This time it's Fate.
No longer can I pretend
for we have run out of track
and we must stop now
lest we careen over the ghastly drop before us
lest our hearts inevitably smash to smithereens.
There's a small vice on my heart
that you turned incrementally since the day we kissed
Always there was space to manoeuvre
wriggle
a gap to shift around in and say, 'That's better'
to comfortably fool myself that I was not caught.
But now, my dear....
Now the grip leaves me gasping
and that metal feels cold
and I cannot ignore it.
The trouble is
I kissed your elegant, beautiful face
and I guided your hand to that vice in my chest
and enveloped your fingers with mine
We turned those keys together.
I was so enamoured
and I wanted your love.
I told myself I could get out at any time.
Too late, my love
It was always too late
For we're kindred souls across lifestyles
and lifetimes
and my body knows yours like the taste of my tears.
I resign myself, then, to bleeding.
I resign thee to Fate and what she may decide
knowing only that never shall I be your jailor.
I refuse to allow
that wild tempest soul to be anything but free.
I am happy to be caught.
Though I writhe with this pain
and slumber eludes me in my misery.
For one thing I have realised
is the depth of my cowardice.
Although yours came out as tenored and trembling
you still had the bravery to speak the words emblazoned on your heart
the ones that threatened to fall from your lips
as my head lay perfectly in situ against your collarbone
and my heartbeat and breathing lined up with yours
in our quiet symbiosis at 3 a.m.
I danced around the words
flitted lightly, noncommittal
and said 'I think I'm falling in love with you',
which was a lie.
You are far braver than I
and to this day I've run
but you deserve far greater than that which I have meted out to you.
You deserve honesty.
You deserve the breadth and depth of what my heart aches to tell you
though I am frightened beyond words that the vice can go no tighter.
I love you.
Your eye
is the single thing.
I will fill it
with summer weeds
little stalks
no wrinkles
weighed with rain, like lungs of June.
I will fill it
with the hush of grass
swollen
with sun
your quiet lips like prayers, on my tongue.
You must never meet
puckered soil
wasted stems
no sickness
in this summer age.
Your eye will never fill
with these
trembling
wringing hands--
this ceiling without a star.
I will care for you.
My mind has a million thoughts per second everyday
One of those seconds it dwells on you
Why you so cool, girl?
My heart defrosts when I see your pretty face, voluptuous
lips, black silky hair
And hear your soft, innocent voice
You get on nerves
I Wanna just leave you alone like everybody else I can't
stand
You never let things go
Knocking the walls I set up in this maze
You saw through all the smog and haze
Caught me on all my bullshit
Why do you consistently keep trying
Where someone else either wouldn't have given a damn or
would have given up?
I can count on you to always be there to bug the hell out
of me
Until you get to the bottom of the situation
Not because you want something or to make me feel bad
But because you cared to stare darkness in the face
We might have a lot of issues
We argue a lot
It don't change how we feel about each other
Regardless of what people think
Just wanted to say that I love you, my one and only
Fuck other people
We have spiritual attraction that is worth more than sex
I wanna be with you forever if I could
Shannon Pollard
© Fall, 2006
not the softness
of your mouth,
nor the sweetness
of your lips.
not the teasing
of your tongue,
nor the warmth
of your breath.
but the contented sigh
just as we parted,
the lingering longing
right before you were
back for more.
There you are at nighttime,
Worlds away from who you’ll be at dawn.
You’re standing so close
I can smell your breath,
Or maybe it’s your hair.
Whatever it is it smells of flowers,
And I can feel my heart
Bloom bloom bloom-ing
Beneath its sheets.
I can see your eyes
Getting light years wider,
Or maybe I’m just getting closer,
But there’s more than one way
For a star to light up the sky.
You could be a whole galaxy if you wanted to.
Do you know that?
Your hair is already the colour of midnight.
Your lips are already the shape of infinity.
You already have planets orbiting your pupils,
And you have everything to teach me
About being so blindingly luminescent
And so fucking fragile
At the same time.
I'm always falling for girls who are arrows shot through the hearts of prodigal sons.
You've been in my head for days.
I've been clinging to your later
Like a shipwrecked sailor
Clings to the shattered bow
As the ocean tries to swallow him whole.
You swallowed me whole,
And you barely even opened your mouth;
Just wide enough for me to taste honey
And see stars that have been three nights creating haloes around my drunken head.
But you'll only hold my hand in the shadows;
You'll only ask me how I am if you know the answer will be
I'm fine
not
I've got you under my skin
But you're under it, girl.
You're seven layers deep,
And suddenly you're rushing through my bloodstream
And filling my body with a five-dime dream
That is only of your face.
Everyone knows that web of red veins
All lead back to the heart.
So I'm putting up fences
But leaving gaps between the posts
So when you’ve circulated my system
and I can feel you tingling electricity in every one of my cells
It’ll look like the bars I’ve put up were to keep you out
But really the space between was to let you in.
I’ll be shining a light so bright that maybe you’ll grow powdered wings
and flutter towards me like a moth who can’t ignore the flame for even one more second.
You’re more like a butterfly though.
When I look at you I see every colour;
I see grace and beauty, and in your voice I hear a melody so sweet it makes me wonder
whether you’re a girl,
Or if maybe you’re a songbird.
Maybe you build a new nest every night
From twigs and feathers and broken hearts.
You showed me a cutting of your old boyfriend’s hair
That you keep in your wallet
Because you dream of recreating him.
I thought if I knew how I’d make an army of this boy for you,
I’d carve his face from limestone
And give him blossoms for eyes
But I’d give him my lips,
So that when you kissed him I’d taste you.
And it’s not like I’d make you,
But inside my head we’re every day making each other laugh;
We’re every day running through dappled fields,
Calling each other’s names,
Smelling each other’s hair.
It’s the sweetest thing.
That’s all I really want to say
Is that you make me smile and dream,
And sometimes I’m looking at your face
For just a bit longer than you’re looking at mine,
And in the half-light I think,
Isn’t she beautiful.
In the hustle and bustle of a metropolitan city, I searched you down. Stalked, hunted and fished you out. Out of the 7 billion people, I found you, and that was all which mattered. You. Your hair still soft and ruffled with care, you lips still pink without usage, or so I hoped, your eyes, sparkling as always behind your thin framed silver glasses. You, with your bold look, walking across the streets like you own them. You, with you heavy and slow steps walking to your destination with a purpose to conquer. You.
And in that unknown city, so far away from the root of our existence, with mindless honks of drivers and a play of lights everywhere, I found somebody that I used to know. A face not forgotten, yet changed, eyes which haunted reappeared and a voice which lingered rung in my ears. I found you.
I would purposely bump into you, pretending to be in a hurry, pretending to not recognize the only face embedded in my soul, drop my valuables, say something like my identification card, give you a quick smile and a sorry and run off and disappear into the wave of the crowd.
You would just stare at the card. Be reminded of a life so distant, possibly a life forgotten, probably forcefully. Be reminded of how a girl, crazy and wild, young in her years, had come and gone from your life. Be reminded of the question you always used to ask yourself "what happened?"
I would hide to see your face grow white. You had just seen a ghost. A ghost of your past, who you had forcefully left behind. Now, after decades of separation, years spent not even giving it a second thought, years spent away, you were reminded again. The fire was lit again. The fire which made you pick up the card, stare at the number and automatically dial it up. I would say "hello", at which you would cut the call still unsure of what you would say. Scanning, devising a plan, you would call again, only this time you would talk.
"Hello", I would say confused.
"I found your wallet miss, remember you bumped into me earlier?"
"oh yes thank god for you sir. Tell me where you are and I shall come and pick it up."
and with that you would let yourself go.
after all, a "hi" i all we need to melt, to fall, to die, all over again right?
and with that I woke up to the alarm screaming in my ears to remind me that reality still persisted, and that it would take more than a dream to get you back.
- I want to kiss you in a swarming crowd
2. only I am kissing you [I want you]
3. (you and only you) so be with me please
4 and only me, be here now hold my hand
5. it’s us, thank god, brought together, thank god.
6.together we are un-alone, held up
7.And then, un-alone, lips move, moving in
8.synchronicity, lean more into me
9. you help me breathe, baby, your lungs, gimme
10. oxygen. so i can bear my face in
11.yours, pushing my whiskers in your soft skin
12. don’t pull back away to from me come come
13. come back, my skin has no place to be without yours against it
14. [I’m lost] sea of strangers, i need to breathe.
You fight
I scream
What is this all for?
Why force another person to believe they are not worthy?
Why make them look at themselves less?
It is no longer funny
when I stare and question my identity...
it is meaningless all that pours from your lips
never has it occured to me
that the words you speak are poison
that the life you lead is dead
I am not here to judge
I hate to fight
I want to fall asleep at night
knowing you all are at peace
but how can I love when I hate what you've become
how can I believe when your fallacies lead destruction
no one controls a single soul
you may label
you may grieve
but my fellow friends
what you decide may lead me to leave
I hate to say goodbye
but its the only justice I see
May you be you
and let me be me
with or without you
I will be free
I have learned this life I live is too short to care about your beliefs
lunar luminance lights his lucent lordly lair.
leaden legs languish lazily as he lay, laconic--
lexical loquaciousness long lost.
his latent lupine lust lignifies and lengthens,
longing lonesomely for his lovely limber lioness.
with lips of luxurious labial liquer,
and licks lapping like lashing lingual lightning,
liquifying his lavish lover, luscious lyrical lubrication.
