Shelby Jencyn

Shelby Jencyn Aug 2017

Meeting you was realizing a story.
The kind of story you tell your children;
The story of why you left your home town.
It's a story of multiple endings,
not a single one making sense.
And when I'm alone,
I will walk to the porch you used to meet me on
and I will relive that story.

I'll tell them I left when I realized this town,
the town I adore,
had nothing left to offer me.
That I outgrew the childhood it gave me.
And I'll know the very reason I left.
It was you. Seeing you. Knowing you were near.
I'll never tell them that.
I'll always know why I had to leave.

The lake that crashes like the ocean,
it's only Sunday evenings with you.
Long drives down the same highway
like I used to drive with you.
The same faces that I see in bonfire light,
one will always be missing.
I had to leave my home town,
one face simultaneously missing and appearing.

I will want to come home.
Stop to see my grandpa's grave on Sundays,
lounge on the deck at my grandma's house.
I'll want to be in the garage with my father,
but I tainted everything with your brevity
thinking it would be permanence.
I will miss my home town,
and all I'll tell my kids is that I outgrew it.

I already miss my home town,
I have not left.

#life #time

Shelby Jencyn Jul 2017

The End

All we have is a gauntlet.
Some are having roses thrown
And others are dodging axes,
Arrows that pierce
Daggers that embed themselves
Into our skin we try to keep thick.

Stumble down your gauntlet,
Head held high,
Breathing tight and quick.
In the end, as long as you stand
On your feet and still have breath
You've made it.

#life #end

Shelby Jencyn Jul 2017

Aftermath

My home used to have a heartbeat;
it pulled me tightly to its chest.
My home smelled like smoke,
smoke and vanilla and earth.
I roll over in my bed, reaching.
I'm always reaching for something.
Only a balled up comforter and sheets,
they should've been washed yesterday.
I keep thinking I'll reach and feel home,
there will be warmth on the bed again--
gentle breathing to sing me to sleep.

Sleep became futile,
my arms made of lead.
Pinning me to the cold,
this residence is not my home.
I plead for my arms to rest,
but my fingertips keep stretching;
as if they could stretch into the past
and pull my home from the rubble.
The remnants of a lost foundation;
if my fingertips could mend.
My home was left behind in the wake.

#him #left

Shelby Jencyn Jun 2017

Revival

I was born to be great.
I woke in the arms of hope,
seeing only the eyes of promise;
my mother's undying faith,
my father's immovable justification,
their simple truths bore me to greatness.

My mother's faith, it quivered;
Assaulted by unjust circumstance.
My father's justification, it faltered.
Achilles struck down by his own heel.
I rallied with mediocrity, shamefully.
I fought valiantly to be worse.

The immovable struggles to stay above water,
the faithful begs to be saved, to be helped.
I trip over my own words,
the wrong moments define me.
Disappointment cast my way like a brick,
I was born to be great.

I have seen heroes fall,
Watched villains be slain.
Never have I witnessed the shadows.
The shadows of the once-great,
towering over them--looming with regret,
encompassing the fallen with the question:

What if?

#disappointment

Shelby Jencyn Jun 2017

Untitled

All of my friends are dead.
They're still breathing,
their hearts still beating.
But all of my friends are dead.

The light has gone out,
eyes like stones and hands as cold,
smiles that just don't reach.
All of my friends are dead.

It came gradually in adolescence,
caressing my friends' troubled minds.
Singing them to sleep with silence,
all of my friends are dead.

It promised them relief--nothingness,
in comparison to the weight of everything,
they just had to take the chance.
All of my friends are dead.

Everyday I remember the silence,
the nights it sang me to sleep.
Some of my friends are sleeping forever,
but all of my friends are dead.

I'll be back to this.

#addiction

Shelby Jencyn Jun 2017

Gravity

I don't recall how long I was on the floor.
My knees buckled;
Gravity betrayed me.
Crawling to bed, I slipped into his shirt.
It still smelled like home.
There was no solace.
I laid in bed day after day.
Word had spread through merciless mouths,
My pitiless inner turmoil
Now casual conversation.
Hushed sympathies and cynicism.
Confirmed expectations like bullets,
ripping through my skin.
I had plans for us,
and I swallow those words;
A pill that chokes me.

Part of me is still in that house.
Part of me is still living out my days,
with you.
A life that only exists in fragments,
sharpened edges of memories.
They cut to the bone.
I see you like an apparition.
I am defeated,
Sadness taking a physical form.
My delusion fades into reality,
I see your hand slip away.
In this reality, I am defeated,
but I am reaching still.

No rhyme, no reason.

#him #love #denial

Shelby Jencyn Jun 2017

Fingerprints

I have pure intentions.
Spinning straw into gold,
my fingertips bleed
with pure intentions.

Cold hands, shaking hands,
hurt when they touch.
Smudging charcoal fingerprints;
evidence of failed attempts.

I had bright eyes,
hope in my lungs;
I had a clean slate,
promise of prosperity.

I smear my slate,
a ravaged canvas,
a painter without soul.
Brush strokes of dissonance.

If one were to look
just long enough,
they might see the hope,
the salvation I couldn't reach.

#hope #left #love #lost