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I kept your pictures, hoping that you'd come back on day.
And I'm wishing that all this is not in vain.                                            
Days and days have passed, and I'm waiting to dance one last time.

Oh where have you been
I can't wait for you no longer
My heart in pain remains
I can't wait for you no longer.
Won't you come back and feed my hunger.

I see how now you two dance by.
I hope he's the man I couldn't be,
Dozen of roses died within time.
For all that has happened, you can blame me
Well I wasn't the man that I should've been.
 Jan 2014 A B Perales
Lexi Cairns
Perched in front of a fireplace
One could be thinking of anything,
Distant castles and battles to be fought-
Dragons and demons and lovers lost
But as I curl up on the brick and place myself only inches from the flames
I think about how I wish the fireplace were real
And that it was in a much smaller house
So the warmth could chase away the cold and darkness from the farthest corners of the room.
Suddenly I remember my aunt and her fireplace
Situated in a house even bigger than this
As I watch she sits down on the cold marble hearth and reaches for a pack of cigarettes hidden in plain sight, puts one to her lips, and lights it
Exhaling the smoke into the flume
In my imagination I see myself taking one from her
Lighting it
And I inhale
And I exhale
Finding myself once again alone in front of the fireplace that isn't real,
the house still cold and dark as ever.
You can buy flowers that you make into a tea.
They look like little wrinkled brains,
But unfurl in a glass to reveal spectacular colours.
Some people hate the taste, but I can taste those colours on my tongue,
Watch the petals dance as flavours bounce along my mouth,
Loving the unexpectedness, the eccentricity.
I have a thing for acquired tastes,
Falling in love with those that some might call 'hard work'
Because I love to unearth beauty from an unexpected source.
Look harder at those who try to hide,
They may be truly beautiful inside.
 Jan 2014 A B Perales
Morgan
we sang along to the same
ten songs, until we thought
we found solutions to problems
we didn't know we had
we hid our fear under
mohawks & dreadlocks
and stitched our sadness
in with India ink
on our knee caps
and metal in our
faces

we looked pretty from the outside
but I remember the tears that swallowed
his blue eyes when he said
"i just hope for his sake,
next time he dies"

because addiction was a pain
none of us knew how to mend
and it left a hole right through us,
no amount of music could fill

when i was five my mom
used to tell me
that it was all fun
and games until
someone got hurt;
i don't think she knew
at the time just how familiar
i'd be with that concept
by the time i was
nineteen

i stopped getting memorial tattoos
after the sixth one,
and i stopped trying to quit
chain smoking when i finally realized
we were all gonna die

blood red hair
and blood shot eyes
i know how love feels
when it sighs a worn out
goodbye
The sun glowed on us when our paths first crossed,
Far from home we grew close, closer still;
Laughter filled our days, and moonlight our walks,
As we talked amidst an October chill.
But quickly new feelings came into view.
Is our friendship becoming something more?
Your confusing words are not the old you,
In your eyes—is that a glint of amour?
I wish your true feelings you would express;
I silently debate mine when alone.
Mixed signals abound, and “us” I *****:
Is it friendship? Or have your feelings grown?
I will be here as you figure it out,
Platonic or beyond, I'd love no doubt.
he dusts off his former years
and wears them like a trophy
proudly strutting back and forth on the bridge
at the bottom of washington street
while all the locals line the street and cheer
his bright plumage
he duck walks through the town
past the diner and 'the wall' park
this is livin he thinks to himself
all his thoughts are bright and shiny
as the world seems to be to him that day
forever sunshine and deep smiles
illusions of the mind from hastings on the hudson

that night
he sits with radio playing softly
by the open summer window breeze
music he didn't grow up with stirring memories
that capture the Kodak moment
a smile delivered with such stunning conviction
that you might almost believe it wasn't
machine washed Americana propaganda
a single tear slips unnoticed from the corner of his baby blues

as dawn dances to her favored tune
and up her road in the sky
he sits in the approaching sunlight
and drinks in the emotion
that dawns create
new beginnings fresh starts
the girl from town sits beside him
and smiles for him
from over her college girl glasses
she peers at him with a real love
there are many roads to your today
but only one can hold your footprints at a time

a tub-thumper and
character in the movie playing in his mind
he makes sure his head is neatly combed
before making his grand entrance
putting your best foot forward can be a chore
so he brought one mail order
and leaves it out
the cat uses it for a scratching post
while he spend his days on the bridge
where at least theres a smile
even if it is an illusion of the mind
been hanging out with someone i know from hastings...i lived there a lifetime ago...seems like two lifetimes ago...
 Oct 2013 A B Perales
Eulalie
Floating beneath the brilliance of the full moon, I'm shooing away the wispy dark tendrils of sleep, swatting at the lazy tired gnats who are as directionless as I am.
I scrub away the hints of sand from the corners of my eyes and yawn wide enough so to dispel the collection of retiring bats who've claimed sanctuary in the cavern of my ribs.
I've without a purpose other than to carry on with my meager, passive existence in this dark limbo of twilight.
"Go to sleep silly"
As if you sensed from five thousand miles my nocturnal habituation of lethargic solitude,
As if it pierced the air like the dull green blinking at the end of the dock over on East Egg, calling out to you like a tiny beacon of distant opportunity--a lighthouse in the tremulous sea nights of--yes--your own affections and desires emanating back to you.
And all at once, I feel an eternity of connection tethering me back to my plot of soil, somehow not as empty and cold as it felt before.
Because you somehow knew, and that somehow makes my meanderings less of a thing to dwell with, for somehow someone somewhere cares if my soul is restless.
So I'll probably end up going to sleep.
After all, I'll find you again in my dreams.
It's a bit shapeless, but I'm in the throes of sleep as I type, so we're going to just deal with it.
Never put a wanderer by a window

Wilting at the winds that push

Against windows and she dies to be among the buildings

Sky beyond buildings beyond clouds beyond this window

Beyond where she is

“Please let me leave!”  she says, “these windows wear on my self!”

On she cries for metal built squared see-through barriers to be

Broken, open, tilted open.

Open up, air inside

Suffocated being.

On the other side

Of the blue, white, skies, beyond

Pure Air

Beyond complacent seated struggle to learn another lesson

Beyond reflections of natural light which crawl into her lap and

Warm her thighs, she thinks, closer to the window and she'll rest her eyes

To draw her windows to the aluminum resistance

And she shutters to imagine breathing on the other side
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