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 May 2014 Laura Mankowski
L Marie
I cried,
I wept;
My heart
You kept.

Yet still
You left
Without
Regret.
(c)
 May 2014 Laura Mankowski
petals
the dream felt so real;

the want and the passion,
the heat and the lust
while my mouth touched yours,

our breaths pacing
our thoughts filled

and all at once,
time moved backwards.
Cancer is a quiet pain.
A fog that clings to innocent beings.
Consuming with unapologetic haste.
There's a sadness in your eyes.  
It gives my world such weight.
How do I hush this helplessness?
It gives the air such infinite stillness.
I am choking on this illness.
I am losing sleep.
I am eating to feel less hollow.
I am thinking to feel less brim.
I want to fight your battles.
I want to hold your hand.
I will not lose you to this.
You're my sunlight.
My deepest heart and the greatest man.
Turn the corner
Hand tenses
Looking down the iron sights I see an object fall
"Tango down" I call over the radio
what was his name? Tango, Threat, Terrorist, doesn't matter.
Explosion
Mud brick wall vaporized into dust
Keep going
Out of breathe
Keep going
Hand tenses
"Tango down"
Does it have kids? A Family? Threat eliminated
Round the corner
Hand tenses
"Three tangos on west building roof top"
Bullets from my brothers **** by my helmet
Return fire
"Take Cover!"
Sweat drenched face fogs up my goggles
Explosion
Brick pieces pummel my back
Ears ringing, faintly hearing
"Alpha down, Medic!"
Blurred vision, equilibrium thrown off
Raise my rifle
Hand tenses
Silhouette falls
"Medic!" heard faintly
Hand tenses
"Are you okay?" sounds distant
Hand tenses
"babe?" getting louder
Hand tenses

Hand tenses

Wake up
Sheets heavy with sweat
"Babe, are you ok?"
Throwing the blankets I jump back to the edge of the bed
Her frightened face
I've seen before
I look down
Hands tense
Same look, no tangos
No threats
Just Ghosts
 May 2014 Laura Mankowski
Maria
Somehow I always find myself coming back to you
Your absence made me feel like my heart had an empty hole
your voice, your face, your pure and sweet soul
Fills the nothingness inside of me
Let's repeat the past and come back to the start
Where you made my life a work of art
Let's repeat the past and not fall apart.
Say you love me once again
Say you love me, sweetheart.
 May 2014 Laura Mankowski
Jack
~

Parched and dry, this barren field stretches,
I wander…head hung low,
staring at the emptiness eclipsing my thoughts
Brittle blades of grass disappear beneath
my worn out Chuck Taylors,
black and white crushing beige
in slow fashioned footprints ~ blistered dust

“My sanity for some cool water.”

When upon my shoulders, reddened by solar intensity,
wet from exerted energy, comes a breeze
as if Autumn has come to claim her colors,
to gather her brown and sepia landscape,
pull the lifeless trees, with little leaf
from the chalk textured ground
taking it where it would suit another ~ for this is my luck

“Take my shade a beg not, for it is merely a branch.”

Like fingers of a silken web’s reach,
a soft caress of skin is not understood, though very pleasant
nature finds me a shiver, a small comfort in this arid place
once crawling with snakes of assorted length, now
green as if lush has just been defined
with sweet air and pomegranate skies
featuring a glow, pristine shades of which I’ve never seen ~ heavenly

“To whom might I thank for such a gift?”

When before me stands, as my eyes saturated and lost
slowly focus, a beauty of winged loveliness now smiling within my own
personal oasis, which quickly forms in my heart
An angel, a goddess, extends a hand…to me?
My cracked and weathered palm touches, smooth, gentle
her hand as she lifts me, I am weightless, floating
to her, my breath leaves me as I wonder ~ is this my end

“If this beauty shall be my final curtain, let it be dropped slowly.”

A voice of velvet speaks, as I fade in and out of reality
now steadied by her touch and the sweet scent of lavender and lime,
“I have come to you as a verse...for poetry is thy keeper,
thy words have been heard,”
lyrically she sings
melodic and harmonious, rhythm’d to the beat of my heart
the race of my pulse, the love of my life ~ my muse

“Eternal to you I shall write, for your beauty fuels my pen.”
Even now, as we lie here, heartbeats like a metronome for the coming storm, I write songs in my head for you. And though my voice will never sing them, they are the soundtrack of your kiss. Each record scratch on my heart like a pressed vinyl love letter. Shaping my sinking chest into drum skins that my pulse beats against.

If I were covered in magic dust, you would be my happy thought. And all my childish notions of what it means to be romantic would be written down the sides of Chianti bottles in melted wax, like an oak. And in that bottle we would keep our hungry mouths.

And still I find my heart adrift. Ripped sails and ropes leading skyward like veins. Split and tattered and stitched haphazardly together, waiting for the lightning to strike twice and bring it to life. My throat a bricked flue, leading to an open mouth, spitting smoke from the torches my heart fears but always seems to carry.

And I stretch my spine skyward. Trying to wedge my head back into the clouds but manage only to cast the shadow of an orchid that has begun to lose its color and wilt at the edges of its wingspan. Coming to terms with the idea that it may never be picked. Not even its petals, even numbered like a deck stacked against it that it might lose in a game of being loved and loved not.

We want for a little more time. Arm wrestling clock hands into submission with god like fury. Ticking tongues to dampen the prophecy of false mediums. We practice fighting so we may fight for each other. Fight for the greener grass on the other side of the pavement walls we draw our chalk hearts on.

The clock tower is a lighthouse. The lighthouse is a windmill. The windmill is a giant. The stories never end.

Even now as we lie here, heartbeats like a metronome for the coming storm, I write bed time stories in my head for you.
My hands are cold from want and salt-heavy air.

The sails are gray like soggy wool against the purple night.

The wind smells of possibility but tastes of regret

And I can only mutter,

"It reminds me of her. It reminds me of home."

My heart is a compass.

You are North.

Be a lighthouse and I will turn my wheel towards you.

I. Am. Not. So. Far. Away...
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