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madison curran Feb 2015
there's a house at the
corner of misery boulevard,
and heartbreak avenue,
that i call home.
& i can't count on my left hand
how many times,
those sand tinted rooms
with decaying light bulbs
have overheard
through paper walls,
the sound of that rose coloured capsule
embracing the floor,
only to find itself in pieces.
my mother always
hid that in a cage,
locked tight.
never did that stop my father
from finding the key,
she always slipped under the door mat.
like she wanted him to find it.
and you could hear it shatter,
into glass fragments,
that she was always left to clean up
by herself.
because he never stayed
to watch her pick up the pieces,
he didn't want to cut his life line
on her fragmented heart.
- or the time when my mother,
stained my ear drums,
and sold residence to a ghost
who now haunts the walls of my mind,
with words,
she'll claim her tongue never dismissed.
but ten years later,
and i still think i'm that painting,
in monochromatic shades,
that no one ever bothers
to glance at.
when they're gliding
down a vacant hallway.
more empty than the emotion
in this house.
but i still call it home,
because the walls have been
infected with sadness,
because there aren't enough vitamins,
to cure all this sickness,
released through
hatred hymns.
but those melancholy rhythms,
can't compete with the
floorboards that still sing me to sleep,
or the elation that fills
my lungs when i breathe,
because this house
still smells like mourning
the old flames,
from vanilla candle wicks
my ninth birthday knew so well.
& yes, there is no place
that sends fragile shivers
down my spine
when crossing the paths
of gloomy road,
and loathing crescent
but this is home,
this house is just like the cerulean tide,
because it always finds a way to
pull me back to shore.
& then i met you,
promenading down
hope street,
making empty prayers
to god
with a dry tongue and
waterlogged eyes.
another dawn spent
searching for the light -
in coffee shop windows
or even the stars.
something -
to guide me home.
and you taught me that
home isn't always a place,
you can find on a map.
sometimes,
it's two eyes and a heart beat.
it's love entangled words,
uttered through a pair of crimson lips.
& you showed me,
that ruby tinted vases,
look best when
they're not placed on shelves,
but rather granted as gifts,
sealed in envelopes,
with kisses painted
in scarlet lipstick.
& ghosts can be put to sleep,
by a lullaby,
you whispered in my ear
seven times a day.
i love you
has a ring to it,
but it's been six months and
that ghost sold his house,
to a boy who
told me i'm a composition
of colours.
that an artist painted me
in gold, because he sees it in
my eyes when i smile.
- i swear to god,
four walls and a front door,
build a house,
you'll always turn to
when the sky's crying, or when
you tear your jeans
on the wire fence
down the road.
and that boy
who is a composition of wonder,
possesses no door,
and the only window,
is the amber iris
that feels like the ocean
when he looks at me.
because,
he's just like the tide.
& i can still smell vanilla every time
i kiss him.
every single time.
madison curran Jan 2015
it's not that i don't love you
it's that when i was six, my mothers eyes were verdant fields illuminated by her laughter.
it's that my father came home that night, whiskey absorbed into his tongue, lavender lingering on his skin, the last two buttons of his shirt still undone.
it's that i always thought it was a tree branch caressing the windowpane at 2am.
when she was crying to the walls for help.
it's just that when he left, she started sleeping with the light on,
and her eyes died with winter's approach.
when they were together, her skin was a canvas for violet hues that burned like gin against your throat so she could never hug me.
it's that, last november when they healed, she painted them again - but this time in red.
it's that my mother didn't wear lavender.

it's not that i don't love you
it's that my older sister doesn't leave her bedroom. i wonder if she misses the sunlight, or maybe if that's the problem.
it's that she told me that if people were colours he'd be red.
because she sees him in the sky when it sets.
and in the leaves that have been kissed by autumn.
it's that it's been a year, since she wrote that letter with scribbled letters and scattered thoughts,
talking about the way he said her smile reminded him of old movies,
and cotton candy.
and that she still loved him.
it's that last summer she went outside to feel his presence,
in the graveyard by the river - accompanied with lost lovers and broken hearts.
and it's that she came home and took a blade to her left wrist - heartbreak oceans leaving the sink painted scarlet.
it's that when the doctor asked her why she did it, she replied with:
"i forgot what red looked like."

it's not that i don't love you
it's that once, my therapist told me about his wife.
and that she left him because her heart didn't beat for him anymore.
it's that when i told him my cat ran away last week
he smiled gently but with his eyes,
and replied, "don't worry, she's coming back."
like he had recited that phrase to himself a thousand times this week,
it's that i saw hope peck him on the cheek,
and ignite his eyes,
it's that i know they did that when she laughed like honey was melting into her tongue, or when she told him she loved the way his right eye was more green than the left.
it's just that, during my last visit,
he asked about my cat again,
and i had to tell him, "it's been months, i don't think she's coming home."
it's that he cried sapphire pools of misery,
because his eyes told me
he knew she wasn't.

it's not that i don't love you
*it's that i do
a poem based on a popular trend.
madison curran Jan 2015
his eyes are the colour of coffee,
-warm and romantic
when he looks at me,
i feel like i'm looking into the window of a coffee shop.
the walls painted in mahogany.
and coffee stains.
he looks at me with caffeine weaved into his eyelashes
energy lingers within his iris.
my frail hands tremble
my eyes light up with the exchange of energy through lovers glances.
i haven't slept in days

his lips are crimson like wine,
and they bleed into mine like ink does to a page -
slowly but deeply.
scarlet kisses between hopeless romantics,
entangled with flames.
my throat is an inferno.
burning as his tongue seduces mine in,
the cave where my laughter hides on gloomy afternoons.
my lips are numb like lonely palms are when autumn decays,
and all i can taste is a bittersweet elation,
like blood as it lingers in your mouth.
i'm drunk again

and his arms built a house,
inside of me.
a quaint bungalow with the walls tinted ivory,
the smell of vanilla mingling with oxygen fresh in the air,
a house that feels like singing birthday candles to sleep,
and your first kiss.
the house you return to when,
your hands are rosy with winter absorbed into your lifeline.
it's the house that you can't stop coming back to,
because it feels like christmas, even in june.
and no matter how hard you try,
you can't wash away the love signed by;
wine spills and laughter absorbed into the carpet.
when he touched me:
he built a house with his hands,
and made it feel like home


*i've never been so homesick.
madison curran Jan 2015
i love you.
and no i don't mean,
i love you, like i'm trying to make empty conversation.
more vacant than the mailbox of the widow next door,
who hasn't left the house in eight years because the sunlight's embrace still feels like his.
i've never been one for small talk.

i love you
and no i don't mean,
i love you - like it's february 14th and i'm thirsty for someone to tell me i'm beautiful,
so i'd sell my soul to you
and stain your bitter lips with my name.

"i love you"
but you won't call me back next week
because i gazed in to your eyes like you were oxygen and i was struggling to breathe.
rather than you were a poem painted across the sky
that i was dying to read.
an excited grin flirting with my rosy lips, entangled with elation.

i mean *i love you

like my eyes become the north star when you laugh,
i see your face etched between the stanzas of love poems,
and i hear your voice in the wind's autumn serenade.

i mean i love you
like i'm a fifty year old alcoholic with wine stains on my carpet
and i'd still choose you over that bottle of liquid elation in the cabinet.
here i am. stumbling on my words,
choking on the poetry weaved into your smile.

and "i love you" -
the sun's fiery kiss against my skin
reminds me of yours.
and when my bones age, and your presence fades into the horizon like daytime's end.
your absence will burn like cherry wine flirting in the back of my throat.
i may fear sunlight too.

i love you.

                                               (m.c.)
I really do.
madison curran Jan 2015
she loved to dance to love ballads.
but she always danced alone.
he - also loved to dance.
but never with her - each night he swayed with potent gin.
whirled with Mary Jane.
he'd waltz through the door each Friday night,
Jack still bleeding into his tongue, two of his shirt buttons still undone.
too in love to stand.
she'd drag him to the bedroom, poisoned by the smell of perfume.
sandalwood and cherry -
still lingered on his hands.
scarlet strokes smeared across his cheek.
he'd lay upon the sheets that smelled of vanilla,
but would soon smell of whiskey and another woman's perfume.
and the silk pillow would become the sea-
soaked entirely, absorbed in cerulean heartbreak.
she still kissed him good night, but even his tongue didn't dance with hers anymore.
said every time she kissed him, he tasted like goodbye.

and five years passed,
their bedroom still smells like vanilla,
but the pillow is still absorbed with liquid despair.
because the room is no longer theirs.
she still dances from time to time.
with his ex lover.
says it tastes like him.
a poem to illustrate my parent's relationship, this house still tastes like heartbreak.
madison curran Jan 2015
there's always been something poetic in how you glide across a room -
like a butterfly with a kaleidoscope anatomy, so beautiful yet so shy.

in how you laugh like you've never had despair knock on your door at 1a.m. and ask to see the ghosts that haunt the locked doors in the folded creases of your home - with signs labelled, "keep out."

in how they write love stories less romantic than your eyes, and how they kiss me from across busy intersections, and crowded rooms with empty souls.

in how every time your lungs are embraced by elation's vapour, your eyes are crimson like a sky set to flames and you smile gently like despair is but a word in a dictionary - one that will forever be a stranger to your sweet disposition

there are infinite stanzas folded within every corner of your anatomy, sprawled across lined paper in the midnight sky's blood and sealed in white envelopes.

and if sadness ever knocks on your door on a quiet september night. and asks to go inside that locked door at the end of the hallway that's entangled with ghosts that haunt the blank walls. the room that you avoid every lonely morning because you've never been fond of the dark or the frigid air, and least of all - ghosts, that you thought only existed in the pages of books.

if sadness ever knocks on your door with her charming eyes that seem to unlock the doors without question.

i will sit by your bedside, in a quiet room with the walls painted in blue,  and the folded edges of your sheets kissing my skin. and i will open every envelope, without leaving a tear - just so you can hear each sentence as it is dismissed from my crimson lips.*


(m.c)
madison curran Jan 2015
I remember that night, like I remember the first time your lips became acquainted with mine,
The moon was embracing the thin sheet of winter's rain - a sapphire shadow illuminated my mind.
The sky was sad, but the stars were smiling.
The night's opaque disposition was all I seemed to know.
Though, I recall your eyes-
Like the first snowfall that frigid November ever graced me with.
Your eyes -
They were painted in crimson, illuminated by your laughter.
And the stars were put to shame by the light within your iris,
Your skin was a brilliant saffron,
Like a marigold in summer's warm embrace.
I wanted to paint your cheeks with vibrant strokes of scarlet -
My gentle lips the most suitable paintbrush.
And that was the night I fell for your crimson disposition,
Your eyes were the sky's azure complexion set to flames -
Followed by the silver freckles scattered across midnight's opaque canvas.
I haven't wished on a star in months -
Not when there are galaxies in your eyes.


(m.c.)

— The End —