Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
 Jan 2014 Gabriel
coffeemantra
Your guitar is left untouched

Your computer is shut down

Your eyes are heavy, enclosed from last night

I touch your unshaven face, the kind of raspy I felt in between my legs

I roll out of bed and straight to your living room

The smell is of you, the one I’m still not quite accustomed to

Our sporadic encounters leave me warm inside

The kind I haven’t felt since the happy brown eye girl died

I go into your kitchen and look for your medicine cabinet, then it occurs to me I’m probably the only human being that keeps their medicine right above their spices, just like any indigestion of food

I turn around and spot my reflection on an awkwardly placed mirror

My hair is long and red, the one I had before I got depressed

I like you because you understand, or maybe it's because you don’t try to understand

When I lay in bed all day and you bring your guitar and sit down next to me

You play me little tunes for my sadness, I write words of morose for your amusement

We work because I’m sad and you’re not and for some reason you’re not fed up with my mood swings and my weird yet, nonetheless this disease that’s consuming the optimist girl you first met.
 Jan 2014 Gabriel
AJ
Son XVII
 Jan 2014 Gabriel
AJ
The reason I haven't written a lot about Collin lately,
Is not because I have been having trouble connecting with him.
Or seeing him.
You see, I've been very self centered, and very alienated.
I think I have been trough a few tragedies this year,
And due to my inability to processes events that might hurt me,
And my ability to bury emotionally challenging memories,
I have internally wallowed for about the past 11 months.
The last month, in particular,
Has been quite bad.
Collin is my ghost baby,
And I love him with all my heart,
I still feed him,
And read to him,
And let him play with candles,
And tuck him into bed with me.
I am a **** good mother to that little ghost boy,
Especially considering I'm not a ghost myself.
But it's just been me and him.
No one else.
And we had our Christmas late at night,
And he is still learning to read,
And I still give him lots of love and kisses.
I just haven't felt the need to share any of it. Any of us.
Other stories about Collin can be found in the collection "Son", which you can find if you look in the notes down below.
 Jan 2014 Gabriel
AJ
Yay. 2014.
 Jan 2014 Gabriel
AJ
I'm so angry.
Not at people
But at situations.
If I was angry at the people
That would be quite selfish of me.
I just don't like uncertainty,
Or changes of plans.
I get very sick
And very anxious.
And now I am alone on New Years Eve.
That hasn't happened ever.
And I'm feeling quite pathetic.
 Dec 2013 Gabriel
Nat Lipstadt
the banner photograph that the poem references is off now, but...

The poem is about a photo I took, outside looking in, where the window and an interior mirror, both reflected me, outside, outwards, but caught the interior of the house within, and the interior of our lives, which was my intent, but the poem came later....

a self portrait,
a reflection
in a window, in a mirror.
a man stick figure
within and without.

me hidden, armed,
iPad spyglass
one upon the other,
unaware of observation,
introspection / extrospection.

man, external,
grilling striped bass,
woman, internal,
kitchen caught slicing heirlooms,
a dressing awaits,
peach salsa,
the seagulls inform me.

Outdoors, indoors.
bay,
in the background.
living room, kitchen,
in the foreground
couching, crouching, cooking,
a closeup and landscape,
of two lives.

so the photo treatment,
introspection / extrospection,
upon reflection,
a poem ouside-insight.


a moment to reflect upon a reflection of a moment.

this  how I see things,
and why not you too?

Double vision.
outside, looking in, inside, looking outward.
then,
at the point of intersection,
a memory recorded,
always recording,
paths, moments,
worthy of note.

such a note, here,
record of a photograph.
preserving my preservation.
tho photo blurry,
what you see,
is what I see.
lives of symmetry

summer symmetry is my life.
life is my summer symmetry.

exactly.



August 2012
digging up seasonal inappropriate poems to warm me up.
 Dec 2013 Gabriel
Cheri Lynn
I have new eyes I've opened wide,
the better for me to see,
this brand new world
brought in by the tide
pushed and pulled by the strength of the sea.

Now I ponder the timing,
the why and the rhyming,
not sure when or how I deserve it.
But I seem a bit quicker,
just a candle flame flicker,
quite more careful that I should not burn it.

How exciting to know that adventure is starting
and this time I'll be well prepared!
Tie my coat,
Zip my shoes,
Put my "brave" ****** on
and brush every one of my hairs.

See! It's there, I can glimpse it
just o're that horizon
I see that a new life is starting!
Hurry up, let's not miss it
that Neverland calling
I'm all yours now - no time left for stalling.
 Dec 2013 Gabriel
Cheri Lynn
Would that I could breathe my heart onto these pages for you.
That my lips would part their blushed pink line and whisper words into the air,
a rush that dried as ink on white.

I could tell my story in all it's honest imperfection,
to lighten me,
free me,
give me hope.

Oh, that I could close my eyes and rest,
only for a moment.
And while dark feathers dared to touch my cheeks,
I could open my eyes again - for the first time - and be renewed.

And yet, here I find...it is in my grasp.
My voice seeks out a new song to sing.
My eyes seek to find the light within myself,
and within you.

All hearts bear scars and somehow keep beating,
it's within us to give all we have
until we are spent,
our faces pressed to the ground,
then we stand again and spark the fire anew.

Would that I could be the one to light that spark in you.

That my fingers could brush yours and know in that touch -no fear-
Certain that neither will seek to bruise the other, but to uplift them.
Lighten them.
Free them.
Give them hope.

Would that I could bleed my heart onto these pages for you.
That my lips would part their blushed pink line and whisper words into the air.
A request-
that found it's way to someone who needed me too.
I could tell our story in all it's improbable charm,
laughter
love
and hope.
 Dec 2013 Gabriel
Cheri Lynn
I wish I had known you when you were alive,
when your heart was still beating and your skin was flush.
I wish I had known your will to survive when your thoughts weren't in such a rush.

I wish I had met you back when we were young,
before all these trials of life...
I wish we had cried all our tears to the ground and evicted the whole of our strife.

Never, no never, did I ever think
that I'd bury a friend like you.
But clever, so clever, those poisonous barbs that split both our hearts in two.

I loved you so deeply, though you were so cold
I was fooled by the warmth of a lie.
Naked and blinded I gave you the knife
and lifted my eyes to the sky.

Now I've stumbled through darkness and stretched for a hand, wishing sometimes I could die.
While loneliness dances across my heart, suppressing my urge to cry.

I wish I had known you when you were alive,
when your heart was still beating and your skin was flush.
I wish I had known that I'd lose such a friend in a sparring that I couldn't crush.

I wish I had met you back when we were young,
before all these trials of life...
I wish we had cried all our tears to the ground and evicted the whole of our strife.

Never. No never.
Did I ever think that I'd bury a friend like you.....

But clever, so clever, those poisonous barbs that split both our hearts in two.
 Dec 2013 Gabriel
Cheri Lynn
I've been lying in this twist of sheets
with feet hanging off the edge of the world.
I rub my blurry eyes.
My fingers catching in my tangled hair.
"Sit up." I tell myself.
Feel that familiar loss.
A puff of breath escapes.
Light spills in through my window, pouring onto the floor.
It beckons me to rise, but how can I?
The last vestiges of you will evaporate.

Day starts.

My head hits the pillow again,
where I imagined you to be.
These reveries fill my mind with flashes of skin, and scent.
You on me.

I roll off the edge of the world now, wondering,
how does one pull reality out of these cloudy, pensive corners?
I need to know,
because you're waiting for me there...so far away.

It's you I need. Just you.

Tell me what I have to do to make this real.

All the colors are ****** to gray.
Time forces me to be still.
The damnable mirror reflects my face -  looking back at only me.
Without you.

I rub the chill from my limbs.
I go about the trivial parts, only half aware.
I'm always living somewhere else inside my head.
A morning ghost.
 Dec 2013 Gabriel
Cheri Lynn
What happens when life stops?

Life stops. It happens.

I think of breathing out...

A long, deep, release - exhale.

Rest.



I think of being free, weightless.
Worlds open up at our feet, familiar yet new to our eyes,
as we dare to pull our gaze away from what we know, and we allow ourselves to focus
on something bigger.



The sharp, direct, avenues of the life we just lived:
L-shaped and dotted with choices.
The languid, lazy O of our many years stretched out from beginning to end, coming together at the same point.
All people, places, events forming a V to the center of it all, the apex. God.
Our spirit divides itself in an E among the lifetimes, learning and learning again...going in all directions at least once.
Until we know...Love.
What it is. Really.
Only then do we know peace.
When Life...
Stops.



We begin.



(This is dedicated to every person I have ever loved and lost, or will lose to death on this earth. I have not lost you, not really...and neither has any one else. We're just in the queue waiting to begin our real lives back at home with you. I love you. Keep the light on for me.)
Next page