I Don't Remember

Sometimes love gets lost
the love songs don't matter anymore
they don't rhyme
the light goes out
bulb is not replaced

We talk too much
saying nothing, nervous chatter
resisting silence
looking for escape routes

I empty inboxes of messages and
I send you one
saying "I miss you"
I imagine you've made new connections
and besides I don't miss who you are now
just who you were back then

Existence is long
continuity is cruel
what is closure???
50 poems later I realize
there isn't a way to start over
it's just easier to say
"I don't remember"

Conversations with Michael

Michael says he doesn't sleep at night
he likes the quiet and aloneness
Asks me if I'm afraid of him
and I told him the love I have for my brother
is weightless and there's  no fear
But maybe love is nosey and wants competition
Maybe love is deferred
until silence chokes on isolation
Michael says he loves me now

Michael says he loses his balance
and he's fell twice in a week
goes sockless now, feet swells out of his shoes
Pulls his shirt up, shows me his bruise

Michael still believes in fairytales
and wonders what I think
Misses what could have been

Michael romantizes the abandoned words
the dark hours, misses his brothers
Doors are closing, relationships folding
Older age approaching
But I never ask what he thinks of me

Michael remembers the November road to a past life

When he comes over we reminisce about our loved ones
and I say, "at least they're not in pain anymore, their heartache is over"
And he tells me, "well we don't know what the soul goes through once we leave here"
Now sunshine in the graveyards feel a little colder

Michael counts our parents sins
Goes for beer on a midnight run, has few close friends
he no longer trusts anyone
Misses childhood, still watches Captain Kangaroo
Says the hard life he had to live has made him hard this way
But I refuse to


I love you Michael - Vanessa

Winter Monologue

falling in love with winter is a habit
the forlorn blue skies
the torn edges of the forests grieving 
for the loss
not ready to embrace a new season yet
dormant like me

alone, captured in the winds relentless howl
getting its say
the silence of the night that beckons to be
be quiet
be
just be

words run away
notebooks wait
and the ticking of the inner clock
imitates outside
conducting its own orchestra 
the limbs of the white oak
dance
as their branches creak and grind together
the love that nature makes

hands waking memories
aren't lazy
pen is trailing in ash
sooty
stained
refusing to ignore
the kiss
the farewell
the love that stayed
and the ones that left
no longer mine

stories buried in the frozen forest
words must give it a pulse
because the forest will never tell
pen is executioner 


Winter is the season when all my memories seem to wake up. I thrash through them like a child with a bag of candy. Some things want to be remembered, some people refuse to be forgotten and they keep me company like a ghost living in my pen. It is a season for dreaming, for letting go and learning how at every age we are still growing up and acclimating to this very precious thing we call life. Happy Winter and happy remembering to all. And if you find yourself reading anything of mine thank you  -  Vanessa 

Lasts'

I am your last written word: tragedy

he is rained on firewood
sidewalks where heartbreak destroyed
mirage of safe shores
the prayer that never reached your eyes
out of time
hated unfinished sentences
the match
the kerosene and 
fire
the lighting up of your soul that began
years ago

you became a wasteland as he was
leaving
hungry January's white rose thorns
he was the mocking bird that was never quiet
the un-silent moving
the burning night
the smoke you can't hide from
terra-cotta Summers' escapes your imaginings 
an inescapable clinging to your skin 
begging for your purple fingernails kind of itch
you can't reach

the little voice of God nudges you awake at night
whispers, "do you remember the way back home to me?"
you don't but you say you do
rewind now-

the goodbye you never gave your mama
the last kiss you gave your daddy
the chocolate drop that dripped from your chin
the day he died
the way she rocked herself alone, the way she cried
the background spinning LP Joni Mitchell
repeating
repeating...

your thin non winter coat
and all your loyal lies, the taste of frost
unhappy lullabies - dashing bolts of color- muted daylight
wanting out
wanting in
and on your final day
when you finally go-
missing breathing 

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