Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
 Feb 2014 Harry J Baxter
Sinai
You came here for the last time
About a month ago
I snorted up your scent the last time
When I was finally ready to clean our sheets
We had our last talk about us
I still hear the words echoing around this building
Our last party has finished
The tickets sold and given away
For the last time you gave me a kiss
Though it tasted like guilt
I think today I told the last person you left
Slowly there's no evidence left
That we ever were more than this

I can not let go now
But last time after last time
I'm letting it be
You can have the days beginning
You can bring it to the end
You can clear out of the middle
Take it all with you my friend

You can swing from forever after
Relish in the here and now
Remove all of the laughter
Melt down the golden cow

You can pack up all belongings
Take it all away in tow
The only thing I ask of you
Is leave my Barry Manilow

You can take the sun from out its cradle
Remove the stars at night
Set to dry the gentle rains of spring
Take what you can of life

Feel free to stop the world from turning
Back it up if you must
Take my old 50's Chevy with you
Leaving behind the rust

Take the shore from its kissing of the sea
Lift the beggar from off his knees
You can pretty much do anything
Just leave my Barry Manilow with me
I'm not really much of a Barry Manilow fan...this just sounded funny to me.  Although you do have to hand it to him...he did write the songs.
 Feb 2014 Harry J Baxter
carmen
I make lists
to organize my life into lines
on a page
some lists are for groceries
others for wishes
I make lists of "to do's"
for the satisfaction of crossing them off
I scribble thoughts onto paper in the late hours of the night
I make lots of lists
of things I'm grateful for
of goals still awaiting their accomplishment

to remind myself I exist

I guess it's also a form of obsessive compulsiveness
that comes with not knowing who you are
or being unsure of where you're going
I make lists
to slowly, deliberately, write myself into a person
cp
 Feb 2014 Harry J Baxter
carmen
A constant stream of justifiable lies. Contorts what I want from my life.
What used to seem impossible is now my reality
but I'm not so sure I want it anymore
because it is different
so different than what I thought it would be

Is it worth the games I'm forced to play in order to dream?

Today is hard but tomorrow will be worse because I will wake up to hate
reflected back at myself

There are so many things I should do. There are so many things I should want.
Do we not define our own success? Each to their own version of happiness?

But all I keep thinking is
I shouldn't be eating
cp
Fear has been eating me up inside.
I'm a dancer who is  not sure she can stand another glance in the mirror.
 Feb 2014 Harry J Baxter
Kasey
See there's this guy that keeps me up at night.
He sits in the corner of my room-
Not on the floor, not on the ceiling, but just hovering there-
Just above my dresser.
And he just waltzes into my dreams.
And he says to me "Kasey, you know why I'm here."
Sometimes he looks like a woman without a face.
Sometimes like a child.
Sometimes he's a soldier or my father or my mother.
So I wake up. And I think.
About my Grandparents being married for sixty years
About working for that long at loving another person.
I think about who I am and who I want to be.
And where I'm going how I'm getting there.
All the while he's still hovering in the corner of my room
Telling me "Kasey, you know why I'm here."
And I won't leave you alone until you understand.
That to the left there is a path and to the right another
And one above you and one below you.
Through you and throughout you.
And there's no medium for which to make a choice
But your own two hands.
And you'll get up and write at three in the morning
For people who just don't care.
About things they don't care about.
And your migraine will not go away.
You know why I'm here, Kasey.
"You know why I'm here."
 Feb 2014 Harry J Baxter
Kasey
We're all lions here
And we're comparing the size of our teeth as if it's the teeth
and not the bite
That's the most deadly.
We're all swallowed by our pride here.
Apologizing left and right to make ourselves feel better about mistakes that aren't ours
We don't own them.
The moment the "I'm sorry" escapes from my lips it takes with it a
Solid and measurable piece of my soul.
I am waiting.
A lion in a pride of my own bounding on two feet
Looking down at your barred teeth grinning.
Because I will not be owned
Or enslaved
Because adolescence is a stage and I am not an actress in this play.
When the king of the jungle gives up his power where does it go?
Not to the juvenile. Not to the child.
To the one who hunts for it. Who grins while others growl and feasts while others sleep.
I will take it.
And you will whimper before me.
Next page