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Benjamin Reed Nov 2019
i do not Love you any more.

although i did once.

fiercly.

and, i find it humorous
that this is how things
should be.

i do not Love you any more.
and, this will be the last
that i will ever Write
about you.

i do not Love you any more,
because i cannot
remember
what loving you was like.

i do not Care what
odd number of
other men come to
visit your doorstep.

or love you
or you them.

i do not Love you any more,
because where once was
Chopin
and his etudes
now
there is Prokofiev.

i do not Love you any more,
because i am in love with
another;
and she portends
a future.

i do not Love you any more,
because before now
i am not sure i knew
what love was.

not really.

and maybe that's
all the more sad.
Benjamin Reed Nov 2019
she is fire!

she smolders and ponders
and consumes me, unthinking.

such a complex burn.

it rages on the outside,
keeping me warm
and sending delicate tendrils
into the aether.
red and orange wisps
that wound and remind.

it blazes on the inside.
cascading, rolling, volcanic
laughter
and
self-immolation.

and i,
this clumsy, arrogant
wooden toy soldier
will happily
and without consternation
fuel this fire
with pieces of himself.

i will feed each
delicate thought
both untouched
and untamed.

burn from yourself
the past
and make for us
a new day !

oh unique purity!

oh scorched Terra!

you chase tempestuous thought
from stormy mind.

and in return
i will keep
your cast shadows at bay,

and list them by name
so that i may know them all

intimately.
Benjamin Reed Nov 2019
i am a man in love!

and oh what magnitude!

what vainglory!

what violence!

what brightness!

this love is a journey through
the harsh black sea.
still, reflected motes
of moribund starlight.

it is a chamber without air
and sharp grasses.

it is war and thunder!

it is two bodies,
entwined,
altogether ruined
by sweetness.

and so kiss by kiss
i seek infinity.
to cloak you
in that same night sky.

your kingdom
in all of it's rivers
and tiny villages.
streams that sing
of narrow valleys
and blood colored carnation.

my love!

we have found one another!

you found me thirsty,
having drank the wine
and honeyed milks
and bitter spirits.

i found you wounded,
your world taking
small pieces
and giving nothing.

together we are healing and quenched.

your body
slick with sweat
wedged into mine
is finality.

these sinews and tendon
wrapped into mine, and
i cannot tell where i end
and you begin.

it is nights like this,
when you aren't here that
you emerge from the shadows
and swallow
everything.

like time,
or horizon
or infinite
or the sea.

everything.

everything.

and, on our ship
made of flowers
we are mad
and drunk
and i am a man in love.
Benjamin Reed Nov 2019
i am so many things.

but this is so you may hear me.

sometimes,
my words are thin.
delicate, and wan, and
meager.

and i watch these words
drift to you
like jasmine perfumed
mediterranean breeze,
or flotsam
across a ships bow.

and sometimes they clamor,
and climb,
and strangle me,
like clumsy ivy
and nest in the base
of my mind.

yet they're Never
enough.

but still, i tax them.
the arduous and vexing,
the demanding and stressful
ever insufficient vocabulary.

your love is wine, spilled.
it stains me and
permeates the soil.
and if that wine
be mine own blood
then that love is my sword.

it stains me.

it stains me.

and sometimes you will hear
words that are not Mine.

cruel and jealous.

spiteful and poor.

and in these moments
you will wear my verses,
like a talisman against them.
Benjamin Reed Aug 2019
i'm falling in love again.
or maybe
rediscovering that Capability
within myself.

i'm falling in love again.
with life, and all of it's
idiosyncrasy.

i'm falling in love again.
with people who are
Ghosts.
percieved wisps of persona.
what ethereal Pedestals i put them upon!

i'm falling in love again.
with the way you look into my eyes.
but  cataracts of reality squander.

i'm falling in love again.
with the struggle of man.
to endure unrequited affections,
and quiet moments of Vulnerability.

i'm falling in love again.
with the prospects of loving again.
Benjamin Reed Jun 2019
first, you gotta stop writing for a few years.
a good dance with Depression
never Hurt anyone.

during this time you're
getting four hours of sleep,
only to sleep till six.
living in squalor,
**** both
literal and otherwise.
trying to get your ulcers
fixed
while drinking yourself to death.

you won't be able to hold a job down
but you'll tell her
and Yourself
that you're trying your best.
so you'll sell ****
to make ends meet.
and you'll take the pills
that they give you because
Doctors say it stops suicide.

and so with whatever Narcissism
you can muster you
Hang On.
using people and drugs and
yourself. wringing it all Dry
like a spent rag.

you lie and tell her you love her
as you *******
into your whale of a girlfriend
because that's all you think
you Deserve.

maybe it was ?

but now you're moving
to a new city
maybe a new you.
you know it's not to run away
from yourself
this time.

maybe it's to make Something.
Benjamin Reed Oct 2017
your birthday party.
sirens.
crowds gathered in the lawn,
both
from the festivities
and more,
after the incident.

i'm told
that the piece
of hard candy
you choked on
dissolved before
help could arrive.

4 years old,
and the balloons
on your mailbox
seem more Haunting
than celebratory.
Benjamin Reed Oct 2017
i haven't been writing.
and i do
and don't
know why.

i haven't been writing
because you
don't deserve it.

you uncaring masses.

cruel souls.

i haven't been writing
because art;
both others And
my own
ceases to carry much weight.

i haven't been writing
because you
who would love me
are the Same
who hate others.

or myself, also,
once you dug deeper
than your questions
veiled in superficiality.

i haven't been writing
because too many
dogs are dying
lately.

i haven't been writing
because i fear
i am fraud;
unable to recognize
my influences.

i haven't been writing
and i don't Know
whether it should
bother me
or not.
Benjamin Reed Sep 2017
running away from
Myself
i set out to find
the secret things that
the gods,
both beautiful,
and terrible,
created long before
i should chance to flee.
but, to see them,
i should think they
were created solely for myself.
soley, it would seem,
to bring me to you,
distance aside.

and what erudite things
that i have bore witness!

i saw the sun fall into the
lakes of the north,
and burn them wholly,
until their waters were orange and gold,
too intense to gaze at for long.
and i laughed because,
the gods had thought themselves
fashioners of some grand, beautiful
Scene
but,
they didn't know that i had seen
your naked form,
traced my fingers along the alabaster
perfumed curves of your flesh,
and known that beauty superior.

i saw the places where
they shattered the earth,
and the walls of stone were
painted like something
you would paint
for me
when the words just
couldn't come to you
and you cried the colors
onto the soil.

i saw the fields
where oceans of sweet
grasses and Ancient sage
married one another and
the gods turned themselves
into the uncountable herds
of wild horses, a thousand colors
defying anything that should
seek to break their spirit.
but i had already bathed
in the crucible of your
passion, and seen you
battle Fiercely
for my love.

It's yours.

i saw the vast displacement,
the empty places
where the gods taught man
to destroy, and
subjugate.
to grow false crops
and distance himself
from nature.
but i have known things
far more sinister than
what cruel gods muster.
i, seeking to destroy myself,
had lost you, and,
having won that love again
seek to keep it as such.

i saw the great
steel bones to be warped and wrought
into grand cathedrals, so that
the gods might seek to
prove themselves Real to me,
unknowing that i couldn't
possibly think anything
of the sort.
not while the possibility remained
that you could ever die.
Benjamin Reed Sep 2017
sure,
the melody
can change.

and,
the beat
gets altered.

but in the end
i think i've heard
every Song.

they go like this:

you're lured in.
because you think,
just for a moment,
it's going to be
Different.

excitedly,
you listen intently.
and,
you are in love,
again.

(quite without noticing)

the poems,
once stagnant and,
Tepid
flow again like
they haven't in
years.

your fire,
thought extinguished,
will find itself
fanned into
conflagration.

and like a
decanter of
that most precious
of ambrosia;

you'll pour
yourself Out.
giving everything
to the song,
until you're
empty.

again.

empty from;
loneliness,
unrequited Love,
and just
not being
refilled.

but you'll keep listening.

the songs never
change themselves.
not really.
not to suite your needs,
anyway.

sure.

someone may
come along and,
add a
Variation
to a
tired tune.

and you might think
that it's a different song.

for a while.
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