He held her hand and promised her the moon and stars. Now she can't look up at the night sky because the moon and stars are still there but he's not.

You are in the rain,
spilling blood
for parched fingertips;
anemic, wilted petals.

The spirit of you is encased
in the animating nothingness,
in the hallowed cry of aeons,
breathing the thunder out.

I am captive to the magic,
Enamoured and terrified---
nourished and destroyed
by your flashes of light.

I thought maybe she was like
The Sun.
I wrote about her warmth
And the way she lit up
The world around her.

But that wasn't quite right.
So I started over.

Perhaps she was autumn.
Her cool gaze evanescent but
Always a wonder to admire
And enigmatic in the way
Her smiles sauntered up her cheeks.

Something was still missing though.
So I started over.

For a while I felt she was the ocean.
Alluring, polarizing, hiding secrets
She pretends even she doesn't know about.
A riptide pulling me closer
Until there was nothing but her.

Frustrated, I scrapped everything.
I knew what she was like,
The way she felt when I held her,
How beautiful she was when she laughed,
The peace I felt when I would lie next to her.
And even when I poured over my brain
For the right words,
They wouldn't come.

And that's when it hit me,
When a realized
I know what she is.

She's poetry.

So much hurt, so much pain
You'd never know it by just a glance
You'd never feel her timid fear of you
While you shake her hand.

You'd never know she was touched and abused
By the smile she gives you
And you'd never think twice about her innocence
Because of the way she moves you.

You'd never know of her fear of men
Because she seems so bold
But appearances can be misleading and
Her eyes do not tell the story of her soul.

Alone deep inside
She sits by the river and she wonders
Where her heart and soul have ran off to
And why they left without her.

I stare into the mirror
To see what I can see
The image draws me nearer
I don’t know, if it’s me

I touch to understand
Sense coldness to reflection
It sends through me a shiver
Must mean, my own rejection
BOEMS BY JA 417