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Of These Oceans May 2014
Once I had a dream that drifted, scarred and sang and fell.
That echoed through the now empty cave that I refer to as my heart.
It danced through my head where it planted and began to grow.
It blossomed and lulled me into a trace.
You met me there, the blooming buds of roses, red like rubies or crimson blood.
Unlike roses, though, you lacked any thorns.
With all the passion of a storm you blew into my dreams and stole my attention and my affection.
All the corners of my mind were drunk with my affinity and captured by a vague impression of your beauty.
But all roses have thorns and I was a fool to have ignored the horned demons I clutched so tightly in my hands, the very ones I held in my heart, the ones I allowed passage into my mind.
I held the thorns with twisted bliss, the intoxicating agony that was your innermost self.
Clouded by the poison I held fast but like the delicate and masochistic rose you were, you withered in the heat.
The sun beat down and while I stood, sweating, crying, fighting for us, you fled.
You fled. You left. You ran and left me alone in the sun, drowning in the heat,  with broken hands and broken heart.
My hands, callused and scorched are left with holes, holes from holding you despite your crime.
My heart is left with holes, holes from your hands which took hold of it and wrenched the life from it.
Once I had a dream that drifted, scarred and sang and fell.
A dream of us, of me and you, of our flame which ended with a word.
A word, a single word, a word which turned the flame against us to burn and scar our hands and our hearts.
A single word which you uttered with all the passion you could muster.
A single word which took the moments, the memories, the smiles.
The heat of your breath, the touch of your skin, the warmth of your smile, the fire in your eyes.
All for nothing.
Once I had a dream that drifted, scarred and sang and fell.
That dream was you.
Thank God I woke up.
Of These Oceans May 2014
A great author once wrote
We accept the love we think we deserve.

And though the words were not my own
They stuck to me like gum beneath the chairs in my school
And I found myself reading them over and over again
Doing my best to soak in every single piece of truth  
That was crashing on my head like waves

And when you told me that he really loved you
And you still believed him
You broke my heart

Because the love that you know
Is not a grain of sand on the seashore
Or a star in the heavens
Or a blade of grass in the forest
Or a snowflake in winter

It is a word that cannot be found in the dictionary
A letter from no one's alphabet
A direction that can never be travelled
A lantern that cannot be seen in the dark

You have never heard
That love is for real
That it will strike you like lightening
You will feel it in your fingertips
In your lungs
In your bones
You have never heard
That there is a man who will never leave you
Who will love you like a word
Not like the weather

You tell me that there is nothing to be said
Nothing helps
But I disagree

You don't know love
But one day you will
And that love is not temporary
It is forever.

Just wait for the the storm
Of These Oceans May 2014
i believe in a love like wine

the older it becomes
the more wonderful it is

the longer it lasts
the more it is craved
Of These Oceans May 2014
She says, “I'm too tall”
Because she thinks she is too big to be held
She says, “I hate my voice”
Because she can only hear herself in recordings
She says, “I don’t know what I'm doing”
Because she can’t see past her shortcomings

But what she doesn't know is that with her head up to my chin she is the perfect size to fall into my arms and be wrapped in an embrace bigger than her insecurities
Or that the low, velvet tone of her voice that dances from her lips could never be captured by a video
Or that her imperfections cower in the face of her all her strengths

And she doesn't know
That I do.
Can't believe I'm posting this.
Of These Oceans May 2014
No matter how close I stand to you it's never close enough.
I will always need you.
You are the sun I want to soak in all over, the warmth radiating in my smile.
And the closer you stand the farther you feel because the nearer you are to me the more painfully aware I am of the space stretching endlessly between us.
I can always hear the dull roar within me that draws me to you.
And sometimes the pull is so strong that I physically hurt inside and it's like my heart is falling off a cliff and it won't stop sinking.
You're right there. So close I could feel your breath if only you would turn you head just a little.
And it's dark.
My eyes search for yours, a desperate look etched onto my face.
But your eyes don't meet mine.
I refuse to look away for fear of missing that impossible moment when you lift your gaze and despite the faces surrounding us you will look at me.
Look, for the first time and see something you have not before.
And take one step closer.
I will take you in my arms and the room will explode and everyone else will melt away.
But I won't kiss you.
Not yet.
The drum roll will be too great, too powerful. The years of separation will fall away like dust and that will be enough.
I will  hold your head and you will take my waist and we will both just know
If the world ended right in that instant
We would die Fearless. Full. Content.
And with everyone's eyes on us, That's when I will kiss you.
Because then, everyone else would see it too. They would see it in us.
I will close my eyes and for the first time there wouldn't be blackness.
We would be fearless.
  May 2014 Of These Oceans
Tom Leveille
kissing you was like swerving into oncoming traffic

i can never tell if i am more haunted by empty picture frames or the ashes of their contents

you taught me that the saying "pick your battles" meant not answering when love was at the door

sometimes when i drink whiskey i swear i can hear your voice in the creases of my bedsheets & i sleep on the floor

i still catch myself running my hands over things you touched the most, looking for the echoes of your fingertips

i practice things i'll never say to you

i remember the day you told me you didn't like poetry, how "everything's already been said" & how "nothing meaningful can be captured without being cliche" you know, i don't miss you like the sun and moon, i do not miss you like tide bent waves crashing on the shoreline, i miss you like a chernobyl  swingset misses children

rumor has it that drowning is a lot like coming home, that drinking bleach can **** the butterflies in your stomach

for your love of cigarettes, i would have been an ashtray

this halloween i want to dress up as the you when you loved yourself and show up on your doorstep

i never understood what you meant when you said i was an instrument, back when you would cup your hands around my chest and breathe through the holes in my heart, i still wonder if the sounds i made remind you of wind chimes

i never paid much attention to abandoned buildings until i became one

in my dreams all the flowers smell like your perfume

i am the only person who has ever wished for the same snowflake to fall twice

if i could go back, and rewrite the definition of audacity, it would be how when we lost the bet of love, you said "we never shook on it"

i love you, if the feeling is not mutual, please pretend this was a poem

the only apology i want from you, is to have you repeat the names of children we will never have in your parents living room until they *****

we are the same person if you find yourself up at 4am dry heaving promises, or if you are kept awake by the laughter of those who've abandoned you

nobody ever told you that goodbyes taste like the back of stamps

sometimes i'm convinced that the only reason we hug, is so you can check my back for exit wounds
Of These Oceans May 2014
The fan spins. Circles. Breathes.
A car speeds past. Faster. Louder.
The steam evaporates. The voices murmur. The smoke rises.

Stop.

Our eyes locked. Forms frozen. Lungs stilled.
I look straight through the windows leading down into your soul.
I find nothing.
Pale, empty light somehow creeps through the heavy grey blanket in the  sky and floats dimly through the cafe window.
The cold coffee in front of me just sits there.

Play.

The noise resumes. The people move.
But I do not and neither do you.
I would say "we", but there is none of that anymore.

Stop.

I want so badly to hold on, to reach down into the depths of the darkness and pull you out, hold on tight and never know that darkness again.

Play.

But there is nothing left down there to hold on to.
So I stand and walk away.

*Stop.
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