Dance.
Paint.
Write.
Sing.


We all are finding our own ways to live.

I see myself as dead.
When I scroll through all the pictures,
I see myself as though I've passed on -
A eulogy for every smiling image,
A remembrance for missing moments.
When I see myself, I am frozen in a sweet story
And it's as though it is lost forever
And I mourn each passing memory, maybe
Because those moments are surely gone, or
I am simply not a positive person, still
I know I must
Let go of happy memories and
Appreciate present glories...
Though,
I feel that I lose myself throughout time
As I create new entities
That dance most well with given moments, then
Let them dance away,
For they are only suited for one another -
A version of myself and a single moment unmatched,
Not meant for anywhere else or any other time.

It is as though
I am looking at photographs from these past dances
And seeing a life that is no longer
And it's a part of my own.

Are you okay?
I am breathing.
You should stop.
Why?
Why not?
Stop it, you're in my head.
Yes and it is a horrible place.
I know.
You should do something about it.
Like what?
Do you see that gun?

I cried
Until the night died
And morning came to rise*

© Melissa Carlson 2015

I still search for you
In endless crowds,
Starless skies,
And empty rooms.
I still call your name,
In lonely fields,
Raging storms,
And, loudest, in my mind.
I still wonder
Where you and I went wrong,
If I haunt your dreams too,
And if all this time will bring me back to you.
But my dear I have learned,
Not to waste my time,
Cause though you're just a memory,
My dear, I do not mind.

There are so many words that struggle silently on the mind,
too scared to become sound waves so they’re strangled somewhere
between thoughts and windpipe.

I want to ask so much from you but asking too much from people
Is how you make them scatter and run an evasive pattern fastest from you
Because no favors are free.

Sweet nothings are all I want to hear from you,
Like the ones you used to whisper to me when you still felt challenged,
When you were trying to win me.

Well win me again, because I think you’re losing me somewhere.
I can’t stomach this feeling of being somewhere on your priorities list,
Wedged between the laundry and the dishes.