I. Drawing spell

I fill my jar with
sugar and honey
sweet and sticky
not to trap, rather
a lure to draw

I grind my herbs
add my crystals
my charms, pink glitter
and all my hopes

I write those wishes
on a bay leaf
draw my sigil
and charge with intent
I place them in my jar
of all things sweet

sealed with red wax
so our love can come
and last

II. Love prayer

On my altar
Aphrodite sits
surrounded by offerings
along with
a bowl of water
clear and clean
that lays in wait

I add salt and rosemary
hold my bay leaf
and set it alight
asking Pythian Apollo
and Zeus Melikhios
to cleanse and bless
I drop the burning leaf
into the water
and wash my hands and face

Now purified and cleansed
I kneel
burn my incense
and sit
palms up to Olympus
I close my eyes
and send my prayers
to Aphrodite

III. Love, the waiting

Intentions sent
to the goddess

In her hands,

I lie in wait
love dangles

She gives
and she takes

So we may love,

or we may lose
but in all love

We will learn.

I tried love again
I put my best smile on
I pushed you from my thoughts
I let you go,
As if it was my choice

I turned off my anxiety
Pretended I'd be fine
Put a blind fold around my heart
Like the eight of swords
I lied to myself,
Like it were the right thing to do

I put on my favorite skirt
My favorite necklace and shirt
Did my makeup how I liked it
I dressed up my doubts
Looked in the mirror
And I felt pretty,
But I didn't feel me

I couldn't breathe
My heart took off it's blindfold
And begged for a second thought
When I had none to spare
I'd already decided
To leave my love for you
In the past where it belongs,
As if it was my choice

I cut off the cord that went
From me to you
That lifeline I held onto
Like a security blanket
I severed it,
Like it were the right thing to do

I went on that date despite myself
Smiled politely, talked sweetly
We shared stories
He was nice and he was kind
He called me pretty,
But I didn't feel me

I said before that I wanted
To fall in love again just to prove I can
Instead I learned just how hard it is
To sever my ties to you,
As if it was my choice

A siren call beckoned me
Through waves of endless murky blues
And over crashes of distant storms
Sweet and deadly like belladonna in ambrosia

Milk and honey dripped from her lips
As she cried out to me for a reply
Soft like silk carved into marble stone,
Strong like magic from the aisle of Aeaea

I was tempted, nearly ensnared
By that beauty somewhere near
If I followed that voice out to sea
I knew she would be the last thing I'd see

How could I do that to my Penelope?

So the siren sang her enrapturing tune
And I tied myself to the body of the mast
I would not be lured to my doom
Elysium will have to wait, I'm coming home

We were a photograph once
Not torn, not blurred or smudged
We were altogether pictures
Put into broken frames

We were creatures crouching
In dark corners
Trying to remember
How it felt to be whole;
Human, connected

We are the fragmented remnants
Of stolen things, of broken things
But I still like taking our picture out
From time to time
Just to remember that
It was real

We were there at the start

I can feel the blood
Running through my veins
The soul that sits
Somewhere deep within me
I can think clear
I can breathe easy
I can calm myself again

The anxious feelings
Like a shaken beehive
Buzzing and stinging
Beneath my flesh and bone
Have stilled and silenced,
Relief and respite return

My eyes are searching
For nothing in particular
And yet everything they catch
Feels like a piece
Of some long lost sanctuary
I didn't know I needed

It's a liminal space
Where the only proof there is
That time is passing
Is the sun rising and setting
The colors changing in the clouds

A liminal space whose soundtrack
Is the sounds of the cicadas
Squirrels jumping through the trees
Distant fireworks from a nearby attraction
And the busy quiet that always follows
The liveliness of the wilderness

A lull washes over everything in this place
With a hand on the cool metal of the rail
And the paint chipping off under your fingers
An absence of anything profound
Simply just one more balcony
Amidst a million others just the same

Where do I begin
To clean my heart of you?
Should I scrub each vessel
Douse my veins in bleach
To finally be rid of it all?

Every time I think I've moved on
You say just enough words
To pull me right back in
I want to know
Can I get clean again
Or will I forever be addicted
To a love that no longer exists?

I walk through this world blindfolded
Echolocating my way with just your heartbeat
Each pulse guiding me through blurry lines
Making the world around me clear as crystal
I trust alone in the visibility each beat gives me

And though your heartbeat fades so soft
I follow the breadcrumbs you leave me
Ultrasound and hardly there at all, perhaps a dream
I'll still find you in this endless pitch black sky

I'm like a vampire, or perhaps more like a fruit bat
What I crave is something sweeter than blood
Only you would do, my favorite chalice
My thirst consumes me, such hunger becomes me
With no true beginning and no true end

I glide across the starlight, seeking you out
With my echoes in the dark
The sound of your heart, brighter than any flame
Lighting my way, and like a moth I follow
On gilded wings to you I soar

But all fires burn out
No matter how eternal their light seems
And all moths return to dust
No matter how immortal their dreams

I'll trust only
In my echoes in the dark

Poem by: Layla Smith (Pyrrhathepoet)

i loved you with all my wildfire heart
but our forest has burned to the ground
there's nothing left in the dust
nothing left in the ashes—
but look if you must

I don't remember what it felt like to be in love
I don't remember what it felt like to be loved either
I used to stay up all night dreaming about us
About this perfectly imperfect life we could've had
I used to cry myself to sleep wishing you loved me

I imagined waking up next to you in the mornings
How I would leave poetry on your pillow
Telling you I loved you at every chance I'd get
I dreamt of loving you as deeply as I could

And now I dream of a world without you
Digging the depths of my heart for reasons
To love yourself, anything to make you stay

I dream of losing you how I never thought I would
While parts of me still burn for you so bright

Death knells are chasing away my wedding bells

Strawberries taste of nostalgia
they are memories on my tongue
the ripe feeling of summertime
and laughter under the sun

I'm unfolding banana peels from my eyes
the way a butterfly emerges it's chrysalis
maybe if I come from a cocoon of yellow
i'll be reborn a shade of optimism

Blueberries are rainy days
with their bittersweet comfort
in tiny drops
that never seem to last long enough

All my coins sink to the bottom of wishing wells
Ladybugs fly away with my hopes
And dandelions disappear with my dreams

Every birthday my prayers blow out with the flames
Shooting stars pass with unfulfilled promises
And wishbones never break for me

Maybe if I catch the falling leaves in autumn
If I tie my ritual ribbons around every trees branches
Or manifest with every ring I wear

I could one day save you from your despair

But for now,
I will continue wishing on everything I see
Seeking stars and elusive dreams

This isn't how I thought our story would end
I always thought you'd find your way back to me
Back to us,
Back to yourself again

But I suppose it was my mistake
I thought we we were written by poets
But we were written by the Brothers Grimm

We were never a love story, we were a tragedy

Sometimes you become
The things you love the most
When you lose them

I used to be the butterfly
Safe in my chrysalis
Metamorphosing

You were my moth
Eating away at my stomach
Like I was made of keraitn

You were like nothing
That I'd ever seen
That I'd ever dreamed

You were my moth among butterflies

You saw things in me
That I couldn't see for myself
That no one else tried to find

You consumed my mind
Grew fields of promises
Roots too deep to ever unearth

And I wish I could say
You became the butterfly
Transforming, healing

But I fear you never will
Maybe that is why
I became the moth

To eat whatever it is that's rotting you away

No matter how much of my soul
I flood into my words
I will remain unseen
Because when stars aren't in the sky
They fall into corners
Where they no longer shine

True muses never lose their luster
They just change the way they shine
You may not be sunlight on a crystal anymore
Nor the colors that fall through the cracks of a cloud
But you will always have little pieces
Of what we used to be
In those smokey quartz eyes
No matter how distorted our story becomes
To me, you will always glow
Like you have the sun in your veins

I thought I would always write
Lovely words for you our whole life
That I would always be the moth
Drawn to your steady flame
But all fires burn out
No matter how eternal their light seems
And all moths return to dust
No matter how immortal their dreams

He thinks that his withdrawal
Will soften the blow
That his absence
Will numb me like anesthetics
But he doesn't realize
That even if
He's killing me slowly
I'm still bleeding all the same
That even if
I'm suffocated blind
I'm still going to gasp for air

The people around you
Are failing you
And I feel like I'm failing too
Your mind was cut deeply
Just as your heart was
And instead of being stitched
Mended and medicated
The wounds were left
To scar and widen

Flashbacks haunt you
With no reprieve
The memories keep you awake
Keep you hostage
And your heart
Can only seem
To further break
So you take
Whatever vice you can
To make the pain
Pause and wait

Every time you chase
Your momentary escape
It will get shorter
Your cure
Will become
Your poison
The crutch you have
Is faulty and made of sand
It is time instead
To reach out
To something solid
To take a hand

When I saw your eyes
In the photos I was sent
They were empty
They were hopeless
Maybe it was the alcohol
Maybe it was pain killers
But they were not hiding
The torment

They say eyes
Are a window
To our souls
And in your eyes I can tell
Your soul is fractured
Like a glass
That has spiderwebbed
The more you chip at it
The closer you get
To shattering what remains

I suppose no one has told you
You are allowed to be happy

It is time to forgive
Yourself, the incident, the memories
Forgiving isn't forgetting
You are allowed forgiveness
It is time to stop forbidding yourself
From moving on
From getting help
It is time to stop

You are too young to be chasing halos

I wonder what it would be like
To be loved by a poet
To fill books with words about each other
Like Lang Leav and Michael Faudet
To exchange letters in passing
To wake up to poetry on my nightstand
To give my writing to someone
Who understands how profound the gesture
And what it truly means
To be able to read the transcript of my heartbeat

Poets are addicts
Haikus are our gateway drugs
Words are our vices

Without them, we shake
Writer's block, our withdrawal
Our pens— the needle

reading my poetry
is reading the story
of my life
in each chapter you see
the love; the loss
the growth; the change
and one day
when I am gone
my poetry will
become me

I fear I've taken him for granted
Assuming I'd always have him there
Because never in my wildest dreams
Did I ever imagine someday I wouldn't

I miss him
when he isn't gone
it makes me feel
as if my heart
is making peace
with losing him

How can I
convince him to stay
when I write
like he is already
gone?

Ghosts like to come to me in dreams
When my great grandmother passed
She shared her memories; her youth
When my great aunt passed
She came to say goodbye; bid farewell
I'm afraid of dreaming now

I fear seeing you as a shade
When you have always
Been my light

I used to think that love
would always be
enough

But my love
however endless
can not save you

Because I've loved you more
than you love yourself
and my heart that beat
for you
could not beat
for yours

I think I want to fall in love again
Before I turn into Orpheus
Or Edgar Allen Poe
Only writing of love I've lost
Love I miss

Maybe I want to fall in love again
Just to prove I can

I hadn't heard from you in over a week
Knowing the fragile state of your mind
It felt like an eternity, a new reality forming
I was afraid that if I called out to you
On the edge of the abyss you'd fallen into
My words would just reverberate with no response

How do I save you
When you don't want to be saved?

He used to feel like the embodiment
of all my past lives
and all the ones yet lived

Now he has become more
like a living ghost
one my magic
can't seem to touch

He feels more like a memory
than a person
just an echo
of the boy I loved

Orpheus loved Eurydice
More than he feared death
He strolled into the underworld
With his lyre's heartbroken tune
He could move the hearts of the gods
Up on Olympus, and down under the moon

For her, he would do anything
For her he could do anything
He moved the unmovable
Charmed the uncharmable

Eurydice was just out of reach
A final step into light
And she would be home
Her skin nearly kissed the sunlight

I always wondered
Why Orpheus looked back
Why take the risk, why not trust?
After going into Hades and back,
Why lose her to doubt?

But now I know why he did it
It wasn't a lack of faith, but fear
He was afraid
She would rather stay
Forever a shade

What if when he looked back
She didn't reach for his hand?
What if she was looking back
At the Elysian Fields
Longing to be back in paradise?

Orpheus never sang again of love
His lyre forgot the sounds of laughter
The tunes of joy, romance and smiles
The only melody his lyre could play
Was the manifestation of tears
That Orpheus could no longer shed

They say to hold on to love
Because it happens so fast
That good things aren't meant
To last, they come and pass

But when you truly love
It's not a feeling that is fleeting
It isn't so easily shakable
Forgettable or replaceable

It makes a home in your heart
Carves it's den out of your
Flesh, blood and bones
Welding each vessel into itself

It isn't something you can remove
It's not a band-aid you can just rip off
Once it's there, it never truly leaves
It transforms

When it's overstayed it's welcome
Love hurts deeply
As it tries to tear it's way out
From muscle and marrow

Leaving you hollow, with caverns
That can never be filled

I'd rather be blind
Than lose your smile
My iris for your grin
I'd feel it in my soul
Somehow, I'd know

I feel like a web of broken promises
like a sandcastle about to crumble
into a pile of nothing but remnants
of something once so beautiful, now
to be reclaimed by the pitiless waves

I don't think we'll ever get to keep
those promises we made at 16
you feel so far out of my reach
like a phantom limb, I still feel you
so close, like you're still an integral
part of what makes me feel whole

But our time is running out, I feel it
the futures and dreams we cherished
are nothing but whispers on the wind
of a time when we could be optimists
of the days before you'd forgotten

How to be a dreamer

If you were a candle
You'd be one with a wick
That was cut just a little too short
And I'll scrape the wax around
Just to keep you lit
But I always worry
That if I turn away at the wrong time
Your light will flicker out
And I won't be there to save it

Like Schrödinger's Cat
Love is too large
To quantify in contradictions
Like the cat in the box
In it's superposed zombie state
I too can't determine
If our love is alive or dead
And like the cat,
In reality it cannot be both
But I think I'll leave it
Forever in this zombie state
Of unknown perpetual mystery

For I cannot uncover
What I've already buried

You used to feel like sand in an hourglass
Forever on repeat of loving you and losing you
Now the sand is slipping through my fingers
And I don't dread the grains I cannot catch
The glass that shattered is cutting into my hands
But the sand still trickles down as our time runs out

When we were sixteen we made a promise
That when we turned twenty one
We would meet again
For a glass of orange juice
Because he doesn't drink
I never told him
That I'm allergic to citrus
But what is a drop of poison
In a chalice of love?

Last month he turned twenty one
And came close to breaking our promise
He sent me a letter
That nearly broke me
I couldn't read it
I dialed his number
And begged for an answer
Just like always, he did

But in those moments the world froze
The dial tone felt like a death knell
It was void, it was empty
As if it were already a world without him
As if it was a warning of what might be

And now I'm thirsty
So very thirsty
For that glass of orange juice

It's crazy how much we change
In days, weeks, months
And years building on years
I look back on who I was
The ways I used to feel
Preserved in all my poetry
And it's just not me anymore

It isn't a bad thing—
It's growth
I used to feel as if I couldn't speak
As if I were mute, invisible and unseen
Now my words fill silence
My presence isn't a black hole
And it makes me feel better when I'm sad
When I'm losing hope I look back
At who I used to be when it was bad
And how I've changed

It gives me hope within my chrysalis
That I can still metamorphosize

I cannot lose what fills
   my heart more than blood
   my lungs more than air
   myself more than me

Like a migraine unwinding
you feel a pain
deep down in your soul
that seems binding
as pieces of you unravel
like a shrouded veil
falling to reveal the parts
that you are still finding

It isn't easy searching
for things that you didn't
even know you'd lost
Like a hidden force driving
with a faulty gps
and a wheel that you
can't seem to control
brining you to what is hiding

Do you slam on your breaks—
                  or do you keep looking?

You do not know
what is yet to come,
as nothing yet
is set in stone.

I wish that I could
take all your worries,
turn them into gold
and build you a throne.

But I cannot build
with what I cannot hold,
and I cannot take away
what I cannot grasp.

So together we'll conquer
each daunting task,
and I'll hold you close
in a gentle clasp.

For the first time in months,
I prayed
Before my statue of Apollo,
I kneeled
With my candle lit
I held my open palms to the sky
I cried
Before Apollo,
I begged
For the first time in months,
I had to believe
There was something beyond me
That could bring you what you need

My heart folds and bleeds
The love I have for you, it exceeds
I said I want to write like Edgar Allen Poe
But I didn’t mean I wanted his same woe

I love you, I always will and always have
But the fear of the memories being all I have
It makes me wonder what steps did I miss?
Was there a ladybug or dandelion where I didn’t wish?

Could I have begged the gods a little harder?
Surely there was more that I could barter
To fill you with more bliss
I’ve taken pages from all the myths

There is no price I would not pay
No sacrifice that would bring more dismay
Than losing the light you shine on my life
There is nothing more to fill me with more strife

I ponder more than I ought to
Of what would happen
If you went where I could not follow
And I wonder who it is I’d never forgive

The you who left
Or the me who let you?

If I ever get that call
It will be the day
I buy a my first
Pack of cigarettes
And I'll smoke them
One by one
Until my lungs
Are black and numb

I wish I could tell you
Something other than
It'll be okay
Because I know right now
It feels as though it never will
So instead,
I'll tell you something
That you'll believe
That it will never be the same
It never has to stay as it is

So find a dandelion for me
And make a wish
Make a promise
To yourself
That it will never be the same
That one day
You will feel okay
Because you believed in someday

A petal for the day we met
In the choir classroom of our middle school
11 years old
You were so much smaller than me
But your presence was so much larger
You filled my whole world the second we met
You filled every aching hole, every dark crevice
You made me laugh, you made me smile
You made me feel seen in a world I was hollow in my skin
We were young
We were children when we met
We were innocent
We talked about silly things
Of futures and dreams
Of impossibilities and fantasies
Of the intangible and odd
In the back of the choir classroom
Our world was small but we made it endless
In the back of the choir classroom
Our story began

A petal for when you called me for the first time
Years had gone bye since you'd left
It was maybe 8th grade perhaps
You invited me to a birthday party
But I still had my social anxiety
And I was too scared to ask to go
I look back and think how stupid
I should have taken every last opportunity to feel you
To experience you
That phone call came in a time when I was young and blind
When I didn't appreciate the importance
When I didn't know how to be an ally

A petal for when you called again the next week
For when you didn't give up
For when we talked for hours about useless things
That felt like everything
For the night you called and we shared scary stories and I couldn't sleep
For the times we talked and cried together
Laughed and smiled together

A petal for all the phone calls out of nowhere
That saved my life
In high school you started to call again
In a time when I went whole days without a word
To anyone, from anyone
A time when I was so invisible
That I felt that if I faded away, the world wouldn't blink
A phone call from you that saved my life
That made me feel seen
That made me feel needed
That made me remember how to live
I don't remember what you said
I don't remember what we talked about
All I remember was feeling whole again

A petal for those days we reconnected
When we talked every single day in high school
For all our stupid inside jokes
For all the little teases and jabs
For all the weight your words had
For the way you saved my life day by day
And the way you never knew

A petal for the day I fell in love with you
We were talking on the phone one day
I think it was over discord
It wasn't anything important at all
And there were silences and pauses
But every last moment felt so right
I realized against my will
That I loved you
More than I thought I was allowed to
I realized I'd fallen for every subtle thing there was to you
I'd fallen for those phone calls out of nowhere
For your laughs and the smiles in your voice
Your silly impressions and your humor
To the way you listened to me
The way you didn't judge or look down on me
For the way you felt, the way you made me feel
I'd fallen for so many little things
And I've never been able to fall out

A petal for the day I let myself be in love with you
When I realized I couldn't deny the way I felt
When I realized I didn't have to
I remember I was so mad at myself
I felt like I was betraying our friendship, betraying you
Feeling these feelings I wasn't meant to
So I didn't say a word
But I let myself love you
I felt my heart race when I thought of you
I'd check my phone every ten minutes for a notification
Praying that every time the screen lit up
That it would be you

A petal for the day you said you loved me
I remember reading the message
I froze, I malfunctioned, my heart blew up
I left you on read for an hour and i'll always feel bad
Thinking about the nerves you must have had
But when I read those words
I didn't believe them
I couldn't
How could it be real, how could someone like you
Love a person like me?
Did it mean your heart raced like mine
That your face lit up when you read my messages
That you waited for another moment?
Or was it just a joke?
Something cruel the universe wanted to play
Something to break me in a way I've never broken?
When you said that you loved me
I felt solar systems crash down
Stars exploded and I combusted too
Because how could there be a day
Where you said I love you?

A petal for that day
Because when I finally did respond
I felt so happy I could die
When I'd said the words
That I'd so longed to say
When you said you'd felt the same way

A petal for our young love
A petal for all 54 days
That never felt like they were enough
I have so many regrets when I look back
Why did I never call you love?
Why did I never say I loved you every day?
Why didn't I call you sweet nothings?
I hate the way I was so nervous
That I kept keeping it platonic
But I had never loved anyone
The way that I had loved you
I didn't know how to be someone's girlfriend
And I hate the way I thought you needed space
And I tried to give it to you
When what you wanted was someone to talk to
I read the signs wrong, I was a fool
I thought you needed less when you needed more
I didn't know how to show you my love
I didn't know that I could

And so, a petal for the day we broke up
I felt it coming before it did
I knew something was wrong
And I didn't know how to make it right
Even though I know it wasn't because we didn't love each other
I still blame myself for not being what you needed
How could I be a good girlfriend when I wasn't even a good friend?
I remember that day
Because I didn't know that your heart could break
That heartbreak was real
That it felt as painful as it had
That it was a pain that never really went away
My heart wasn't breaking because of you though
It broke for you
It broke for all the ways I felt I failed you
For all the ways I should have loved you

A petal for the day after
For when we were still friends
For when we didn't just end
A petal for how grateful I was
That I could keep you
Even if it was just as friends

A petal for the identity crisis I had
After we broke up
After high school
When I cut my hair and dyed it
When I learned how to do make up
Because maybe I wasn't pretty enough?
When I wanted to be anyone else
Than the me who let you down
For when I tried to like girls instead
Because no other boy could ever be you
For when I painted my nails and wore perfume
Hoping that it would distract me from missing you

A petal for the promises we made
Don't you remember the orange juice pact?
Where we'd have that common goal to live for
To reach for
That when we turned 21 we would meet again
That we'd go to a bar and have a drink
When you said you didn't drink
And I said it didn't have to be alcohol
So we settled on orange juice
Even though you didn't know
That I was allergic
But I'd take a little stomach pain
Just to sit and have a glass of orange juice with you
Any day

A petal for all the calls and messages we've had
For every deep talk
For every time we fell apart
And held one another together like a desperate glue
For all the times I was afraid I couldn't
For all the times you said I could
For all the times I thought I wasn't enough
And for all the times you made me think I was
For all the poems I wrote about you
For all the times I got drunk and thought of you
For the nights I cried wishing things were different for you

A petal for all the things I want to do with you
I want to take you to a concert
To stand in a crowd with you
To a band we maybe don't even know
To feel the rush of the music, the thrill of the night
I want to go on a picnic
Even though you think it'd be miserable
I want to show you how wrong you can be
I want to go to an arcade with you
Win you prizes and kick your *** at shuffleboard
I want to play mario kart with you
So you can see how much of a foul mouth I can have
So you can see the worst of me and love it anyway
I want to play guitar for you
Because I know that even if I play it bad
You'll still smile for me anyway
So I can sing you the songs I wrote
I want to go to conventions and amusement parks with you
So you can hold my hand on rollercoasters while I cry
And maybe laugh a little too
We could eat funnel cake and talk reminisce
We could talk about all the adrenaline
I'd love to go to carnivals too
Into the mirror fun houses
So we could watch each other run into the mirrors
And laugh it off
I could win you prizes
And we could feel the night breeze in our hair
You'd look so lovely under the stars
We could go to painting classes
I could teach you guitar
There are so many things I want to do with you
That I could never list them all

A petal for all the possibilities that we still have

And a petal for my fears
Of losing you
Of all these words
All these memories and dreams
Becoming petals on a grave
A petal for how much I love you
A petal for how I'd never heal
A petal for how much I think you shine
And for all the words I wish I had to make you stay
A petal for everything I would give up
Everything I would sacrifice to make you feel okay
A petal for all the things we haven't done

A petal for our story with no end in sight

I've always been afraid
Of living in a world
Without you there
Because I'm not that brave

I think about sitting at your grave
Leaving flowers
Picking the petals as I tell you about my day

It would never be enough

I think about it way too much
And now reality threatens me
With my nightmare becoming my world

You think one day the hole will heal
That one day I'd be okay
That time would fill your absence

But I couldn't wait for it to fill
I'd fill myself instead with substance
I'd lose myself to losing you

I couldn't follow you in spirit or in soul
But my body and my heart would die and decompose with you

As your body rots so too would I
As your flesh decays and turns to goo
So would mine

As the light leaves your eyes, so too would mine.

You've saved my life in a million ways beyond words
Beyond language- beyond feeling
You've given me lessons invaluable, unteachable
You've taught me what love is
What it means to love and how to accept it

And now, you ask the impossible of me
You ask me to imagine a world without you
Without that comfortable silence
Of just knowing somewhere in the world
You are under the same sky as me

You ask me to picture a world that doesn't exist to me
A world that cannot exist for me
A world where we are forever apart six feet
A world where you will always be out of reach
A world where I am leaving flowers on your grave
And not in your hands

A world where I kiss goodbye all the promises we made
A world where I sit at a tombstone with your name
Where I talk to memories and not to you

A tombstone with your name.

I would never be the same.

I would never be...

I don't even have the words to describe who I'd become
In a world where there is a tombstone with your name

How can I love, live and forgive in a world without you?
A world where my poetry doesn't go unread because of nerves
But because I am reading it to a tombstone with your name?

In a world where I can't reach out and feel you there
A world without you, it's a world without me too
Because the day I bury you
Is the day I bury me.

Once upon a deadline dreary,
In an office bleak and weary,

The hours we spent with work and play
Now seem to pass like a distant day
And as I look upon each friendly face,
I feel the sting of time and place

As I bid farewell to those I hold dear
My heart is heavy with the weight of sorrow
For though you go forward with hope and without fear,
It is steps further away from the times we shared
And I'll miss the friendships that I've come to know

So let us say farewell with heavy hearts,
As each of us moves on to different parts
But know that in our souls, we'll always hold
The memories of our time, both warm and cold

As you pack your things and prepare to depart,
Know that memories will linger on
Your presence, once a comfort to our heart,
Will now be felt in silence, a mournful part

Though distance may separate us, I'll keep in mind,
That true friends are never truly left behind

In a distant meadow lies my mind
To get there, I cannot tell you how—
It is not a place that all can find
But if you're lucky and the path is kind
It will open up so that my thoughts you can unwind
And I can see it now

Fields of dandelions are where I hide
So come in spring to make a vow
For on the wind our wishes ride
Make a wish to say you tried
And only the weeds will know if you lied
Can't you see it now?

It does not matter if you mean well
I sometimes make mistakes in who I allow
Between poison and passion I cannot always tell
So you may come to stay but do not dwell
And of my secret garden do not tell
To those who would turn a paradise into hell
And I can see it now

Wildfires— the flames I cannot tame
Confusion, pain and anger that furrows my brow
Putting pesticides to primroses it's such a shame
My daffodils lament, they cry for who to blame
Does such sorrow, such grief have a name?
Can't you see it now?

When you turn my meadow into a burial mound
Where seedlings will not sprout— they can't remember how
You turn it into a place where no dream is found
Where no wishes or vows can be bound
And where loves whispers dare not sound
And I can't see it now