The secret to a happy marriage
Is

The secretions of a happy marriage
Are

The secretary
is
The secret in my marriage.

I can see myself, sitting on the edge of an uncomfortable bed,
In an unknown, alien room,
Watering.

Flooding, out of control.

I can see
Catastrophe.

I can see
What could be.

I'm not sure I can stop it.
I'm not sure I have the self control.
Baby,
I have wrung every last drop of will power
From the sponge of me
For you,
I am not sure
I have anything left.

Even now,
After a month without,
You are pulling at me.
The word 'inevitable'
Sits on the centre of the bottom of my lip
Waiting to leap into your mouth
And caress your tongue
With long, slow strokes.

Oh, I
Am undone
And aware
Fully aware
I cannot bear
This potential betrayal
Which will ever haunt me, a possibility...

A wish,

A longing
I can never assuage.

A restless wanting
I can never appease.

Love, you have liberated me
In every way.
Don't ask me to describe that dungeon,
For I no longer fester;
I am free.

Love, you have liberated me
In every way.
I don't just fly in my dreams,
I soar through my life
I am free.

Love, you have liberated me
In every way.
I am chained to you,
I choose to be,
I am free.

Bad Morning, long time no see, wish it had stayed that way.      

It's **** to see you.

I don't give a monkeys how you are.

And as for your wife and kids, I never liked her, and they were always horrible to mine.

Got to go? Thank God for that.

Be careless,

With any luck I won't bump into you again for a long, long time. Please don't call.

I can't think of a single nice thing to say to you, and it would be awkward as hell.

I don't want you knowing anything about my life.


Good morning, long time no see!
It's great to see you!
How are you?
How's Sally, Joe and Sam? We should set up that playdate, it's been awhile.
Oh, you're in a rush? That's a shame, never mind.
Take care,
Hope to see you soon - call me!
It would be so great to get the chance to have a proper chat.
I've so much to tell you.

Last night I dreamed of you again.
We were together in a crowd,
And I turned and walked away
into a silent, sunny forest.

Trees knotted into strange shapes,
Like lifesize bonsai.
I struggled over swollen roots
Exuding damp moss,
And slipped down an incline,
Into your arms.

You had followed me there,
Caught me, saved me,
But you dropped my hand as I slipped it into yours
And walked on, talking, expecting me to follow.

I’m done following, though,
And turned immediately,
Struggling on over the resistant landscape,
Over a ridge and across another of those bulging, snakelike trees.
I didn’t think you’d follow,
But again, there you were.

I asked you why you’d dropped my hand.
I know what I want, you replied
But I don't think you do,
And I'm trying to do the right thing.

I find myself wanting to ask, why? Why now?
Why, when I am over the confusion and the pain,
When I am past the most dangerous phase of withdrawal.

But, oh, that’s right – it didn’t really happen.
And I wasn’t really there.

Finally
My body and my psyche are in sync.
Sick
In pain and wasting away.

It's only a stomach upset
But it feels right,
Somehow.
Feeling 'well' felt incongruous,
Now, I feel as I should -
Sick, everywhere.

I wonder if recovery
Will stretch to a lifting of the spirit, too?
As I nurture my body with soup, sleep and rest,
Will the rest of me find sustenance, and come back
To wellness,
Can I drag my heartsick mind back to robust health?
Or is my body
Stronger than my soul?

I never cry at midnight.
It's still too close to the drama of the day,
To doing, to being, facts, routine and acts.
Dreams are waiting, whispering,
Timidly sending out tendrils,
Tears remain untempted; this is not their time.

Near dawn, and only sometimes,
Sobs shake my unsleeping soul.
The things, the thoughts, that feed on salt, descend,
I walk a tightrope between night and day, begin and end,
I come so close to falling, and one day
I will just let go.

You are not worth
The spit in my mouth or the **** on my shoe.
You are not worth
What I gave you of me,
And you're certainly not worth
What you never got to have.
You are not worthy of her, or me, or him,
Or any of these angry, bewildered poems,
So why am I writing them?
Why am I feeling this?
Why am I investing you
With more power and importance than you have?

Painful, purple, bruised
A turbulent sky groans, weeps,
Empties and renews.

The flare of pain at the base of my spine
distracts me from the sharper pain
Of losing you.

Each evening I numb myself with wine,
It slops into the glass
And makes me think of angry tears.

Social butterfly, I whirl into the city
Wearing my fake face,
And ready for excess.

I need to be gentled
Away from these destructive interventions,
Does someone have a cure for the cure?

The theme for this year
Is betrayal
Both delivered and received.
I have yet to decide
If I am made stronger
Or more fragile
By experiencing both.
I am certainly
A great deal sadder
And a lot more careful
About who I trust
Including myself.

I’m feeling a little sunken,
Lurking here at the bottom of the
Ocean wallowing here in my
Muddy slime-filled pit.

Feeling rather lumpen,
Stodgy, awkwardly unblended, I remind myself
Of things unstirred, of things
That cause the upper lip to rise above the teeth.

I have formed a second skin, like congealing coffee,
Overheated, I am clammy, and I wish to shed.
Scrub me, I am just dead skin,
I am something to slough off, discard, and rinse.

Soft ******* stiffen,
Slick with sweat.

Involuntary moans
Released from an unwilling throat
Pierce the night
With need.

Where are you?
Where are you now?
I dare you to resist me
I dare you to deny me
What I need.

I am savouring
The mouthfeel of our joining
In my dreams.
Come, come,
This is the way to the feast.

I started to write a poem
That was so full of hate, and bile,
That it made me retch to re-read it.
That's not the way I am,
I won't be reduced to that.
You have done, what you had to do,
Nothing more.
I can't judge you for it.
I deleted that poisonous poem,
I won't start down that road.
I still care, I hope that will change,
I hope that you are okay,
I forgive you,
In the hope that someday
I can forgive myself.
It is not easy to write this,
I don't want to forgive,
And I don't want to let you go,
But I will, and I must.

Oh, goodbye,
Goodbye,
You were everything, and now we're nothing.
I will miss you.

I will miss you.

In a bright white room
My eyes burn, desert dry
Hoping to be healthy.

I'm scared, so scared, of something indefinable.
    I need you to hold me, but
I won't ever ask.

I understand the power of a spoken dream,
   A hidden longing dragged from the shadows
  To dissolve in the light.

            Tonight

I am lonely, I am hurting,
   Raked by Never's scabrous fingers,
Hungering for hope.

If I begged you, would you, could you, come?
   Spirited before me by the strength of my need?
No matter; sleep, our restless tossings
  are well earned, this is a just and righteous anguish.

We, I, you, we,
    Recognise the power of a lost, unspoken dream.

The moon is out
lighting up the sky
And there's nothing but
Darkness within.

If I could just be your little daydream,
Then that will make me happy,
Sharing a space
With all the other thoughts
In your beautiful mind.

We can be lovers
Or strangers
Never again can we be at peace together
in each others company.
I miss resting my head on your shoulder
No awareness of the heat between our bodies.
I miss when you and I meant less,
Meaning more.
It seemed so unimportant, what we had
But now I mourn for when I could be with you in a room
And not yearn to move closer.
We were so careless with our calm moments
Never suspecting that everything could change
And suddenly, the charged air between us
Makes it difficult to breathe.
Breathe with me.
Breathe life back into what we have lost.
We'll starve these other thoughts of air
And let them die.

The past is an old, bearded man in a tattered coat,
Pulling at my arm with insistence,
Meeting little resistance.
A Fagin, enticing me with Dickensian charm.
I always was a sucker for nostalgia,
Let me live in a fairy tale, or hide myself in history,
Turn me loose in fiction.

The future is a ghost, transparent, beckoning,
All she has to sell is the unknown,
Which I face with reluctance, with some fear.
A new start, yes, but I don't want to finish with my Fagin.
There's comfort in the misery of the known,
The knowing, roots me in securely,
Untethered, I may float from existence,
Both past and present, lost to me as I hang in the balance,
Caught between the years' end and a new beginning,
Static, frozen, fearful, tharn.

What is your favourite poem of all those you have read here, on this site?

Here's mine. Every time I read this poem I get a lump in my throat:

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/556339/wouldnt-chest/

A peanut butter bagel
And a really strong coffee, laced with sugar.
Sunlight dapples carpet
Slippers cushion feet.
Cats purr
Children stir
Poems call
And I am simply
      Happy.

I have a decision to make.
I have already made it.
I made it in the millisecond between typing 'to' and 'make'.
So, I no longer have a decision to make,
And I no longer have a poem to write.

I shall take myself to bed.

This is a sad month.
The chance of another perfect Summers day
Falls away.

September channels melancholy.
Summer crazy turns to calm.
Excitement dies,
We start to pack away the years' memories,
Growth slows,
We ponder.

I have learned nothing.
Autumn's inevitability
Echoes my own, unchanging nature.

Perhaps I can learn from the season's changes,
There are things that I, too, should try to put to bed.
I will try to say goodbye
Not just to sun, and warmth,
But to my mistakes.

It's not a time for sadness
But for welcoming the chance to start again.

I opened my heart, it bled, hotly,
into the dark.

Where will you take me?
You are in my dreams, my heart overflows,
You opened me, and love spilled out
in a crimson cascade, what now?
Where will we go?

Do not be anxious,
I would still be locked away,
But you, honest and eager and more than I deserve,
Opened my heart, it bled, hotly
into the dark, and I am free.

Your birth was a storm of pain.
Red clouds
Roiling above a viscous sea.
Each surge
A bargain made with nature
For redemption, for release.

But I was never afraid.
I listened to you, your quiet calm,
Connecting, even then.
I breathed, perspired and rode
the rapids of my body,
Followed the pulse and rhythm of something unrestrained,
Released from deep within,
Urging me on.

There's a moment, when birthing
Like finding yourself alone, in a hot air balloon,
Rising higher and higher
Without the hope of return to solid ground.
You feel your insides gather, prepare for something new,
And it is new,
Indescribable, other, you feel like a creature from another world
And that's what you looked like too.
Little alien, yet so familiar
Eyes on each other
Daughter and mother.

You breathe very heavily
And you're short
And bald.
You tell obscure jokes that no-one laughs at.
You get really, really drunk
And shout along to songs - all the wrong words
deliberately.
You're very annoying.
Right wing
A wind-up merchant
You watch nothing but the news, Top Gear, and old re-runs of Poirot.

It's no good.
I love to listen to you breathe, and sigh
You're just the right height for kissing
And your baldness suits you, suits your perfect smile
I laugh inside, if no-one else does
And am usually drunker, and louder, and urging you to dance.
I love your teasing
And the TV doesn't matter
Because we only have eyes for each other
when together
It's no good.

A butterfly lives for a single day.
If she thinks, perhaps she thinks
It would be easier to stay cocooned.

But I like to imagine that every atom in her
Yearns for that fleeting moment
Moves towards the light
With wings outstretched, blazes for a second
Awaiting admiration, fully alive
Soars into the sky, aware that time is fleeting
Simply quivering with joy.

The heady scents of night recede,
Unfamiliar birds call, plaintively, into the lightening sky,
Morning-flowers unfurl, rich and lush and greedy for the heat.
Stars retreat, but the moon lingers, proud and unrepentant,
Fading, but resolute; a promise to return.
In this garden of delights I sit and think of you, so far away, oh,
You are so far, you are too far.
I close my eyes and dream that you are here with me,
Sharing the newborn sun.
Coy pink petals unfurl, to a sudden brazen blaze,
The day is here, and you are gone with the night,
Back into my dreams, I know you will emerge
When the thai moon rises, I know that you are with me
And I know that you are thinking of me,
Unfurling, opening up, reaching out,
Drinking in your love.

It doesn't matter if it's wrong,
It won't make a blind bit of difference
philosophising, moralising, judging, denying,
It won't change the simple fact that
We love.

You, who have never been mine
And never will be.
I, who dream of you
At every turn
And can never arrive in your arms.

None of it matters,
If we act, if we don't.
Simple fact
Unchanged by perspective, or debate.
Love, love,
It's there
unbearable, undeniable,
So simple, so immense.

People are hurting themselves.
Again and again
I read of blades, and blood, and pain.
How very many of us starve, and purge, and try in vain
To find release
To find some peace.

Pain is seductive.
Enticing, romantic,
He can hold you like no other,
He's a charismatic lover,
And, in thrall to his call and easily persuaded,
You are urged on to ever more sordid acts.
But in the end, it still just hurts.
He'll leave you, like the rest, wanting more
And feeling like a *****.