It took you so long to understand
And now that you do, it's too late.

It took you too long to know what I had
With someone who you are determined to hate.

You don't even know that I speak to you now,
Or that these words should apply.

I'm not sure if I mean them but here they are -
It takes so much more work to just lie.

I would give a lot to say what I can't,
Or forget what you so wish I could.

Maybe you don't wish but I'll never know -
It's too late because you never understood.

And so I'll never ask what you do or don't want
To be running around in my brain.

All I know now is it doesn't matter, but still -
It would have been nice to be spared that much pain.

In the darkest pathways will I roam,
Making forgotten shadows my home.
Find me in the secret lair,
Behind your fears, discarded cares.
I am the tunnel through the night
Fastest way to avoid all light
I am the heart, broken, called liar
I am the sadness, madness, on fire.

In a haze I came here, brand new.
Fresh life.  Newborn.
There was someone here, waiting for me,
arms wide open - it wasn't you.  But
they tasted so sweet on a lazy
Sunday afternoon.

They glimmered away too quickly
and then - then there was you.  You were
...you are
sweeter still, but only in the half-darkness of
almost sleep, only
in the remainders of dreams.  Too sweet.

It's only now, when my eyes are wide open
that I know.  I know
that it isn't the hands of a lover that sway my heart.
It is not the sound of a familiar voice saying
that they love me.  Promising me.  Needing me.
It is not the chains of relationship or the trappings of
"true love"
that make me smile.

It is the secret.  The sweetness of innocent eyes
shining out from a dark place.  The promise of
happiness, the kind that does not need
certainty, that thrives on
shadows and on
broken hearts.  Bad dreams.  On unbidden
but sweetest yet
companions.

Here's the secret to it all.

Did you catch that?  It moves so fast across
the screen that you can't even
see it.  Almost as if
it was never even there.
Like I purposefully didn't
write anything.
Why are you looking for secrets here
when I don't have the answers,
and poetry is just a sad story writer who
thinks that sometimes words
should be a disguise,
hiding things that are too
much - beauty, pain, wisdom - for
prose?
Why did you think that
because this is a poem, and
maybe you've read my other
poems, and maybe you thought
the title was alluring,
that I would offer you anything even
remotely
brand new?

Did you see that blankness?  It was
the cold hard truth,
it was the hurt
the emptiness,
the pain.
And now, because I've used a lot
of sad words for no
obvious reason, you will spend
the rest of this poem
(and maybe a few moments longer)
wondering what I meant and how this is
beautiful.

What happened to the moments when
You and I could just sit still for a while?
Where did all the times go
When we could share a glance and smile?

Since when did you force me into the quiet
With all your stories, no questions asked?
Since when was my voice so hard to hear
That you don't listen when I share back?

Why are you growing so far away?
I just want to understand,
Where are you going and why leave?
Why has all we had become shifting sand?

Don't leave me here all by myself,
Please don't go away from me!
I don't want to be left here all alone
Where it's getting dark and I can't breathe.

What happened to all the days when
You would text me first just to say hello?
What happened to all those times when
We didn't have to plan, 'cause we'd both know?

How can I sit next to you and
Not even feel that you are near?
How can I be talking to you
Hear your laugh, and yet the silence is so clear?

Don't go away from me, not now
Not when I've been feeling so afraid.
Don't leave me alone, please not here,
Not while I'm scrambling just to remain.

Tell me how you've gone so silent over there.
Tell me why you're so close on the surface;
Say to me that no matter what you care.
Remind me that everything has a purpose...

You held me tightly to your chest
Said you would never let me go;
You lost me deep within your words
But little did we know

That now the deed's been done
The cat's escaped our bag
We will hurt for what we've said
They will shred us into rags -

Get your hands off my throat
Don't try to strangle me
You know this thing is not my fault.
Shut up and let it be.

You didn't mean to claw me out
Didn't mean to push me down
Now you want to help me out,
But you're too late to save me now.

So just leave,
My wounds are gonna bleed
As soon as you remove your hands and run away.
Just go,
I'll leave a trail in the other direction
Give them something that they can follow.
As you run away,
Everything you wanted is going down the drain.

This is the feeding frenzy now,
They're here to find us out,
See what you started coming down.
This is the feeding frenzy now.

I walk on quiet leopard's feet
I stand atop a brand new day
I live inside the rainy sky
And dwell beneath the bird's pathway.

I am a tiara of mountain peaks
It is I who slink across the land
Cloaking the earth in a shrouded film
Yet I leave no footprints as my brand.

In all I do, I can make no sound
I envelop the planet in my grasp
I do not feel the cold of the wind
On my body no skin, on my cloak no clasp.

I could not harm the pink skin of your wrist -
Fear me not, I am only the mist.

Underneath a blinding sun
- Drowning in the light around me! -
My searching heart has finally come
To find a heart seeks to surround me.

Absorbed in that strong presence till
A cloud sweeps across the sky
And blocking the light becomes very still
...That cloud, dragging shadows by.

Suddenly the darkness deepens,
The shadows seeking yet to stay
And when my heart my fear is keeping,
That presence blows the storm away.

Beautiful! my eyes now see
The same world but no longer blinded
By that same sun which now is free
To once again continue shining.

The darkness pulled my mind abroad
Exposing things I'd never found
And helping me against all odds
To let my blessings now abound.

Wrapped once again in safety by
The heart that holds me near
That deity somewhere in the sky,
Who tells nothing to fear.

And what is there but to believe Him?
...Nothing but to love;
For though I have yet to really see Him,
It was He who set the sun above.

Night should not need to brag on so;
If night were so pretty, should it not
stand on its own feet so we'd all know
its secret beauty is no secret as we've thought?

Night is too quiet to need its own poetry.
To fill silence so profound is to insist
that Night continue to be lonely, to go on quietly -
we ought let Night enjoy itself, not resist.

And lastly Night's sweet and somber melody
should not hold us more entranced than Day.
The song is not heard less often nor played more readily -
each tune is a lovely song with something to say.

Night does not need our pity to feel brave.
Nor our sadness, fears or triumphs to be safe.

I have reached the point where I
don't want to sleep.
It's not that I can't sleep - I
really am so very tired, and it's
rather late, the clock jumps in
leaps and bounds. As if
the halves of hours and the
chunks of ten
are swallowed by that easy
StumbleUpon button or maybe by
my brain.

This is the point of tired when
all the nightmares and daymares and
scary, lonely dreams-to-be
come lurking in strange
ways. When I
can't place the reason for this
uncanny loneliness eating at my soul.
I keep searching for something -
for anything, if I'm honest -
that will make me
laugh once more, then I
will surely sleep. But I
can't focus. And I can't find it.

I see my old friend, the one I
miss so much it hurts, but who
I haven't talked to in a while. I see
those phantom arguments that I
always win in the shower, and which I
would surely lose in reality. I see
all those moments in which pangs of
pain struck me, the ones that are
so easily ignored throughout the day,
and now they've piled up and I am
an insomniac.

I can't sleep.

As it stands tall on summers' mount,
e'er found among them, betwixt, about
and the shining moon's cool face aglow,
there you'll find the sun. He is
a heightened hope, burns like Below,
the long fiery rays shooting down is
a thing to rival the Cupid's Bow.
And the Sun, so shining, is eternal light;
symbolic, all ways, of our humble faith -
hot like passion and ne'er out of sight,
even behind clouds, thus as the Lord saith:
"Let there be Light" - and ever light is found
behind even shadows - oh, burn, proud Sun -
burn, simple and silent, burn without sound!
Such is a promise which will never be outrun.