When the moonlight filters through
and even your shadow sleeps,
I pray your dream's script not go awry
and your sleep is without frightful terror,
for I will lay waste all your demons,
and load your burdens on my back,
until you wake from your slumber,
and I softly whisper,
"Good Morning"

"Have you ever screamed into the night,
until your throat was raw and dusk left to hide?"

"Never have I ever."

"Have you ever walked the halls with tears streaming down your face?
Well, they might as well have been a mirror,
because of all the people who stared,
bewildered."

"Never have I ever."

"Have you ever lost someone,
and tried to fill the empty void in your soul,
only to lose that person too?

Haven't we all?

Shouldn't we all?"

"Never have I ever." they said; a blunt lie at that.

The night is cool.
The skies are open.
The weather is perfect.
I'm all alone, under the blanket.
I have everything else.
The only thing missing, is you.

always dreamed
of leaving one day
by walking my fingers
left and right and forth
as if the nails were soles
and tips were heels

at the coming of age
always thought
of leaving one day
with nails as tracks
so no one would follow
that not even myself
would want to come back
since between you and me
there is not a thing
worth keeping

if our love is a ship
then we are two lovers
lost at sea
bound to sink
in our own demise

i've slowly become trapped
i'm no longer me
grasping in the dark
for the latch that,
when opened,
will set me free

Still,
I remember
     your lips:

Understated, yet
     strikingly sweet,

Like the scent of plums
     wavering on the breeze.

my hands are covered in paint and glue
my hands are not new
they are old and
i'm tired of hearing about them
what have they done
that i can be proud of
nothing

Now
This is
A silly thought
Like two little birds
One on the branch
The other on the land
I threw a stone on the
One  on   the   branch
Because the other one
Is   right   in my hand
Right where I stand
I missed it
No bird
Neither
On the branch
Or the land

We, at various points in life,
draw a line
in the sand.
Marking where we've been,
where we stopped
to never venture forward.
Winds bring change no lines
can withstand. And we draw
them again in defiance.
We eke meaning from this sand
that would otherwise
mean nothing to us. Imparting
our own ideologies
onto an unresponsive medium
as a testament
to ourselves. Our independence.
The sand is most susceptible to change,
shifted constantly
by the sea, our feet,
the wind.
Still, we draw our lines anyway.

Here comes the sun little darling's
We all get burned
In the red sunburn
 Is it your turn
     "U-Turn"
Oh! Where I thou
"Green light Diner"
It's telling us to Go
    *       *       *
The Earth beauty faces
I will be your direct sunlight
How it  hit her blossom tree
All I ask come for me

Her face could eat the
Divine flower laced French brie
Tie a yellow ribbon on me
We have so much to see
Let it be sun-face Moms
apple pies
The Sun  "Watchtower"
Someone knocks you off
Your "Bill" on the Ice Queen
The Goddess rodeo waitress
She got you roped in between
The cigarette 1940 case hostess "Rose"
I suppose the sunflowers every booth
her smile sets in place

The stain-glass window Notre Dame
Rock and roll hall of fame
The earth kids rainbow chalk
Sun-fun treetops like a beanstalk
Napoleon Elementary Watson
New Jersey Diner capital admission
The Peking duck *** luck
European beauty hunter's menu
Any luck this will be awhile sip "Starbucks"

1-Antipasti cute Shiba Uni
2-Consomme Chicken soup
3-Sun-face to the soul fruit loop
4-Chicken pepper Salsa
Sun-face lights up Visa
5-Hearts of Artichokes Mona Lisa
6-Soy ****** salmon
My sun worshiper man

Fish tacos hummus
St Thomas
Rome was not build
In one day
The windpipes and
the tablecloths Oh! yikes
Full of dream pipes

Sun tan stripes and zebras
Couscous salad big star dipper
Egyptian Gods camels back
Sun-face diner no time
for the sun-chip snack
Diners from 1920-1940
Sun-face air force dresses

Medieval times two swords
Holy lords Easter parades
" Ice-cream Spumoni"
Dinner in the sky
Robin red breast fly
Italian artwork Coliseum
Look up in the sky
It's a bird the diner shaped

Paper plane bad romance
going insane
Waffle House  jukebox rock and roll
Hall of fame whats in a food name
Cowboy steaks American Flags
Cajun chicken legs fruits and figs
At the caboose Ladybird jet lag


Valentine Diner chairs
got footloose homemade goose
Purple rain Prince maple pancakes
Bananas and strawberry fields
lake sun in shape of a snowflake
Forest Gump changes to
Presidential Trump

Vitamin C  honey bunches of Oats
Yummy floats of egg cream
Open table Sun-face dream
Eggs light she's not finished
over easy
Pristine of carrots with
artful daisies

Thanksgiving turkey
with giblets
Rings of napkins holding
A time well-bred marriage
Well known landmarks of
Carats
Long ago time she saw the light
Daylight Knight like a scale to weight

Whispers of wine and grapes
Sun face courtesan love escape
Sun Faces trillion times mansion
Sun-faces never go out of fashion

I wish I were made of stone
So your words would never hurt me
I wish I were cold as ice
Then maybe I wouldn't be lonely

I wish I were made of steel
So my strength would never waver
If only I could turn back the clock
To a time when I felt safer

But I'm only flesh and bone
And your words have left me bleeding
My heart is torn apart
It's a wonder it's still beating

You made up your mind
Given me your final answer
What we shared is in the past
Time to write a brand new chapter

I will fix my broken heart
Some how glue it back together
It may never be the same
It'll bare this scar forever

But I'll be strong, I'll be alright
Though I'm not as hard as steel
And I can't turn back the clock
In time....my heart will heal

someday it will
come again.
someday someone
will come in.

a star
with the deepest depths in the eyes
with the gentlest of breaths
and endless soul in the smile

one day
i'll forgive this pain
not forget -
forgive.

If her petals fall
I breathe
Then become her floor

Snowflake, snowflake
Floating on down

Snowflake, snowflake
Drifting through town

Snowflake, snowflake
What do you see?

Snowflake, snowflake
Have you come to see me?

Just passing through?
If you come back, tell me what’s new.
I long to see the world,
Laid out before me, unfurled

But alas little snowflake
I am trapped in the ice

Oh snowflake, snowflake
Let me see through your eyes.

The reason why I keep my feelings to myself,
is because I can't explain them.

Sometimes, I still see you.
And no matter where I am,
I will always cry.

i might kiss someone
i dont know who, when
but i know its coming
and i know youll be watching
because youre too supportive to let a grudge keep you from expressing your love
and ill regret kissing someone
ill see your deep eyes out there in the crowd
trying to appreciate the art through the heartbreak
and ill regret it

You are a scar upon my heart,
We grew closer in between
the shadows and beams of light.

Our love also grew within
the dark, never to fade
for it is a strong spark
that grew into a burning blaze.

We are like two stars,
always falling together
always burning across
the same skies, we are
always as one a sun
that never dies.

We are never truly apart
for there’s a string attached
to our hearts, space and time
can never steal our ever
growing spark.

Struggle and strife
only build’s a stronger
foundation for the future
of our lives together.

As one made from two star
crossed lover’s our collision
was epic, and dramatic
leaving reality bruised and
burning brightly as a reminder
of our beginnings.

Forevermore, I love you.

© 2019 By Amanda Shelton

I love him
I tell myself
I know that
We will be together forever
I don’t believe that
We could be separated
My thoughts tell me that
He’s the love of my life
Sometimes my heart lies and says
I could live an eternity
Without him
Like my friends say
“We’re perfect for each other”
And you can’t tell me
He’s not the one.

Now read from bottom to top.

~for those who will read this and weep~

the quiet ones,
the silent Job ones,
who quote not from the
Book of Lamentations,
but author their own,
based on-the-Job experience

localized versions of cryptic elegiacs
accepting the wooden crosses borne,
stepping up to the
unrequested unforeseen,
then buried under, burnt alive,
yet never relieved by dying,
nailed by words, stronger than iron,
promises sworn, promises kept
with no ending date relief,
promises by and to themselves,
but not for themselves!

the wearers of crystal glass shackles,
adorned with decorative locks for which
no key did the maker make,
nor any divine creator
dare conceive an early release,
never no escape contemplated,
for the lock human, unrepentant unbreakable,
a decorative useless metaphor gesture,
a blunt “life *****” advertisement

I compose amidst a
bus pond of mismatched city folk,
a tapestry of ages colors and differing views on god/no god,
none would believe that as the bus sways me,
it’s in rhythm to holy choral music,
hundreds year old,
divinity masses and motets worships,
where one human can hide temporarily
a safe house,
to calm his questioning relentless
from the horrors of no answers,
for when the mind has no solution
to the rough and tumbling lives,
lived in glass shackled confinement,
the poets desperation equals theirs

summon eagles to transport these imprisoned,
but the shackled refuse,
I come to them but they wave me off,
I go crazy for once I was enslaved,
thirty years war that left devastation,
from which so many poems created

so I speak with heightened regard
of one who planned futures for others where his
non-existence was a founding father (ha!)

but the day came and
I was released by my own inactions,
but means nothing until a way to
away found
to release the yet bound early

got a couch, airline miles, hundred dollars
in my pocket and an unrelenting need
to save them, a consumption disease,
the glass shackled, at ease,
won’t rest till all are freed
this my creed
no one left behind

these cyber words do not mock
for they are unbounded, set free,
when
the flesh connects and the needs of the flesh
are stronger for they are in heart conceived

Let the music play, Let its melody walk through my emotions and give meaning to my madness.

so many reasons,
so many stones
yet unturned,
for each poem
a season,
for every season,
a given reason

eyes, dimmer,
hearing, harder,
memories, ha,
disappear as fast as
footsteps upon
my island beach

this then
my log,
of places momentarily visited,
capturing the of,
of me,
the exactitude of
where, when and what
I felt

what felled me,
the long and lat,
of the attitudes
of breeze and currents,
the happenstance that carries
a desperate soul
eager and afraid
to remember

"how fragile we are"

so memorized records here,
for his storage and his places,
both filled and unfulfilled,

poems, nothing more,
flawed each,
product of a flawed man,
here, for all to see,
most of all,
for the man,
to see himself
when the eyes of his mind
at last be shuttered

He whispers in my ear again
A beautiful fallen angel
Asking to take my hand
To dance in the dead, black night
To make a deal to have my soul
To set fire to everything
And burn together forever

Stress is the constant that never goes away
Pain in the chest
Restless rest
Mind entering the fray

What is one more thing? Already taking it well...
Ethical dilemma
Emotional drama
More sleep minutes to sell

Tell lies to try and appease the few
Hurt inside
Pushed aside
Because it's good for you

In a drop of you, I lost an ocean of me.