Emily Williams

Jan 2016

Mike Essig

It's not a hobby. Be prepared to give your life to it.
Read, read, read: The more poetry you read now,
the better your's will become.
Don't quit your day job. No one ever got rich writing poetry.
If you are seeking fame or to get laid,
there are obviously easier methods.
Ignore criticism, unless it is useful, and even then be wary.
Consider: Your feelings do not constitute the universe;
your love life may not be all that interesting.
Write every day. Don't wait for the Muse.
She is a fickle ***** prone to take random vacations.
Forget originality. It will paralyze you.
Write like a ******. That's what poets are.
Look forward to embarrassing yourself.
Say it in the fewest, best words.
Nothing is easy. Be prepared to burn for it.
Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.

~mce

Emily Williams Jan 2016

evolution: me without you

You've found a way
to move in and out of my consciousness.
I felt you today
with the drop of a name
and yesterday
with your favorite song.

Evolution is slow;
It takes time
to erase you from my routine
to shun you from my thoughts.

Slowly I find you less and less
as your image blurs in my mind.
I feel you melt off my skin
like an old layer shed
to bare something better than before:
a me without you.

Emily Williams Dec 2015

From Ross with Love

Ross. I read your letters today. All seven. The ones from last summer. And wow. We were in love. Ross. I miss you. I miss the person who wrote me letters, beginning with ‘my dearest’ and ending with love. And now they feel like artifacts, relics of a time I can’t remember. The thin paper carries a new weight. Each word a new meaning. Because this is all I have left of you. Your words. Our love. Each precious note a reminder of what we had. What I lost. You. Ross.

Dec 2015

Kylia

Where are you?

I cannot find you anywhere
Not behind heavy-lidded eyes
Nor underneath those covers
We used to share, do you remember?
I cannot find you, though I search
Trust me, I search high and low and near and far but you--
You remain a mystery, an abandoned house sitting
Among fields of wildflowers
Boarded up, roof caved in
Creeping moss along cracks, ivy climbing up your
Cold, concrete cast.
They say eyes are the windows to the soul
But you've pulled the blinds shut
Padlocked, hammered like
Every single Friday night

I cannot find you anywhere
Not among the stars in the skies
Nor in the dreams I used to discover
With only you and the cold air of December.
As it stormed, the leaves on the birch
Fell like snowflakes, like the doves on our tattoos--
We were one, but now we are two two twoanditstings
It stings that I can't climb this tower
To rescue you. We can begin again!
But you slipped like shadows out of this door (our door)
A missing person broadcast
And suddenly I am a boat without an oar
I am human but you are the eye of a storm and my heart!
It reels me in for the strike.
I don't fight

Emily Williams Dec 2015

Ghosts

I'm tired of wasting my poetry on you
I can't remember how to write happy.
You ravage my mind. constantly.
Quietly lurking until you attack me
from the inside out
so I sit in the shower, naked
and try to wash the last of you off my skin
as if I can wash your memory away.
No, your ghost digs in,
burrowing deep in my soul
settling in for a long winter
and what am I to do
but bask in the glow of your memory
clinging to the strands of goodness
and let my self be wasted in our past
because it is so much better than a future alone.

Emily Williams Dec 2015

A Girl of the North

Another year older
and heart a little colder
Now her time is her own
so alive, but so alone

She waited for him her whole life long
but he said "let me go" and she couldn't hang on
Someone had told her not to cry
as painfully slow she died inside
"You're still the one, that hasn't changed
I promise I can stay the same"
He said that they could still be friends
but she knew she'd never see him again.

#breakup