zita-nonie-hasenkamp
18/Non-binary
“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.” / ― T.S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism. / / All my original poems are copyright of Zita Hasenkamp.
I. Awaken
How did I find you?
Like a shifting in the winds
Of my consciousness.
II. Attraction
My love, in my heart,
And in the arms of the sky,
You burn like the dawn.
III. Detachment
Once too warm to touch,
You're now cold, and soon you're gone:
Carried far away.
IV. Blankness
How did we get here?
Like we never met at all,
Two strangers, drifting.
Apr 17, 2018
Apr 17, 2018 at 6:42 PM UTC
you don't see it
(you don't see me)
your eyes are new
and your spirit is still fresh
i'm a dangerous idea
wrapped up in flesh and blood
i wait for you to notice
to notice i'm not the kind who
can give you love
anymore
it kills me to know that someday soon
i'll be the first one
to teach you that people
are as hard and cold as the earth
beneath your tender, trusting feet
that expired promises
don't keep
you changed me
me, with my steel skin
(young heart)
and stone gaze
(wild)
you wonder why i pull away
(look your way)
you wonder why you say you love me
and why i never say
anything
(the same)
you killed me
you, the first one to teach me that
when angels finally fly your way
there's no reason they can't fade
into a passing glance
(an agonizing)
into the eyes of
a once-too-familiar stranger
(the other half of myself)
Apr 17, 2018
Apr 17, 2018 at 6:36 PM UTC
A chord of realization is struck,
Emerging from your throat.
The tone bubbles out like laughter but
Reeks of cough syrup and sorrow.
Physically well,
Mentally healing,
Emotionally kneeling to
Every broken phrase,
Spoken over endless days—
Then promises
Of progress to follow.
More bitter medicine to swallow:
Jagged edged words, lacerations,
Fleeting sense of
Motivation.
Later, a bitter pill to take.
Yet, regret tastes sweeter
Than another mistake.
Feb 16, 2017
Feb 16, 2017 at 9:47 PM UTC
We only burn for one more heartbeat:
Our tears fall through the stars,
Then all our passions melt away
In the heat of their melancholy flames.
The world quivers under
The weight of your words:
"I love her. I love her."
Your heavy breath blowing out the candles
That burned in your eyes.
As I reach to pluck your celestial body
From the lonely sky,
You waste away
Waiting to catch her gaze.
You need her strength; I need your light.
We ask one another,
"Is it worse to love from afar
Or to watch that love die?"
Feb 11, 2017
Feb 11, 2017 at 3:44 PM UTC
Shed your skin
On my bathroom floor
As muscular coils,
Shining scales,
Draw me in and out the door.
You wanted more for me than this,
But it's all I was ever good for.
Dec 9, 2016
Dec 9, 2016 at 6:49 PM UTC
She grew up on old TV shows,
Wearing baggy clothes,
And climbing trees,
Scraping knees,
Flirting with the other girls
As much as she pleased.
Her mother's a summer kind of lady,
But she's hit her October,
Heart freezing over.
Winter sweaters don't keep her warm.
Her father's arms wrapped 'round her
Are a once-every-three-months kind of
Comfort.
She's a man in disguise,
Under the soft skin and
Long-lashed eyes.
She's a renaissance man,
With a noble kind of pride,
Loneliness matching
Her long strides, beside her,
A paradoxical kind of
Comfort.
Dec 8, 2016
Dec 8, 2016 at 9:18 PM UTC
In the place of your kin I found you,
In the meadow left out to dry
Your porcelain face,
Glazed in white, glassy blood.
No carmine kiss had spoilt it
On the eve of its last breath,
But the flood, the flush
Of bluish-purple life-fluids
Decaying within your chest.
Hydrangeas will grow from the tears you wept,
And the crows will carry off the bones you left.
Is it best for your love to run out,
Rather than be caressed by death?
Sep 27, 2016
Sep 27, 2016 at 12:13 PM UTC
It ends:
The resounding sounds bounce
Down the halls,
Bound to a place you can't call home.
Echoes of your lost hellos
Live within those walls,
And between them we slept through
The afternoon.
Between them was all I knew of you,
And between them we kissed
In and empty room,
The ghost of my everything
Seeping through
The open door,
The cracks in the floor,
And so it ends before
It begins.
Jul 8, 2016
Jul 8, 2016 at 7:51 PM UTC
All I know is the charcoal of my hands: it covers them in such a way that makes me believe the charcoal stain has found its way underneath. I draw myself half a city, until no part of me remains. I then look, so sorrowfully, at the broken landscape. All its harsh edges beg for attention, but I have to ask myself where all the real people are. I look all around, but all I see is you and I, on a charcoal street—somewhere we always wanted to be—hand in hand, off to wander together and gather up all the other real people we meet.
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 6:23 PM UTC
She soaked her raincoat
Through again, her boots are
Full of water,
But tomorrow I will wake and her hair
Will still smell of pine.
Her crooked fingers caught a chill,
For all their heat fled
To her face
When they entangled themselves
In mine.
Apr 20, 2016
Apr 20, 2016 at 9:37 PM UTC