lonely

what does it mean to be lonely?
it feels like this:
every time you're home yet i'm alone.
so i sit by the window,
coaxing smoke,
out of dim lit cigarettes.
watch the chill break out of my skin,
and hope i can feel again.

i sit still in the tub,
as if on pause,
and listen to the water fall.

an ache, filled still 

with tepid water from the bath.

how do i still feel so unclean,

unsure and unredeemed,
with soap on the skin,
enclosed from heart to limbs?

now, now, it seems to be so,
my hands are trembling,
and i am alone.

you made me whole again.

lost in deserts
for some time
but you made me whole again.

dear friend,
i cannot comprehend
how you found me after so long.
and now i feel incomplete,
when you are no longer around.

dear friend,

for some time,

(some splendid little time)

you made me whole again.

someone.

i hold these notes,
written out events of every time
you were something.
(oh, i know i shouldn't say
but you were something).

i fold them up, and place them
in the book on the top shelf.
pressed and ironed,
skim my fingers across the top
but not too rough
or it may fall apart and
all that i have will too.

old friends.

i wonder if you look for me, my friend
in all the places that you see.
do you see the color of my hand
when you walk out in the sea?

i think about you,
in the dawn or in the dark.
i hold on to those memories,
those memories of the park.
the smiles buried in bottles,
laughter locked up in suitcases,
and hidden behind the lonely trees
are our secrets and embraces.

and, you are my childhood,
and it seemed to grow too fast.
we grew fast apart
and could never make this last.
i wonder if you look older,
or if you are that girl in my memory,
who thought dreams were oceans,
and wishes were fishes in the sea.

so i wonder if you look for me?
as i now look in all these places
and search for you in their faces
because in these empty spaces,
you're the only one I can place
who ever held my hand.

pocket of snow.

pockets full of snow,

hands cold as i tuck them in.

and in propinquity, i imagine:

that in all the moments left,

so quiet, with nothing to show,

so motionless, we are snow:

falling, from outreached heights

where all we thought was,

oh, how, like air, we are light.

and like a forest of trees, 

we are too tall to see the 

ground beneath our fallen knees.

constellations

we laid our commiserations

to rest in the sand by our hands.

in the sky, we drew in constellations

that mapped out pathways up high

above the sullen, sunken land. 

fingers bronzed, and melded still

we lit the unlit lamps of the stars,

we nursed the young oil to flame until, 

it glowed like the embers of afar.  

on the sea puddled pools of backward suns

that sway and ripple like sounds on waves, 

linked to each other, one-by-one

and lit up, like the path our life has paved,
they hold hands until the night is done.

if love is blue

if love is blue,
organic, it flows through,
like streams in the dew
of the morning blue.
it's azure like a blue jay's wing
as it settles down to sing
of the gentle hearts' coupling
in the blue, blue stream.
if love is blue,
it is the heaven's sky,
caressing life from up high
and stretching far and wide
into the sea's loving tide.
if love is blue,
it is calm and sure,
undulating as the tide who
eats the sullen shore.
magnificent as the
rolling hills on the land.
soft as the warm-sunlit
touch of tender hands.
oh yes, if love is blue,
it is the color reflected in you.

parched.

Three days without water.

Drunk on air and sun-dappled leaves, 

but we're heading out to see

All the grains of sand that each could be

A dream undreamt by broken minds.

Lost in all this unchanged time,

these shards lay parched and confined.

Melded into a mirage that must show

All the dreams that we did throw,

Now that we’re dried up and ready to go.

small, yet magnified.

Is there a moment that I do not know myself?

Yet, I find you, my soul, there, in silent footsteps

On the outreaches of the dimming twilight;

Her tiny hands, palms out, open, holding the

World, telling me: now, do you know?

The world is smaller than it appears, and

Your spirit is not so big that you cannot see it:

Pressed against the glass window, small yet magnified,

Your soul is encased in this animal body,

And you know it, like you know your own mind.

Do not be afraid now. 

---

Well, I'm basically unsatisfied with how I've been writing lately. I like what I wrote above, but it just doesn't say how I feel sometimes. Like I've changed and I don't know what or who or how I am anymore. It's a scary feeling, to feel at a loss. I'd also like to note that I now understand how people write so many things about love/heartbreak because I feel as though when I've gone through that this past year, I wrote like crazy. And some of the poems were ones that I'm most proud of. 

On another thought, I reread Plato's allegory of the cave (or skimmed it at least) and I remember how much of full and wonderful thing it is. I want to write something so eloquently elegant and original that it has staying power. Maybe someday. 

---

We're too young to know better

I want to court love again,

Make a mix tape, hold on to a hand,

Travel together across the land

In a cooped up little car,

Like we think we’re going someplace far.

And we’re too young to know better.

Fall in love with no reservation.

Live life in perpetual youth and sun.

Try and try again with utmost compassion.

Oh, oh, this is my love song to you,

My dear, while we’re driving away,

Never fear, let me sing you this tune,

Run through this field to the moon.

Maybe this is the beginning,

This is the year I fall in love,

This is the day I see a smile like light

In the shadows scattered above.

telescope thread.

there's this thread, this tie
between my heart and your eyes,
like a telescope, you look in:
suntanned rocks that can't win
against the tumult of the sea rocking,
and a marked hand with a gun cocking
a reddened door with the bolt locking,
that won't unseal even when
your eyes come knocking.

so you turn your key in the lock, and
it won't open up, even when it's broken up
door's quiet, but it's spoken up
and said leave me alone:
stop trying to slip in behind
the masquerade when all you'll find
is the tumult of the sea rocking
a technicolor ship into the docks.
dressed in torn sails and misdriven nails,
it'll slip under the bridge, skim the top,
if it just bends its back
and picks up the slack.

so take a bow, and bow out, my man
you have tried and taken a stand
but now is the time
when you must comprehend,
that this ship has failed
to show you the secrets of the trove.
so must you continue to rove
through the clutters of my heart
and take all this glue apart
that held together the herds of hurts?

please take away your telescope thread
and leave me laying on this ship's head.
tie a knot and hook and lay dead
the other cracked hearts that may tread
along the path of your mighty gaze.
if you cannot, cannot resist,
might i suggest something instead?
let this ship of hearts crash and sink
letting its treasure trove drown ahead
and lay to waste on the ocean's bed.

take your smile (and twist it out)

I hate that you made me hate you
close that rage in a cage
and let the fire burn out,
looking past the bars to shout.
shut down the time you said you'd
bring me ice condensation stars
just to make the smile come out.

bring the world into this room
and see the hurt bloom
and maybe you'll see all the
moments you could've set me free:
like ice glazed crystal trees
that are longing to reach the sun
before the day is done and done.

oh, and i lose control:
tugging at the strings you hold me in.
and oh, i hate that you smile;
i want to take it away for a while
tear it up and hold the scatters
while you lose everything that matters.
and oh, i hate all that you say,
want to mar the steel in your ears
with crusted rust so you can't hear
all the jeers that i can't contain.

curl my fingers into my wrist
and make a skeleton tight fist
and twist it in your heart.
take away the crying eyes
from the socket like a pocket
in your face, you don't mean it
anyways.
all the cries, i know they're fake.

so, take all the hate that i feel,
burning under confined tan peels
like kindling in the fire,
let it consume all that made
us you and me, me and you.
just end this mockery, charade before
i wilt like petals to the floor
exhausted from the hate forming
clots under my skin.

---

Wow, didn't mean to make this long. Just an emotion purge, once again. It's probably no good.

storyteller.

you write myths like oedipus
curling imagery like cigarette smoke
in between parchment lines of
tales of royalty and folk.
rather be blind and borrow,
eyes than be possessed by greed.

and you would gladly throw,

pearls and diamonds and rubies

shining like a knight's armor,

up and up into the moving sky,

and let the cloud swallow up

the worthless jewels that fly by.

for you, the sky's sun melts
the lonely wind, so that it
may see the stories spinning
from your lonely little lips
for you, the moon hides
behind the whispered prayer
so that it may over hear
the words you long to sing.
and in the dim and dirty sea,
the urchin waits patiently for thee
to flow towards the waves like silk
upon a maiden's graceful back.
these tales like jewels upon your crown
carefully adorned like the most
precious of all known wealths
when all other wealth does drown.

but you, such giving you,
you place these stories on your skin
and let the earth bury you in,
you turn into water, fire, air,
the ground beneath and over there,

feel the cling of rocks and clay

form the curves of your bones, may

grass so green grow into your eyes

and flowers spout from your lips.

and soon all the tales you tell,
are free for all in the form of
a most perfect wishing well.

life for rent.

you rent opinions and borrow ideas and,
run from "i don't know's" when scared,
leave behind the values you once declared,
but you'll pay it back with your next paycheck.
don't risk, or it will be your bitten up neck.
sometimes i wonder at all of the lies,
you conceal your truth and find all the eyes,
too hot to handle the heat in their gaze,
rather sit out than fight through the maze.

well you're weak-hearted, as the lion says
lack the courage to find your own ways
hold to conformity and leave intuition
sink in the sea from your own inanition
molded in amber, no bright animation
take out the color to find your salvation

so you rent opinions and borrow ideas
and you pay your bills on time,
give back interest on all your loans,
as long as you don't have to make the climb.

stop this, now.

here we are asking: can we go steady?
but in reality, all we are is unsteady.
we walk in crooked, curving lines
and ticket each other with outrageous fines
in between toothy smiles, we
find our hearts chained and locked up,
man, we've really fucked up.

so, stop this now!
is there a moment when a green light
meant that we were okay?
cause i've never been able to say
that okay equaled you plus me,
because all i do now is see,
the red light flashing overhead.

oh stop this now!
maybe we thought we'd hold on
but we're sleeping, and it's slipping over
the edges of our foundation cover
a soft quilt on trembling shoulders
easing open and making skin shudder.

oh, stop this now!
we were meant to cross now,
car horn clanging, telling us to go now,
we were meant to move on past now.
you can't expect me to wait now.
no, you can't.
because i can't.

so, stop this now!


--
okay, so I don't know if this is any good. This was more to express some anger/sadness/annoyance. I didn't even really read it over, just sat down and wrote it so maybe I could focus on other things today.

note to self (or maybe others if you're listening)

First off, I would like to apologize for the angst driven poems of late. I'm sure you can understand why I have been this way if you only read just one. Secondly, I don't know why, but I am obsessed with parenthetical titles to my poems. If this annoys you, sorry. I think they sound quite lovely. However, I will try to stop to stop being so predictable. :)

With that in mind, thirdly, here are some short poems.



---
blackbird song (so this is goodbye)
---

i cradled your hand in mine and 

waited for the goodbye to go by and by

as the blackbird sings its little song

it trails off in the northern sky

oh how you used to feel like lightning static
like raging forest fires and mountain leaps
we were falling like fallen angels and devils
before they sat down to weep.


---
heartbroken melody (of a king and queen)
---

i thought i should write a "heartbreak" poem

but it's much to soon for me,

still see that smile and hear the way

you said together we'll forever be.

so instead i wrote this la-di-da tune of mine

that holds all these memories

of birds and bees and darkened mead

of a painted queen and her lonely king

and all the times they took a hand

to keep from falling apart

and of all the times they left behind all

but just each other's hearts.

here you go (there's more too)

i want you to know about me

but i'm too scared to show you these words

i could hand you this writing and

let it cut through you like swords

i don't know if you like how i write

but i offer my words to you

i hold them out and let you read

all that's left standing there so

here you go (there's more too

where that bit of muse came from)

does it hunger you, starve you, just

feed you full, and make you oh-so-numb?

or perhaps these words lay upon your cheek
like an effervescent marking of truth
a charcoal kiss upon a snow bed sigh
a marked beauty with piles of proof

it lies upon your tongue, biting like lemon
blooms and dances its taste and juice
across your senses like a culinary ballet,
and stays for days like a blackened bruise.

will you take these words and treasure them
like the wizened hairs on the old man's head
a sign of knowing and truth and thoughts,
thoughts that would've been left unsaid.

so here you go (there's more too
where that bit of truth came from)
may you know me better now that you've
taken all I had and left me quietly dumb.

baby don't you see (we're an accident waiting to happen)

i'd rather get drunk and drive fast cars
self destruct than feel the hurt you hurt me with
better to pile in the scars and spare parts in a fancy little jar
than to let the cry bubble out when no one's hearing anyways

and i look back to memories of frantically running out
the back door barefoot in the cold and wind and rain,
lungs heaving, compressed under cries, this shout
building up in my chest waiting to break me apart.

and that day we were driving down a narrow lane,
and of hearing and feeling audible screams in the car
tremble and crash and torrent against window panes,
these words diffuse into my bones, cradled like a cancer
and all I do is, leap out in front of oncoming cars.

Today I am hurt, and unbalanced, and far from okay

I need a friend, and I thought that friend was you

Like a victim under an upturned car, this day

I am alone compressed under broken hurts.

so when a tree falls, and no one's around
do you hear it? (no, I dare say you don't, you don't)
so when I feel my feet sinking underground
will you see it? (no, but I'm falling under, under)
when I fall from your cutting words that surround,
will you hear it?

some one day, you'll drive me out of my head,
and i'll be hurt, drunk, and driving in the rain
then, will you notice that I am not in my bed?
or when my lonely little car crashes off a cliff,
will it take forever to find it in the ocean below?
will it take forever to find what you're looking for?

or will you stray away, not even care,
and thank god above that I am gone?

machine of sin.

this evanescent skeleton will dance

with a bottle of hardened gin

burn through life with the operation of

thundering together a machine of sin.

and it says,

"steady on, stilted blackbird, when 

all you do is fuse a hand to the safety

of the still harbor, but bloom on the bend

of this misnomer and you will crash in. 

you'll never experience the liquid swim 

of moving through waves, free of chains.
instead rustle in your gilded cage and complain
of clipped and tattered and tarred wings.

"and maybe one day my bones will

rattle in a jar, soaked and seeped in regret
but at least they have moved, so still,
your stagnant wings, you are caught.

"for now i will let life echo its call

and drive too fast without fear of a fall

dance through the cast shadows with 

other lost and lonely's, hoping to find

myself in the blue smoke and mist

with a sliver of knowledge that yields

the answer to the questions in me.
in time, and poise and maturity, you'll
realize, that perhaps you should've let me be
and kept your long static scorn
tucked in your wings like unwanted thorns."

held your world (i'd keep it safe)

i held your world in my hands,
and said I'd keep it safe for you
Let its secrets blend into my skin
like a million dozen tattoos.

and now all the sunbursts are
shooting from my fingers and
now the veins in my arms come
alive with the glow of your name

are we in the place that we met?
in the forest, surrounded by the sets
of fallen trees and mold melodies
oh, how they hold onto to me!

there, i see bright birds in your world
they fly into my lonely eyes and
imbue them with the color of their plume
fill the air with scent of your perfume




....

still a work in progress