-D - Hello Poetry

-D Aug 2013

I cried for you this morning,
sobbing on cobblestone & concrete—
a sad song of ephemeral memories &
tidings of departures:
it was bitter on my tongue,
as pernicious rivulets ran down my cheeks.

-
I stopped at the corner of
Anticipation & Daydreams;
[I stopped,
but I did not cross that threshold.]
& the light turned red,
so I crossed to Unrequited instead.

-
at the fork in the road,
a beggar pleaded with me to,
please,
spare some change.
& I told her,
yes,
I finally carry some Change in my palms
with which to do good
& not destruction.

clink
clink
clink.

-
a purple haze of lust & pretense
wafted by me suddenly.
& inhaling it,
I became weightless & weary,
but my wounds awoke me,
reminding me of the weight I must carry.

-
I cried for myself this evening:
a morose requiem for my formal self.
one that is rooted in scars
& cacoethes,
redemption
& grace.

-epilogue.
[my goodbyes to you
are not so good.
my farewells to you
are all but fair,
but this is one encounter
we shall never encounter
never, never again.]

-D Jul 2013

family vacations.

these days
crochet blankets aren’t as warm as they used to be
and my dreams beneath them
aren’t quite as vivid as they used to be.

[I used to be a scavenger,
burrowing for knowledge and love under rocks and hills.
and the treasures I’d find
used to be so much more meaningful to you.]

but these days,
I traverse new territories still unseen
and my dreams rise with each golden sun
and lo, I crawl from beneath the blankets to greet them.

-D Jul 2013

thursdays.

what were you asking for this morning?
I couldn’t hear you over the morning greetings of the sun through my curtains.
something about
cream or sugar?
I laugh;
surely you know:
neither. I say, smiling.
pulling you back into bed while you’re still just wearing your smile.
god, I love that smile.
I can’t, you protest.
you know that… (and oh, do I know)
not letting you finish, I beckon you into my lips again.
make love to me, I taunt,
like a siren to her sailor.

& we like waves
crash into one another,
two opposing forces, so alike,
yet one warm,
one cool,
both seeking the shoreline.
& as our tide rolls in,
we separate & postpone our evening ides.

you smell like the summers of my youth, you say to me,
your eyelashes drunk & heavy.
as you circle the lines of my body no one else has gleaned,
I think,
you are my magnum opus,
my finished masterpiece,
my last supper.
I dig my hands into your hips for one last treasure,
& slipping away,
I leave you on the shore.

in the next room, I construct my bottled ship—
carefully built, a mast, a sail.
I have known what it takes to do such things
after sinking so many of my own before,
come back to me, you say.
I need you.
& I stop in disbelief.
all of my crafting,
every last scavenge,
was a voyage to these words.

I scurry for a scepter in your cabinets & drawers,
& finding such a thing (or something like it)
I carve into flesh:
once
twice
thrice
X
marks the spot.

the scent of you still hums on my skin,
mingling with rivers & roads of scarlet & sadness.
I slump into your washbasin, sinking into my spiral.
you are
the best thing…
pauses…
coffee, babe? you ask.
I think.
just let me soak for a while…

the sun sets.
the waves calm.
& the cool tide
bursts into flames.

-D Apr 2013

empathy's mistakes.

I open* up your old wounds this evening—
ways you used to feel, and strangely,
things, I, too, used to know.

I wonder how you’ve gone this long—
walking among the roses with their blooming thorns.
It seems your gashed ankles will continue to bleed out only until
you finally choose to leave the bushels behind.

I believe in things we both have, at times, left on the side of the road—
like how faith can restore and
love can sustain and
heartbeats can harmonize but
we’ve both become callous and torn.

I sleep with the dogs tonight—
they lick their wounds, as do I.
Chasing demons in our sleep,
stretching our limbs in the waning hours,
waking for a drink of water to quiet our
frenzied hearts and minds.

I can no longer be a part of this—
you must paint your own house in this new color
you refer to as “escape,”
but I only know as
scarlet.*

I will whisper nothing more of
how two hearts each approaching the same eclipse
somehow managed to tread lightly
on a great perhaps.

I have imbedded the sewing needle and thread into your palm,
and though it may have hurt for a time, you must now go:
stitch up your own wounds.

empathy: (noun) Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives.

See synonyms at "pity."

-D Feb 2013

supernova telegraph.

I remember how your brown eyes shine in the sunlight stretching through your truck windows;
& I remember how we used to do the same,
like a bang & then oh,
such a whimper…
—-
but like a supernova, what we had brewed with so much energy
[all. too. soon.]
& it reached the point where we glowed as brightly as we possibly could be.
so our walls bounced off of each other,
& the implosion consumed the both of us.
-
so we continue to exist out in space somewhere,
mere particles of cataclysmic stardust resembling what we once were,
but what we had was lovely & brilliant;
(& isn’t that what we are:
lovely &
brilliant &
temporary?)
-
but hell, do we shine.

supernova: noun-- A rare celestial phenomenon involving the explosion of most of the material in a star, resulting in an extremely bright, short-lived object that emits vast amounts of energy.

-D Feb 2013

unsolicited visitor at 4 a.m.

(I sometimes shake my memories
when they find themselves twisted
& highly vivid)*

this way—
no that;
I want to remember the way
your hair felt entwined in my hungry fingers—

you were sitting there beneath the tree under which I had grown for nearly 1500 days,
but you had taught me more than all of those years
in just two fortnights’ time.

I remember how chilled your face felt—
how the evening looked so good on you
(you always had such sad eyes, you know,
& the moonlight fed them in ways you never realized you hungered for).
I was there for a day or so,
just enough for me to trip (& fall),
just enough for you to push me over the edge.

I don’t quite know what brought us there that night,
halfway between you wanting to go home
& me never wanting to leave your side,
but I held my hand on your face, in your hair,
waiting with all certainty that you would wrap your arms around my waist,
drawing me in to let me
breathe you in.

(how sad I was to have such faith,
& how sad you were to have none at all.)

these days, you’ve cut your hair
(perhaps the memories of my lingering fingers weighed you down,
a blanket too warm for the season),
& I don’t even recognize your casual howareyous
(the ones that used to keep me up at night & early into the Texas sunrises;
do you remember those, too?).
no—
instead I see them for what they are:
casual.

so as I lay here in lace & nostalgia,
in the very place we once whispered our desires to each other,
& my hands so heavy with all the things I’ve gathered for our next conversation,
I will instead empty my palms, and,
like you,
release what burdens so heavily.

-D Jan 2013

insomnia.

it tastes like burnt toast— 
slightly too much of a good thing—
 & it sounds like a siren with a heartbeat that can’t stop from boiling over.

it feels like a marathon, 
but it aches like a sprint;
 like you’ve been running for days, 
but you never stopped going full speed ahead.  
& its weight is that of the sword you carry to slay your dragons at dusk.

the scent is that of the caked on grease beneath the burner you typically use for boiling water for tea, 
after you’ve set it aflame, of course. 
but its movement is most nauseating:
it writhes in the back of your throat—
 taunting both your creativity and your mental health,
 (but it is always a hit&run;).

& its course through your shabby, lonely, pathetic little dwelling place
 is both short & long;
 you welcome its company after living alone, 
but you drown it in angst & ardor.