that will drain you thin
don't speak, don't think, don't worry for nothing
play your radio low
pull the sky over you
the star spangled one
no wringing of your hands
the memories in them are rented for a lifetime
don't think about your mother's silver watch
in a box
it can no longer tick its way out of anything
or of how you can't forgive yourself
it would be too dangerous 
to enjoy life again
and you enjoy the taste of war
too much to let it end
 

boy

the boy with the blue halo in his eyes
still reminds you
you never replaced him
your eyes would be liars
your hands would be numb
so you keep your kisses to yourself
the boy you remember is still in the forest
of your mind
you never left the spot he released
you on 

Another Summer Wasted

I can't sing hallelujah one more time
one more hit of lonely
then I'll close my eyes
there's not enough white noise
to satisfy my mind
I'm breathing but that's not enough
to make me feel alive

one more wasted summer dream
is that the best I can hope for me
missing the days when I was younger
but I'll blank my eyes
so you can't tell I'm going under

my hands are bleeding 
but there's no injury to show
I haven't broken anything
and I'm so tired of repetition
my breathing feels more like a chore 

and I'm not crazy
I'm not lazy
sitting on my back porch star gazing
the passing of another summer wasting
It's just another summer I wasted





 

Epitaph

summer was killing us
everything we were
the beautiful pulse
was editing an ending
and I was still in love with the
beginning

My love's name was Johnny. I was 18, he 21 and we thought we were forever. So from one July to the next a year proved we were too young and the world too heavy. We were not meant to be forever, but the heart never forgets. Every now and then he sneaks into my poetry without me actually being aware of it, this poem was us.

You Should Have Loved Better

you are an aging beauty on canvas
the grooves of your favorite songs
always sticking
but rain doesn't explain or excuse itself
just hangs out where and whenever it wants
why can't you?

fires that love built
love that fire destroyed
but the sea says "I know"
and turns night fears into 
a sweet lullaby

the breath of that lover
that you never wanted to leave
rivers you run back to
for all the stories you were
remind you of pretty theatre 
bauble lights
but now they've exchanged
the old seats that belonged to
all the old lovers in your town

and now the hummingbirds
are quiet, escaping like pretty confetti of
old songs and laughter
then the sound of crushed wing

you disappear so easily
in quiet reverie
no one knows where to find you

you ate pills
but the pain remained
sleep was an addiction
and God sat by you as you escaped
sleeping
dreaming of your mama's
vintage red lipstick and her
restlessness
her cool aloofness
the detached
part that's became attached to you too
held hostage in elegant reflection
you see her face, never your own
you are fading and you allow
your lovers to own the way you walk
why?

but you're a dreamer
in slow motion falling into a moonset
in an orange dawn
where words are sacredly forbidden
because the steps to a heaven you
were sure of fell apart

you were beautifully adored
strangely broken
left alone to heal
have you forgotten how he left you
nine months pregnant
sleeping on a mattress in your sister's floor
you gave too much for nothing
'cause he never even flinched
his hands were too full of all
he was taking
you were just a second hand
used up heaven...

you should have loved better

Younger Daze

I used to close my eyes
and play sleep in the attic
where I wasted too much time dancing 
alone

so good at pretending
I got too good at disappearing
my skin became like
out grown clothes

my young eyes were greedy for life
and no one even knew 
I was dreaming away, wasting my time
like the seventies never cost me anything

I was hungry
but my pictures didn't show
I was too young to know
that the stars were more beautiful
without memories of you
stuck in my throat

your radio was left on
I was numb

I was already missing you
now I only miss the me 
I never got to be
now there's nothing left of you
but a paper trail of a soul

missing you don't mean a thing
don't mean a thing
the saddest thing is
you will never know
I'm too full of love for you
to ever feel alone
 

Forever 22

gorgeous lovers
living in houses with sheer black curtains
counting streets
scowling at sumptuous bank accounts
while imagining jumping through
glass doors to other worlds
their sadness is a comedy
of never being on the outside

there the sound of yelling means
someone's being passionate
as they have loving, living rooms
indoors

outdoors they are flagging down
and naming stars
writing their names in ash
by cast iron fire pits

she'll write letters to Orion
about things like spider bites and yellow webs
and how some build beautiful empires 
from dirty fabulous lies
famous lusty lies
poetry with metaphors 
doesn't allow for the word defeat

she tells him "we are young
and too precious to ever look tired or
sleepy"

"we should stay 22 forever"
as they dip beneath the waters of
the New River
their jeans have too many memories
and should never be washed again

 
 

Scattered

I am most comfortable on rainy days when I write your name over and over covering the windowpane. I know the storm you are and it has leaked outward and now it is my own. No broken hinges or apologies. You were never anything but yourself with me.

I am not accustomed to the strangeness of my skin that's bereft without you beside me. My hands do not know what to make of this strange heat that comes from an unknown source. I sit in the window to cool as the moon skinny dips on my face, I am reminded of the fullness of your mouth. And I hunger for a little of the summer we first met before everything scattered, and we got lost like toys that don't belong to grown ups anymore.


6/25/2017 

Shadow Girl

the past tastes like a place I no longer wish to visit
so I've washed my hands clean of the soot 
I cannot bury what is left of us
the sweet Balm of Gilead nights 
the songs of the crickets
as the fan blew the pages of the calendar 
like it too was blowing us away
I cannot give you back the songs you sang
or the nights I lay next to you and breathed
in this world because you did too
I cannot give you back your youth
or free you from the ghosts
that shackled you to a pasted summer dream
that didn't fit once you tried it on
I miss your laughter
and the bedtime secrets we used to share
they're still there safe between our two hearts
I cannot detonate the destruction that stuck to you
like your shadow
and there's not enough bleach to wash away
the wrongs that haunted you
tearing your belief
in good things to shreds like sawdust
our red bird wishes, your lace and bobby pin curls
and everyone that left you left me too
but we both know
sometimes lipstick is messy, so is glitter
and we're never quite ready for the taste
of hard liquor or roving hands and rolling eyes
the kind of wiring that trips us up
you showed me how it looked to walk in the darkness
I forgot how it felt in the light


Love is love, sometimes it has its own layers and variations. So too the love of sisters.

Red Geraniums

my thoughts spill over like
mismatched socks
and I've got piles of them
refrigerator empty of drink
the kind that tastes good
but numbs quickly
the walls are empty now
the pictures stashed in an
overcrowded closet
too many stories in the eyes 
of all my loves

I've bypassed lots of traps
I saw beauty spill from absolute
nothing but marrow soaked in pain 

I got burned once or twice
got lust mixed up with love
tried to cage it
then I wrote it off as a romantic idea
it was everything I wanted to avoid
like black ice

all the squandered sunsets
I thought I'd have a million
sorry now I wasted even one

and the red geraniums by the door
scenting the summer air
were so simple in elegance
but I never found words for them
 

Wingless

when whispered
love falls silent
does it dissolve like
sugar in water
rewritten into a slur
a summer once ago
long removed
an idea that lost us
all we were
we were too unavailable

do we undress and find a stranger
borrowing our skin
we don't know ourselves anymore
and all that look our way
will see they are the reason 
we are a bird
removed from our wings

Beautiful Rogue

he likes fast cars, the ones with creative edges
and curves that look as if an artist built them
and the feel of a beautiful woman in love with him
he doesn't cheat on purpose
he says he's impulsive
he's a big dreamer
a charmer
always spending yesterday's money 
tomorrow's lack will be overlooked
overdrawn, a bitter honey
he's a runner
more responsibility than one man can handle
he breaks inside for eyes he hasn't glimpsed in years
they color his dreams but he won't change his mind
change rattles around in his pocket
with buckeyes for luck
his roof will leak but he has a car
he can survive in the forest
society is the jungle he fears

beauty adored
logic ignored

poor handsome beautiful rogue
could never see nineteen years
of aching in her eyes
she loved him too much to tell him
he was everything her mama said he was

The Next Girl

will she have eyes like mine
will she hide under cover
or over come
darkness with delirium 
will her fingers ache to write
will her tongue speak words
that spark because you've
never heard them before
and leave you leaning in
yearning for more


will you break her over and over
leaving a cave where her heart once lived?


will her very being
make you into a poem
like a train on midnight rails
without speed limit for your
rushing heart
will you sleep beside her knowing
she is your place in this world


will the next girl be your last girl?

blur of 113 dogwood circle

I am
dreaming of things that I can see
but I am away for the moment
the seasons are changing
and changing me
even distance can't deny
but
I know how we will be in a room together
we can no longer return to our beginning
we have no more of that time
except memory
sliver spayed on our minds wall
the street sign, the breathable sky
growing older too young
as the current pulled us to where
we had to go
the empty spaces - the sweeter ones
the summers passed and have stolen from us
yet we keep returning to the happy blur
of 113 dogwood circle


 

Beautiful Ruin

queue the lights one more time
so we can all see the perfection
of all the raw edges we want to discard
the beautiful ruin
the flattened copper on the rail
that disappears without the presence
of those we love
kinder because we've been lost and left
from those leaving
we are memory
and night watchers
tree huggers
that never stop believing
the chrysalis that knows how to survive
how to die
like light in a forest, magic of  a firefly
splendorous lilac scented rain drifting in
open bedroom windows
moonlight on old books
the black and white old reels that stain our face
leaves us wishing we were Bogie's girl
but
we trust the darkness that creates the sphere
for a candle's light

Parking Space

libraries are full of red screaming words
that no one ever heard, so they were written
music has rooms to hide in, so I go there often
we've all got lots of people wanting
to be our brother or sister
while our own bloodline is depreciating
like a dark moon
and good boys aren't loved
they are overlooked
bars become temples
but the philosophers are only liars
dirty loud ones


some of us hide in crowds or in corners
becoming a character that no one knows
we just want beautiful sexy romance
the night seems to promise


we close our eyes
our face a salt lick


boys with beautiful eyes
never seem to see us
we are too wild, too free, untamable
we are happily parked in empty parking lots
where silence is welcome
where we drink rum and coke
in our vintage convertible Volkswagens

chained to comets

oh
all the floors we
have danced on
rolled on
fought on
dreamed on
loved on
leaving blood
sweat
tears of life on
but
we don't dance anymore

Tag

there was a tag on that rag top convertible that read
"back our boys in Vietnam"
back then  I was only a kid I didn't know what it meant
no not then

and daddy had already passed on to those shores
you hear about but you've never been
sometimes I still wish for the strength of his hands
to set me straight again

mama mourned and I think
he took the best of her
they buried her when they buried him
it was just seven years later

we ran wild in the summer sun
there was fire in the summer sky when it rained
lost in the what ifs and the cold blue moons
I was friends with the shadows that knew my name
but rain has never tasted that sweet again

home isn't home
they left seven standing on their own
borders were broken, secrets spilled over
glue of our family was gone
seven different paths, we all moved on

daddy's old green army blanket was a childhood fort
brother slept with it over him
now he sleeps next to mama
I take flowers for two when I go visit them

but there was a flag for a soldier
left in the hands of my mother
there's nothing left of the house he built
he sleeps in the mountains close to heaven
now all their pictures are fading
but when I look in my eyes I still see a ghost of them

Paperweight

all her hurts are wrapped in a blackbirds song
her sweetness squeezed like crumpled clothes
a second hand want, her cup empty
never was half full
she's a dissolving sugar water
every righteous thing she ever was burned away
a paperweight
midair leaves nothing
words of all her loved
gone scars explained  
music box died
breath is left
strength inside
sidestepping pain
postponing life that drips like
a numbing imaginary IV
called a pulse this song of a dance
she has a mind that don't quit
extensions in print
technicolor memory
once loves won't be returning 
they think she's a shadow but she's a
burning white light
they can't even see her
she's gathered every stone they ever threw
at her but she's not gathering hate
she's collecting stars 

 Keep doing what you love no matter what. Don't quit.

Too Pretty to be Lonely

his bed's a mess
a collectedness of
all his sad blue dreams
his jeans are ripped
his smile infectious 
to every girl he meets

he's too pretty to be lonely

his guitar is his friend
he sinks his sin
on pages full of ink
nothing he can't say
no one he can't reach

his kiss is yours
his goodbye swallows you
his eyes are sad
but he's not looking for a queen

he's too pretty to be lonely

he'll never need you
be that weak for you
he's not ready to bleed that deep
his hands a prayer
but he don't pray
music's his love
he'll never hold you that way

he's too pretty to be lonely

he is summer, burning your skin
he'll break the rules
he knows when to fly 

 

some boys

some boys play in sunshine
good things slip into their hands
easily, greedily accepted
they never feel the rain
now you
use your skin as a canvas
honoring the savage poetry that
built you
it will never look natural to your father
but you're not up to pleasing
today's judgement

some boys are
starving boys for just a glance
sick from the unloving monsters
that will never love them whole
aching eyes that never rest
young weary shoulders
for your sky is bent and dirt red
a drier unkind flame
and the lack that punishes your hands
has stolen from your heart
not one thing

some boys hide behind
a pseudonym
and kiss lips that should
never belong to them
but you are busy packing dreams
into your piano
cause you crave music like its food
sadness is never lost on you


This is a poem from my book Sad Romantics and I thought why not share it here :)
I don't want to leave a bunch of poetry or writings of mine in a drawer or even in a book somewhere that no one ever reads so I'm going to share all I can here. If you like anything of mine drop me a comment let me know and if you add me to your circles then I'll add you to mine circles as well.

claustrophobic

my best friends forever flew away like birds
and I became to them as if I never were

repeating tracks of "everybody hurts"
entertains the sadness and it's amazing
how deep I want to go
until the pain trickles into a grainy web
a blurring kind of mind snow

but the music that once devoured me
and killed the aches of my days
is now just too sad to play

and when I'm lonely I say I'm not
cause I don't want you to come down
beneath the ceiling where I lay
where everything's too loud
and the darkness never fades

I have so much of all I thought
I ever wanted
but too much freedom
makes me feel claustrophobic

Union

soft confines of darkness sweeps our room
our shadows softly mingle in
passion I feel for splendor is almost violent

my eyes weep, my flesh too human
my love for him too woman

the dirty streets have been neglected
from our lack of dancing
slender hands reach for the sky
and mouths open to swallow stars

smiles wearing nudity
hearts unearthed beat most vibrant
love has swollen
and crashes like new waves to shore

our midnight passes through too rapidly
but not before we rest the darkness deep
and kisses exile the sadness from our eyes

starlight will burn the nocturnal expectations
into ashes and we'll collapse with delirium
of June breath and cross our fingers
while we reorganize the stars our union
chose to scatter

Girls

I'm just a girl
could be your age or any age
we're all girls even at ninety or so I think
we want to be pretty
we want to be loved and held precious
next to a heart that beats in sync with our own
a heart that knows us so well that circumstance
wouldn't dare to alter it

we just want to belong
to have deep meaningful conversations
allowing you a glimpse of the girl
we don't have to try to be
we are not always patient, friendly or forgiving
we just want to wrap our hands around the world
and claim a small piece of it for ourselves

we get loud
sometimes self destruct
we get sad
don't always know why
no one can tell us how or when to cry
we hold hands with our girlfriends and
commiserate
midnight shakes with the secrets we vow to keep
we go through vibrant, violent aching heartbreak
we are dreaming girls

we'll share our lipstick, clothing, memories
glitter and bedrooms
never our boyfriends or lovers
real girls know this
but we'd swim in dirty rivers for one another

we are a little bit of war wrapped up inside all that
love

abyss

lonely rooms
defunct water spigots
bright lights blind
and bedside rugs wear threadbare
from honest humble prayers
the get up and go of all that will leave
well that's a sure thing
unloved, beautiful, forgotten people
replaced by monetary, pretty, plastic things
doesn't mean they don't exist
buried but still breathing
kisses intended for loving
lips confessing
leaving dark prints on paper cups
by bathroom sinks
night life drifting
burning despair
here everything but love
catches on fire
sighs and music
2 am forced dreams sink into ethers
of a nowhere blue
where they only know how to wear
darkness
happy to break all the rules
and sink into the abyss
where all you do is feel

all night living rooms

let's give them a ceremony
give them a name
where words can't touch
and hands won't ever claim
attend the burials, the unplugging
of ourselves from too many loveless kinds of love
abandon all we thought we were
and found out we were not
that recognition didn't come easy
bravery from nights spent alone
was sucking every living last breath from us

the greetings of new days are blessings
and we hold them like porcelain glass
we are dreamers living anthems
and we don't get in line with unfocused
viewpoints
we crave the theoretical imaginings
that won't make us invisible

tiring of broken mirrors
and family trees and rooms with history
too heavy, too ominous for our hearts
breathing in beautiful moments that grow wings
of a butterfly and fly away

and then

the line breaks
and we relive all the words
we cant retract
so we converse our nights away
smacking lips with starving ghosts
in all night living rooms
always waking up when we don't want to

asthma

can you hear my memories
oh, maybe I have sealed them
too tight within my skin
and the burden would be too much
the weight of that kind of sting
I won't mean to haunt you
and you shouldn't give that to me
I was born with a broken soul
and that's why I sang the blues
Don't step in my shadow
or try to touch what I decided
I would always keep
There was not enough of me
to love what left me incomplete
Blue fantasy and midnight hours
my night a mystery
I only wish I could blessed you
with the path I placed beneath your feet
I would say to live the hell out of life
the one I would have lived
if I remembered how to breathe


for mama who no longer breathes in this world, but my memories of her do

alone

count the breaths
the steps between the lost things
and what tomorrow brings

I walked away too fast
I broke
you didn't see
my heart was on the outside
losing you was swallowing me

the promise kept
the poets creed lies
littering now and rotting with
broken, golden forgotten things
beneath the oldest tree

I'm learning to walk again
like the man I never got to be
I need a moment to let you see
I wanted the best for you
it wasn't me

on my stage
I played the nights away
and you were sleeping in a safer
way
I was stumbling with a prayer
on my lips
I wish that I'd begged harder
to have a little bit
of everything I missed

all the things I put away
all the words I didn't say
the street, the house, the music box
the pen that loosed my thought to songs

so when you leave
smile through your melancholy
and as you drive by the river
count the blackbirds
on your way home
alone

Bridge

your name burns on my mouth
musical out loud
but my language has changed
and would wake your almost dormant memory
my breathing has a different rhythm now
though my ribs ache for the way
you used to rest your hand
numbness has crept into my fingers
and the light in my eyes has slowly splintered
the flare of headlights on a dirt road
blur the stars and make my skin feel alive
the match we lit cannot be extinguished
and I burn my imagination trying to recapture that heat
I put all our pictures in a box
but I can't put the color of evergreen eyes
out of my mind
I went back to the bridge
where we carved our initials
it has been replaced
new
silver and shiny
our name now rots in the rain
in an unknown darkness
while I'm still trying to build a new fire

@vanesadawn