Fall in love!
That’s all I can say for now and all the advice I can give, fall in love!
With what, with whom, or how you do it, well, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you fall in love.
After you have done that (the falling in love part), everything else is unimportant.
Yes, there are things like:
The first poem you write it has to gush out of your soul like a stream of water that just found its way from a deep cave;  turbulent, fast, and impure at the same time!
It has to contain every piece of your soul in it, cause that’s what poetry really is, your soul morphed into a different thing, morphed into a black ink that slithers on a white page, imprinting yourself on it.
But these are details, only details that you will be doing unconsciously, whether you like it or not!
The first poem you will be writing won’t be smart; but it doesn’t have to be smart, structured, or even good!
What it needs to be, is YOU! You, and no one else! No Frost or Bukowski; No Poe or Neruda; No Whitman or Baudelaire; No Keats or Yeats… or anything of their kind.
Cause trust me, if you are able to keep being yourself while writing it, your first poem will be better than any other poem written by any of them, and whoever says otherwise, is a liar! (and probably hates you)
Your first poem will contain all the hate, joy, pain, greed and fear you’ve ever felt, and yet, it will turn out to be the most beautiful thing you’ve ever did; the most beautiful thing you’ve ever had.
But, enough of my nonsense;
Start writing, start falling…

Things were so much less complicated when we were little, but now I feel like I don't even know you anymore.

We walk around in solitude,
And stand by ourselves.
Our eyes see each other:
Flesh, and flesh alone is what we see,
It's what we seek.

We want the outer shell.
The soul is just an addition on the inside;
A thing hidden from the world,
That's not to be considered:
Just ignored and suppressed.

We're dominated in our minds,
We're slaves of the likes and the trends,
We want to be who they see us as,
But they, but we, but everybody can only see the flesh;
And that is what we seek.

We won't believe in what can't be seen.
We've grown to forsake the lurking monsters,
They were banished by rationality;
And when our conscience raises it's head,
It's just ignored and oppressed.

We've turned into Automatons;
Mannequins, who can style themselves.
The soul, hidden inside,
Is something that can't be seen,
And so, it isn't considered, isn't wanted;
Only flesh is what we seek.

While our soul shrivels up, decayed and decrypt,
Our flesh, we keep intact.
We swallow the infernal ache,
And plaster the cracks on our smiling face--
And the cries of our soul, we keep repressed.

*For, we care for what they see.
They can only see the flesh,
And flesh is what they seek.

For truth, and
For meaning,
We plead, and
We question, and
Reason gives birth,
Just to pregnant
Suggestions.

I wonder...
Can you hear me
Can you really hear my whispers in heaven
Or is that just another lie they told me so I would stop crying
I miss you so much
Watching me or not, I just want you here
Just to see you one more time
Hug you until I die so I can stand by your side JUST ONE MORE TIME
Just one more time...
Is that too much to ask
You meant so much to me
In fact the world was so much clearer when you were still alive
Now it is just blur
A giant blob of pure nothing
And to stand at your grave isn't enough to clear my sight
My soul feels like it is burning to ashes as your body decomposes  
I'm so scared
Help me...
I need you
Please...wipe my tears away
Just one more time
Please

We didn't last forever;
the word attaches shackles
and chains that restrain,
and is better left unspoken--
never uttered, always locked
in the bars of my ribcage
where it restlessly remains
in utmost agony.

Then,
it stops.

The silence haunts me,
and my ribcage is imbalanced.
With laughter filled with tears,
and nonchalance juxtapose passion,
I whisper:

"Nothing lasts forever.
We fell apart like rose petals
amongst heavy storms."

The mask slips;
I avert my
red-rimmed eyes.

"But we could have--
oh darling,
we could have."

It had been four months since I started
reading his favorite poems aloud
to crack through congested silence.  

I memorized the way
his nose crinkled up when I stuttered,
his husky chuckle after I read
one of his favorite lines,
the smell of yellowed, dog-eared pages.  

I got to know this man
who had seemingly lost everything
and was just waiting
for his children to visit,
his medications to be dropped off,
to be with his wife once more.

I wore his favorite burgundy scrubs;
it was almost his birthday
and I had a new book to add
to his collection.

They didn’t tell me before I walked in.

It was bare:
the room reeked of bleach,
there were no sheets on the bed,
his few belongings were stuffed
in a cardboard box in the corner of the floor.  

I sat on the mattress and wondered
why his kids were not here  
mourning or making arrangements,
why I didn’t get to see the slight tug
of his lips to form a smirk when
I showed him the new Tennyson
that would now just gather dust.

He left me his anthologies in his will.


*Allison Sylvia
November 30, 2014
4:41:38 PM