Why is hellopoetry.com black and white? I've always wondered about this... why my colorful photographs are required to travel back in time. How does this effect the poetry in any way, shape, or form? But I understand the wisdom of this design now. And it sets a great metaphor for all of the people of the pen involved in this truly noble motion, this secret society for people with passion, talent, and troubled minds and souls. Hello Poetry is black and white not because it has to be monochromatic and modern, but because us poets fill these pages with enough inovativeness and color already with our words, ideas, thoughts, songs, senryus, ballads, heartbreaks, insecurities, that adding literal color to this website would be overwhelming. These soft undertones of gray, black, and white may be considered drab and depressing to some, but to us poets it represents timelessness. And this is probably why we are all here. Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly publishing poems. Because we all know we are not going to live forever, and we are so entirely insignificant in the broad scheme of things and of the universe itself, that it is a bit comforting and helpful to have this coping mechanism or soft blankie to calm our fears, that this literature we write, however insignificant it may be, is absolutley permanent. And that maybe someday it will be remembered so a small bit of us may live on. Tom Riddle knew the needs and wants of man kind before anybody else realized it. Maybe he was just trying to cope with the fact that he is insignificant. These poems are all our Horcruxes so *viveamus per camenam nostram.

Loving you in the form of forced "I love you"'s between every touch, between every doubt inside that screams "no" while you keep screaming "yes" but all I wanted was for you to touch my heart the same way you touched my thighs and grabbed my face unapologetically
Loving you in the form of bare feet on wet pavement similar to the way you carefully walked your way into my mind. I wish every natural disaster would sound like our hurricanes of false "I love you"'s and forced moans

Losing you in the form of blankets on that cold November morning when our hearts were no longer fabricated to beat the same. I never quite forgot the way the frost matched the color of your eyes the day you decided loving me was as worthless as hiding from the monsters that lived in your head.
Losing you in a form quite similar to the closest way we made love; you'd lie with I love you after minutes of me hoping you'd stop. The cadence of your voice became stale and I think I could see winter in your eyes even when I was not looking at you and my sighs became more frostbitten than your words.

Missing you in the form of sweaty palms but you never really were one for holding hands and now your fingers are shaking harder than they did during our first kiss but it wasn't our first kiss I missed, it was every one after that and the way you'd whisper I love you as if one time you truly meant it, just to watch me walk away when I thought I'd had enough.
Missing you in the form of wearing your deodorant every night after years of you being gone because I will never feel safe without your memory. I was clinging to your memory in hopes that these nightmares aren't my reality but you never woke me up and I'm still waiting to be held by your words.

Forgetting you in the form of burnt love letters smothering out your voice in my head but still stinging deeper than any cut you placed on my heart. I still remember the rush of blood to my face the first time we touched, but now I wonder if the heat was a spark in interest or a warning sign. Forgetting you in the form of sleeping the time away, just to see your silhouette in my dreams. I don't trust my own two hands, how can I ever grasp yours again?
Forgetting you was slam poetry except its not beautiful at all and the only thing being slammed is the doors to my heart because I'm not sure if it's safe inside anymore.

Rewind to the first day you
Asked me to marry you.
It was raining, I wanted to kiss you.

December of our first year married;
You woke me up every morning
To watch the snow fall.
I rolled my eyes as you
Watched like a child.
You looked at me the same way.

Our first Christmas together was
About the same. It was
Only two years prior to our marriage
And you bought me a necklace.
I wore it every day
Until the day you left.
I hope the river likes jewelry
As much as I did.

Fast forward to our
Second spring together.
You pulled the car over on the side
Of the road to pick a wild flower.
We were already running late.
We always seemed to do
Everything too late.

Fourteen and a half days later
You told me you wanted me
To buy a nice dress for myself
And meet you at a restaurant.
I told you no,
I had work in the morning.
You drank every night
For a month after that.

You sang to my small unborn baby
Bump every night before bed.
Our next trip to see our baby's face
Did not go as planned.
You never could get me out of that
Black dress after her wake
And your eyes matched it
Perfectly every day after.

Fast forward to the day before you
Asked me to sign the divorce papers.
We made love.
I cried and said "this isn't working."
You said "I know."

I could hear you cry from the
Other side of the bed
And your hands felt miles away.
I remembered the first time
You touched me this way,
Long before your hands
Were calloused.
We were Hell bent on doing it
And I could hear the same lack
Of hesitation in your voice when
You said you had to leave.

Flash back to the first time I told you
I loved you.
I said it too soon. You said it back,
I didn't expect you to.

You left your ring on the
Coffee table our last night.
Suddenly I missed the rings
Of condensation marking the
Table every night and the
Clanking noise your ring
Finger made against the beer
Bottles after every fight.

I wish I could have been enough
To stop you from drinking.
I remember when you drove away.
"Turn around and beg me to stay.
Turn around and beg me to stay."
You didn't turn around and
I did not stay.

I passed the garden we were
Married in on my way to the court
House to sign the final papers.
A couple was leaving, newly wedded.
I find irony in that.

A few years later I passed you
On the street.
It was snowing, you had that same
Look in your eyes.
You smiled at me, a distant
"I'm sorry," smile.
I nodded, but I could not smile back.
You see, I never stopped loving you,
But I was never sorry for
Letting you leave.

I still find your cuff links buried
In my jewelry box some days.  
This is the day I watched the
Locket you gave me
Sink to the bottom of a river.
I think you could find my
Hope lying there, too.

Remember the time you kissed me
In the rain?
First slow and timid, then
Passionate as if it was the
Last time we would ever kiss again.
I apologized thirteen times that day
For things that had
Not happened yet.

I think a piece of me knew all along
I would have to let you leave.
The day I said good bye
The words burned my lips
Like acid exactly like they did that day.
I said "I'm sorry."

Seven hours staring at empty
Beer bottles as you
Slam them on the table.
In fact, it's been months since
You slammed anything but beers
And I think that is where
We started to fall apart.

Three years since you left and
I cannot bring myself to love another.
I bet she is beautiful and
Kind and loving and
I bet she does not cause you to
Drink until you cannot feel.
Three years later and I realize now that
I will love you until I die.

So I went out to an empty field
And screamed out your name to the sky
But the sun didn't seem
To have any desire to help me

So I flew to the moon
and I cried to the stars
But my wishing star is dead
There's nothing left but the ashes

So I ran a thousand miles
To reach out for you

But you left me

I shouted out your name
But you didn't care