Sage - Hello Poetry

Sage 4d

Clay.

Mud that used to be soft and warm,
Easily molding with the environment and moving with the seasons,
Now encases my bare feet in memory.

No longer the familiar warm, lovely gooey feeling I tie to what is so like Clay it can’t be anything else…
The mud has frozen to my skin,
Eating into my equally frozen flesh as I’m locked in place.
Forever staring at the grave of what we used to be.

Mud pies held countless hours of my childhood,
Images of me and brother slaving in the wet sludge,
Mixing the warm goo with outstretched fingers to feel on every inch of skin.
The memory now branded in my brain, a hot reminder of what I used to be.

The sun woke for long hours, dazzling us in her scorching prayer,
And mud that was forever interchanging solidified into my favourite form…
Clay.
It’s been two years since I first saw Clay, in all his natural beauty sitting in secret on the beach.
A secret I had yet to discover.

Trial and error,
Mistake after mistake,
Failure and misfortune,
Then finally…

The perfect recipe fell into my lap;
And so I set about following every instruction,
Bending and twisting my own morals and rules to accommodate.
Bruises covered my heart and veins,
But sitting before me was a breathtaking piece of ruby red heart-shaped Clay.

Mud filled memories forgotten,
I channeled every ounce of energy into pottery.
Priorities became disregarded as they inevitably got locked into an abandoned box,

A pattern…
A cycle…
This I cannot deny.

Clay became my world.
My everything.
The reason I breathed, ate, showered…
Was all to keep that shiny heart-shaped piece of Clay perfectly mine.

But I dropped it.
Once,
Twice,
Thrice.
I keep dropping it.
Glue becomes my best friend,
Tape a sidekick I couldn’t live without.

And my beautiful pottery is shattered.
Once,
Twice,
Thrice.
I keep repairing it,
Slaving away after every chess match I always seem to lose.
But I keep gluing broken pieces together,
Pressing tape against the ruby exterior.

Mud used to create a slippery slide that could make you glide through the grass as freely as a wild animal.
Returning home with mud-water soaked pants and boots told mother you had fun,
And challenged you to get through the house without leaving any traces.
Mud was the exciting, kind and fun cousin.

I once had the recipe in my hands,
The loving product in my embrace,
Something I had dreamed of so.

But along the way of discovering and loving Clay,
Inevitably I excluded everything I have known and loved,
And now I’m trapped in the frozen mounds of mud that force me to stare at our grave where a million tiny, red shards spew the grass infront of our headstone.

Sage Jan 9

Till Death Do Us Apart

I wanna be with
You
Oh, how I wanna be with
You

You died a couple days ago,
I saw your body hit the pavement from the sky.
Blood leaked out of you like dark, swirling goo,
I ran to you.

Snapped bones and torn skin transformed you into someone I didn’t recognize,
Your lungs and heart are crushed, baby, why can’t I hear your voice!?
All I see are sad holes in your face,
Punctured where your beautiful forest eyes should’ve been.

I want to be with you.

So I slip my sweaty hand under your mangled palm.
Your ring finger is broken, snapped and bent with your wedding ring laying just as lifeless next to you.

Vengeance snakes hot branding irons through my veins as I kiss what should’ve been soft, tasteful lips that don’t kiss back like they used to.
Fury wraps a chokehold around me, gripping my chest and throat so tight an animalistic scream tears out of me.

I want to be with you.
You want to be with me.
That’s why we got married.
We were supposed to live happily ever after,
For better or for worse,
Till death did us apart.

You light up my life,
Like I’m the last dying candle in a dark, scary cave that you cup in your gentle working hands and breathe life back into the flickering flame.
The monsters are afraid of the dark, you knew this as you had monsters, too.
You’d make their eyes go wide with fear as you shouted and danced in their face, chasing them away like they tried to do with you.

You were happy…
You wouldn’t do this.
Right?

I wanna be with you,
You wanna be with me.
We were the perfect love story.

“It’s her! It’s her!”
The same two words, repeated over and over and over again.
My brain was still echoing, like a dark cavern, sound bouncing off slimy walls and colliding into the other side.
“It’s her!”

Tears made up of every sorrowful, revenge-filled emotion streamed down my fiery hot cheeks as I rubbed my thumb over the broken, shattered beauty of your hand.
Everything about you is beautiful.
Now all of that beauty was shattered and broken on the pavement, surrounded by a crowd of loud strangers.

Our hands look so delicate together…
You can feel the love between us, even now, as our palms folded into each other.
Well, mine did. Yours kind of flopped into mine.

As I gaze at our laced hands, mine still bearing a pretty ring and yours absent, my arms get pulled behind me with a ferocity that burns into my joint sockets.

“You’re under arrest for pushing this young man off a roof!”

Pulled away from your leaking, shattered, broken body I scream and, as if on cue,
“He should’ve never died, it should’ve been you!”
Who said that?

I can’t tell because I am shoved into a car and a door slammed in my face.

I want you, I’ve only ever wanted you.
It’s always been you.

When you died that day, I died with you.
Whose fault was it?

Nobody knows.
If I did push you, did you deserve it?

Nobody knows.
All I know is that we were happy and in love,
For better or for worse, right?
Until death came knocking and I just had to answer.

Sage Jan 4

When He Befriended the Moon

As the moon descends into her kingdom to open up the sky for the sun’s graceful arrival,

His eyes start to fall…

Heavier,
and
Heavier,

As if the morning light he saw was too heavy for his eyelids to process, or even want to.

His body sinks into the soft, cushioned fabric of the couch that wraps an addictingly comfortable warmth around him,

Whispering promises of a slumber so much needed he doesn’t want to fight the exhausted spell he suddenly seems to be cast under.

The world was stretching and yawning around him;
Birds chirping and tweeting good morning melodies,
Raspy engines coughed themselves awake as dedicated souls forced themselves into loathed work clothes & uniforms.
Even the wind was knocking on the glass of the window, howling greetings.

But he gave none,
For his bones felt old and heavy,
And it called upon too much effort to find his voice.

After spending the night giggling and laughing until his stomach churned;
Dancing until his muscles and bones squealed with protest;
Singing like he’d never sang before…

Well, wouldn’t you stay up all night with the moon if she asked?

He was too exhausted to greet the morning sky or relish in the warmth of the light,
But he felt

Alive.

As he sank deeper into the tunnel of sleep, his consciousness ebbing in and out like water,

He felt as though his spirit had finally woken up from somewhere hidden deep within.

Sage Dec 2024

Drowning

I feel like I'm drowning.
I've been caught in the current that's been dragging at my feet,
Pulling me under with every step I try to take.
Dark, murky water leaks through my mouth and nose as I scream your name, bubbles coming out instead of sound.
Oxygen is gone, leaving my body burning from it's absence and my head start's filling up with sludge...

Literally, or metaphorically?

I can't think,
Heart is fluttering erratically as I flail around,
Limbs feelings like the spaghetti noodles we ate last night;
And my mouth is still agape with your name frozen on my lips.
Deeper and deeper I fall,
Drowning under thoughts and fears that always seem to win.

But you're above water and can't even hear me.
I'm drowning by myself.

Sage Oct 2024

Demons

These thoughts in my head;
Well,
Shouldn’t I say these demons?

These demons in my head,
They keep shouting,
Loud.
In my ear,
Cursing your name.

I wish i could take a gun and aim it at each
And every
Single
One
And shoot them dead.
But what would I do with the silence?

Would i be able to live with the echoey quiet,
Be alone with those memories that I've tried so hard to run away from?

As much as i want to finally be alone
With the quiet nothingness that silence brings;

I can’t.
I just
Can’t.

I don't love myself, nor the memories scorched and scarred into my skin that make me who I am. How can I when every single one is burned with a mean tongue slapped across my face, or a forgotten tear nobody ever cared enough to pay attention to?

But I love you.

I love you.

I keep repeating those three words.
Sometimes you hear them,
Sometimes you don't.
But it's a constant echo in my brain;

Just like you’re a movie in my head,

On repeat.

Day in
And
Day out.

Most nights I see you for who you are.
Most nights you are the same boy i fell so quickly,
And so hard for.

Most days i look at you and,
All I can see is the image created in my head.
No,
Burned in head.
Scorched into my brain so hot and fiery i can feel the burn long after the demon has retreated into his dark, cold cave;

Until he crawls back out,
Slowly,
Over time,
His screams getting louder and louder,
Echoing against the walls of my skull.
Like an endless cycle.

I love you.

But it's not fair that I'm bringing you along on this merry-go-ride.
I know you want off.
You’re begging the ride instructor to turn off the switch,
Unbuckle the seatbelt that’s tying you to me,
Let you live your life without worrying about the chaos running through my head.
Without worrying if you did something wrong.
Without worrying if i still love you,
Without worrying about your own demon on your shoulder.

I
Love
You.

But some days…
Some days i get this one demon,
Whose voice is so much louder than the rest;
He’s the one who loves to tell me all the terrible things you are doing and thinking
Instead of all the terrible things I am doing, like the rest of them.

And some days all i can hear
Is the screeching sound of that demon
Screaming in my ear
Telling me everything

I
Don’t
Want
To
Hear.

Because I don't want to hear it,
I don't want to hear any of it.

No matter what I say,
No matter what I think,
No matter what I do,
Some days I don’t see the real you.
Some days I only see the version of you that this demon wants me to see.

But maybe I’m just crazy.

Cos only crazy people talk back to the devil on their shoulder. It’s only the sane that ignore him.

Right..?

— The End —