I’ve never had a deja’vu moment,
but I could have sworn I’ve seen you before,
after passing you on the sidewalk.
It wasn’t because you had a familiar face,
God knows I’m the worst when it comes to
remembering these details.
It was something in your stardust that
awakened mine.
I’ll never forget you.

I sat beneath the old saffron
willow, crumbling leaves
to dust in my soft palms.
Autumn creeped in once again,
setting the trees on fire and carrying
their leaves away with the cool wind.
I looked across the dirt road, at the
old, blackened house, bathed in sunlight.
The peeling paint leapt out like specks of glitter into the wind.
Years of memories were still trapped within its walls.

More than the leaves caught fire.

Even in a world of darkness,
I become your midnight sun.
Wrap me in your arms and I’ll
wrap you in warmth and light
‘til morning comes.

Like desert birds circling
bones picked-clean, you
keep hanging around here
like I’ve got something to offer.

Let me tell you, I’m all out of magic.
You bled me dry and though
I love you, I can no longer
be in love with you.

I’ve only enough embers
to keep myself warm these days.
A shriveled husk, the remnants
of a past flame are what
I am to you now.
I can be nothing more.

I was meant to be named Elise but my aunt stole that name away from my mother —from me

I never felt like an Elise anyways, but even so I’ve always felt a strange ownership of the name and when the girl named Elise sat
in the back of my painting class, I felt a kind of kinship to her, perhaps in name or what might have been in name.

Every little move, every soft step, every breath I take,
I am reminded of him; I am reminded that he was here.
I savor the subtle soreness, the secret that only we know
—the remnants of pleasure that reside there.
They remind me that I am his, and his alone.

Sometimes, the leaves fall off the trees
to be carried over the
wind and to a new home.

Sometimes, the leaves fall off the trees
to be trampled and smashed into the
rich, black dirt.

Sometimes, the leaves fall off the trees
because they made the mistake of falling
for your charming inventions.

Sometimes, the leaves fall off the trees,
because they too, are falling in love
with you, my dear.

She closed her eyes and shook her head in disbelief.
And I said simply, "My dear, if you continue to look at the world
through rose-colored glasses, perhaps you will never have to see the
demons at your feet.

each day I push the stone
each day I tread the waves
each day I carve the marble

but when

when will I see peace —the long-craved result of all this guiltful carving?
when will I breathe feely, free of tons of tons pushing and pulling on me from every side?
when will the stone break over the mountain and bring rest?

when will forgetfulness step out from the block and free me from my bonds by saying,
"enough tears, I've come to end your suffering"?

i didn't want to be back here
how come im back here

you were the one that brought me here in the first place
showed me this place of feeling
broke down my walls and carried me away
to this place of colors
both light and dark

and then some how we saw it for what it was
and grew together
made it out alive
carrying each other on our backs until we'd
made it across that impossible abyss

but now you've taken me back here and why
when it was a fight to the death to get out
why would you toss me back into this maw
with no escape
no you

It was you who kept
me warm on those cold,
Winter nights.
I had you running in my veins
and your love was a fire that
left me burning
for days.

This is where the ettin walks,
two-headed, three stories tall.
I’ve never heard the ettin talk,
save for his rancorous call.
Here, he lumbers, like an oaf,
towing up into the sky,
watching down upon the grove,
with his four golden eyes.
This giant is a savage beast
with a ram strapped to his back.
He is almost never at peace
except when he takes a nap.
The ettin lives up in the hills,
and walks between the trees,
guarding the grove from unwanted foes
and attacking those he sees.
The ettin carries an enormous club,
made from a withered old tree root.
He wears little ragged clothes
and stumbles around barefoot.

I am calmed by the soft petals of the lotus
flower, the same petals of the same lotus flower that
rests upon the shoulder of my yoga teacher, whom I
see every Monday and Wednesday afternoon.

I am calmed by starting out in child’s pose, hips back,
arms out front, stretching shoulders wide.

I am calmed by the cool water that runs like a river down my
parched throat during our first break in the practice.

I am calmed by the soft sounds of the music that plays in
the background and the tiny thuds from the basketballs
hitting the backboard, in the court on the other side of the wall.

I am calmed by the turquoise blue of my yoga mat and the
matching towel beside it, which I never get sweaty enough to use.

I am calmed by all the warriors teaching us strength, endurance, and balance.
Warrior one: arms up to the sky, Warrior two: arms out to the side,
Warrior three: one leg held up high, and Warrior four: arms are spread out wide.

I am calmed by all of the cats and cows and tabletops and chairs
that we become, and all of the forward folds.

I am calmed by savasana, or corpse pose, at which we arrive in the end.
we lay on our backs, legs out wide, arms flat, facing up, and eyes close.
there we stay for what seems like an eternity.
Then, when we’re ready, we roll over onto our side-body, into a fetal position.
Then, we slowly rise up into a seated position with our eyes still closed
and our hands folded softly at heart’s center.
Finally, we stretch our arms out as if it was the first grand stretch of the
morning, and it’s usually followed with yawning yogis.

I am calmed by shavasana, the death and rebirth between classes.

I am calmed by the blank space my mind becomes when I close my eyes and just exist without a worry in the world.

I am calmed when we bow and say, “Namaste.”

Why do I love
                   you?
I love you for
      what you are,
and for
what I am, when
I am with you.
  
The creatures, that love makes
out of us,
           are more beautiful
than all of the stars
                                 in the sky.

a hot cup of
coffee in the  
morning is all
well and good
but I'd rather
have your lips
on mine, kissing
me awake
instead

Is it too much to ask that we
just lay around with our
cigarettes and coffee and jazz
and just enjoy each other?

Why do we strive for perfection—
when it would only neglect
the intricacies of this gritty,
raw, ****** existence?

today has been so long and so tiring; i think i should lie
down. the anxiety has me feeling like a stranger
a lot lately. it’s not the only thing getting me down
it’s always the same sad songs that i’m listening
to that make me feel alive it’s usually always music that brings light
back into my life but lately, music isn’t my only friend

sometimes, i wonder if you really are my friend
i can’t help but stop short when i catch you in a lie
or saying something insulting or being devoid of light
it may be the anxiety speaking, but you feel like a stranger
you’re always doing the talking and i’m always doing the listening
but there are good times too so i push the red flags down

whenever you hit me up, drunk at 4am, im always down
sometimes its not me, but you rather, who is in need of a friend
you go on and on and deign to ask if im still listening
and of course i am, i always am, even if im afk —i’ll lie
and say i did because it would be stranger
to admit it —no, i would rather leave off that light

but that’s just the thing, though right — light?
i give you so much, yet you give none, i bring you up, but you bring me down
at this point i’m not sure which one of us is in fact the stranger
at this point i’m not sure which one of us is in fact the friend
when you’re good, i’m bad; when you’re bad, i’m good; when i’m bad, i lie
and say i’m good because its not like you’re listening

on the other hand, sometimes you are listening
and its those days when i start to feel light
because it seems like things are changing, like you’re changing —a lie
i tell myself over and over again, while i watch you drag me down
of course, the lyrics to this song fit —"thoughts of a sober friend”
when you’re sober you play the friend, but when you’re not, you play the stranger

i’m starting to think that if you’re going to keep playing the stranger
then I’ll keep you at an arm’s length away, always listening
but never leaning in, never getting wrapped up in you more than a friend
should ever, never letting you steal my light,
never letting you drag me down
again, never believing you when you lie

old soul, old as time
composed of stardust
and fine lines

mortal frame
a sad attempt to
capture you

lovely hair and
little bones and
eyelashes filled with
sunlight

if only they could
see you the way I do

naked, old soul

Hello fellow poets and patrons of poetry!

I am making this post because I will be moving all of my poetry from my website here officially starting now!

I've decided to keep what I've already posted here and just post the rest of it in chronological order from 2016 to now.

That's over four years of poetry and nearly 600 poems.

It's going to take me a minute to get it all up and a bunch of it is old, crusty, cringy poems that I wrote just starting out, so please be kind.

You're going to see a lot of growth over the past five years.

I do hope you'll join me on this journey! Please leave your thoughts as the poems pop up! Any and all commentary is welcome, but please be respectful!

<3
—Payton

You can find me elsewhere:
Editing, Writing, and Book Blog: www.wonderforest.net
Instagram: @lifeasalyric

As I stroked gently the head of the sun-spun hair draped
softly across my chest, I couldn’t help but find myself
thinking, for what must have been the hundredth time,
what are you thinking, how are you feeling?
What have we done to each other?
Yet, as if on cue, as if reading my thoughts,
your head snapped up and your eyes met mine.
You looked at me half-lidded and while my first
two questions remained unanswered, I realized it
was merely a catchlight I saw in your eyes, and
what we had done to each other was ***** out the
starlight that had once dwelled there.


“When I think of my wife, I always think of her head. I picture cracking her lovely skull, unspooling her brains, trying to get answers. The primal questions of any marriage. What are you thinking? How are you feeling? What have we done to each other?” —Ben Affleck, Gone Girl

Found poem from the opening lines of the movie, Gone Girl.

I am endless, immense,
no God nor Goddess am I.
No fixed being,
no stagnant, static entity,
no trapped energy,
no universe.
I am ever revolving,
undulating, expanding,
experiencing,
growing, evolving,
understanding.
I am eternal, infinite,
unfathomable,
unlimited.
I am woman, and I am endless.

He creeped in through my window,
the moon’s shadow peeking softly
while I slept, watching, observing, guarding
a neither malevolent nor benevolent thing
just existing, in his own orbit, pulling the tides,
serving his purpose, being.

As I sit in porcelain canoe, submerged
in lukewarm bathwater, which grows
colder and colder each passing second
I take a long, longing look down at my
belly-bowl full of jelly-rolls and wonder,
am I worth more than the sum of my parts?

Am I more than *** and ****?
Am I more than the 206 from 270 bones,
give or take a few here and there,
without which, I would be entirely jelly?
Am I more than the lips, the teeth,
the tip of the tongue?
more than the skin and hair and
and miles of veins pumping
life in pulse after pulse as I sit doing
nothing but contemplating my worth?

if you took it all away,
if you cold-shouldered  
this body I have come to
love and hate and love again
in one lifetime,
if you held the meat,
would the milk be enough?


I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able [to bear it], neither yet now are ye able (1 Corinthians 3:2).

Time and time again I self-sabotage
I drink the poison; I eat the dollar bills
I make bad decision after bad decision
to punish myself.

Now, I think it’s time I pour out the wine,
pour out my soul and let go of the pain
because how else will I ever hope to heal
my future when I keep beating myself up
over the past.

the clatter of plates the click
of chopsticks dancing on the floor
as a guest unfurls their napkin

the napkin left in the back of the
booth and the wads of straw wrappers
intermingled with scattered rice

the smell of rice and ramen and
braised pork belly and tofu and
the stench of everything mixed
together in the trashcan in the back

these things are all I remember from
working in the ramen house

Day after day and night after night you watch the sun and stars swirl overhead.
How many times must I remind you to not take for granted all that which you've been blessed so richly with, before you realize that in keeping count of stars, you lost sight of the moon.

As you wrote my name in
cursive with your tongue
I saw explosions behind my eyelids,
I heard a melody that was
so blissfully new, yet familiar,
I tasted lightning and saw colors
that for now have no name here,
and only exist in that realm.

Siren, sorcerer, seductress of my soul
Vampire of verve, temptress of thirst tantalizing,
captivating, enthralling me through craving
Wrenching away transmogrified desire exposing
a colossal and cavernous aching

Licentious liquors and provocative potions
Ethereal and corporeal hexthralling mixtures
Alluring, ensnaring, inviting concoctions  
Tempting with tinctures, enticing elixirs
Banquet of seduction and tonic of attraction
She is the enchanted device of my own unmaking

Barnacled shipwrecks are beautiful in their sundered glory.
Ivy-covered age-old walls are deemed charming and quaint.
The moon is mystifying even with craters that can be seen with the naked eye

Neither age nor imperfections make you any less whole.
Instead, they showcase your closeness with nature and authentic beauty.

He said never again would he flood the earth
but instead, we’ve been at the fingertips of war,
we’ve had rampaging fires that lasted months,
and now a plague wiping out our weak and wise

I’m convinced it’s the end of time now,  
and we still haven’t got flying cars.

you don't have to
love yourself
everyone says to,

that you can't really
love someone completely
if you don't love yourself

the truth is, you just have
to accept yourself and say

it might get better,
it might not, but I'll
stick around anyways

C.  kissed me in his beater car
J.  in the hall,
But he only looked at me
and never kissed at all.

C’s kiss was quick, demanding,
J’s was sweet and light,
But the kiss that lingered on his lips
haunts me day and night.

You teased and teased.
“*******,” I taunted.
You took me seriously.

Set me on fire
my body will be the kindling,
my soul will be the flame.

how could you not know that
you’d be the oxygen, for fire
or flesh, I cannot breathe
without you.

All my life, I thought
I needed seas and
mountains and bright
city lights to be happy,
to be satisfied.

The truth is, all along,
I just needed you.

Barren—they call you and now
it is your badge of honor, one
you wear proudly on display.

They likened you to a desert for
a lack of children and lack of
desire for them.

Be Mojave—Gobi—Sahara—
because your glittering, glass sand dunes
are great
and bearing fruit and flowers
is your prerogative and yours alone.

I'd rather feel the pain, the sickness, the despair, the destruction, the loss, the fear, the loneliness, the struggle, the exhaustion, the worry, the doubt, and everything in betweent.
I'd rather feel the hand of death curling with
every drag of cigarettes smoke and the threat of a hangover with every burning sip.
I'd rather feel every bad emotion, sensation, feeling than feel nothing at all.
I'd prefer pain over the feeling of numbness any day.

He was sweet, dripping honey from
his lips, lust from his eyes,
fire from his hands.

I know sugar is bad for me.
My head reasons, drinking from
crystal clear fountains of love
would do me more good than
that sweet sap, that poison, slowly
killing me, eating me from the
inside out, desire coursing
though my veins.

But my heart welcomes the sting, and
savors the burn as it moves down and
down and down

Coffee.

Breakfast in bed.

Sunlight pouring in on warm, silk sheets.

Your head between my legs, your lips on mine, gently writing me love letters with your tongue.

Perfect Morning.

I’m an all or nothing person; I always have been, I always will be.
If I’m not challenged one way or another, I create my own.
I’ll self-sabotage even if I know better -not necessarily intentionally,
but despite having learned the lesson before.
If I’m not feeling challenged, I will put myself in precarious situations -drama, debt, depression.

It’s never for attention, and always for feeling something besides numb.
Even negative emotions serve a purpose; the feeling of struggling is a sense of survival and shows you’re still alive.
Numbness is nothing; you might as well be dead.

The world has turned grey in your absence and feels as if I will remain blind to all of its brilliant hues for as long as we’re required to be apart—for the foreseeable future.

When this is all over—when I do see you again, I know this dormant fire coiled in my bones will set us ablaze.
When we reunite, our kisses will be sweeter than our first kiss.

When we get together, our love will be even more ravenous, even more demanding, even more essential than before, and we will desire and be desperate to become reacquainted.

When I see you again, it will be like my soul has returned to the water, and once again I have been made anew.

When I see you again, every part of me that came from
the dust of dead stars will be alive again.

It is the cream, the sugar the spoon
I should be reaching for, but this early,
my fingers know only the route to
the buttons on your shirt and the zipper
of your jeans and nothing else.

I want it all.
I want your head, your heart, your mind, your soul.
I want your days, your nights, and afternoons.
I want your nows and laters, your firsts and lasts.
I want your happy days and sad days.
I want your good and your bad.
I want your autumns, winters, springs, and summers.
I want your suns and your rains.
I want everything about you.
I want it all.
Everything, all of it, or nothing.
I won’t settle for less.

Glass plate, window to the road, the future, caked in red dust and
baked in sunlight, showing nothing but blue skies ahead,

I wish it had only been blue skies ahead.
I’ll never forget that warm summer afternoon when it was you instead of the sunrays beaming through the windshield,
when the air was so hot, we had to roll down the windows,
except, of course, the windshield remained,
and you didn’t.

You are no temple; you are a tree and that’s just fine.
Temples always crumble, but all trees grow tall with time.

You are a sequoia, with wedded roots running deep -
an ancient redwood with more strength than stone or concrete.

Trees stand tall through whatever weather comes, rain, snow, or shine.
Temples are felled in and out of battle, whilst trees remain sublime.  

Castles of men come and go, falling like sand into sea
What remains when we’ve all gone is the life in the trees.

Leaves color, fall, and come again, with each new springtime
Temples fall to ruin as empires of man decline.

Color me in the seven
Touch your soul with mine
In our little slice of heaven
I Worship you, my love, divine

Go now, cast your spell on me
Blend us together for a new hue
I’ll be your faithful devotee
Love me, as I love you.

Ice
Beautiful, yet beastly.
Creeping translucent tendrils of cold.
Frozen, frigid fingers pointing down.
Crystalline and gelid shivs poised to ****.
It is only day two of the ice storm and there is
expectedly, more to come.
The weight of the world rests upon delicate, weary boughs, and though they're strong, they were not made for this.
Limb after limb encased in ice, cracks and secedes from the once-great behemoths —remarkable evergreens, landing in a crashing heap, only to be collected once the thawing ends.
One tree, if not the most important of them all, is kept under careful surveillance—24/7 watch.
She is called Survivor—for weathering a different kind of storm— though now, 25 years later, will she survive this? She has already lost one great branch, and others now cannot bear the weight of frozen glaze on their spindly arms.
Electricity is yet another danger to many others of her kind.
Fire and ice alike threaten to claim them.

He was never my rock
but he was always my oak,
constantly standing through
whatever weather I blew his way,
and still growing.

He might be sweet, dripping
honey from his lips, lust from
his eyes,
fire from his hands.

But sugar is no good for you,
***, and wouldn't you rather
drink from crystal clear
fountains of love than


let sweet, hot tea burn
you again and again?

He looked at me with lamenting eyes
which said everything he hadn’t with
his own tongue and that was how
disappointed he was with me.

He caressed my legs which were draped
across his own but stayed quiet as I
supped hungrily on water which became the
only thing I could stomach after all the
drinks I’d happily given into

But if only he knew why —if only he
knew how terrible a place my mind is.
If only he knew how blissfully deadened
my racing thoughts were when I ******
on the sweet, stinging nectar.