Kathryn Bowen

Kathryn Bowen Jul 2014

You killed my heart.
By it was my fault.
I was searching for reasons to make you hate me.
A master of my twisted craft, I forced you into this.
Now I sit amongst the smoking rubble of my life,
Everything burnt away but the pain.
I tip my empty glass in agony, willing just one more drop to appear,
To satisfy my thirst.
My dreams are mostly dead, my latest is to keep the drunken stupor for as long as possible.
This bland, empty nothing, with the dull ache reminding me that you're never going to love me.
Though I loathe those who succumb to wallowing, I finally understand the hype.
For there truly is nothing so beautiful and sweet as someone in the throes of self torment.

Kathryn Bowen Jul 2014

Frayed Wires

Can't have it
Don't want it
I say it
But I don't mean it

You're it
I'm sick
Your wit
Feeds my addiction

I'm over it
You want it
Don't get it
**** this I've had it

Kathryn Bowen Jan 2014

SPEED-

sinking drowning dying [spinning] throwing going

down

around inside my head it unfurls

the fire unleased and spent and taken

by surprise I’m falling spiralling twisting-

turning and dizzied by the lack of breathing

Picked UP and lost in the hustle of going

going being seeing buying lying through the

truth becoming clearer by nights of w a r p e d

mirrors and powdered lines in scheming minds

of the bad choiced losers of our time.

Shaking hands and sleeping bands the drum

pounds a beat in my head that I can hear as

I leap from incandescent memory to horror

film in one swift turn of phrase.

Goodnight and goodbye stars and constellations

That once played an intricate role.

you have been most helpful –

Kathryn Bowen Jan 2014

A Traveler's Guide to London

The moon is quiet and thoughtful.

Roads barren and damp with the sweat of horses and their riders.

Prints of disheveled hooves embedded in the ground.

The putrid smell of smog, hints of cobblestone and blithering drunks, waits in the distance.

London’s finest on Fleet Street, where the people live in fear.

Todd glares into the fiercely sparse street and mourns a farewell to a life of prosperity.

Lamps flicker as the oil barely lingers, while dawn silently but swiftly approaches.

The poets dream for slews of new and benevolent days, whilst their slumber is interrupted by the tower bell.

Six times the ringing and the brightest star reveals its radiant beauty o’er the steamy ledges of London.

Kathryn Bowen Jan 2014

Nothing and Everything

don’t put down the pen

keep going

struggle through the pain sweat it out

tears and jeers they come and push your face to the ground

these decisions have never been so hard

and I’m drowning in all the fear and disappointment

that I might not be cut out for this.

I have to reach higher ground but lack the will

please tell me I can

take me back to when it all made sense

where none of this matter and we can just be.

be free and be forever happy and willing to take chances or break hearts trying to feel something

again we are back to this game of wishing we had it all when we really need to understand that

- everything we lost we already have.

cry for me baby but cry only once

pick yourself up again and walk tall towards the shining bliss that

may pull you under

but simultaneously makes you stronger.

the biggest unanswered question of the century is

how do we get out of life alive?

Kathryn Bowen Jan 2014

That Night

It started with you grabbing my hand.

That first touch, my heart never knew how to beat so fast.

We moved to the music as hundreds of people around us melted away.

The room went fuzzy, perhaps from the many cups of courage, but your face is clear in my mind.

I remember how you smiled at me, your eyes penetrating mine.

How you knew just what I needed in that moment, feeling so secure and yet weightless.

Your lips tasted sweet like cherries in the sun; the sheer decadence of that memory makes me dizzy with lust.

Your eyes filled with such a certainty, however, glazed with previous decisions and future consequences.

We left that moment in time for what seems an eternity, and may never return.

But the happiness I felt for that brief interval has nourished my heart and kindled my soul.

I welcome the sorrows that come, for they will be burned out with our fire.

Kathryn Bowen Jan 2014

Give Yourself to Me

...Give me a blank canvass and I'll paint you a picture
Give me your mind and I'll teach you to believe
Trust me with your hands and I'll show you how to love
Embrace me with your body and we'll make music together.

Shower me with your words and I'll cleanse your soul with mine.
Cut me with your anger and I'll bleed your reasons.
Give me your tears and I'll make you smile again.
Quench my heart of its longing and I'll do whatever it takes.

Speak to me with truth and I'll sing to you with love.
Sit quietly with me and I'll tell you my secrets.
Fall asleep in my arms and I'll guide you to good dreams
Wish upon a star for me and I'll wish on one too...