jardin d'amour perdu

There is a question that lingers in my mind
Because a month ago you were mine
A text that said
Good morning love
that I saw as I lay in bed
I thought about our first Valentine’s Day,
Only weeks away

And it made me smile
So I got up, looked in the mirror, told myself I’m fine
So when I got there, I recognized in your eye
How you wouldn’t look in mine
You introduced me to another friend, a cordial greeting and a smile
A tell in the way you leaned; tells me to leave,
Followed by a wave
And a walk away

The end of the week comes
But no Good morning love’s
And so I send
I’m scared you’re upset
Are you ok?
I hope you’re alright
My chest is sunken in, I feel you spreading further away
A future we planted in our heads,
A house in a French suburb
Our lives intertwined, you and I

And like a computer, you say
Thanks for checking in.
And I read
I’m sorry.
I haven’t loved you since the summer.
And that’s all you said.

You had said you were mine...
And that’s when I realized
the house was in my head,
The city of braided love that emerged from your mouth
that roosted in my heart
Was counterfeit

A crown of Ivy turned to brambles
And then I knew what it felt like
To be a naive gardener

To give all your water to a vine,
It wraps around your heart,
Through your waterless haze,
you see it,
Fruit in your mind,
an illusion of reimbursement
You give everything
But no fruit is there

four months it drinks from you,
when you believe
I love you
Again and again,
you let her seize you

I let her use me.

When you realize,
It’s too late.
You’re waking up in an empty field, caked in mud,
And she is gone

She was never mine,
but I was hers.


Andrew W
2-13-21

Hear the pitter-patter of rain against my window
A soothing beat of drops on a pane
The distant chitter-chatter of the television next door
A whisper through the wall
Mumbling a soft murmur of bliss
An utterance of a memory long gone
A day spent lying in the damp sun on a Sunday afternoon
An eye drifting to unconsciousness; the bliss of warm sleep
A disregard for time, an innocence that has been framed
The calm wave of bliss is no more
Instead, a future caught in the wake of pain.
Pain that grasps you by the ankles,
Pain that starts with a kiss.
A feeling that is seeped into your core like blood on white threads
One that you could dismiss,
Perhaps a perverted illusion that you can not understand
A touch moving down; one you wonder if you feel
A confusion of a frantic mind that has you bound in chains
And you say to yourself, illusion is not real
A feeling, a memory, and illusion,
I can not tell if it is an illusion at all

Andrew W.
12-23-20

A token of humanity wrapped in innocence
An idea of morality that exists in only openness
A broken idea of warped unknowingness

A faith of unapparent that lurks below
A naivety broken in harshness
An unspoken vigilance
A film protecting light from dark

A cellophane heart

I see you appear
As unconsciously as the tide
You conjure in my head
Like the poltergeist of my psyche
Your voice rattles the wall of the castle my mind calls home
Books fly off of shelves of knowledge into the array of ambiguity
A certain fear of uncertainty builds into a tower of the unknown
The novels telling histories of us
A history of war and **** that exists in grisly repetition

A fear I can place
One that belongs in the deeps of the ocean
Next to a jetty lies the remains of my innocence
The despair of recurrence in a daily scene
Only recognizable by whom it passes through

An image of the possibility of the future that man holds
The woman you pass on her way to work
The boy riding his bike around the culdesac
The little girl you see holding her mother’s hand

the recurring possibility of the purge of innocence
It lies beneath the skin of each body
Creeping in the crevice in the sidewalk
Looking up the skirt of humanity
Waiting for the opportunity to strike
A slithering creature lying in wake
A creature that is man

And I am ashamed to be seen as one of them

Andrew W.
10-20-20

I can hear a screaming silence
Hear it scrawling down my name
On their chalkboard of compliance
The ringing in my ears is them cheering for my pain
Tiny echos filling up my brain
I can’t climb the ladder,
Their tiny claws digging in my skull;
A vulture cleaning off remains.
I am alive but weak.
And though my head is full
Of thoughts, I cant compile
I hear the silence shreek

Andrew W.
10-17-20

I wonder if the sky is blue on mars
Or does it only reflect the stars?

Do you think there is another way?
One that is not
work, then play
work, then play
and work, then play?

If they’d found it do you think they’d tell us?
Or maybe we would be too jealous?
Maybe they’d make us pay

If the stars are the only truthful; thing
We can never know the plight that the future will bring.

Through the moon’s light
And the suns sorrow,

All we are promised is the uncertainty of tomorrow

Andrew W.
10-17-20

She pushed you away
But still, you persisted; you’d stay

How ‘bout one last game?

What she didn’t know though,
Your game had already begun
Your grip on her soul
was strong.
Like your hand on her thigh,
you wouldn’t let go.

Don’t cry
You’d said
as her buttons came undone.
One
by
One
By
One.

She thought that was the last time.

It was just the one time.

But soon,
You became the rhythm to her rhyme,
the dollar to her dime.
Her dependence was your leverage,
so you’d insist that she was average.

He’s the best I can do.

Maintaining she’d be shunned.
But only if she told.
You knew she’d never be that bold
She wonders if she’ll ever push through.

And she was different from the rest.
You’d say,
We’ll never be like we used to,
It’s all because of you.

And then you were gone.

I can’t get through.

But no one could save her from you.
she was just his game.

I was only yours.

And now she lies in your absence,
Drunken hours passing time

He was never mine

Her altered reality
never again the same.

Her restricted autonomy
never yours to take.

To you, she seemed
inconsequential as a pawn.

She’s left trying to drown it out.
She can’t sleep,
confined by the memories of you.
She’s nearly worn through.
The strings of her heart unraveling,
Her rosen blood dripping into a pile
on your grey bathroom tile.
She’s coming undone
choking on the thoughts of you.
Frozen in your lingering presence.

can’t be here any longer

can’t lie here forever

But that's all she can do.

Andrew W.
3-3-20

Your stomach drops out.
every hair on your body stands on end
your chest is tight,
so you go numb
you can still feel your heart drumming in your ears
A battle cry of life.
Your lungs filled with lead
So nauseated, you can’t fight.
And you see the spots of your vision dancing around you;
a sickly ballet
Then you can feel his hand
Pressure under your chin,
Forced to look at the sky
Looking at the dawn of night
I should have never let you in.
feel his fingers wrapped around your thigh
His nails digging in deeper with every breath he takes
The splitting injury that you can’t describe
An axe through your gut.
The unbearable torment that spreads throughout.
The collapse of fear
beating through your heart.
Permeating every sense with a sharp pang.
And with a rough sigh,
he is done.

Andrew W.
2-23-20