febuary 11, 2014*

sometimes I find myself
talking to the wall;
but if someone were to catch me,
I'd say I was talking to your ghost.

Though your presence seems dead,
you are still alive to me.

I've kissed you,
and held your hand,
and comforted you,

only to realize,
you're nothing but a blank white wall.

(NJ2014) all rights reserved.

this heart of mine
has been thrown into the fires of hell
way too many ******* times

i'm getting ******* tired
of all the third degree burns.

screaming to an empty crowd,
glass eyes and swollen limbs.
hands are grasping on railings
of a train leading to nowhere,
when all I wanted was a ticket
to somewhere.

nature seems to be the only beauty
in this life of pain and struggle;
but trees are trees,
and lakes and oceans are nothing but water,
and the weather will cry sometimes.

but even still,
none of that is enough to make me feel at home,
to make me feel okay alone.

NJ2016

it's you I want to tell everything to,
and it's you I want to spend my days with,
and its you who I have stuff in common with,
though we are complete opposites,
and it you I'll learn from,
and it's you I want to experience,
and it's you I think about all the time,

but it's he I want to hold me.

and that where this love story becomes a tragedy.

(NJ2015) (All Rights Reserved)

She saw him on the streets and suddenly understood
that blood is blue rather than red while in the veins.

(NJ2014) (All Rights Reserved)

it's far too cold to just wander around,
and we're too far gone to save anything.

i forgot what it feels like
to look at your face and feel something.

(NJ2015) All Rights Reserved

You taught me that a poem doesn't have to be
a collection of dressy words,
or expressions of feelings,
or have to hurt.
You taught me that

feeling comfortable with a certain person,
sitting under the moonlight,
talking about simple things,
the sound of your laugh
and simply, you,

can be the greatest poem,
even if the paper is still blank.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

Your arms are columns, structure,
with hands like carpeting that runs along the surface,
your breath lingers like smoke of the fireplace
after it was put out at the end of a holiday.
Your voice is rain hitting the window,
falling softly and condensing into nothing but fog,
fingers tracing quiet promises and desires in the form of pictures
that will only fade away with the hands of time.
Your eyes are an autumn scenery wall art,
your lips a single rose in a glass vase.

It's moving in day and the house is empty,
with nothing but a piano and your structure;
singing and spinning around in classical tune,
it feels like home, you feel like home.

My voice echos off the walls,
solo piano swimming through the halls,
my dancing feet patter on the hardwood floor;
beautiful, but when the hands of time strike night

I find,
this house is not yet a home.

(NJ2014) ©‎All Rights Reserved

I love it when you open up to me,
share the world inside your head,
instead of just rolling words off your tongue.
I want to hold your hand,
but i also want to hold your heart,
and your mind,
and i want you to know you can trust me,
I want you to want to always be mine

(NJ2015) (All Rights Reserved)

He ran his fingers on my neck,
and ran it down my arm to my waist;
he placed his hand on my hip and pulled me close;
his chin resting on the top of my head,
my body lost in his embrace.

I placed my hand upon his arm
and rubbed with my thumb,

'I could get used to this. I could get used to you.'

I turned my head and locked my eyes with his,
tried to speak, without words, of a kiss;
he looked away.

I haven't felt his arms around me since,
nor looked into his eyes;

that day I fell completely head over heels for him,
was the day he said goodbye.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

Daydreaming always satisfied me more than real life;

the pictures in my head were always more beautiful
when they were simply figments of my imagination.
I feel I have lived many lives within my head,
and not even merely one during this lifetime.

I have climbed up mountains and dived off of them,
I have sailed across the ocean, and swum across the sea;
I have fallen in love, and believed they too had fallen in love with me.

I've jumped from cloud to cloud, and crossed the sky from day to night,
I've ran a full circle around the world before seasons could change;
I've held his hand and kissed his lips, and I've lost myself in his eyes.

I've skated on broken ice, and ran across water,
I've discovered the meaning of life,
but decided the list should be longer.

I've lived a million lives within my head,
but left very little footprints in the dirt;

I wish he was all in my head,
so what we had would be beautiful,
and would never hurt.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

I identify you with the smell of cigarettes.
You've never been to my house,
but my father smokes too.

Father always said,
boys will break your heart,
take from you what they want and leave.
I'm sorry, dad.
Your little girl fell too hard
for a boy with a nicotine scent,
and deep forest eyes.
I should've listened.

You've tried to shelter me,
but I've always been someone
with a knack for adventure,
and an interest in mystery.

He rolled my poetry up,
took my match heart,
and set it on fire.

I knew I was lighting a flame,
but I didn't know it'd go out with the wind.

I don't think he cares,
I was set on fire,
and there's not even ashes there.
I went up in smoke,
and for all he knew,
I disappeared.

Daddy,
please stop smoking,
you smell like him.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

There are very few things that are beautiful -and remain so.

The way the leaves change into beautiful neutrals at it's time of death,
the way the sun rises and sets with a beauty so awe-striking,
yet remains soundless and subtle.
The way birds continue to sing a sweet song,
though no one could understand them.
The way  the same eighty-six piano keys
can create a combination of different melodies
that can make someone either cry or laugh in joy.
The way the rain can wash away all the troubles of yesterday,
how despite setting, the sun will always rise again.

How someone so average,
can be the world to someone;
can age and break apart,
and still be the most beautiful creation
to someone who was once a stranger.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

i'm painting pictures on arms with water-colours
because it's the only way I know how to express myself,
sometimes I think my mind is beautiful,
but it's so diluted and the colour is barely showing anymore.

i don't feel beautiful anymore.
I sketch the perfect feature,
and use oil pastels to create this 'dashing' smile,
but by the end of the night, it's all faded.

i don't feel beautiful anymore,
i've been wandering around art museums
staring at such complicated pieces,
and wishing I could be beautiful and complicated too.

I'm only happy when I'm sad.  -all poets

"Black, two sugars in his coffee
remember that the next time we see each-other."
We never saw each-other again.

"You have sparkling eyes,
you give me butterflies," another said,
and I left.

I don't know how to love.

"I love you so much,
why can't you open up," he said.
Now I'm hurting his head.

'Cause I don't know how to love without ******* up.
Friends and lovers alike,
I don't know what they'd like from me,
I don't know what to do, I feel like a fool,
I just keep breaking their hearts, and I don't know how to stop.

I don't know how to love.

NR2016

I've never been anything more than almost.
Almost his. Almost gone. Almost there.
There's comfort in 'not quite.'
You can't exactly lose something you never had, right?
(Almost, not quite.)

I have never gained, but I have lost.
I've learned that losing a winning silver
hurts more than losing a hand-me down gold;

To lose the gold is to lose a gift,
to lose the silver is to lose award;
if I put my all in something, isn't it right to say I deserved it?

Sometimes you work so hard you deserve gold,
but you only get silver;
if that isn't unfair enough,
sometimes you don't get any.

I've learned that people are not metals;
and you could put the effort of gold into someone
and only receive the silver of them;
and even still, they may not deem you the winner.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

because of you I sleep with the tv on these days
not because I think of you & can’t sleep
but because I’m scared of the dark
now that I know monsters exist.

njr

I'm scared of the morning because of it's honesty,
the way it can strip the night of it's pointe shoes
and reveal the wounds of a bare foundation.

bones shiver as the sun rises,
the ******* of the night revealed;
skin under covers in the early hours more adorned
than the bare flesh of the evening waltzing to anothers movement.

I'm scared of the morning because of it's urgency
the way the sun is already racing down towards the horizon,
just to stare the skyline in the face with it's eventual blushing.

the worst part of falling asleep next to you
is knowing that morning will come
and it will promise to come over and over again
but you will not.

nr 2023.

I have a lot to express,
but the words are suppressed.

Can't eat, can't sleep, can't speak.
But that's all I want to do.

I have never felt so lonely
as I've been feeling since I've met you.

(NJ2014) All Rights Reserved.

I wish I had known that the ring on your finger disappeared when you were with her, that I was just a placeholder
in case you never got the chance to hold her again.

I wish I had known the last time we kissed. I would’ve paid more attention to how your closed eyes were painting me into her image. Your hands interweaved through black strands, moving slowly unto pale skin. How you morphed the mountains of my bones into the soft hills of her baby face.  How your tongue danced around the fact that I was not her.

I wish I had known the dull in your rainbow eyes were because brown looking glass could never take you to the valleys of her green irises. That I was lightning, a quick spark, something that reminded you of a brighter day when all felt cloudy.

Had I known you never loved me,
I wish I could’ve said I’d have walked away,
but even the moon shows it’s face sometimes
in the light of day: and I’m sure I would’ve loved you that way.


N.R

I thought if I let my heart bleed into my hands I would be able to mold it like clay into a form that wouldn’t be too heavy for you to carry

I thought that someday all these tears would wash away the pain I was feeling and leave me floating in your arms.

when I felt scared and alone I’d leave the television on, hoping the lights and sounds would keep away the monster that kept trying to lurk in my head.

I wish I knew that monster was only trying to save me - he wanted to whisper the things in my ears that I refused to believe you never said to me, to drag me kicking and screaming off the bed that comforted me with the scent of you from last night. he wanted to touch me and send shivers down my spine in the same way you did - he wanted to show me that sometimes evil is a boy with dark eyes and brown hair. that the monster isn’t hiding under your bed, but laying next to you in the sheets.

njr

I’m not crazy, I’m scared.

how can I apologize for the marks I’m leaving on your skin?
the way my fingertips are digging trenches into the same arms
that wrap around and comfort me?

how can I explain that though I’m planted on solid ground
I feel as if my ankles are being grabbed by unforgiving hands
and trying to pull me far far away.

as I’m dragged away I’m desperately trying to hold on,
but the tighter I grab your hand
the harder my nails dig into your palms
and pieces of you become pixelations
that disappear into the nothingness
leaving me with less and less to hold.

why do I push away all that I wish to hold close
why do I hurt everything that I want to keep safe
and why does love scare me so much that it makes me crazy
and turn me into everything I never wanted to be.

how can I explain that I’m trying not to be this way,
how can I apologize to myself when I feel defenseless.

I’m not crazy, I’m scared,
of getting everything I’ve ever wanted,
just to watch it slip right through my fingers.

{Nicole Joanne - 2022}

how will I know it's the right time
when even the moon and the sun change the hour they rise?
day switches to night,
and still the answer is cloudy in my mind.

sometimes the rain drowns,
other times it nourishes -
where lies the accuracy between too much and too little?
what if I wilt? but what if I flourish?

the roots of evil and good are alike,
sprouting from the same place of wanting change
though, change is only a quarter of the process
leaving a great deal into the arms of gamble.

even if the clock inevitably strikes nine,
and clouds are grey with storm-like signs,
and my thoughts are repeating the same **** line,

how will I know when it's the right time?
and is there even such a thing?

{Nicole Joanne - 2022}

taking shots of whiskey instead of bullets,
i’ll wake up in the morning with a hole in my heart, but not through my chest.

bleeding out in the form of words I’ll soon forget, words I’ll come to regret. my dress stained only with spilled liquor and the hands of people I’ve never met.

my world is spinning so I’ll make my head match. I’ll dance until the lights go on, and my vision goes black. what kind of life is that? what kind of life is that.

ill make the first move, *** and coke - actually, make that two.  lead me to the dance floor, sway back and forth - no longer in my hands, my fate is in the glass.

one day I’ll find the life I’ve been chasing. kitchen dancing and movie nights, children laughing, alone time. the bottom of this bottle won’t bring me home, but I keep chasing. I keep chasing.

nicole joanne 2021