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Jeffrey Jun 2017
When next love knocks upon my door
I'll invite her in with warm regard
and offer her a cup of tea
as we make introductions

When next love knocks upon my door
I'll not rush her or make haste
but rather let the time unfold
as naturally as ocean tides

The next time love knocks on my door
I’ll set aside all expectation
like children dancing in the rain
happy just to be alive

When next love knocks upon my door
I’ll find a way to let her know
that while I’ve not been waiting for her
I’m happy she’s arrived
she’ll find someone that loves themselves
absolving her of great demands
save for just a moonlit dance

When next love knocks upon my door
I'll read her verses that I've written
and sing her songs forged by my hands
to make the shape of my heart plain

If love decides that she will stay,
not for the night, for ever more
I’ll love both wisely and too well
And remove the knocker from my door
Jeffrey May 2017
Don’t look long on the darkening of the night
And give no energy to their gaze
They look upon us from crumbling vantage points
steadfast but hands empty, save for what they steal

Don’t look long on gilded pyres
Give no contribution to their cause
hollow eyed and wayward souls
They’re simply drawn to you my dear

Don’t look deeply into the dark
And hope that you will find the light
The bottom is still much further down
but it tries yet still to brush itself across your lips

Don’t look at your own reflection
through the lens that they provide
Instead sit here in repose
And conjure images of light

Don’t look away from truth
But Be the seer and the seen
and let the rag and bones
of the pretty broken turn their indifference elsewhere

Don’t look for answers in the darkness
no great secrets will be revealed
It’s just a place where hope’s been *****
tragic fools are fools none the less

Don’t look for glory in extinction
There nothing romantic about being dead
And vampire’s teeth hold no beauty
A lesson learned too late for some

Don’t look for ecstasy in the pain
An ****** isn’t worth your soul
You’ve no idea how great the risk
And how quickly your wager will be lost

Don’t look but in my eyes my dear
And walk with me from this place
There’s nothing that I want from you
But to see you delivered, unharmed.
Jeffrey May 2017
It’s not the relationship that you’re holding on to.

Nor is it the person
lying on the other side of the bed,
across an unreachable chasm
breathing softly in the night

He is merely a part of the illusion
that you so intricately carved
and then pinned on this
unwitting soul saddled with your expectations

made him your atlas, weighed down by
your insecurities, unexamined truths that
rather than explore, you’d hoped he'd vanquish

And when he could not slay the invisible
dragons (for he is fighting with his own)
you began to hate him almost as much
as you do yourself

and yes I know, while wine nearly dulls the senses
enough to not hate being taken from behind on occasion,
it only leaves you with muffled tears once the flush
of lust has passed.

No my love it’s not.
It’s not the relationship that you’re holding on to.

You never even liked his laugh,
but he was enough to momentarily
quiet the insecurities that torment you
on your mind’s playground
that tell  you that you’re not worth loving,
how no one wants a girl with scars or
stds or two young kids


It’s not his fault nor is it yours,
release him of your shackling hopes
and don’t waste time with anger for him
not being what he never was.

Then start down a path cut by love’s
sharp edge, through the thick overgrowth of fear
rather than the other way around

And on your own, you will discover
that beauty is but the reflection of the
light that you already possess, that the playground bullies lie and that you're so deserving of your own love
and understand the lover that you want isn’t the one that is seeking the insecure, for insecure only seeks the same

I know my love.
I know that you’re afraid to loosen your grip.

But I promise you this much is true,
if you let this go and instead use your hands
to reach inside, to find out who you really are,
the light that shines from your eyes
will light the world, and as an incidental
artifact,  attract a lover matched in full

  
It’s not the relationship that you’re holding on to.

And the time has come my love,
to just let go.
Jeffrey May 2017
I fell in love with you in metaphors. Having never seen you, but reading every word you write.

The way you dangle your participles, naked and raw, yet still soft and round, then casually leave unfinished sentences as if to say, please, finish me as you will

You tempt with your soft parentheses, tightly wrapped around my waist, the words they squeeze rubbing up against the curves

Your similes, a sideways smile, like the cat, canary gone, pull me closer until your delicate punctuation is so warm, so wet, I can feel it pressed against me, you alliterate, such sweet surrender, so sublime, and I succumb

I want you now in rhyme, in verse, in prose, in  sweet haiku

     'where in so few words
you trace the shape of my heart
         and then (somehow) paint its hue'


I fell in love with all your metaphors, the way your sentence structure feels pressed hard against my body, devilishly running on so that I'll follow ,your undulating syllables, your firm round letters, your tight sweet semi-colon, that no common comma could replace.
To all of the amazing poets here that win my heart with words
Jeffrey May 2017
I reach my hand down below the sheets and beneath the wasteband that gives way,
to find myself engorged

And though I know we've not yet met,
I find my love still yet to be,
climbing up the bed I've conjured,
while laying between wake and sleep

I've done things that make some blush,
that I'd never thought I'd do
But with no regret, nor pride
Looking back on seasons passed,
while dining in hell's lobby

Boys and girls and girls and boys
And boys and boys and all those games
At times tied down, straddled by an angry hearted girl looking to exact revenge on past lovers by digging in to my softer parts while forcing me to ask for more

And yes at times, the one on top, succumbing
to the darker drives, holding firm onto the wrists
of a lover, begging for a harder smack, a stronger sting, a more forceful pull on her locks, and coming only when she's felt sufficient pain to satisfy her shadow

And yes it's true, nights when still, I can't be sure in the pile
whose hands were where, whose mouth it was that wrapped around me
When tangled in so many arms, that truth becomes a story that we tell ourselves should we recall the night before

And if by chance, my reading friend, you're out there now tangled up in twisted sheets, drink until you've  had enough,  but not so deep that you mistake  neon for the sun,  as  there are some that never leave the shadow's cave

For as I lay here now alone, only two hands in this bed, not feeling lonely but instead, a sense of peace while still turned on.  
Having danced in demons arms and finding not the truth I sought,  I sinned my way to virtue

Where now I wait, for one true love, that will accept the things I've done and those things that were done to me that  even now are too much to tell

My self engorged, I touch my body, not with shame and with my head not filled with darker scenes as I've lived them all, and now have found that I prefer the sweetness and the light
Jeffrey May 2017
Perhaps, I said.
But first, there's something
I must ask of you.  

Wrap one arm across your chest and embrace
the shoulder with the scar you  hide.  
With the other, place your  hand,
ever so gently, on your belly,
too soft though you think it is

Whisper now, but not for me, or any other
Just for you.  Whisper what you've been
withholding from yourself these many years

'I love you'  and not the you that you pretend to be, or the you you think someone else will love.  

The you, that is so delicate and beautiful, a tiger and a lamb.  The you who only wants you to notice the way your laughter sounds like sunshine,  the you that doesn't understand why you give yourself away to everyone else.  The one who loves you most.

'I love you' to the only one that if you truly love, will set you free to chase the wind and drink the rain from the sky with abandon.

Love the you that has suffered by your side with every choice, compelled by fear, that lead you places you knew better than to go, following beautiful creatures into the dark

Please, embrace yourself now,  give the love that you deserve, that you've spilled like wine along your path but never sipped.  

And when you have, you'll find me out beneath the stars lying in the grass.
Jeffrey May 2017
Erstwhile, the morning came a new.  
Yet you, in your self imposed blindness,
failed to see the brilliance of the sunrise.
This being the lessor of two tragedies,
as the light within you, both brighter
and eternal remains equally unnoticed.
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