It was many and many a year ago,
  In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
  By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
  Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
  In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
  I and my ANNABEL LEE;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
  Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
  In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
  My beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
  And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
  In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
  Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
  In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
  Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
  Of those who were older than we—
  Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in heaven above,
  Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
  In her sepulchre there by the sea—
  In her tomb by the side of the sea.

RIP Deah Barakat.  RIP Yusor Abu-Salha.  RIP Razan Abu-Salha.
the three muslim victims  of chapel hill shooting







because **Muslim lives also matters

What's a word without a meaning to live for?

                        That note
                   you left behind
             that got thrown away
   by that friend of the forgotten boy
            while cleaning his room.

                  Is that really how
                    you want to be
                     remembered?

remember when you laid me back and told me you needed to kiss every inch of my body, you needed to feel the skin that begged for you under your lips, no matter what words I string together everything about that night sounds like sinful lust when in all reality your lips kissed every bruise, cut, and bad memory away in the most innocent way possible and when you turned me over and ran your fingers down my spine before placing chapped lips of heaven on my shoulders releasing every pounding rhythmic weighing stress that knotted in my bones I knew at that moment I would spend forever in the miserable regret that being eerie to commitment would leave because no matter how much we loved, screamed and craved each other, the time could never be more wrong and I hope that one day my lips can kiss every broken freckle on your skin again.

Benign, benevolent ballerina bubbly bathing by beautiful blossoming balsams.

A gander I took and I was a statue, still, allured, and enchanted. my lips basted by beauty, before her I was an apparition, lost in forests of adulation.

A vanishing spirit soon to be a vestige of a vestige. I shall wage wars, arm myself and battle my way to her hands that can melt the glaciers residing in my heart.

Peace, make way to me.
I empty me
     Of poetry.*

© 2015 J.S.P.