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