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 Jan 2016 Mike Essig
Ash Rose
words
like arrows
piercing my heart
carefully aimed
at me
fired at will
soon forgotten

tears
in the delicate fabric
of my soul
ripping
breaking me further

naive, young
torn apart
by weapons
deliberate
and *purposeful
I forget how old you are
and I remember digging
red clay hard from the summer
sun and heat

What a slender twig you were
accepting my  grip around your base
and the dirt around your roots

You grew mostly without my notice
leaping upward and outward
until all who passed admired
how sturdy your branches,
how rich your needles

Now you tower, shading hosta
and embracing the dogwood
beside you
even though it puts on airs

This season you spill
brown needles
like a dog shedding
its winter coat

I expect you will
linger long after
I perish

I had a dream of white pines
writing poems
I wonder if you noticed me
if you will long for me
not passing by, I wonder
do pines formulate poems
and will you ever
write one about me.
Revised from a previous writing. Not sure about the last verse.
 Jan 2016 Mike Essig
Summer
heart
 Jan 2016 Mike Essig
Summer
my heart is getting fat on your love.
it is keeping me full.
i have forgotten what it feels like,
to be starving.
to be hungry.
when you smile at me,
my heart gets more fat fat fat,
And my smile gets more wide wide wide.
you tell me beautiful things,
and my heart grows about six sizes,
and so does yours when i tell you them back.
my heart feels as if it is going to burst out of my chest.
maybe even swallow me whole,
until I am a big fat walking heart.
at this point
it seems like a very lovely idea.
but then,
you tell me,
my poems are pathetic
and cliche.
my heart shrinks abound two sizes.
but when I see your **** green eyes it grows four.
my heart is constantly growing thin thin thin and then fat fat fat
while yours seems to be doing the same.
when my heart grows thin
it brings my whole body pain,
it makes me feel like all of me is shrinking.
my heart has been more than full for so long
and now I am remembering
how much it hurt to have hunger.
to be starving.
to have empty space near my chest.
although there is more room for my ribcage,
i still cry at night for the spaces not filled by you.
when my heart grows fat again,
i forget about the empty spaces,
i am only focused on
how much of me has become filled again.
become focused on being
a big fat walking heart.
love consumes me.
at those times,
i think that it makes up all of me.
when my heart is fat fat fat.
if I had spent more time alone,
hungry.
thin .
starving.
i may have known the difference
between loving you
and thinking
i needed you to survive.
I don't know if I miss you anymore.
I mean, my chest still aches subtly
And my throat burns when I say your name
And my eardrums explode when I hear someone with your laugh
And I nearly go insane everytime a thought of you pops in my mind
But i don't believe I miss you
Because I haven't called in a while
And I don't ask people how you are
And I'm slowly forgetting the color of your eyes
And I can feel you forgetting me.
I know I still think about you
Just about everyday
But I think I miss the thought of you
More than I miss the person who all the thoughts belong to.
 Jan 2016 Mike Essig
Xilhouette
My sight was hazy, but I saw you
I saw you as a faded hue

You were behind the others,
Just some person in another verse

You weren't a jewel to me,
that I didn't see

Yet now you are tinged in a new light
A light colored by blinding white

Shining brightly by your hair,
and for that reason I stare

And now I once again see you
in a different color: angelic blue...

Now I can clearly see you
and all I ask is of you is to see me anew
but so we might not argue,
Please at least see me too
© 2013 Xilhouette
 Jan 2016 Mike Essig
MJ
Someone once close to me
will whisper something significant

And my eyes will wander

Over hills
and small lakes
Through the houses of the young

But no sights of the known
will be seen

Because I will have forgotten
 Jan 2016 Mike Essig
MJ
This is a place where sleeping is hard. This is a bed, on which, I lay my skull and it opens up, not to soft dreams; instead, to loud, forgotten thoughts. I am thankful for one hour of eyes closing. Two or more, at this point-- four sleepless nights in-- is a ******* blessing. When I open my bedroom window to the sunrise that I raced and beat, the air tastes like cowboys' dreams: all wide and free. It’s baby-blue and almost-purple and a shade of blushing-pink: all the colors that make me feel new and innocent: feelings I wish I felt. I watched my cat sleep by our knees, but she gets up with the sun today, just like me. There is an empty, quiet fireplace, one story and twenty steps below my heels. I want to put a log in and allow my body rest next to its warmth on the floor, but someone has been on the couch since last night. Today is Christmas and I feel lost in thought and wakefulness. Is it okay to say my heart is breaking? Because the stitches are coming out for a third time, and I’m afraid to tell.
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