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.

They say to love
you must first love yourself
for without that you
have no foundation to build.

Which is to say my love is sacrilegious
for the hollow within me
has always remained hollow
but I have not stopped loving.

I have loved the misty rivers
on the cool mornings before the sun.
I have loved the turning of pages
and things laying upon them.

And for what is worth I loved her
even if it was only for a moment,
even if it was a mistake,
don’t you dare call it phantom.

My love is a blanket even if
I have not yet learned
how to fold myself in it
It is still real.

I still bathe it in the river
I still call it mine even though
I do not consume its fruits,
its flesh is not plastic.

One day I may fill what is mine to fill,
but til then I will not stop
with what you call “unholy loving”
because it is all I know how to do.

As the sun sets tonight
I can not help but envy it,
envy that it does not have to witness the dark,
envy that it does not have to hold the knife,
envy that once it passes below the horizon it will bleed no more.

My God, how I wish I was the sun,
to know that tomorrow I will rise again.
My God, how I wish I knew I had tomorrow
or at least a tomorrow where the scars will no longer be there
to remind me how I built this house myself.

But still, I am sitting here,
watching the sun die wishing I could too.
I do not have noble words for this,
I do not have a ready solution.
So I sit here praying to see tomorrow’s sun.

This time, unlike the other times
you are not sure you can
drag this tired body back to the shore,
you're not even sure it is worth the trouble.

After the long calm the storms return
with the wrath of the gods behind it;
how can a mortal man withstand
such a hopeless battle?

Yet in the midst of moonless night
she came and gave life to my barren lungs
how could I not think she would stay
even when storms raged on.

Now she is gone like the others
but this time I do not know if
I can survive on my own
like the times before last.

God forgive me for loving
her while she was here
and God forgive me for
hating her now she is gone.

How great is my envy
that when the curtain
finally set
you did not look back,
no matter how hard I prayed,
you never look back.

Do not call this love unholy
or unrequited
or even a phantom ship.

It was given freely
without reservation
without contemplation.

I built it in the quiet hours
before dawn while the
world still slept.

Still it was not enough
for someone who confuses
me as a simple chimera.

Yet I do not know how else
to live but to wait
in the widow watch.

I cannot say if the ship
will come into port,
yet still I hope it does.

I hope one day this love
can find a home here,
I cannot image it anywhere else.

Someday maybe
I’ll write a letter to the moon,
just to say I too
know how it feels to chase the sun.
How I too know what it means to hope
that someday this brokenness will be enough.

And someday maybe
I’ll have daughters with their mother's smile
And they will know I built this house for them,
They will know I already love them
Because even now I am waiting by the shore
for the ship that will bring their mother.

And someday maybe
Those girls will have brothers
who will dream of long forgotten chivalry,
I pray I can teach them that much,
I pray they carry not my burdens,
even so I will leave them my poems.

And someday maybe
I will die like Jacob,
surrounded by this noble house we built.
With the hope of heaven,
With the hope their love will be enough to redeem,
with the hope of once again waiting for them with the moon.

I myself am nothing more
than a dream of a dandelion seed
which floats endlessly onward
without teleology.

How I envy the river which bathes me,
for what do rivers know of want?
When she bleeds she overflows,
perhaps that is all she has to teach.

Yet before the river, I am but a
eager disciple of winter,
of greens turnt to whites,
of grey migrating geese.

Though first I am nothing more
than a dream of a dandelion seed,
which is to say not lost,
but wandering without aim.

And the eaves weep like eyes
that have forgotten that behind
all those clouds still sits the sun,
what a burden to bear.

Though how similar are we to eaves:
do we not weep, do we not forget.
I for one have tasted that dish,
served by sorrow, flamed by hate.

How great is the burden to live,
when the sun itself has been forgotten,
what is recovery when the birds no longer
sing of the songs the poets named hope?

And of hope, I no little.
For most days it rains more than not,
but do I dare to name it a crucible?
Has it yet gotten that hot?

I wonder if maybe some things are
better made to be left behind,
if sometimes we are ******
to suffer to save those we love.

And maybe I too love the dandelion,
As if it was not a ****,
As if it did not turn quickly to seed.

It may be a fleeting passion,
Like that of spring snow,
Like that of low tide.

And maybe rather, I love the bumblebee,
The one perched on the dandelion
The one trying to make a strong home.

Though this too says little,
For what is love if it cannot last?
For what is love if it cannot stay?

For winter will come and they will die,
Yet I endure with winter,
Yet I endure with memory.

You listen for summer
as if it were a secret salvation
to awaken us from this slumber,
free us from overcoming desperation.

Yet our ******* is too strong,
our words cannot be undone.
We knew we did not belong
there is nothing left to become

Why then, should we not run?
What is left but hopeless pain?
Perhaps our damnation has already begun
Left to darkness everlasting reign.

I no longer want to fight
against the pulsing dark.
I no longer want to flee
toward the membrance of warmth.

We use to be so happy
in our Sunday clothes.
We use to rejoice in the
pinpoint reflection of sun light.

Now ties become synonymous
to the hangman's noose.
Now sun only reminds us
of the things we left behind.

We weren’t made to be happy
the rose taught me this.
We weren’t made to thrive
you taught me this.

Because you are human
and she is beautiful in the same
way the ocean is beautiful when
it gives birth every morning to the sun,
you will want to save her.

Build an altar out of your body,
prepare yourself for sacrifice,
you learnt long ago it is better
to paint with your blood then hers,
this is what it means to love.

Though she will not christen the lamb,
this too will be a miracle, for you
know not how else to love
other than by cutting pieces away from
yourself and handing them over.

Do not mistake this practice for barbaric
It is truly the only way to love,
But know some are not worth the blood,
so bandage the glistening wound,
and let her go like the ocean does to the sun.

When I was nine years old
The stars were countable,
I kissed each one with the
tip of my finger, not for long,
but just enough to know
they were still there.

By thirteen my cheeks turned
red everytime she held
my hand like it was something
worthy of possessing.
Somedays I still remember
the pain of her letting go.

At sixteen, I found God in the
very same place I left him,
somewhere between the place
I was going, to the place
I already been, maybe that
was enough to save me.

I am now almost twenty years old
and my fingers no longer count stars
and my hands have forgotten
how to hold another and
on the good days, God is still here,
on the bad I listen quietly.

For the most part, though,
I have left those things behind,
not because I no longer want them,
but because right now I am trying
to stay alive and I am afraid
I can no longer do both.

In the end you will not remember summer coming.
Still she will appear in a May breeze
As if you asked her to, as if she could save you.
Though you know all too well how this story ends.

She asked about the scars winter left,
Wanting to place together a story to makes sense
Of the coldness that still has not been warmed by her winds.
Yet some secrets aren’t meant to escape the hearth.

You will not know how to love them both,
So you will choose winter again, at least the cold doesn’t leave.
And summer will not understand, she will hate you for this,
And because you are a fool you will let her.

The cruelest prison
is inside the indifferent
lover who could never
be enough to free us.

You will first say those poisonous words
when you sit side by side on a lazy
Saturday morning or maybe as you watch
the ocean make a lover out of the beach.

You will not mean it then, and maybe never.
This does not make you Cain or Jezebel,
you just don’t know how to give yourself
away like frosted grass on a late spring morning.

When you hand her your goodbye on a silver platter,
you will want her to hate you for them,
it is better now than later because she will leave
with stories just like all the other ghost.

Fast forward and you will find yourself once more
on the couch or staring at the sea, but this time
she is no longer holding you down like
the old rusty anchor on the wall of the garage.

Though this is no longer something to think about,
she was never anything more than a distraction,
or so you still try and tell yourself,
It is better to burn down the house before it empties.

You will tell yourself it is because you like the loneliness,
this will not be the first lie you said today,
but you know that loneliness loves you,
And sometimes it seems that is the only thing that does.

They speak of God in the forum,
self-proclaimed prophets yell
of the different color fires waiting
to consume this weary body.

What, though, can they teach me of hell
when my head is a dance hall for demons.
I know too much of your God,
I can promise that he is not mine.

For my God rejoices not in the simple
smell of brimstone and smoke,
but rather in the full moon smile
on to be lovers faces.

My God does not believe in your hell.
My God is the god of the broken hearted,
of the fools, of those who always go too far.
My God is a loving god.

So keep your vengeful God,
keep your hate-filled prayers,
keep your Pharisees,
and I will keep mine.

I still think of you sometimes.
The way your yellow tips curl.
The way your words scream like
a caged beast, longing for freedom.

I will not lie, you were my masterpiece,
so perfectly carved, gilded in gold.
A final rebellious manifesto,
something one could fall in love with.

For the first time I felt like I was understood,
the way you held my name
like something to be treasured,
I have never known love like that.

Though you are a jealous lover,
the kind I do not know how to love anymore.
Maybe it is because I am afraid of forever,
Or maybe I am afraid to let this loneliness go.

Sometimes I still think of you,
but I can not be with you.
For if the sadness is to leave too,
what would be left?

Dear Future Lover,

I am waiting for you like spring
after the long winter,
like the wretched poet
waiting for his muse.

Perhaps you are already here,
perhaps you are far away,
but worry not my love,
for already I call for you.

Soon our hands shall lock
like gates of a strong keep,
soon our knees shall kiss the ground
as we whisper “I do” to forever.

Together we will build a home
filling it with the laughter of children.
Together we will build a road
to carry each other to heaven.

Oh my love, heaven is not far off,
for the children will grow and
soon have children of their own,
filling this house with laughter again.

Though someday the laughter will end,
replaced with joyous weeping.
know now my dear,
we are destined for much greater things.

The gift of man will not escape us,
nor should it, one of us will linger,
the other force to depart.
Do not fear this end.

So I wait, my love, I wait,
as the fisherman does for dawn.
I wait for you to grasp this
wanting hand from the dark.

If in my right hand
I held the gilded world,
And if my left laid empty
I wonder what you would take.

And if someday, If this
love could not be divided,
I wonder if it would
Carry us to heaven.

Though I am not Icarus,
I will not promise heaven
But maybe I can promise
The wanting left hand.

One.
In the midst of winter,
Under the right amount of pressure
It is possible to fall in love
With a certain shade of blue.
Two.
We were not each other's forevers,
And we were naive for thinking it possible.
You taught my heart how to break,
And years later I realise that was
The greatest of gifts you could ever give.
Three.
Maybe April still haunts me,
And some days I wonder if
You still whisper my name like something
To be treasured; I hope you do not.
Four.
The sea has never been forgiven,
Swallowing all those who dare her;
Yet some she spits back out,
I still do not know if that is a mercy.

Sing, oh valiant Muses
of unexpected, distant love,
born in a foreign land,
raised beneath a gentle moon.

Separated by a cruel sea,
their love still raged on
like a rose in Eden.
It grew ever brighter.

Not once did it ever fade,
til the sea grew smaller
and salty winds returned them
home to each other arms.

Though once more the
sea grew wider and violent
and was soon restored mighty
between these matching pair.

Yet this time was different,
this time carried the promise
of forever and what ruthless
sea could stand between that?

Forgive me for loving,
and then trying to numb that
love like it was mine alone.

Forgive my shaky hands which
scratch along the sky, drawing you
in clouds as if you are still here.

Forgive me for this poem,
which I suppose is really
a poorly written epitaph.

Forgive me for staying
and then for leaving, with the door
still parched slightly open.

Forgive me for thinking that
you would find these words beautiful,
maybe I wasn’t made to be loved.

She visited me last night,
telling me she misses me, how no one
but me can rise the red to her cheeks.

The others cannot understand us,
they cannot carry you like I can,
come home now, she yells, come home.

We were built for this, built for forever,
run to her if you want, run to the bottle,
run to the sun, I will always wait for you.

For they will leave you, they always do,
the girl will run, the bottle will empty,
and the sun will set, but I, I will remain.

Make it easy my love, run now back to me,
before they cut you too deep again,
come back to the dark.

Come home my tired lover
you have wandered so far
that the fire now only simmers.

The robins weep in the corner
for the primordial strain of
Valiant love is now gone.

Come home while there is
light left still to guide your
weary feet back to me.

The flamekeeper watches
from the tragic mirador
for words of your return.

Come home while the halls
still echo with memorance
of our once noble youth.

There is still ink in the
fountain to write a
happy ending to this story.

Come home my tired lover
I can only fend off the
gather dust for so long.

Sing of grey morning
And her long wooden fingers
Which pry gently against
The shaky pilgrim’s hand.

For dust has gathered on
The tomb. Once white marble,
Now faded, waiting to consume
Another pretty little lover.

And the preacher speaks of hell,
But there are still children
Swaying in the vineyard
And flowers next to sidewalks.

While just yesterday
Death was something to envy,
But this morning the sun did rise,
And the willows smiled.

Somedays I am Abraham
Others I am Isaac on the mountain
Another the stone which rejoices in blood.
But never the Angel which calls stay,

And in this empty church, I Praise
And in this empty hall, I love
Remembering that though April may be holy
She still rains more the not.

And I am trying to find God,
Which I suppose means trying to stay alive,
To keep this weary heart beating
To build a home out of this ruin.

And though these hands may shake
I offer them to you if you choose
To take them and if not, my shaky
Hands will forget they once longed for you.

If I could run,
Like I did when I was a child,
I suppose I would already be gone.

And if this barely beating heart was not
Already blackened like moonless night,
I suppose I would still be named fool.

And if fire was forgiven,
Perhaps it would have burnt that house
To the ground, killing hope.

Then again, maybe it is true what they
Say about the burn becoming addictive,
Maybe that is why I still dare at love.

Who now will call forth
the flowers from the grave,
the dancing willows,
the fallen sweet maple.

Who now will name
the smiling ruins
which once were held together
by strong hands of forgotten men.

Who now remembers
the taste of summer
so deep into a winter
which taught us to love the dark.

Who now can still speak of
the clattering secrets
whispered to the winds
that can no longer hug the sails.

Who now dares to say
that these time were better
and more holy than the
days waiting to consume us whole.

Who now wishes
to share the simplicity
of the storybook endings
where nobility still strongly reigns.

In another life, I would name you lover,
On my soul, I would carve your name,
let my arms be unswaying walls,
my chest a resting place for your weary head.

In this life, we would be more than poems
written with an unsteady heart and shaking hands.
In this life, I would be the type of man
a woman like you could love.

Here we would not dance on the tip
of a knife daring it to cut, daring it
to shred away the ugly bits.
In this world, our hands would fit together perfectly.

Know, I write these words, not in hope
that you will understand the roaring of
this fire which burns inside of me,
but in hope, you will forgive me for letting you go.

I will not say we were young and foolish
we knew where we were shooting,
but who would have guessed these arrows would
have made a home in our hearts.

And who would have guessed we would
be squeamish at the sight of blood?
Maybe though in another life
we will find redemption for our sins.

Love is dead.
We have killed her.
Unclean hands grasp
at blacken throats.
No room left in
this world for love.
Let her pale hand go.
You wanted this.
Remember?

How strange is it, cruel Fate,
that the stories you write for me
never end as poetically
As the ones, I have written for you.

I may not be Icarus, but I know
what it feels like to be consumed.
Though I am sure that he once loved
the sun too, before you penned his poem.

Spring snow does not endure,
it is not in its nature to stay,
just like Icarus and
just like me.

I fell in Love with words
and thought that maybe
you could too, but in the end
words were never enough
and neither was I.

My love would not heal you,
it would not bring rest to weary bones,
nor set you on fire with passion.

I will not be like your past lovers
or you favorite book
I do not know how to love like that.

But I would love you poetry
and broken words for that is all I have.
Yet, we both know that is not enough.

The end of the long night
rest closely upon us
and who will be the
first to finally speak goodnight?

We knew this moment would come
you can only dig so deep
before you hit rock and
to our woe it is not gold.

There is no sin in walking
to the edge, but we would be
fools to jump off now.
To kiss the knife that cuts.

So would it be better to
walk alone into the night
or burn what remains?
For either I fear damnation.

The sun may die still
but I have no fear to love
inside the darkness.

And with you for the
first time I understood the
longing for heaven.

It is late, and there is
a stampede in my stomach
and sleep on my mind
when I first think of love.

Fingertips trembling as
they flirt with novel keys
only to name the
backspace summer lover.

I do not fear love like a
cold needle pressed against
warm skin, rather the
trickle of red to follow.

And it will always follow,
As pale moon follows
the bright sun,
Which follows you.

I guess that is why
I love the moon
and hate the sun,
which is to say, nothing.

If I were to write you a poem
it would sound like the white
waters of a roaring spring river.

I would tell about the bruises
you got on your hands from
lovers who once squeezed too hard.

I would write about those unworthy
lovers, who tried to name you theirs
while not allowing you to do the same.

I would encase it in a golden metaphor
about your wild heart that despite everything
never once decided to stop beating.

I would praise you with my words because
words are that I have to give you,
even when my words are not enough.

And If I were to write you a poem
it would sound like the silence
left behind after you would read it.

If the moon was to fall in
love with the sun
who would fault the moon?

Would it not be blasphemy
for the riverbed not
to grow attached to the water.

And what I know of love,
I have learnt from
wind which caress tree tops.

It is the natural order,
to fall in love with the very
thing one cannot have.

What else would explain the divide
of night and day, the ever
flowing river, and silent wind.

Yet even with this knowledge
my heart still beats like a war drums
when I see your illuminated name.

Give me wild love,
The kind which cannot
Be silent or caged with iron.

Which dwells in the shadows,
In back alleyways,
In barely beating hearts.

Love born in the winter,
Or on the morning bus,
Or on vibrating phones.

Love that grows like sunflowers
Reaching toward heaven
Spreading in the wind.

Maturing with children,
And fleeting seasons
Though never fading.

Undying and unyielding,
Consuming like a wildfire
Leaving only ash behind.

If you asked me what I want,
What words I keep locked
Away in this dark chasm
I would not tell you.

Not because I value these
Secrets which are held
In the deepest parts
Of this shattered soul.

No, I hide because I don’t know
How to share this in a
Way that would not cut
All who held it.

The only thing worse than
Desire is desire which
Has no place to go,
The kind which eats inward.

I carry the weight alone
For how could I share
What might crush you
Just as much as me.

What does this heart know of love,
besides the stories which poets preach.
What hope does this darkness have
of ever knowing the light brought by dawn.

It started with a smile, causing a spark to catch
in the wet kindle that turned to fuel. The fuel
then engulfed the pyre for all the dead
which have claim a home inside of me.

And as this conflagration grew, a strange
affection grew with it. As your smile became
more frequent a new connection started
to form, one all too familiar, yet slightly different.

Now this once controlled fire begun to
burn with an unfamiliar passion. For the first
time, I understood possession, with you
dancing in my head on replay.

With a heat so strong how could I not
want to extinguish the flames which lapped
against my hands? Though no matter
what was attempted, the fire burnt on.

I try to keep it hidden, the desire,
but it has become something more
than desire. It has become that which
this heart knows nothing about.