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Apr 2015 · 596
Wormholes
Ashley Garreau Apr 2015
Where was I?
I fell through the sky when they all thought chicken little cried wolf
Somewhere in a black hole sun
A coin stands on it's edge and things aren't what they seem
Bermuda Triangle violently exhaling anomalies
The air splits like a wound when propeller blades start spinning too fast
Eventually we all get ****** into this perfect storm
I hear it's a place where magicians perform
Pull me out of a hat and watch the universe unravel
My heart strings wound too tight
The world collapses like a lung

Where was I?
Always dwelling in ancient libraries
Deciphering unknown artifacts
There's foreign footprints in these catacombs
All these digital files and old photo albums
Analyze, evaluate, re-analyze
Question everything
Metamorphosis manifests
And the chameleon knows how to change it's scales
The world goes off balance when Atlas's shoulders get tired

Where was I
When the sirens sounded their alarm?
Have you seen the basements of my mind?
Charcoal smeared and cold dust
Cluttered and hazardous
Climb out the fire escapes in the thick hot heat of things
Underground bunkers at Hiroshima
Salem burning
There are witches under the house
These tornadoes don't rest
because the scarecrow has a stick up his ***
Where does the lion hide?
Where does the lion sleep when the jungle's on fire?
How does the tin man ****?

Where was I?
Somewhere down the rabbit hole
Running out of time
That ferocious lunar grin
Meet me under the Cheshire moon
In that last lamp light
The toadstools tremble beneath our toes
Did you plant these mushroom clouds for us?
The mad hatter struck a match
and our house of cards is burning down
Why do my hands smell like gas?
I saw you catching ash on your tongue
I guess there's something beautiful in the way things burn
The roses are dripping red
and there's blood on my hands
The dream is gone when the queen cuts off
another head

Where was I?
Always digging tunnels in the ant farms of my mind
Dirt covers up old bodies
I leave them a rose
For paradises lost
For another lost soul
Another Eden gone to hell
Something slithered in the grass when the apple fell
Apocalypse now
But what is it about the way things disappear?

Where was I?
Where is here?
Apr 2015 · 1.1k
My Father's Hands
Ashley Garreau Apr 2015
Cracked, callused, and crinkled;
Tiny canyons stretch across thick fingers like monuments,
When my scabs were small islands, his were continents.
When mine skipped stones, those hands moved mountains
And hardened the way things do against time.

Those hands held my mother’s before they ever held mine.
I knew the warm furnaces of love like the roof built over my head.
Mornings always smelled like coffee and scrambled eggs
Prepared with the patience of rocking a baby to sleep.
Fingers folding like a blanket beneath tucked feet
Hugs wrapped around me like band aids.

Splintered, split, stingy and torn,
Knuckles like bark off chopped wood,
Veins like thorny twine stretch across tough tree trunk wrists,
Those hands held the world up like a tree limb holds sacred fruit.
Always scratching the peel rough and raw, opening cuts like orange slices,
Nails like a rake scraping against burnt autumn leaves,
Those hands bled like sacrifice.

Stars glistening like sweat over late night conversations,
Summers spent in the driveway playing catch and taking slap shots,
Those pig skin hands always teaching me to shoot for my goals.
“If you’re not going to do it right, don’t do it at all.”
Things the cracks in the pavement taught me,
Practice and precision seen in life lines.

Dried up rivers stretch across worn desert palms,
Waves of weathered wrinkles rush against sandpaper skin.
Sawdust flesh caked with hurt, if I could take away the pain I would,
But I admire the slits in my own knuckles hoping I too will know
Diligence like the depths of my father’s canyons.
Feb 2015 · 843
Origami
Ashley Garreau Feb 2015
This is the part
     where everything
                        changes.
This is the part
         like an orchid
                requires patience.
This is the part
      where the universe
                                    bends
                      ­¬                       and you fold
                                                               the paper
                                                        into
                                           flowers.
Cover me in chrysanthemums.
This is the part
        where our knees become inch worms
     under the table.
Cover me in dirt.
This is the part
      that   comes   on   slow   at   first
      then
      heavy
      urgent
      pulses
      rush
      through
      us
      adding
      impulse
      to
      injury
            manipulating
    our insides
              twisting
       folding
            contorting
  every nerve
            until they


RIP.


But the pieces don’t get rest.
This is the part
    where the lions roar
    like violets showing their teeth
    at the sun.
    They nibble the flesh
    without breaking
    the skin.
    It’s paper thin.
This is the part
    where I ball up my paper fists
    and wrestle with the tiger lilies
    while you remain at war with my tulips.
This is the part
    where we dig up the dirt
    and we ruin us.
This is the part
    where the dandelions B U R S T
    like supernovas
    and suddenly
ev-er-y
    syll-a-ble
           counts.
You said
    Everyone's b/ r/ o/ k/ e/ n in some way.
You said
    when you were young
    you saw the miracle of birth for the first time
    and you've been turned on
    ever since.
You saw life spring from the womb.
I think I saw you mesmerized by the way things bloom.
You tell me
     about your birds and bees
     like how getting your head rubbed
     at the hair salon
     turns you on.
Well, this is the part
       where I rub your head
       and turn you on.
This is the part
     where I see your dark side
     and learn the true meaning
     of the blue in your eyes.
This is the part
     where you flip me over
and tell me
"Don't stop."
I don't stop.
Why would I stop?
I can't
stop.

And
    this
         is
          the
             part
                 where
                        we
                            fall

  A

       p
          a
        r
           t.

Tell me you don't want this.

Tell me you don't want this
   and I'll leave this bed of marigold
and
    change
  my
      form.
Tell me you don't want this
   and I'll never hold your gaze
                                                          to­¬o                     l   o    n      g
                                       again.
Tell me you don't want this
     and I'll unfold myself from your side
     along with the paper flowers.
     You can take back the roses
     **** the daises
     but leave me the daffodils.
Tell me you don’t want this
     and our forget-me-nots
     will forget us
     and our bleeding hearts
     will bleed us dry.
Tell me you don't want this
                                  and I'll rewind the movie
                           play it BACK
                 from the beginning
         only this time
     we'll pay
attention.
     I'll silence the lions
     and put them BACK in their cages.
                                        I'll bend
                      the universe
         BACK into
shape.
But tell me you want this
and this will be the part
where we pick the paper petals
                                                  off  the
                                                           stem and
                                                             ­         watch them
                                                            ­                           fall like
                                                            ­                                    cherry blossoms.
                                                       ­          He loves me.
                                                             ­                   He loves me not.
                                                            ­         Forget me.
                                                             ­                       Forget me not.
Feb 2015 · 578
When The Elephants Arrive
Ashley Garreau Feb 2015
I sleep
with the leftovers of our
dismemberment

My rib cage strewn across the covers
like an elephant graveyard  
where a love
once lived.

I wake up
to the shivering clatter
of each
lonely
bone.

I dropped
all my **** this morning.

My cover up fell to the floor
and shattered.

I stared
at the broken pieces.

I dropped
my pen

my lighter

my defenses

These shaky hands
can't hold on
to anything,
So then why is it
my heart still can?
Ashley Garreau Feb 2015
Our hearts
Are wild animals
Trying to break through
Their cages
Clawing
Grabbing
Biting
We're in too deep now
Please don't look away sweetheart.
Please
see
Me.
Please
Hold
Me.
Please
Let
Me
See
You.
Please
Let
Me
Hold
You.
Tell me darling
This won't destroy us.
Why don’t they put that on candy hearts?
Tell me darling
That everything will be all right.
Tell me darling
Have I frightened you?
Please
Don't
Go.
Can you hear me sweetheart?
Is the ink from this pen loud enough?
I just
Want something
Real.
Something that's mine.
No.
Something that's ours.
Can you give me that sweetheart?
Please
Don't
Reject
Me.
I don't need you to save me.
I don't need you to save me
From crashing
And burning.
I just need you to understand.
I just need you to understand
and accept
That I am capable
Of crashing
And burning.
I just need you
To be able to wrestle with
The flames
And to be able to resurrect me from
The ashes.
We breathe.
I pant.
I say
"I want you inside me."
You say
"I want to be inside you."
I'm nervous
But it's not my first time.
You find your place between my thighs
And lift me
Hold me
Carry me
To the bed
Still
Kissing
Still
Biting
Still
Clawing
Clinging
Scratching
­Grabbing
Grasping
Gasping for air!
As the wild animal
Still
Rages
On.
Is this what romance
Feels like?
Is this what hope
Feels like?
This is new.
This is nice.
The candy hearts never told us
This will destroy us.
Ruin us.
But we need
To ruin
Us.
We need
To take
Us
Turn
Us
Reword
Us
Into something
we never were before.
Into something
We were meant to be.
I made your lip bleed.
Accidentally of course,
Always am I
A gentle spirit
That does things
Too hard
Feels too hard
Loves too hard
Too much
Too soon
Too fast
Too often
And I hope
You never have to remember me
By the taste of blood
In your mouth.
I hope
You never have to
Swallow glass.
I don't want to hurt you again.
I don't ever want to hurt you
But I want our rib cages
To be
Broken
And bruised
And busted through
And I mean that in the best of ways
Because the animal
Needs
To feed
To ****
To breathe
And I wonder darling
Will you need me?
Please
Need
Me.
Can you see me sweetheart?
Please
See
Me.
Are you scared yet sweetheart?
Have I frightened you?
Are the animal's teeth
Too sharp
Too hard
Too much
Too fast
Too soon
Too often?
Are you afraid yet sweetheart?
Can you see me yet?
Can
You
See
Me?
I say
"I want you inside me."
And the wild animal
Wants
Out.
Aug 2014 · 715
We Love Like Water
Ashley Garreau Aug 2014
We love like water
Coming together in waves
I feel you wash over me
And I'm scared you're just passing through.
I know there are other fish in the sea
But I like when you come to stay in my pond.
Maybe it's just a puddle.
It feels more like an ocean when your in it.
We're caught in a never ending hurricane
You and I
I can feel the sands of our time
Slipping through my grasp
But your hands feel like mine
When our fingers clasp
And our bodies intertwine.
We love like water
Washing up on a shore of another dream
Or sinking to the bottom of the sea
You were my anchor before you let me float away.
I wish you'd stay.
But we love like water
You go up in the clouds
And I come down like rain.
Aug 2014 · 430
Giants
Ashley Garreau Aug 2014
They arrived like giants
Stampeding over my fragile dreams
Like wild elephants on a glass floor.
I wanted to run
But I stayed.
I wanted to cry
But I dried up my well
And hid my wishes away.
They're all the change I have in me.
This broken heart's gone broke
But has the hope of a mouse who knows
There's cheese at the end of the maze
Just doesn't know a better way.
They arrived like giants
And the moon was oblong
I felt so small while you felt so strong
You said there's no reason to be depressed,
But babe I'm afraid.
I don't think those elephants
Will ever rest.
Aug 2014 · 415
How The Sun Eludes The Moon
Ashley Garreau Aug 2014
Every day
I am taunted by the sun
For I know I can reach for its warmth
and feel its tantalizing heat
but I cannot touch
its flame.
  
Every night
I am comforted by the moon
For I know its luminosity is great
But its loneliness and mine
Feel one in the same.

Ever since
You made me look up at the sky
And told me we still had the stars
I've loved those constellations
But I cannot give them
A name.
Jul 2014 · 297
A Lot Like Falling
Ashley Garreau Jul 2014
Most days
Im trying so hard to stay afloat
That for a moment
I was so tired
I finally chose
To drown
And it felt more like
Flying.

Now it feels more like
Falling.
Again
And again
And again
In these endless dead end cycles
Because my heart refuses
To abide by my head.

Most days
I'm so numb
That for a moment
I finally chose to feel
Letting bliss flood my lungs
Along with the pain.

I took a deep breath of it
And I went
Under.
Jul 2014 · 400
When You Abandoned Ship
Ashley Garreau Jul 2014
I must have been the captain of our relation
Because I'm the one going down with the ship
Sails were set high in the wind
Only for the boat to flip
The waves got rocky and the skies grew dark
When you suddenly went overboard and became a shark
At least the waters cleansing as it swallows me down
And I hold you in my heart as a lovely way to drown
Jul 2014 · 350
Damn
Ashley Garreau Jul 2014
Im afraid I'm getting weaker as of late
Or going through a momentary relapse
because I can't stop thinking about how I miss the way
That you squint your eyes when you sing
And the way your body moves when you walk down the hall,
Always a hint of dance in your step making life a party.
I miss the sweat on your forehead when you slept
And the warmth between my stomach,
Your back,
Our hearts,
The meetings our souls had
When we clung to each other like humans feel the need to do.
We are only human,
But I felt something alien in your eyes that day.
I miss your lack of breath because of those super cool cigarettes you smoke making each exhale that much more precious.
I'm thankful our universes collided for the time they did but I wasn't ready for the Big Bang.
I miss the way you laughed at me,
or with me,
It didn't matter as long as you were laughing.
I miss staring at the stars and making out against your car
And telling you the next morning the fun you had that you drank away all remembrance of.
I miss the feeling of falling in love
And listening to music with you,
our late night discussions,
the way you excited my mind and my insatiable drive.
Every day with you was a trip and I miss the ride.
I miss the way you idealized the concept of the non existence of time,
Maybe not even it could have the power to heal me
Because I'll probably be missing you the rest of my life.
Jul 2014 · 303
Only Fools Rush In
Ashley Garreau Jul 2014
I must have been a jester in my past life
Because I’m always being played the fool
I thought I finally had something great
But nothing good can last and life is too **** cruel
I got so high only to be brought down so low
It was just too good to be true I suppose
Whenever I fall I hit the ground hard
After I’ve invested myself entirely to something flawed
But my pride doesn’t hurt as bad as how I feel inside
I think my chest is flatter from where my heart sunk and died
I was stupid to think I could love again,
No, I DID love again,
I was stupid to think I could be loved
the words fly away like doves
and I watch the feathers fall from the sky
like the burning tears behind my eyes
my mouth is dry
I’m weaving in and out of a realm I don’t understand
does not compute
I cannot comprehend
how can people get so close only to fall so far
I can’t believe I thought I could live
with an artificial heart
I’m coming undone at all the seams
leaving no stitch to be redeemed
I’m in a horror scene
the kind that feel never ending like in a terrible dream
when you keep on fighting and running
but don’t get anywhere in the end
only to wake up short of breath
still living life on the mend
no vice can I defend
that makes what I do seem right
but the only fight I have left in me
is to not give up the will to fight
because as cruel as life can seem to me
I know I’m not ready to die
but why is it so **** hard to live without
the people you love in life
I thought I found a mutual happiness
to be shared between you and I
and now all of a sudden I’ve taken on a greater sorrow
that only makes me grow colder with time
because nothing can ever stay sublime
you shimmy shook me and over took me
and now I only feel half alive.
Jul 2014 · 388
Mosquitoes
Ashley Garreau Jul 2014
With every fickle flaw my life is a technicality
I'm an outlaw of my own society
The death of me will be my impending reality
The underlying doom resides inside my devastating mentality
My heart's been beaten up with every kind of brutality
I've lost my mind so many times
I'm becoming a fatality
Of my own disaster of a dangerous insanity
With every word and every rhyme
I can rewrite my own vanity
I've reanimated my anatomy
With the power of lines and phrases
My bones are made of paper
And my veins the ink that stains it
I can cut my brain in pieces
And use my mind to rearrange it.
I've learned to **** on an idea
To taste and entertain it
Never just throw it to waste
Without debating on a reason to sustain it
I stay up and lie awake at night questioning my own morality
I've been exorcising my mind
But losing focus on my body
I fear my own mortality
With every unforgiving calorie
And memory of a past time
In an artificial gallery
I put up pictures in my head
Making memories everlasting
I could paint over every one of them
But it wouldn't stop them from happening
They haunt me in my sleep
And your face invades my dreams
You penetrate my wounds
And I'm coming undone at all the seams
Of every stitch and broken wing
I'm falling from the sun
And hanging by a string
That's tight around my neck like my never ceasing obsession
I'm not talking to a priest but this is my confession
I carry everything like a noose
My weaknesses eat at me like an overwhelming rejection
I can be the judge of myself and I have no objections
This is all coming together in sections
My depression killing me like a lethal infection
Forget the **** pills and give me an injection
I'm dying for a little affection from you
All I want is your attention
I may sound cynical at times but I only have good intentions
I'm coming through in waves
Always thinking one thought then feeling in different ways
I'm stuck inside this daze
You are second hand smoke and I can't see past the haze.
Jul 2014 · 759
Anticipating
Ashley Garreau Jul 2014
The skies turn to gray
As the rain falls sour
Dreary eyes begin to fade
In the anticipation of an hour

Now seems dull
with endless waiting
But days missed most
Will be the ones anticipating
Jul 2014 · 371
Static
Ashley Garreau Jul 2014
Life is static.
The drone of the fan blades ******* in hot air on a muggy summer night,
The lull of the cicadas in the warm glow of the evening,
The rustling dance the leaves do to mimick the wind.
My head is tired but my mind's wide awake,
I can see so much beauty in the world where beauty is not often seen.
I evaluate the images like static getting ****** into a null void of black and white and specs of color all buzzing around and intertwining into a greater art.
I take everything in like static.
I lay in bed with my eyes wandering my room and staring back into my own soul.
Static.
All I see is static
Ashley Garreau Jul 2014
We were a piece of art that reached its end, for every great artist knows when their work is finished.
We splattered our color across canvases of unknown territory.
We mixed together like water when it was time to blend.
We took all the tints, tones, and shades of our naked hues and collided them together into a collage of everything we're made of.
Our work was done and so now our days together remain a masterpiece hanging in the gallery of time
And our minds
And your ink still tattooed on my heart.
We are art.
Ashley Garreau Jul 2014
Don’t ever.
Break.
A writer’s.
Heart.
They will take you and twist you every which way
Into their sardonic metaphors
And calamitous poetry
Until they finally have the heart again
To write you
-out.
Jul 2014 · 399
Constellations Apart
Ashley Garreau Jul 2014
You said we still had the stars
But you took them with you when you left.
Now It's dark
And we're constellations apart
And every night I cry
For the moon.
Jul 2014 · 335
No Lullaby
Ashley Garreau Jul 2014
I’m tired.
Tired of looking for you
Tired of hoping for you
Tired of thinking about you
Writing about you
Dreaming about you
I’m just so tired.
I don’t want to miss you anymore.
I just want to sleep.
Why can’t the thought of you leave me
As easily as you did?
It clings to me like a lost child,
But that’s a lie.
Really, I cling to it
And **** on it
And play with it a while
Until it gets dark,
Then I haunt it
And I breathe it
And I just want to sleep
But my heart never rests
Because you awoke something in it
That no lullaby can put to bed.
But still I sing to it
And cradle it
And cry for it
Like a lost child.
Jul 2014 · 268
A Million Pieces of Grief
Ashley Garreau Jul 2014
At night
When I'm outside in the hollow darkness
I see your face in every burning star
And dying ember
That sheds it's ghost into the air.
When it rains
I feel drenched in every drip
Of the pain you left me with.
I remember you in watercolor
Splashed across my walls
My sheets
I'm stained by you
And yet left with nothing.
During the day
The clouds break up the sky
Like you broke me
Into a million pieces of grief
I'm shattered and lonely
and in disbelief
But soon the skies will open up
And swallow me whole
And I'll split into a million galaxies
Where you will inhabit
None of them.
Jul 2014 · 1.4k
Two Astronauts
Ashley Garreau Jul 2014
Picking off pedals of Helios rays
With “I love you”s and “I love you not”s
You'd think we've come so far
From the time we were two astronauts.
Exploring each other’s universes
Until suddenly you pulled away and left me cold
Getting distracted by all the glitter of a shooting star
No longer seeing the sun as gold.

You took the oxygen tank with you
As life filled into your lungs
While you just drifted away with the heat of the sun
And I drifted away to the dark side of the moon,
Getting ****** into a black hole,
An uncharted doom,
And man, let me tell you,
Outer space is so cold
Where the void is as vast as fingers to grasp are few,
But now we've found each other again and again
Falling into patterns familiar but not the same
We are like two distant entities of an alien race
So connected at times,
But on two different planes,
Yet somehow we always find each other in outer space
As we collide like meteors from two different realms
Every time you crash into me
I’m overwhelmed

Picking off pedals of Helios rays
With “I love you”s and “I love you not”s
You'd think we've come so far
From the time we were two astronauts
As the solar system circles back around
Like the universal pull of the planets are theorizing a conspiracy with the stars
As if fates taken our destiny to somewhere out of reach
Forever is far away, but this galaxy’s ours.
A land where modern romance doesn't exist,
But something about the connection between two people does,
A gravity that pulls us down harder than the stuff we breathe on earth.
Yeah. This is something totally different.
Something we could never explain
But we keep circling around the tension
Until it dissipates
Into something disguising itself as passion
And there we go crashing again

Picking off pedals of Helios rays
With “I love you”s and “I love you not”s
You'd think we've come so far
From the time we were two astronauts
Perhaps it’s just a fire we've managed to light in space
Because love is the kind of gravity that doesn't exist
At least not here in this dimension,
Not in our world that is.
It’s the outcast of the group of kids
That is too scared to play spin the bottle
But they want so bad to fit in
So they spin
As they kick the engines of their spaceship into full throttle
With a nervous palm and moistened lips
Defying the laws of physics.
Or perhaps understanding difference would make all the difference
And acceptance for the weight of our gravity
The kind that can’t even be defined by space
And all the wonders of the stars and the Milky Way
And the constellations that we use to navigate each other
Through the depths of our eyes
And the meaning of that twitch in our cheeks
When we smile as if we've known each other longer than time
And that bottle's still spinning until it lands
On something we can call home
But until then we continue to drift in space
Just two astronauts
Together alone.
Jul 2014 · 742
Yellow Crayon
Ashley Garreau Jul 2014
When I was little I would always
Draw my mother’s hair with a yellow crayon
And my father’s with an orange one.
I would use both to color in my own hair
And we looked like the most colorful family
In poorly scribbled blue pants and ugly brown shoes.

As I got older
My mother’s hair turned less yellow
She started drinking
My father’s hair grew redder with anger
I turned indigo
And I learned to draw us always
With pencil
Sloppily scrawled
And easily
Erasable
Jun 2014 · 276
A Poet's Love
Ashley Garreau Jun 2014
A poet's love is so divine
It is forever remembered in pretty lines
Each passionate kiss a letter in a sentence
That has become part of the masterpiece that we call life
We write about it all the time
The sun and the moon and the way stars collide
And shipwrecks that got swallowed up by the tide
And the imaginative way we turn relationships into raging storms
Every move we make is another poem born
From my loneliness and my love and my heart and my mind
You became ink and I wrote pretty lines.
Jun 2014 · 340
Paper Fists
Ashley Garreau Jun 2014
I ball up my paper fists,
As I've thrown words away like skipping stones,
To be lost forever under waves of new thoughts,
Leaving nothing behind but a ripple,
That soon disappears.
I drank my tears,
Tasting only salt that’s left from the dried up sea.
I have no ink left in my fragile veins,
Only dull scissors,
Not even able to cut through my paper wrists,
In order to squeeze out drafts,
Of every shriveled word I have left,
To write,
Gasping for life,
From the recycle bin in the corner of my mind.
My brain is a tomb of lines,
An elephant graveyard of the bones of ideas,
A dumpster full of still born thoughts,
Stanzas aborted that were never brought,
To light,
But I leave them a rose,
And give them a stone engraved with my blood,
And hold it tight within my paper fists,
My nimble grip,
Getting ready to skip,
Across the tides of growing lakes.
I’m waiting for the damns to break,
And release the raging flood,
Held back with the weight of memories,
Of what I've lost,
And all the heaviness,
Of what I've loved,
And then,
I’ll write about it.
Jun 2014 · 375
I am Made of Hues
Ashley Garreau Jun 2014
I remember my childhood in hues.

First it was green.

I discovered nature and it swallowed me whole.

I bit into a leaf once,
A bitter crunch I will never forget.

I imagine myself in the pines,
And I want to sleep there.

I want to be decorated in flowers and dirt.


Then it was orange.

I saw the sun as a beacon.

It raised high in the air like a balloon I set free once.

I loved it when it set,
And then it stole my eyes forever.


Then it was purple.

I lost myself to the rain.

I write poetry on the moon,
And live beneath the stars.

I am a lonely dreamer.

I wake up with bruises,
And my body is made of shadows and lines.

I trace them,
And enjoy the feeling of ink on my skin.

My thoughts defy gravity,
And levitate my mind.

I am an Indigo child.

I am made of hues.

Someday I want to float,
And I will wrap myself in white.
Jun 2014 · 265
Moments
Ashley Garreau Jun 2014
We can't control who we meet in life
Or who we fall in love with
And we certainly can't control the length of which we have it for because time rules all
But the memory is just as beautiful
As the moment in which it occurred
Just as a photograph can capture the light in someone's eyes when they gaze upon someone they admire.
The bigger picture can be cruel
As the world is vast
But it's the little things we come in focus with and can take solace in knowing is ours
Even if just for a little while.
Ashley Garreau Jun 2014
I see the wood

Flaking.

I want to smooth it back down to hide

The rings.

There are cracks in the

Foundation.

I want to fill them in with putty

And smooth over

The lumps.

Knots are

Beauty marks.

These pretty lines are

Scars.

Stain creates waves of

Distinction.

Walls are stripped

Of color.

Emptiness leaves room for

Fullfillment.
Jun 2014 · 386
No Longer Dormant Beat
Ashley Garreau Jun 2014
My hearts been thumping again
I think it woke up to your voice and didn't want to miss a single sigh
I remember seeing you across the bar
and suddenly I found myself lost in your eyes
when we're together I'm seeing puzzle pieces collide
And stars align
Into a sublime unity that feels too good to be more than a dream
but I don't have good dreams
so it must be real.
Maybe now the nightmares will fade away into your arms
as I melt into the  threshold of your affection.
You're like an injection
of nicotine and romance
I think I'm addicted to what I just smoked
something laced with what I could be confusing for love.
Could this temporary buzz
become something as astronomical as
the universal language for love?
Hell if I know what the future holds
or if my obsure belief in fate will be worth the path I followed
but **** do I feel good right now
and I don't regret the road less traveled by
because you take me for a wild ride on a trip of our own
defying the laws of what I've known
teaching me it's ok to change
only because I'm no longer afraid
now that you've aligned your stars with mine
and maybe someday we'll glue the fractions of images together
to form the finished piece
and my masterpiece of a life
may finally be complete
thanks to you and your beautiful mind
I've never been more turned on
to the world
than when you tell me of your views
I feel our souls mixing like a blender thats in use
I'm making us a drink
and we'll cheers to me and you.
Ashley Garreau Jun 2014
With every fickle flaw my life is a technicality
I'm an outlaw of my own society
The death of me will be my impending reality
The underlying doom resides inside my devastating mentality
My heart's been beaten up with every kind of brutality
I've lost my mind so many times
I'm becoming a fatality
Of my own disaster of a dangerous insanity
With every word and every rhyme
I can rewrite my own vanity
I've reanimated my anatomy
With the power of lines and phrases
My bones are made of paper
And my veins the ink that stains it
I can cut my brain in pieces
And use my mind to rearrange it.
I've learned to **** on an idea
To taste and entertain it
Never just throw it to waste
Without debating on a reason to sustain it
I stay up and lie awake at night questioning my own morality
I've been exorcising my mind
But losing focus on my body
I fear my own mortality
With every unforgiving calorie
And memory of a past time
In an artificial gallery
I put up pictures in my head
Making memories everlasting
I could paint over every one of them
But it wouldn't stop them from happening
They haunt me in my sleep
And your face invades my dreams
You penetrate my wounds
And I'm coming undone at all the seams
Of every stitch and broken wing
I'm falling from the sun
And hanging by a string
That's tight around my neck like my never ceasing obsession
I'm not talking to a priest but this is my confession
I carry everything like a noose
My weaknesses eat at me like an overwhelming rejection
I can be the judge of myself and I have no objections
This is all coming together in sections
My depression killing me like a lethal infection
Forget the **** pills and give me an injection
I'm dying for a little affection from you
All I want is your attention
I may sound cynical at times but I only have good intentions
I'm coming through in waves
Always thinking one thought then feeling in different ways
I'm stuck inside this daze
You are second hand smoke and I can't see past the haze.
Jun 2014 · 307
Conversation Kills
Ashley Garreau Jun 2014
You fire your questions at me like a loaded gun.
Are my answers written in blood?
They're thicker than the air we breathe.
Does my silence weigh on your fragile fingers
like the decision to pull the trigger?
You think your words are bullets,
but mine
have the power
to ****.
Jun 2014 · 345
I am the Poet
Ashley Garreau Jun 2014
I am not a whimsical snowflake amidst the wind's wintry voyage.
I am not the drop of dew on a morning's budding flower.
I am the pebble that sits at the bottom of the pond that got skipped a long time ago.
I am the lonely owl that cries out in the night and holds the darkness upon its wings.
I am not the nostalgic initials carved in the tree between two lovers,
But the knife that put them there.
I am the memory of what's lost and the conclusion that it's time to go.
I am not the pen but I'm black as it's ink and I write what I am.
I am not a summer's day,
I am an autumn's evening.
I am the bleak December.
I am the crunch of snow under your boots.
I am not the smell of rain but I am the hole in the ground that forms a puddle.
I am not the silvery glimpse of a spider web caught in the sunlight shining through an attic window.
I am the dust.
I am the broken mirror and the trunk of old photos of happier times.
I am not the caffeinated warm smell of coffee in the morning.
I am the ***** newspaper that got left in the ditch no one cared to pick up.
I am not the fresh baked bread.
I am not even the wine, just the stains left on the sheets.
I am the taste of blood on chapped lips.
I am not the dim glow of candle light.
I am not the waves of the canal refracting the city lights.
I am not the butterfly.
I am the cocoon.
I am not the poem.
I am the poet.
Jun 2014 · 382
Miscalculation
Ashley Garreau Jun 2014
I can sit here and try to calculate every encounter
I've ever had with you
and subtract the pros from each passionate kiss
and multiply the cons by your silence
squaring it all by the outcome
and still be left
with nothing.

I divided you by zero
and created an error in the equation.
Math has never been
my strong point.
Jun 2014 · 473
What Lingers
Ashley Garreau Jun 2014
Even if I'm not supposed to love you,
I still love the little things,
The memories you leave me with,
Soft unsure kissing
Becoming passionate, I missed this,
lips crashing
Into waves of ecstasy,
You're a volcano erupting
And I stand in the red hot heat of you,
Your sweat,
My longing,
I melt,
As we caress each other
Absorbing every touch and taste,
Knowing it won't last,
So sweet,
So fond,
I am just a little fish in your big pond,
And you,
A shark in my small one,
But I realize
I am also the rain
That fills it.
Jun 2014 · 347
The Day I Disappeared
Ashley Garreau Jun 2014
I became air.

I always feel so strange returning from that place. It takes me a while to bring myself back....

The chaos is static.
White noise stretching
Throughout the world.
We are the silent moments
Between the chaos.
This is why being with you
Is so precious to me.
I cling to the hope of you
Stopping the noise
Stopping the world
Stopping me
And I love
The silence....

I always feel so strange coming back from that place. It takes me a while to get reacquainted with the chaos.

Missing you to death is chaos.

I miss you so much it hurts my soul.
I miss you so much
I cease to exist some days.
I miss you so much I can't focus.
I'm not really here.
I breathed you in
And I became air.
Jun 2014 · 311
Goner
Ashley Garreau Jun 2014
I watch the dust scatter in the sun
How it shines in the light
And disappears in the dark
I see my grandmother
Approaching death like a burnt out star
We touch hands
Her grip strong for someone so feeble
Always fighting
So tired
I kiss her warn out flesh
And nuzzle my warmth into her bones
I watch her smile softly and close her eyes
Death is approaching like a runaway train
Unpredictable
Unavoidable
Undeniably doomed by what we all fear
I am reminded yet again to live
Before I die
Jun 2014 · 341
Crying for the Moon
Ashley Garreau Jun 2014
I inhaled the space
between the constellations
Breathed in
the stars
Tiny molecules
of shimmering particles
and flesh
where the universe is
bent

We are made of star dust
You and I
Stellar beings
in an unknown galaxy

You inhaled the space
between my eyes
my lips
A soft sadness
you wouldn't see
A heavy heart
you couldn't hold

We went up in smoke
and I came down in meteor showers
shooting across
your sky

— The End —