Michael Humbert: Poems

10/19/15

Michael Humbert Oct 2015

10/19/15

Will you be home for supper?
Will you come back?

#10w

(10w)

Michael Humbert Sep 2014

(10w)

Heartbreak sets you on fire,
So you emerge hardened steel

11/18/15

Michael Humbert Nov 2015

11/18/15

I wanna kiss
the part of you
that still cares

the part that doesn't
give a **** about time

the part that remembers
what it felt like
to burn

#10w

11/21/15

Michael Humbert Nov 2015

11/21/15

I'm tired of music being about you
Every note sings as images run through my head like a projector I can't shut off
I got to thinking, (I've always been thinking),
But I got to thinking and here goes:
The difference between me and a dog is that I know you'll never come back

11/22/16

Michael Humbert Nov 2016

11/22/16

Two strangers grazing hands on a crowded train, neither saying a word nor pulling away, simply acknowledging each other's warmth

1/20/2015

Michael Humbert Jan 2015

1/20/2015

The one who got away
Is the one
Who was never supposed to *stay

12:02am

Michael Humbert Apr 2015

12:02am

Midnight concerns strangle
Like some new fangled torture
Shut up, not one more peep
Just close your eyes and sleep

**** there's a lot on my mind
These memories are most unkind
Time is no friend of mine
To this fate I am consigned

Granted, a mug of coffee at 6pm probably didn't help

12/14/16

Michael Humbert Dec 2016

12/14/16

Arms clasped around the small of your back as you stared up at me in the elevator
My heart was ready to burst*

"You were the best thing that ever happened to me," I said. "And then the worst."

1/23/16

Michael Humbert Jan 2016

1/23/16

Sunsets seemed to try harder when we were both watching

#10w

1/31/16

Michael Humbert Jan 2016

1/31/16

All he knew was that kissing her just felt right

#10w

1/4/17

Michael Humbert Jan 2017

1/4/17

My grief was only ever her fault insofar as it was "her fault" for falling asleep in my arms.

2/23/16

Michael Humbert Feb 2016

2/23/16

It still kills me to see your name in print

#10w

3:24 a.m.

Michael Humbert Apr 2015

3:24 a.m.

Seeing you might **** me,
But knowing I never will
Is almost certainly
Going to be the death of me

3/6/16

Michael Humbert Mar 2016

3/6/16

I would rather be alone than make you unhappy again

#10w

4/26/15

Michael Humbert Apr 2015

4/26/15

the effervescence of her essence
an incandescent iridescence

4/5/2015

Michael Humbert Apr 2015

4/5/2015

She'll teach you the meaning of silence

7:07 pm

Michael Humbert Nov 2015

7:07 pm

I miss you the way
the crops miss the rain

#10w

7/12/15

Michael Humbert Jul 2015

7/12/15

"Don't give up on me," she wrote
As if that decision was ever mine to make

7/21/15

Michael Humbert Jul 2015

7/21/15

She says, "Nothing's wrong"
As if she's trying to believe the lie, too

7/24/15

Michael Humbert Jul 2015

7/24/15

I'd breathe water
If you found me poetic for it

#10w

7/27/15

Michael Humbert Jul 2015

7/27/15

I kissed her while grinning
She left my head spinning

My favorite kind of kiss

#10w

8:03 a.m.

Michael Humbert Nov 2015

8:03 a.m.

The thought of holding your hand nearly drove me to tears this morning
It was not the taste of your lips, nor the way your eyes pierced right through me,
A chain reaction of thoughts led me to the hopeless memory of simply clutching your hand as you drove along

You, you beautiful cancer, still pollute everything

This life has taught me that we are promised nothing,
Least of all that love will listen when you simply ask for it to *stay

8/7/15

Michael Humbert Aug 2015

8/7/15

Simply holding your hand
was always enough
*It still is

#10w

9/6/15

Michael Humbert Sep 2015

9/6/15

Here I am again at the corner of "What the **** am I doing?" and "I miss you."

We didn't turn out to be a fairy tale,
And instead I'm sleeping with a girl I text, "Come over tonight."
I kiss her with open eyes. It's a moist charade.
She keeps my bed warm though.

I wonder if you're happy
I'm still vague on the term
I just try to keep busy

It's getting harder to write you
But these notebooks won't fill themselves
I trust you will wait

Aborted (10w)

Michael Humbert Oct 2014

Aborted (10w)

Everytime I pass a graveyard,
I mourn our aborted future.

Absence

Michael Humbert Dec 2014

Absence

absence (n.): that hole in your chest you ignore every day, the one that doctors just sadly shake their head at

Absolve

Michael Humbert Feb 2015

Absolve

Absolve me of sin
Dissolve me in gin

Adoration

Michael Humbert Jan 2015

Adoration

Creamy thighs wrapped around my mind
Scent inhaled, maddening
Moist adoration

Airport

Michael Humbert Sep 2014

Airport

Think of all the kisses at airports,
Hearts rejoicing,
Tearful goodbyes,

These kisses are flavored,
Some sorrow, some joy,
But each one is savored

A Kiss

Michael Humbert Oct 2014

A Kiss

A kiss dissected,
A gentle worship of your mouth,
That warm place my lips called home

Alabaster

Michael Humbert Jan 2015

Alabaster

Snow falls and coats this ugly world in a coat of white,
Clean, fresh, untouched
Bury it all
Smother this sadness with alabaster beauty
And when spring comes, maybe hope will follow

Alchemy

Michael Humbert Nov 2014

Alchemy

Transmuting anguish,
Poetry is alchemy
For the wounded soul

All I Have Left

Michael Humbert Jul 2016

All I Have Left

Hello, I miss you
Sometimes I tell strangers about you,
Sometimes you're still all I think about
And sometimes I wonder if all I have left is a really good story

The things you left in the past could have changed your life
The things that wouldn't last, still alive, just barely
A tempestuous undeath unto your frail memory
Just trying to make it through another day

Amber

Michael Humbert Feb 2015

Amber

A fly drenched in the sap of a love most hopeless
Struggling, straining to break loose
Every flap of wings sealing its fate
Dooming it to an amber prison
Hardened, crystallized, it loved until its dying breath

Amiss

Michael Humbert Apr 2015

Amiss

What could I write you
That would make up for this time
For the words I threw
And the women I ******

I'm not sorry but that's a lie
I'm sorry every day that you aren't here
Sorry it was easier to give up than try
I'm sorry life happened this way

I've proven that I could give myself to others
Making an attempt at bliss
But it's never been the same
Something's always been amiss

What could I write you
I wonder as I sit, sighing
I don't know
But I'll never stop trying

Analgesic

Michael Humbert Dec 2014

Analgesic

I just want to hear the truth,
I want to hear your voice and see if it cracks when you look at me,
Ages ago, you said we'd meet again when we turned 50, on the same boat we first found each other,
No matter what, you said we'd meet
I wonder if those were just convenient words,
Convenient touches, convenient love
I'm sorry, that's unkind.
(Then again, much of this has been unkind)
Our love was not convenient,
It was difficult and effortless, expensive and priceless, painful and analgesic
It was volatile and tender, it was all I ever wanted

Annabel

Michael Humbert Oct 2014

Annabel

I'm a virile man,
And I’ll charm women,
I’ll woo them with swagger and honeyed words
I’ll make them laugh
And open their hearts and their legs

And it all feels like a charade,
I feel like a war veteran trying to forget an atrocity,
Or maybe I’m just trying to reincarnate you,
Like our humble narrator in “******”

Every date is a search for that flaxen hair,
Those piercing eyes
And that ******* charm!
That ******* it that lights a fire in my soul
And makes me want to hold on and never let go

I haven’t found her,
I haven’t found my ******,
Who would rip poetry from my soul as you do,
Leaving single words of love dripping from the gaping wound

You are my Annabel,
You were my first love,
And you will always have me

Appreciation

Michael Humbert Dec 2014

Appreciation

appreciation (n): a bitterness tasted in retrospect

Arson

Michael Humbert Oct 2014

Arson

Hearts incinerated,
A blistering display of immolation,
As blazing infernos consumed all,
"Arson," they thought,
Brushing through the ashen remains,
Never concluding that
You were the spark
That lit my match
And set this whole world on fire

Ashes

Michael Humbert Dec 2014

Ashes

I'm still choking on the ashes of your disappointment,
And I'm still reenacting scenes from the grave,
And I wish I could take a step into your mind
To fathom what firing synapses are urging you to consider

What do you think about on late nights?
Do you think about airports and silent drives?
Do you think about beautiful lakes and perfect heartache?

I've been digging graves for every single "I love you"
And I'm running out of eulogies

Autopsy

Michael Humbert Oct 2014

Autopsy

At my autopsy,
Unfinished love poems to you
Found stuck in my throat

#haiku

A Word

Michael Humbert Apr 2015

A Word

a word for beauty
for yours I've never enough:
pulchritudinous

#haiku

Azure

Michael Humbert Oct 2015

Azure

Eyes that reduce me to nothing
A gaze that could swallow me whole
A blue intensity, burning
And suddenly my lungs fill with water
As I sink beneath her azure waves

Bad Idea

Michael Humbert Oct 2014

Bad Idea

You once wrote me,
"This might be a really bad idea or a brilliant one."
Isn't it funny how it turned out to be both?

Birds

Michael Humbert Dec 2014

Birds

Ominous black birds
Empty eyes, ****** beaks drip
Prepare for the feast

#haiku

Birthday

Michael Humbert Oct 2014

Birthday

Today's your birthday,
Inexplicably, I still remember,
I can't remember any other girl's
But yours is in my head
Along with inane minutia,
Like the deepest point in the ocean,
Or the world's deadliest snake,
Not that I wish I'd drown or
be bitten than remember,
But this day sits like
An immovable obelisk in my mind,
A memorial to
The best and worst thing
To ever happen to me

Bite

Michael Humbert Aug 2015

Bite

"You can bite," she says
Clutching fistfuls of my hair
I live for her gasps

#haiku

Blades

Michael Humbert Aug 2015

Blades

Whirring blades decapitate hubristic
verdant stalks stretching beyond their station

8/23/14