Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
Aug 2017 · 145
Demons
JAC Aug 2017
Someday, you will tire
                           of defeating your demons,

        and you shall befriend them instead.

You will sleep a great deal more soundly,
      and you'll forget how it feels to dread.
JAC Aug 2017
I see
a flag,
shredded
by much more
than just the wind.
An insignificant response to the awful events in Charlottesville.
JAC Aug 2017
Each subway platform
has two trains, see.
One east and one west,
or one south and one north.

In many cases,
you must cross a bridge or tunnel
to reach the other train.
On these bridges,
there is often a bench,
equidistant between either directions,
atop the two trains.

This is where you must sit
when you are young and in love,
and with the person
with whom you are in love and young,
for each of you
will inevitably need to go another direction,
west or east
or north or south,

but it is wonderfully easy
to just sit on the bench.
This is my 150th poem published on this site, and my 10-month anniversary of joining Hello Poetry. What a beautiful place, this is.
Aug 2017 · 247
Bottle Boy
JAC Aug 2017
What's in your bottle, boy?
It's not what it should be.
Who's in your head, boy?
It's not who it could be.
JAC Aug 2017
Here's to
sad songs
and dancing
through the kitchen
in our sweaters and underwear
when we should most certainly be asleep.
JAC Aug 2017
I memorized each way she moved,
he told me, his aging hand
letting his tea tremble.

I would always find her shoulders
and her little wine birthmark
in the sea of small red dresses,
when the band played something quick.
His toe tapped to an invisible dance,
a-one-two, three-four, one-two, three-four.

The room was always hot
and it always smelled of excitement,
he continued, with a reminiscent grin.

She'd turn with a nervous swish,
like nothing I could ever understand,
and I never did,
how she made it look so ******* graceful,
but we'd dance like the room was empty.
We'd bump into everyone.
He laughed, a tired rumble.

Once I got hit and got a ****** nose.
I didn't even notice,
because she was electric.
I loved the shock.
His eyebrows creased
into a devilish satisfaction.

The swing dance shock.
Aug 2017 · 272
Holes in Me
JAC Aug 2017
Every time it feels like the evening
Upwind of cigarette smoke
I become aware of the holes in my shoes
And the holes in my eyes
And the holes in my logic
And the holes in me.
Aug 2017 · 171
More Time Than You
JAC Aug 2017
It was with you
that I spent all I had,
and I do not regret it.
I had more time than you, after all.
Aug 2017 · 558
Wanderer's Advice
JAC Aug 2017
They told me,

"leave
until you miss
being home,

go home
until you miss
being gone."

I listened.
JAC Aug 2017
"There is ice in my veins
and I cannot see,
for I am my own reflection,"
the river sighed
as she explained her sorrow
to the little boy,
after he asked politely.
The character of the sea comes up often in my writing, but I often forget she has friends that miss her.
Aug 2017 · 301
But a Dream
JAC Aug 2017
I had a dream about you.
In the dream, you were fine,
and in the dream, I was too.
What a shame it was but a dream.
Aug 2017 · 391
An Inherent Fear of Flight
JAC Aug 2017
All those tiny houses,
crammed together, packed
as if they were afraid of flying.

Someday we'll live in one of those houses,
I told myself, as I watched them fly by
outside the train's window.

There was a simple romance,
an unremarkable sweetness
about believing that.

I was alone on the train -
it came from the side of the tracks
where people don't have office jobs in the city,
and I came from the side of the morning that no one likes.

I liked being alone on this train.
It meant I had time to be romantic
without having to be hopeless.

The sun was too tired to rise just yet,
sending instead a half-hearted glow
over the little sardine shelters
that scrambled past my sleepy window.

For now, I left my fear of flight unhoused,
taking trains between here and where
then and how, now and there.
Finding bits of work in between,
celebrating victories
far smaller than those little houses.

I was much too afraid to take a plane.
JAC Aug 2017
How dare
           I detail
your loneliness,
            when it is I
         that leaves you
                             alone?
Jul 2017 · 2.1k
Beautiful People
JAC Jul 2017
There is
an abundance
of beautiful people,
for beauty
should be
in your mind.
As if you weren't already aware.
Jul 2017 · 372
Admission
JAC Jul 2017
I'm lying to you,
and I'm afraid to admit it.
This cannot be my admission,
because I am a liar.
Do you see my dilemma?
JAC Jul 2017
You know,
for you have slept:
dreaming
takes a long time.
Jul 2017 · 178
Under the Moon
JAC Jul 2017
There is nothing new
under the sun.
Now, under the moon,
what is not unique?
JAC Jul 2017
Loveless desire,
desireless love.

Funny
how we rarely
see between them.
JAC Jul 2017
I imagine, quietly,
if this were it.
If, while I waited on this train platform,
this ever-romanticized,
transient in-between,
someone pushed me into the tracks.
It would be an accident, of course.
What was I waiting for, anyway?
The news would hear it first,
and they'd be the first to forget me.
Clamboring over my unremarkable story
to the next and the next and the next.
I hope I'd make a favourable statistic.
Then what family I have would hear,
once they determined who I was,
and they'd worry I wasn't pushed.
They'd have so many questions
I'd be unable to answer,
much like when I visit.
Then would come a lover,
as sad as those who loved me,
and they would keep my photo
until they grew tired of looking.
For their own sake,
I'd hope they got tired quickly.
Friends would remember me
and tell me kind words I wouldn't hear,
and I'd be of no help to them anymore.
Every once in a while,
I'd come up in a conversation,
and I'd hope they'd grin at a memory,
but it would be more likely they'd frown.
There it'd be,
my young life detailed
in saddened conversation and tears,
until I'd be left another piece of the past.
The statistic of an unremarkable life.
Jul 2017 · 158
Darling Daisy
JAC Jul 2017
You drew no last breath,
because you never had need to breathe.
Instead you offered me
sweetness in subtlety,
songs of solitude that held me
as I held you
with the love only a little boy
could give you.
With warm hands and gentle voice,
I told you the things about me
I barely knew myself,
and you told me you'd remember forever.
I know you will, in other hands -
I owe you a quiet goodbye,
and your melody will never grow hazy;
you've found a new home,
so farewell, darling Daisy.
My beloved small-body guitar was stolen today. She taught me to sing, and was covered in the scratches and dents from years of long nights, rebel-rousing and many a tearful ballad.
JAC Jul 2017
The boy who waved the boats from shore
had still never set sail,
but he was lonely.
One day or morning,
a sailor's sunrise,
a girl approached the boy on the pier.
It was a long walk
and they could see each other
on each side, approaching.
They watched each other,
each studying the other,
as if other could learn about each
before even speaking.
Eventually, she arrived,
and they looked at each other again,
faces full of curiosity.
"What are you doing?"
asked her eyes.
His replied,
"What's it to you?"
"Well," she blinked,
"You seem all alone here.
Boats leave, but you do not."
She communicated across a short sea
of rotting, sun-dried boards
between them.
The boy said nothing.
Instead, he cocked his head
and flicked a smile
from the corner of his lips
across the metre-long lake of boards.
She asked him after a pause,
"I've nothing to do,
may I please sit on the dock with you?"
The boy nodded warmly,
and they sat,
fewer boards between them than before.
She pulled off her shoes,
her socks too, pink and blues,
and dipped her toes
in the water she knew was cold.
They spoke very little,
but they would inevitably fall in love.
A continuation of "The Boy on the Dock".
Jul 2017 · 464
Hymn to a Storm
JAC Jul 2017
Verse I:

I enjoy the way your hair
Is always kind of everywhere
And the way your mind is like that too
As if everywhere is nowhere for you
The way you explain so nicely
Just what you have to say, precisely
While your smile, beaming like an eclipse
Hides conversations behind your lips
So thoughtful, so understanding
With a prescence simply demanding
That I smile around you
And so, I do.

Verse II:
I miss the way your hair
Was always kind of everywhere
And the way your mind was like that too
As if everywhere was nowhere to you
I miss the way you'd explain so nicely
Just what you had to say, precisely
While your frown, the moon in an eclipse
Kept conversation far beneath your lips
You were thoughtful and understanding
With a presence simply demanding
That I be there for you
But I wasn't.
Jul 2017 · 483
The Boy on the Dock
JAC Jul 2017
The boy who waves the boats from shore
But never dares set sail
Doesn't get lonely.
There are always boats leaving,
Always boats coming back.
He'll help load the ships
With all they need and more
Then step off as they go
And stay just on the shore.
Every passenger knows the boy
And no one knows why he's there.
There's a dock he'll walk
That extends a little into the sea
Where he sits and speaks
To fishing boats that come to visit
But only for a short time,
His toes in the water.
He can swim, and sometimes
Someone will fall from a boat
He'll jump in and swim to them,
Pull them up, be sure they're okay
Only to swim back to the dock.
The boy who waves the boats from shore
But never dares set sail
Gets lonely sometimes.
Introducing a character you already know.
JAC Jul 2017
Once, he was asked,
"Tell me what is true.
Why is it that you
write just what you do?"

He laughed, and said
with half a smile,
"I write so you'll
fall in love for a while."

After a pause, he said pleasantly,
"Not with me - I'm a liar, you see,"

And grinning wildly,
he spoke his conclusion:
"Love is a poet's favourite illusion."
As requested, the full version of the poem that long-adorned my bio.
JAC Jul 2017
Do not
steal kisses.
Ask for them,
politely.
Jul 2017 · 310
The Sea
JAC Jul 2017
The sea has a way of forgiving
without apologizing for anything.
She swims far from humanity
yet she invites us in,
she pulls at our sands
and it lulls us to relief
while offering sustenance
and cold, sweet belief -
but when she wants us out,
she throws us like ships,
pieces of a hard-lost board game,
and if we try to resist her,
she takes us in,
and she apologizes,
but does not forgive us.
For my darling, the sea.

Could this be
the very sea
that carries me
from poem to poem?
JAC Jul 2017
Imagine,
living vicariously
through your own reflection.
JAC Jul 2017
In the mornings,
there may still
be a light fog
on the water.
A continuation of "The Sea and the Clouds",
because everything is but one part of a whole.
Jul 2017 · 2.3k
Instructions for 5:49 a.m.
JAC Jul 2017
Eyes open
                             Mild panic
                   Look around
(Quiet)
Realize              
            Pause
   Process
                            (Quiet)    
(Quiet)      ­      
       (Quiet)
Glow-in-the-dark stars                                  
                                      None to speak of
(Quiet)          
        (Quiet)
                        ­   (Quiet)
        Conclude
Roll out of bed              
                                           Careful not to wake you
(Quiet)
Locate shirt                  
        Pull on jeans
                                (Quiet)
Still dark            
     You like dark
                                                (Quiet)
  ­             Phone
   Keys
Wallet        
Headphones          
(Quiet)                                                      
Stand            
                Hand on door
Wait                        
Look          
       Still asleep
                 (Quiet)
Paper from your notebook                        
                                  Pen from nightstand
Calligraphy pen
           Didn't know that
(Quiet)                  
                  You wrote down a dream last night
                                       "Dreamed I was safe, happy, in love"
Says sleepy cursive                                      
                     (Quiet)
          (Quiet)
(Quiet)  
Write below                    
                       "So did I"
              (Quiet)
Back to door          
                      Don't look back
Don't look back                
              Don't look back
(Quiet)                
                                   Look back
           (Quiet)      
                      (Quiet)
(Quiet)        ­
            Open door
                  Escape                        
           ­  (Quiet)
                          Through your hall
(Quiet)  
Messy kitchen        
Don't remember seeing this                                      
                 Must have been dark
(Quiet)                      
Shoes must have been kicked off
                                                     Found them
                                       Close front door
                   Still dark outside
(Quiet)            
(Quiet)                          ­  
        (Quiet)
Too early for train                          
                   Too far to walk
(Quiet)              
   (Quiet)
(Quiet)                              
Smile guiltily        
               (Quiet)
       (Quiet)
*(Quiet).
Essentially a continuation of the previous poem,
"An Appalling Lack of Glow-in-the-Dark Stars".
JAC Jul 2017
It was suddenly twenty-eight minutes
                 after three in the morning,
and I found myself in your bedroom.
     Your sheets were cheap and creased,
                     your quilt was older than you,
                   and your pillow cases didn't match.
There were three pillows, and you had all of them.
                                                                ­       I didn't mind.

Your breathing was the steadiest thing in your life right now,
              and your back rose and fell
                          as regularly as your hopes did in the daytime.

                    There was nothing on your back -
           whatever was there
an indefinite number of hours previously
     had joined the convention of disorganized stress on the floor
              that slept a mere seven and a half inches from us.

                      The mattress was as warm as we were,
           and the whole of it held tightly to the scratched hardwood floor
that was probably still owned by those that lived here before you.

                                                           There was an appalling lack
                                            of glow-in-the-dark stars
                              on your dull, cracked ceiling.
A cut-up excerpt from what will soon be a long story
about growth, uncertainty and lives we never expect to be a part of.
JAC Jul 2017
Hope and love
are so often
but the casualties
of satisfaction.
JAC Jul 2017
I stood there,
in the angry, dark air,
my hair curling everywhere,
and it was all I could do not to stare.
JAC Jul 2017
The empress of the lighthouse
can see for years and nautical miles
and she can never be lost at sea.

The empress of the lighthouse
could save every sailor who smiles,
but she doesn't.

The empress of the lighthouse
is empress only of a house
when she leaves the light off.

The empress of the lighthouse
got tired of waiting for ships to come in,
so she doused the light in her seafront tower.

Now everyone she loves
and everyone who loves her
*will forever be lost at sea.
Jul 2017 · 1.2k
If Only It Were That Easy
JAC Jul 2017
"Maybe I'm not cut out for this,"
I said, knowing he knew what I meant.

"I've never tried harder at anything else--"
His eyes were skeptical.

"Well, I mean, I'm trying, right?"
his eyes remained unsatisfied.

"It's better than you ever do,"
I showed my teeth
to his equal glare.

The boy in the mirror lifted a tired eyebrow
and laughed, in spite of himself.

"Have I made a habit of talking to myself?"
I asked, grinning.

"I listen better than anyone,"
he replied.
Jul 2017 · 572
The Birth of an Airplane
JAC Jul 2017
As an airplane
afraid of being airborne,
I let myself crash
for the opportunity to burn.
JAC Jul 2017
Am I
allowed
to tell you
    I love you?

'Cause I'm afraid
                   you'll say
                      you don't.
Jul 2017 · 397
The Same Boy in the Mirror
JAC Jul 2017
"You? Ha,"
he grinned.

"You're just like me,"
he said, his features glued to mine.

"Lost, and searching
only in your own reflection,"
his eyes narrowing
as my eyes focused.

"You can't possibly believe
you'll find what you want to find,"
said the boy in the mirror,
holding my gaze.
JAC Jul 2017
Now we wait
in the rain
for the sun
to come again.
Inspired by the poet rose's simplicity.
Jul 2017 · 279
Though We Say We're Adults
Jul 2017 · 264
What Time You're Given
JAC Jul 2017
Waste
what time
you're given;

              Cherish
                 the time
                    you steal.
Jul 2017 · 183
Helicopter Moon
JAC Jul 2017
You're like a helicopter
falling off the face
of the moon:

You had no right
                          
                                to be there

                                            
                                                      in the first place.
JAC Jul 2017
"A wildfire does not have any choice
regarding whom it falls in love with!
It is too far out of control,"

he paused, his eyes concerned.

"Just as a tree has no choice
but to fall for a wildfire.
Flames are undeniably beautiful
and full of such intrigue."

He smiled, his thoughts showing
upon his small face.

"I fell in love with a wildfire,
and I had forgotten
that I was but a tree,"
he said.
Jul 2017 · 1.3k
The Tired Poet's Paradise
JAC Jul 2017
"Sometimes I tire
of poems
about poets,"*

said the poet.
Jul 2017 · 509
When You Write
JAC Jul 2017
When you write,
What do you offer?

Life to the lifeless
Power to the powerless
Voice to the voiceless
Love to the unloved?

Or are you
Simply
In need of all that too.
Jul 2017 · 767
Another Boy in the Mirror
JAC Jul 2017
"What are you even doing?"
I asked the boy in the mirror,
a recent friend
(and forever a mortal enemy).

"Trying.
And it's mental,
but we're getting getting there."

He sounded convinced.
I turned my head to the side,
his eyes followed mine,
glistening in the dim light.

"Are we a we?"
I asked him.

"No, you idiot,"
he replied, laughing.
"We're just you."
Jul 2017 · 542
The Warmest of Smiles
JAC Jul 2017
Then one day I'll meet someone
Who grins at the ground
And knits their eyebrows the way you did
When you didn't know what to do.
I'll be thrown forcefully back
To when you tossed me lightly
With the sweetest of intentions
And the warmest of smiles.
I'll smile sweetly,
Warm my intent
And stay the hell away from them.
Jul 2017 · 228
The Joshua Tree
JAC Jul 2017
There will come dry spells
And you shall miss the smell of rain.
While growing still,
You know you will
Sprout branches that leave you in pain.

There will come cold winds
And your leaves will curl and turn blue.
The soil will be sweet,
But you'll never meet
The words from which you grew.

There will come many axes
And you shall inevitably crash to the ground
But you were watered well
And all your fruits fell
So your seeds may someday be found.
Jun 2017 · 651
When I Inevitably Go
JAC Jun 2017
Overcomplicate me.

Make
Mountains
Out of my dust.
When I inevitably go,
Don't let me
Go easily.
Next page