In April poems tend to pile
in counter-action to snow melting.
They grow like leafs
in ever direction.

What shame it would be
to hide spring gems
so submit your poems
to our magazine.

submit: thethingswewrotesubmission@gmail.com

Let free your muses
from iron shackles
and submit your poems
to feed the jackals.

It is noble,
It is just,
to release your words
into the cosmic dust.

And who knows
perhaps you will be famous
for sending your poem,
and reach once more to greatness

Thethingswewrotesubmission@gmail.com

I wonder If Summer knew what Autumn did
would she soon forgive?

For greens will quickly turn to gold
not one will weep for lost.

The sun may shine the brighter,
But I think, not as hot.

And nights will grow the longer,
And moons will bring the frost.

And soon we will forget of Summer’s love,
Soon will forget of all she was

And If Summer knew what Autumn did
would she soon forgive?

Lately every poem I try to pen
comes with only two or three broken stanzas,
the kind that taste oddly familiar like daily morning coffee,
the first stanza, of course, is a complex and twisted metaphor.

I write about new England summers
or late spring snow,
or a red moon I am still trying to forget,
but really, I am writing about learning to let things go.

The second stanza talks about the empty,
which is to say nothing,
which is to say everything,
which is to say her while she was still here.

And if there is a third stanza, it is of course her,
as if she did not leave more scars than not,
as if she did not remember how I tried to stop the bleeding,
as if any of it matters anyways.

Now I am not trying to be spiteful,
but I just don’t know how to be happy anymore,
I don’t even know how to be anymore,
though God knows I am trying.

So yesterday I wrote a poem with five stanzas
about a crow perched on a ray of broken sunlight,
though I suppose this too is a metaphor,
it at least does not look like her.

To say that I hate her
would be to suggest that
there is a version of this story
where I can still sleep with the lights off,
there is something strangely familiar
about the glow of fluorescent lights at 2 in the morning.

It is also to say that her letters no longer
gather dust in the boxes underneath my bed.
That there isn’t a picture of her still between the tired
pages of the old family bible I no longer read.
I have never been good at forgetting
the walls after dusk still remember her name.

Maybe it is because I once loved her,
Or maybe it is because I still do
Like the way Daedalus still
loved the warmth of the sun
even after it took away his everything;
I too still sometimes smile at the bringer of death.

Though this is not to say I still don’t
try to fill what the gods have named unfillable.
It is not to say I no longer believe in magic,
it is just  to say that I am tired
of trying to summon what is not coming back,
I am tired of hating me more than her.

It is funny how sometimes
blood is just blood.
There is nothing poetic
about crimson on bedsheets
at three in the morning.

Hands unsteady like
elm trees before a summer storm
grasp for that which is no longer there.
How quickly than do bottles turn to hands
when recovery can only be found in forgetting.

I have learnt there is no glory
in trying to resurrect the very
thing which I, myself killed.
Maybe sorrow is something
some of us have to carry.

Though lately it has become harder
to carry that which is mine to carry.
So now I wonder if I were to let it go,
would they notice?
Would it matter?

You wait for her name to flash on your screen
like it is enough to save you.
But the truth is she is gone  now,
and you no longer want to be saved.