we are rainbows painted over gasoline,
white feathers that wither and die
underneath footsteps—
thinking maybe we can stay together
when really all we can ever do
is drift apart.
and maybe we’ll never meet again,
but that one moment in the light
looks beautiful enough.
I add 300 more miles to my repertoire
And pause for a break, delay the inevitable,
Scenery changing blue to red
Like a belligerent street fighter’s face.
No mercy for my lack of traveler’s spirit,
But I keep going another 900 miles
All in hopes of a crack in the highway
To stop this trip’s revolutions.
Every call is never-changing,
For every mile of empty space between us
There is a half-hearted, bittersweet,
“Next time you come by,” from their mouths.
And I live on those optimistic words,
Never daring a doubt to their sincerity,
Afraid that every mile would be a minute
From my life if I did.
That is my method to no circumstance,
Which I’ve perfected over too many gray skies.
There is no world around me
Unless our steps are in sync.
And that is also my method to lie,
Each word slipping past my lips with practiced ease
Into my changing winds, where you’re that constant
In these lonely days.
Drowning myself in your lifeless eyes,
I try, I fail and I write all about
every not-quite story book ending.
I’m sinking on solid ground,
and only way out is to lock myself
inside these mildew infested walls.
I need to find a window out,
because family-vines are wrapping
themselves around my throat.
I’m losing air but gaining ground.
One-upmanship is easy when you’re
playing against yourself.
Count-down to the finish line, and
I’m still wondering what my reward is.
Sure, I did it on my own, but I’m still
left stranded and map-less. What now?
Cutting ties and burning bridges?
Leaping without ever looking?
What did I gain from this sojourn?
I’ve lost what I was supposed to save,
and without it, I’m unable to walk away.
But at what point do I trade my sanity
for my life and just give in?
I really don’t want to give in.
I’m not going back.
I’ll make the damn call.
We laugh at the moth and how it flies to the flame. We laugh at
its imminent death, but maybe
the moth knows the truth. Maybe it knows how to smile with abandon.
I love you more than anyone.
In short: to fly, we must trade one thousand moments
of broken flowerbeds
for the wings that will take us
to our one moment of happiness.
and i, darling: i must lie awake without you
and forget the only love i feel
in order to keep on living.
Even though you are the rain that runs through my
blood. Even though you are the whispers between my
heartbeats.
The rain poured down for so long
I got used to staring at the ground
Asphalt
That black artifice of man
Oil stains baked into the earth
And upon those dark sufaces water collected
Life pools where it can
And there I saw the reflections of the sky
Rainbows reflected in lingering pools of life
The colors of life seemed that much further away
And yet they flourished all around me
As dreams slip through our fingers as we wake
So life slips through our fingers when we try to grasp it
Dreams must be remembered
Life must be lived
Grasping leaves us only with ghosts and empty hands
What a sad grey dance it is
Steps twirling, spinning, dipping, and slipping
Further away from the colors all around them
Reflected Rainbows are all that I see in your eyes
And I wonder
Which one of us is dancing in shades of grey?
Which one of us is dancing in life’s shadows?
Draw not your roots out of my soul
This dirty heart’s ideal for growth
Entwine Your knotted roots with veins
And make me new – fill me with rain
Cold, refreshing – rinse me clean
And soon the dirt becomes like clay
Earthy life – ripe to form
Reaching out to be reborn
Blood and roots all intertwine
In a painful transformation,
Writhing in a pool of tears,
I don’t know how I’ll persevere
Holding on, now letting go
Allowing something new to grow
Turning over, shedding skin
Giving up, now giving in
Empty heart, now free of pain
Open up and feel the rain
Roots of Steadfast, swell within
Tree of Knowledge, smother sin
In my heart of roots and veins
Made from earth and cleansed by rain
Lies a soul that’s newly shapèd
Beating vessel, clean and naked
It slips away slowly
As if rain could drain the sky’s blue
Or shooting stars could empty the heavens
The world’s immense hand is slowly moving
Purposeful and inevitable its fingers inch along
Mankind began to cover its eyes long ago
Before we even had words to describe such things
And now it seems that there is more at work
The clank of metal and the churning of engines
Echo in the background as the hand speeds up
Technologically-assisted oblivion just within reach
Words echo the emptiness of the heart more eloquently now
Lies are articulated with the wisdom of centuries of darkness
And the shadow in the hearts of man that has always lingered
Grows long as it casts its thoughts out over the world
A world which laps up these lies like the sweetest honey
Poisoning its veins with sweet, mindless nectar of self-indulgence
Human nature remains a cracked rock
The world’s institutions built upon the infirm
And as we grow and build upon this foundation
It creaks and groans out in pain
And I find myself eagerly waiting
For the day when it will all been torn asunder
When humanity’s lies grow too heavy for our hearts to bear
And mankind itself is split in twain
Nevertheless I find myself now pushing against the great hand
Seeing still some light left in those eyes
But I feel my strength seeping out like blood
I know that I will never be able to slow or stop this end
I know this because I see how often
I am the only one left struggling here
To slow this spread of darkness,
This self-inflicted blindness,
The inevitable end of enlightenment,
Our new Dark Age.
The mantra of the dying generation seeping out,
Becoming the mantra of the world.
And so often now I find it on my own lips.
“Why should I even care anymore?”
Trickle,
words like honey sticking
to the creases in your spine
like mine,
well used, but still confused
with entertainment;
pregnant silences miscarry
in the interlude.
The feel of tongue and teeth and lips,
an amorous sensation
suffering from
cessation in this drought
of mental fluency,
drip-drag-dry me out,
concurrent shirking of the senses
rendering them useless.
Make five minutes go by faster,
rat-a-tat-a-tick-tock hands
caressing at my back
but don’t look back
or
you’ll be gone—
oh, God, I’m paranoid,
sure that you were just a void
between the sheets where someone used to be
or maybe it was me
alone,
but I don’t know.
Click-tick-tick-tick,
ratchet ’round the faceless face
of prophecy
and mockery stealing emotions,
but everything must fall
between the lines of time
and Ally, I miss you
every day,
just like that time we prayed beneath a willow
before religion lost its way
inside a kiss.
They’d never let us live it down,
those hypocrites with small town values
drinking broken marriages into
startled silence
that never really realized it was dead
inside our heads,
us children sneaking out
to taste crinkled crackle candy
waiting for us
like lovers.
So it’s all this lack of words
stirring up the memories
I’d locked inside a sepulcher
beside the sea,
like in that poem about a raven
or maybe a dead girl;
I don’t recall,
but you were all I had
to lose.
I can’t refuse.
She bent her lips in sensuous smiles
obscured by toddler innocence,
baby teeth breaking hearts
before a fourth birthday flew by;
I took a breath, blinked an eye
and she was taller, thinner,
stronger in her faith that fate
meant harm upon her
harmlessness.
Once upon a time,
little girls wore petticoats
to act like ladies,
but I think maybe mine
was older-eyed than I,
no need for skirts to swirl about
playtime-tattered ankles,
so rankled by the ugly in her world.
Face facing tomes of ancient history—
a mystery to me,
this little girl
voluminous in innocence
yet so determined to be brittle,
act a little morbid when the horrid
found its way into her mind.
She was Alice in a smoky
land of wonders,
before a sunburnt slap of grief
bereaved me,
singed skin singing solace
in contrast to her bright;
she was light
doused in formaldehyde
and buried underground to shroud
the sound of weeping
for a world she couldn’t save.
Soul sinking into solemn bones,
water wishing refuge
from delusions, numb contusions
waiting for the pain
inside dull droves of rainclouds;
alabaster evanesced
into worm ridden caskets,
wooden handbaskets to hell.
But I stand here by this stone
staring at a shell,
she used to be a part of
me,
a love I can’t regret
though she can’t beget the feeling
with words.
I laugh at the absurdity
and weep.
Bear my heart when you go into battle.
Let it take the thrashings of the onslaught
As they shred and scatter pieces of you in their loathsome wake.
Hold it before you as they consume your happiness and freedom.
Let it absorb the fumes of their toxic temptation to annihilate your innocence.
Have the agony befall my scarred, numb heart when your friends turn their backs
When courtship and love grinds at your pride, your self esteem
When misery spears itself from every direction
Bear my heart
To spare yours.
I don’t always need her
in the immediate vicinity of my mind;
It’s enough that she’s always there
in the peripheral, waiting steadily
to cushion any accidental falls.
(I wrote this a really long time ago, although it’s short I thought I should go ahead and post it anyway)
Bloody fingers trailing down pale skin, ghosts of the past wrapping their slender fingers around my throat, choking off my desperate words.
Vines of lies binding me down, twining around my limbs, tight enough to cut my skin, crimson tears, pearls of pain, rain down upon the sullied tiles of my soul.
Hot breath, like anger, in my ears, chilling my blood as whispered words, like feathers fallen, strike venom in my mind. It’s twisting my thoughts against me, messing with my mind till I can’t tell up from down, world without gravity.
Smooth lips, manipulating, against mine, smothering my pleas. coaxing me into submission, to give, as a slick tongue flicks out against resisting lips. It’s breaking down my defenses, with words I can’t seem to deny, as lips part in surrender and pale hands travel up shaking sides; coming to rest on damp cheeks, wiping the tears away.
Shhh… It whispers to me, like fear, as I whimper, pulling my worn form into it’s lap, running fingers like ice, like hate, running through my hair. Let me take care of you, I won’t hurt you like they do…
Drained of myself I nod, too tired to resist anymore as It leans down to embrace me. My thoughts are unfocused, my eyes heavy, as I try to look at It, It’s smiling down at me as It whispers quietly, clamping shackles on my wrists.
Hate chains you now, with Anger and Fear, the pathway’s closing, yet the exit’s so near…
Glistening out in the frigid abyss of night
It shines, distant but clear
While the bitter wind snarls and nips at my heels
Thick drifts of despair form all around me
Sapping my will from me as I trudge on
Each footstep wearies my soul
Each breath drains my will
Soft wailing seems muffled and distant,
As if being suffocated beneath a blanket of white
The air is brittle with all the lifeless hate in it
And bright white eyes glare at me as they blow by, carried on the wind
The old ways all around stand proud and tall,
Steeped in their patterned ways
Slowly being buried beneath the chill
Layers of sorrow covering them from sight
Until only their outlines remain
Yet, they will remain long after I am dust
But in their shadowed bows there is no spark,
What I seek does not flourish in such places
Steeped in darkness and damp with suffering they loom all around
Mocking my feeble form, so vulnerable to the cruel wind and biting cold
This terrible white world slowly bleeds the fire of will from me
Each step becomes a question, eroding my purpose away,
Threatening to turn me into just another drift in the snow
Countless frozen figures lie, arms outstretched, reaching towards nothingness
I carry on, caught up in something more
Still, I reach for it, I can see it still
It’s there glistening in the night
It’s there just in front of me
My breathing becomes labored
Each step carries the weight of a million frozen dreams
But slowly I come to see through the frozen ashes of Zion falling all around me
Clarity and purpose shine brightly through the night
And then the realization comes
I am a prisoner
Not of the painfully bright, hollow, nothingness all around me
But rather I am a prisoner of this speck of light, now suspended before me
So fragile, so strong, so clear, and yet so fleeting in this storm,
In this world so drained of warmth and true light
I am a prisoner of hope
And even if I were to lay down
Even if this world were to swallow me whole
That image
That glistening, living dream would live on
And, were I to abandon it, the memory of it would haunt me
It would haunt me until long after this storm ends
And everything in the world turns to dust and memory
I have chosen my prison
My cage is fragile, yet stronger than diamond
Its bars, distant and bright, encompass the entirety of the world
And when the sun finally shines again
My sanctuary will glisten with a light that never dies
Whatever the price, I shall clutch this fragile dream to my heart
And not even the cold winds of Hell shall tear it from me
Yet, I wonder…
What will you do when you see that distant shimmering in the night?
Where will your footsteps lead when the world is covered in snow?
And what is it that will imprison you?
A burning map, or maybe not,
Just smoking ’round the edges.
I want to understand it all,
But still, there’s beauty in the mystery
Of Technicolor curving symbols swirling languidly
About the page, about my mind—
A sort of existential thrill
Of things too big and small at once,
Describing everything, meaning nothing.
Leave me to my memories,
This cloak of rainbow skies and coconuts
And singing island birds, papers stirred by balmy breezes,
Soaring to the sun, and dropping down among the waves,
So many broken dreams and shattered mirrors,
Seven years’ bad luck among the windswept shoals
Bringing ill to all they touch.
Bring me back the old, where life made sense
And everything was understood,
So dull and unadorned on ice-white paper between the thin blue lines,
My little robot wind-up world.
Bigger may better and better may be right,
But bright new denim doesn’t always fit,
So leave the faded blue jeans on the floor
And take away your tear-drop offerings of brave new worlds;
Leave me here among the ashes and the smoke
And the bloody gold of fading stars,
Just to sunbathe for a while in the dying of the light.
I don’t want to melt the clocks for long,
Just a heartbeat of the way things were,
A fragment of a tarnished memory,
To rub the silver glow back into life
And say ‘see, all that glitters’
Before returning to the world of shifting sands and stormy seas
To put the pieces back together,
Make the mirror, take the curse,
A blessing down upon the little fishes,
And put the burning parchment out with deep blue ocean swells.
They take my silence as
subtle insecurities.
I laugh at such thoughts;
my tongue is too busy
playing my teeth like piano keys
to use such frivolities as words that are
stuck in the air, can’t get anywhere,
while musical lyrics bend inside my mouth,
an orchestra being swallowed into
smaller pieces of inspiration to be
scattered across the pages
through my bloodstream.
While you speak in casual dialogues
shaped by cheap letters tied together in
strings of disengaged interest,
I swim in pools of purple colored dreams
made of hundred year old dawns and
barefoot summers stained
by smudges of reality that taint the splendors
of ballroom gowns sewn together by gnarled
wooden fingers twisted around the
needles of imagination.
Your thoughtless verbiage spins nooses
slung about the dainty wrists of winter children
as they swing through bare branches,
choking them ever so slowly, so kindly,
until they fall ashen into the concealing white,
snowflake tears kissing their knees and eyelashes
in shameless passion.
This childish set of events meanders into my head
while I watch your words drop dead
onto pointed spears of grass, mercilessly stabbed to death;
a massacre of words and thoughts place firmly
underneath your tongue to be held there,
but imaginary fingers have plunged deep into
a lipless abyss to unleash the mediocre sentences.
Allow me this small form of gratifying peace,
to stare through your image until you’ve become
a simple silhouette,
until my mind has dreamed away your speech
into sunflowers growing from your mouth,
into the sky, reaching for the nearest star
and what lies behind it;
I’m touching, feeling all the things
that can’t be seen…
if I choose to listen.
I’ll chew my cheek and listen quietly,
but worlds wait between your words
I used to wait stoically for end-of-day bell.
Fingers drumming a patient-ish pattern on
tattooed desks. Where desperation, and that
pitiful need to belong somewhere, anywhere
meant we embraced wooden stability as friends.
If they’d looked, our thoughts were splattered
in fountain pen ink for all to peruse.
Instead they rubbed us out, or bought flimsy
replacements and whined, whined, whined.
The tragedy of our potent words was our impotency,
trapped behind painted bars and smily motifs
like monkeys in a cage or dolphins in a pool.
We performed tricks on order even as we pouted,
sullenly, our refusal to fit in, to conform, to let them
crush, dampen, douse our spirits in their
unquestioning “society-requires-this” ways.
Here, we failed.
Oblivious, they ticked off each box as success
and said “Everyone’s progressing nicely.”
Smug pride dancing on corpses of might-have-beens.
Once there was more to us than complacency.
Now, robot-like, we can’t even see what we lost.
I feel like this poem has so much potential, but there’s something wrong with it. I just can’t pin point what it is exactly.
[After reading one of those "Get Inspired" questions, this is what I came up with. ]
The sky is never so blue as we remember it, and will never again be so perfect as it was that day, the color of cornflower swells rippling tall grass and of friendships meant to last forever. The children of summer, we were, surfing high on wildflower waves, friends eternal at a glance, our lives from that day on entwined. A kaleidoscope of tears blurs the world into a thousand little pinpricks of color, and for a moment I can see the fields again. She laughed, and tucked a pink and purple blossom by my ear.
Years later she walked the fence rails in a blue and white dress, arms outstretched with foxgloves in her hands, bike and book bag long forgotten on the worn dirt path. We’re too old for kids’ games, I chided, but she did a pirouette off the railing and landed among the flowers, a wreath of autumn blossoms in her honey curls. She smiled at me, Alice among the talking roses, Dorothy in her bed of poppies as the changing leaves sifted down.
But there are no petals now to cradle her head, and cold, dead wood is her only pillow. We leave her no flowers but lilies, as white as the long dress they’ve laid her out in, as pale as the mountain snow we flung at each other on midwinter morns.
But I will remember her always as my child-queen of springtime, racing through Wonderland as the cherry blossoms bloomed, a smile on her face as she pulled me by the hand, and wildflowers in her hair.
Sitting on the school swings
Pumping her body higher, higher, higher
Into the sky
She gets lost in her thoughts
She can no longer see the people around her
Or hear the screams of the other children
She’s holding the chains tight
And her knuckles turning white
Then
Without warning
She loses her grip
And she gets tossed into the woodchips
Face first
She lies there for a moment
and for a small nanosecond
she looks like she’ll cry
but she doesn’t
instead she pushes herself up off the ground
And dusts off the woodchips
With arms knees, and chin scraped
A bruised ego
A fat lip and a clear determined look
She climbs aback on her swing
She pumps her body higher, higher, higher
Soaring into the cloudless sky
And clutching the chains tighter than ever before
She knows she could fall at any moment
But it doesn’t stop her from climbing back on the swings
And getting lost in her thoughts
The long spaces between thoughts ring with the echoes of gunfire
As my head slowly begins to ache and the pain spreads
Just a few moments ago, I could swear that I felt
The sweet warmth of the sun, so long unfamiliar now
All that lingers in my mind’s eye is the light’s painful glare
All that lingers in my ears is the sound of silenced screams
Smoke seeps out of my mouth slowly
Through my clenched teeth, like steel doors
Holding out the world, holding in the words
And flak shells shatter the sky in my eyes
Embers dance and shudder with my footfalls
On earth that reaches up to consume me
I hear the battles being lost
I can hear time slipping through our fingers
Are these my hands or yours?
I have forgotten
Is this my heart or yours?
I’m not sure anymore
Where is the war being fought?
I can’t remember
What year is it?
Does it even matter?
I can feel the words, like empty shells
Bouncing, hollow, clinking, spent
In those long, empty spaces
Between thought and words
Every now and then
I find I have lost my mind
I think it is trapped
Inside those hollow words
Full of spent powder and smoke
I wish it would all burn away,
That the fires would rise up and consume it all
I wish that the emptiness would rise up,
Like a great beast bursting out of the ocean,
And that it would devour the world, putting out the flames
For in those empty moments
Those long, meaningless spaces,
Nothing is worth saving anymore
All is ash and ember and hollow
Where ignorant armies clash
In those moments I look around
And I see broken buildings and dried up oceans
Walking around dressed up in suits, dressed up as life
With smiles of broken glass and twisted metal
Their skin crafted from tightly-stretched suffering
Faces powdered with lies
Creatures that leave, not footprints, but craters
Walking stripmines
What use are such things alive?
Surely in death they would have more value.
Yet,
With a single whisper of the wind,
Or a smile from a stranger,
Somehow these moments pass.
Simple, warrantless, kindness
Tears through the field of destruction
Like a beam of light through clouds
Emptiness seeps away, crying as it goes
Smoke resentfully dissipates
The creatures I see break apart, sinking back into the earth
And the veil of ash falls away from my eyes
Yet tendrils of darkness yet remain
Whispering questions as they thin and fall away from sight
The sun, no longer a stranger, smiles
Its glare is gone and its warmth returns
But the questions remain and build and I am left but to wonder
Is the war I see all around me,
Or just inside my mind?
