Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
I've grown so cold
Your branches snap

I wish to embrace you
I don't like causing pain

But ice doesn't hug well
Nor a strong tree does it make
And I never know if Spring will come
Right here: surface level regrets— a smile rehearsed hides too many
oceans underneath. To lose the mark of a purpose, drowning in
the weight of it, falling asleep too far from tomorrow, and begging
the clock for hours to borrow.

I was almost crushed, a branch torn from its root— still green,
still alive, but already withering in the dirt. Among circles of people,
most days stack like square bricks; I fly too low, chasing reflections,
the heron staring back from water’s despair.

Fresh lipstick still stings— beauty sharpened into a lethal injection.
Kindness can be your only mistake, forcing a straight smile onto a
crooked day. Faith rubs raw against friction; love can be a salvation,
but fatal is it's attraction.

But to stay still, makes a silhouette pinned to the wall, lonely but
lovely in outline— as the shadows above become surface level
regrets. But tomorrow, I’ll trace the same lines again, hoping each
cycle might end better than the last.
Steve Souza Sep 5
I sit on one side of a splintered park bench,
its weathered plaque telling me
Harold Finch loved this spot
before dying.

My finger traces
my watch's sharp cracked crystal.
Scratches layered on scratches,
hard to tell if it's three o'clock or four.

Horns blare,
and sirens wail,
the city pushing through.

An ant scales my shoe-mountain.
This day's Everest.
His tiny legs a blur of purpose,
unaware of the danger that awaits.

Across the path,
a neglected hollow metal general
reigns over his dry, rusty fountain,
pigeons crowning him white.

Gumballs lurk in the lawn,
tiny maces waiting for tender feet.
Once, one got me.
I was seven.
My soda and tears
staining the soil brown.
Mother's embrace saying,
it's okay, it's okay.

Grass offers itself
to all that pass.
Two lovers lie back,
and melt into its willing green.

My foot pins and needles.
I shift against the hard bench.
Everest sits empty.

A lone bee zigzags past my shoulder,
hunting flowers
summer promised
but autumn stole.

Above, a hawk circles,
a black speck drifting
in empty blue.

Below, a squirrel stashes acorns
for a winter it will never see.

And a single red leaf
falls upward
into the blue,
unaware it is dying...

But I see
its shadow dancing.
Cold, bitter winter,
Alone at last, 
until we meet.
Tall and handsome,
Maybe somebody new for the cast.
Smitten, over joyed and excited,
That’s how I felt when we first locked eyes.
In the lighting,  
My heart yearns for something new but fighting the hue
Of the moonlight.
The energy exchange is something I can’t explain.
Metaphysical, spiritual and a little unpredictable.
Hastily destroying all boundaries like a hurricane.
Patience and take your time, but he leans in for a kiss
Our lips graze and and all I feel is bliss
Pulsating heart race and stars in my eyes,
I wish it’d last forever but I know,
You’re not the guy.
Revised 2023-03-30
Revised 2023-08-29
Revised 2024-11-13
Revised 2025-08-30
blank Aug 20
ephemeral laurels,
those lullabies of may,
became fungi while i was still asleep;
none preserved for the non-punctual
who dreamt of spring through spring–
another missed migration.

i walk along the ridge alone at noontime,
songbirds seemingly on strike against the straggler–
the prairie warblers so persistent in july
have gone, with august, silent,
nestled against the mountain walls
of cicadas’ seventeen-year symphonies,
those long encores–

i listen but do not hear.

i press my ear to the escarpment
and feel i’m missing something–
like ice ages are whirling still within the cool conglomerate
in spite of summer and sweaty palms,

like the passenger pigeons blurred
and smudged into oneness under the strata
have become,
without my knowing, the stratus clouds above–

or perhaps there is no spite in spindly evergreens
that flower for flowering’s sake;
that wilt to wilt;
that winter with or without listening.
an august lament

--8/20/25--
Kalliope Jul 21
She sits with her silence,
Bound by her thoughts.
Life continues anyway,
But join in, she does not.

Though she would like to,
It takes time to decide,
And once she gets ready,
There’s no room in the ride.

So maybe she’ll start walking,
Or she’ll stay frozen in fear.
She wants to go somewhere else,
But she seems to be stuck here.

She’s found a doorway
Just a handful of times,
But every time she moves closer,
Further away it flies.

There must be a lesson
In this self-aware prison,
A continuous torturous cycle
From which she hasn’t risen.

Swirling and thrashing
In circular motions,
Part of her must like
Being breathless in the ocean.

Yet there’s a small part
On the left side of her brain
That hates this **** cycle,
The suffocation insane.

But she doesn’t control movement
And barely steers thoughts,
So here she goes again,
Busting down doors that should remain locked.

She’s scared to read new stories
With endings untold,
When all familiar tales
End predictably bitter and cold.

There’s bite to the freeze, though,
And pleasure in pain.
Echoes fill her mind’s chamber:
“Free us from these chains.”

No, she doesn’t need saving,
She’s working out the clues.
You say she’s isolating,
But it’s what she has to do.

So very easily distracted,
Hypnotized by honeyed words,
She falls in love so quickly,
Abandoning her puzzled curse.

And when it surely fizzles out,
She’s back here at square one,
A couple days of crashing out,
Erasing all the work she’s done.
Twenty seven years of this and it's surely lost it's fun
Next page