I want to run, I want to hide
From all the pain he caused inside
I want to scream, I want to cry
Why can't I just tell him goodbye

I want to move on; I can't let go
I love him more than he'll ever know
Memories come, when I'm alone
Thinking about all the things that I've been told
I want to start over, I want to be free
But this pain and memories just won't leave me

"If I am stressing you out, then you should just forget about me,"
How could you think it's so easy?
He hurt me bad, the pain is deep;
From all the promises he couldn't keep
All the things I heard him say,
Are in my head and just won't fade

How can I forget him, leave him behind?
Erase the memories from my mind?
He doesn't love me, and he never will
He will never care about how I feel

beautiful luxury,
crumpled mid-bed
is an insanity of love

an asylum for dreamed life

into this I crawled,
unmade
arranged
not yet awakened

I dreamt of kisses from princes
incandescent with madness
now faded

my bed greets
a lament for the dead

Madness wakes its own



C. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

I dreamed you came aboard
to commend me to the sea
and I dreamed you rode a horse

to your wedding sidesaddle
even though the only thing
you let between your legs

was the melancholy strings
of the cello, you with your instinct
for music and dangerous suitors

I still place to this day what is left
of the afternoon in care of your hands
kissed by so many strange men

whose names you can't remember
on the long nights we spend
together without sleeping

in the same bed alone we are
dreaming the dreams
we dream when all love is lost.

Some nights I shade
my eyes
from dark dreams
like a broken hawk's wing
stuck in the hot tar
of a back country road
when sleep seems
like a long ways to go
in a bad war
and desire and desire
and desire like a fire
in my bones
won't leave me alone.

I head out at twilight
only to return each dawn,
wading the muddied waters
of my youth, and mysteries
of a history misremembered,
or wishfull, wistful memories,
wanting to revisit in dreams
those things that defy the laws
of physics, yet knowing I can't
go back, and each breath I take
reminds me forever of that fact.