Eyes closed, counting the careful sheep
Bounding over broken fences breathlessly,
Tired and unused to tripping over traps
Spared by the seconds sat in contemplation's lap.
Your lids, lying lushly atop layers of
Dark pools of depth, spinning splendid tales of love,
Trust, and heartache, I can truly tell today
Was a day of definition for words I wisely said.
Lips moving in silent rhythm, rhyming, I imagine, with words unsaid.
And as I assume the memories in mind the moment falls silent and dead.
A quip, perhaps, spawned by sentries of silence growing lax,
Falling in frequent motion to the floor - hypothetically, for I cannot ask.
Your sleeping state causes silence to spread and create
An empty essence in the heavy air around us
Birthed from broken intentions and misapprehensions
I had upon our meeting of matters as such.
Please, presume to sleep through my present departure
Deprived of arrows from Venus's archer
Allow my invading presence to avidly intrude
Once more, though his objection's mouthpiece does not move.
Lightly, so as to lay loosely upon the morrow,
I brush bold lips upon the brow pulled in sorrow
But whose silent reverie starts in sleepy surprise -
But, to my relief, falls back to oblivion with a sleepy sigh.
Brushing trembling tips of fingers foolishly
Across the air that passes on the lips
That burn with oxygen's contact with it -
I start when I see his tired eyes
Regarding me with scant surprise.
Those dark pools of infinite sorrow lay sight
On me, caught sneaking silent vows of affection,
And a blush engulfs everything from my eyes to my knees
On which his wary hand waits in his wakeful state.
Several silent moments descend indignantly,
And I dare to risk retribution for crimes committed
But to my sudden surprise I see a challenge in his eyes
And abruptly I am bound to the ground beneath him
And though I know once I stole a simple innocent kiss
He steals now from me my heart through my lips.

Between us pass looks
Written only in books
Prized in poetry for their tragic demise
And written in such a sweet way that I
Have hardly the will to say goodbye.
Though of this story I have not lived
In its pages, I have skimmed
Through the letters and pockets of time
Where all love lived and then ran dry -
I will leave after you measure
The chance we have of being together
Because as you must know, I am perplexed
By your fervent curiosity from the time we first met.
Mind you now, I’ll leave despite
The effort you put forth tonight
For I am merely the briefest glance,
A shadow, a ghost, a reeling dance,
For as you interact with and are left by me,
I disappear into a million cells of the sea
And a million blue eyes, and a million blond heads -
All waiting to impart the same things I just said.
But you will forever be to me
A memory recalled with genuine ease
For you and your interest are easily
Worth more than a million cells in the sea.

I am a blank billboard lit up in the night
With only one flickering light glowing bright,
Enough to reject, and enough to forget
Unlike the seasoned sky as the sun sets.

I am all that I see and hear
And I continue to face all the things that I fear,
Rather like a field mouse continuing to scamper
Despite all the odds stacked against her favor.

I am a grain of sand on the beach’s shore
And the scuttling crab on the ocean floor
In the way that I scuttle and crawl and creep
And vanish in the masses when at last we meet.

I am the metal shining on your armor
As you charge into battle for a victory to garner;
I am the mirror into which you look
For reassurance, hope, and the truth they took.

I am the reason the fog light at night
Doesn’t short out and maintains its sight
On the rocky shores below as it heralds and cautions
The lonely sailors from their early ocean coffins.

I am the damsel eternally in distress
But in need of no assistance or a full night’s rest.
I am the princess never shown in the movies,
The reject in no mood for princes to woo me.

Rather, I’m the deviant with a mind too old
For the eyes and ears of one innocent soul;
I’m a flower at bloom and the lady at the loom,
Whose end, it seems, arrives too soon.

I am what I fear and all of my tears
As they coalesce to form one full-length mirror:
I am all you see and hear.
I am all your laughs and tears.

I admire
The color of fire
As it runs, coursing, through my veins.
I despise
The way those eyes
Burn holes through my armor to pain.
I burn, I pine,
I do my time,
And yet these muscles ache.
I declare
Your golden hair
Lacks a halo in the fray.
I twitch, I yell,
I break the spell
And the ropes on wrists are free
For you and your legacy will not
Dictate my destiny.

If I remade a man
From bone and blood
It would be Gene Kelly,
Whose shoes slap atop slippery
Concrete, crude and course yet
Bitingly bittersweet, blended both
With wet waterfalls from rickety
Gutters, and his great gift for gazing
Starry-eyed and serious, silly and sweet,
Laughing at those he meets on the street.
If I created a dream
It would be a scene
From a kicking and singing musical meme
And everything the above implies, applies
To me:
I’d sing in the rain
And dance through the pain.

I am iron
I am steel
I do not cry
I do not feel
I make my life
I make my war
Create the scars
And heal the sores
You press warm flesh
Against cold metal
And where you’ve touched
Boils like a kettle
You pass me by
You say goodbye
And inside a curious feeling:
Through the statue
The loss of you
Leaves a tin heart beating.