You won't recognize them I bet,
your secrets, even in broad day light,
if they walk towards you smiling,
wearing dark glasses to hide their eyes
in a humid day.They now wear clothes
of different styles to take you for a ride,
even cross dress and change the accents,
they play games with your hazy mind
--the secrets you once buried deep under.

They stand peeping behind blinded windows
prowl as shadows soliciting behind half open doors,.

Time flies in a hurry like migratory birds left behind,
you have to strain your ears too much
to hear even the faint foot falls of the past!

Old memories have changed their manners
they try to distract one with invented details
Like the muffled voices in an attic dark,
on a fateful day so long, your old secrets
speak an archaic tongue, that needs to be interpreted.

One has to be artful as the turbaned village elders
who would for your astonishment interpret
the vocabulary of lizard calls, key to nature's intents.

Or the trained eye of an elder who in flashes
of meteor falls, reads the secret messages of universe.
To get a true sense of your own secret
you have to tread the places they hide.

Make them shed their crusted hides
by which they conceal their true color,
which one has been waiting to see,
with a palpitating heart, walking back
to where one walked once, long forgotten.
That is why elders on days of yore
would exhort, embarrassingly repeat too,
not to have any hidden secrets that hurt
even if breathtakingly beautiful like a courtesan.

In some moment one won't  expect
dreadful they could turn and become witches,
with fiery eyes, dreadlocks, and long nails.

You tie my gut in knots
Never expected this in my plot
Twisting my lochs with
Nervous fingers locking
Hands with you is magickal.

You tie my mind in knots
Its like a roller coaster lost
In space the comet's frost
Ignites a shower of colors
Cascading across your eyes...

You tie my heart in knots
I pray it doesn't clot my
Thoughts about our
Dreams about our
Kids about our
Means of getting by...
And I love having this in common with you.

You are the worst thing that has ever happened… to my poetry

You see I used to write poems that make people want to set fire to the world, and cry an ocean. I used to write about death, and depression, and hope, and how I am finally okay with who I am. I use to write to inspire, I used to write about the demons under my bed and the ones in my head. I could write poems about my fears and my dreams and how messed up this world is. But lately, all I have been about to write about is you.

Roses are red, violets are blue, my poetry has gone to **** and its all thanks to you

My poetry has gone from a ***** the world mentality to what ever this sappy stuff I have been writing lately is called.

My poems are about your smile and how it can light up a room better than 1,000 suns

They are about how I get butterflies every time I see you and how there are fireworks when we kiss

They are full of overused analogies, like fireworks and butterflies

They have gone from being about how sometimes I get so scared of everything my heart beats out of my chest to being about how my heart skips a beat when you say my name

They have gone from how music is my catharsis to how when you play music I think I lose the ability to breathe correctly.  

They are about how it takes you 20 minutes to get ready because you have to re-lace your shoes every time.

They use to be about how I am scared. I am scared of failure, I am scared not doing anything with my life, I am scared of spiders, I am scared of things changing. But all I can write about is how I am terrified of losing you.

My poetry is about our stupid jokes

They are about how terrified I am that you are going to see me differently when you find out that I am more messed up than I may seem.

They are about how cute you are when you are sleepy and how you are like a modern day, male, Cinderella except instead of losing your shoe at midnight you kinda lose your mind.  

You see, I have a reputation to uphold. I am the depressing and angry poetry girl, but I can’t be that when you make me so **** happy.

My poems are about all night video calls and awkward first kisses

They are about how no amount of time is nearly enough when I'm with you

They are about how we are pretty much the same person but with different faces

My poems are about your hair and how much I like it even though its always getting in my way

My poetry is about how you are the only person that manages to give me **** while simultaneously telling me I am cute

My poems are about how your eyes are like coffee, and how I love coffee, and how I love you.

Don’t you see what I mean? You are the worst thing to ever happen to my poetry, but the best things to ever happen to me.

Twists, rips, knots, love-filled locks.
Hair that embodies personality;
Wild, untamed, unkempt, yet beautiful.

Hair that embodies nature;
Disobedient, ever changing, free.

I will never regret these tree root locks.
They have taught me patience,
They have taught me to love even that which is not beautiful to everyone.
They have taught me that we are like the earth, we grow, and we die, and we blossom.
I never intended my snake locks to be for fashion, I wanted nature to teach me what it will.
And if no other lesson ever stays with me this one will:

*Nature can never be tamed.

Dreads are not dreadful
They are jaw-dropping deadly
Drop-dead. Looks can ****.

© Matthew Harlovic

her rigorous objections
are herded slowly down the sheep trail
by studious pencil thin men with stylish mustache's
who have deep pocket pickers for friends
they gather round the weak willed and the willing alike
looking for cheap thrills and spare change
everybody needs a new road
when the old one seems to never end

but she with eyes cast down
mumbles her unappeased desires
as she shuffles a little closer to the truth as she sees it
she has it all written out in secret languages
she has books filled with life's coded thoughts as she see's them
barn burners and dare devils grace the cover of her latest creation
self titled to her own romantic name
she is stylized in her own way
so she adores the pencil thin men
with their dashing devil may care good looks

i wrote her a letter yesterday
full of stories from the great highway
full of chipper go getters and the glum go gotten
she is a forever stone on a necklace
she is a moonstone on a bracelet
she is graceful when it counts and
thats more than enough for me

the pencil thin moustache men
come to conquer the all night diners
in the small shoreline towns
but slink away in dawns first light
with stolen smiles and borrowed kisses
that they promise profusely to return tomorrow
but never do
such is the romantic night by her side
such is the wonder-wheel days of our
journey on the great highway