Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
some people already have a view, a light over the horizon.
their feet are dipped into an ocean that holds many of their secrets,
but they become bored with the mundane & seek more meaning to their existence.
perhaps someone else's ocean will taste differently.
perhaps they'll finally learn how to swim.
willing hearts & open hands accept these travelers because maybe they're an adventurer just like me.
but really they're just passing through.
they only want to experience new flavors, to swim in unknown seas.
they need to escape but they'll never leave.
cowards perhaps, to temporarily give up the comfort of the river and sink into the oceans' depths.
but the ocean is not quiet & neither is the wind.
she will shred your sails & sink your ship.
she will not forget how you stirred her waves into a tsunami and left her there to drown.
when the night becomes indifferent, seek change first within yourself.
you will never find light in another if you do not love your own hands.
do not take arms you know you will eventually let go of.
do not awaken hearts you cannot call your home.

and so we go on. and the ocean waits alone, for the next light on the horizon.
©rainecooper
maybe yours would be hands that stay
or your eyes, stars that won't burn out
maybe your waves would keep reaching,
instead of relentlessly leaving the shore
but i have said goodbye to parts of myself
and i know they'll never come back
the parts that love
the pieces that trust
they lay here shattered and broken
and i can't let anything close
because i am made entirely of ruins
and i destroy all that i touch
©rainecooper
I've forgotten how to live
like a man on death row
accustomed to four walls
and the monotony of routine
waiting for the inevitable

yet still I hold out for the miracle
some dna evidence that this is all a mistake
that there is something waiting for me
and that this death will give way
to pastures full of sheep
waiting for the shepherd to return
there is a tall boy living inside my chest
he is the fingerprints all over my memories
he's why i stand at the edge of this cliff,
and why the view burns my lungs
he is the reason i breathe
and the reason i can't
he is the answer to every question
and why i'm always asking more
he is the mist hovering over the ocean,
sometimes i can't see him
but i know he's always there
he is the reason i feel small
and why my hands can touch the sky
he is the tall boy living inside my chest
and even death will not take him away
©rainecooper
fall in love with a boy
who makes the world spin a little slower,
but still holds onto your hands
as if life were his final dance
©rainecooper
sometimes i go outside
i look at the sky
and wonder
will i ever see your face

the wind kisses my skin
gently blowing lace from my shoulder
and i can't tell you
how many times
i've imagined it's your hands

sometimes i go outside
to undress with the sky & the stars
and every time i do
i hope the night has come,
and he is watching
©rainecooper
Twisted sheets, mind on stutter
Unable to sort through this midnight clutter
Put it away for tomorrow
But what to do with my gnawing sorrow?
I circle soft blue on color book pages
Hoping the repetition eventually assuages
The raw edged reality of lonely dark hours
Filling the void with Crayola flowers
Next page