There came three odd women of Warwick
Who cried noiselessly, who had no voice to speak
Rose from their beds in the afternoon, weak
Goes on to watch walking strangers from a wall leak

At midnight in June, eyes cracked open and wide
Beneath the pale moonlight they creep and hide
Sheathed, shiny hawklike daggers on each side
On what begins their prayer to the great divide

Down on their knees, with red satin robes sweeping the floor
Seven lit white candles on a circle as one opens the door
Breaking the whispered hour, came an unspeakable horror
The three women, as a chorus, yelped an otherworldly roar

The town, the people, what do they know?
For as they slept as thoroughly like summer to snow
Soon they'd awake only to be invaded with hateful woe
For the three ladies left Warwick in dusk
eternally without the great big yellow

I breathed hard, one with the night chill
As the hands of the watch you gave me
Struck at the lucky hour of three
Right then, everything was at a standstill

I held it first when I was as brazen as fifteen
Brawny brown leather straps clenching time in its place
It looked anything but plain for it had unusual grace
You told me to care for it, keep it dainty, keep it clean

It stopped ticking all of a sudden
So I kept it in my chest full of old, dead wonder
Past the days of making my young heart flutter
What you once prized became one of my forgotten

Last night, that watch spun quickly on my wounded thoughts
As a voice played out like a nightmare in my head, "He is sick."
And the tears flowed out freely like a river on one cheek
To the watch and to you, I'd say sorry, in fact lots

Perhaps I should've fixed it, should've done more
If I could go back, I'll have time reel on its little make
Perhaps it was all that it would ever take
To have you alive and perfectly alright as before

Here's to the ones who loved and just forgot
Broken promises, easy endings, no tying the knot
Perhaps they lost before and that was their shot
Around and around they go, the ever loveless lot

Here's to the ones who never thought a thing
About heavens that soar and angels that sing
Gates up in the clouds and a heavenly king
Smothering the ungodly flames that hell bring

Here's to the ones who are above the rule of order
Steering clear and clever from the symptoms of cancer
Minding, winding their stories into their own favor
Rather than to the social systems they know better

Here's to the ones who are devoid of anything good
Whatever path they lead—will always be misunderstood
The eternal monsters and demons of their neighborhood
Not even the exorcists will save them even if they could

Here's to the ones who look at life with a skeptical screen
Something bad must have happened in between
Distorting their eyes once so pure like crystalline
Soiling them with a reality unmendable and obscene

Here's to every nonbeliever in this world both beautiful and sorry
Believing in their own terms glorious and free,
though rather* **painfully

It was fear that got me into poetry, after all

To you who dwell in the story of a book,
who longs for air in a quiet nook

To you who wander for a time alone,
who would rather stay at home

To you who seek a friend in your own,
who quite easily gets caught in a zone

To you who love solitude
with every fiber of your being

Forget the rest of the world
hustling and bustling

*Silence is not an echo of weakness
but your soul speaking in its greatest presence