Time and time again,
I let the laces unravel.
Sutures over a scar
Beginning to fade.
My heart, at last, starts to open,
And then, inevitably...
The laces snap,
The scar bleeds,
And I have to heal again.

- p. winter

Maybe he lets me in
Because he knows how I adore him

But at least he lets me in

- p. winter

i'm tired
of this ache

my skin burns
my mind cries

i don't miss you,
i just miss being happy

- p. winter

I let the wind-churned surface gently raise me up
And set me down again.
If I am travelling at all I am unaware of it
For I look around and seem to be
In the middle of the same sea as yesterday.
I swim in protest of sinking but every once in a while I go still
Just to let my head fall under for a bit.
The water in its mercy keeps me afloat,
But the winds pick up
And my ankles grow heavy.
The ocean floor looks so peaceful in my mind.

I let myself dream of an anchor
Guiding me to the creatures below.
They welcome me with their faint glow
But I am blind here, accustomed to the sun.
The salt tastes different.
My lips do not complain.
Already I feel a burning in my chest,
Still the anchor continues at a steady pace,
Further from the wind and the waves.
I fight to keep the little air I have left
And begin to wonder:
If I were to drown on the journey down
Would my body float
To the surface again?
Or would the depths claim me,
The anchor tightening its grip,
Ever sinking…
Ever sinking…
Ever sinking…
Ever…

The cry of a gull wakes me.
I come to and inhale the familiar taste of ocean air.
For a moment, the waves are still and I float in silence.
But I look around and seem to be
In the middle of the same sea as yesterday.
And soon the winds will pick up
And my ankles will grow heavy.
The ocean floor looks so peaceful in my mind.

- p. winter

He looks at me
Only to see
The lover I
Could never be.

- p. winter

I’m not easy to love
Don’t expect me to be
I’ve got bruises and baggage
And boundaries
And I might make you yell
Or I might make you smile
But if there’s one thing I’ll make:
I’ll make it worthwhile.

- p. winter

Too many times
I've watched you
From the shadows,
Trying to forget
That I no longer
Can join you
In the sunshine.

- p. winter

kiss me once again
sing to me
touch me
eagerly
grab me
i beg you
kiss me once again
pull me in
don’t speak
whisper
find me
take me home
kiss me once again

- p. winter

Maybe thunder is just rain clouds
Calling for someone to cry with.

- p. winter

you will never love me in this lifetime
you will never love me while I am awake
so why wouldn’t I want to close my eyes
and be with you in my dreams forever

- p. winter

his hand so softly stroking my hair
snaking along my neck
pressing in the valley
‘tween my shoulder blades
down
down
down my spine
circling each vertebra

he carves my curves out from stone
hips and thighs and flesh and bone
his thumb traces the profile
of the ***** of my nose
and the smirk of my lips
trailing down my sternum
the outlines of my ribs
and stomach
all the round and all the sharp

the dimples
the freckles
the scars
all finishing touches
touches
o’er my body of clay
‘cross my skin of paint
covered in his fingerprints
humming as he works

and i take whatever form he asks of me

- p. winter

Trace your fingers down my arm
Make a stop at every scar
Kiss them kindly
Help remind me
Life is better where you are
- p. winter

I swore to move on,
But chagrined I must tell
I still sleep on the grounds
Where you shadow once fell.

- p. winter

Papa lost his papa to a poison in his veins,
Then followed in his footsteps, heading straight toward the grave,
But papa lived to watch my mama grieve her very own,
And I learned in early childhood that the hospital was home.
Now papa’s oldest sister, and his second from the last,
Are forced to sit and watch as their own bodies fail to last.
Meanwhile I’m watching mama cry into the telephone,
‘Cause her papa’s ‘cross the ocean and he’s dying all alone,
And she’d give away her soul to merely kiss him once goodbye,
But the flights are too expensive, and the oceans are too wide.
I yearn to take their suff’ring, pray it kills me in their place,
But I couldn’t make my mama claim another lifeless face.

- p. winter

i write untitled poems
when what i wish to say
cannot be
synopsized

- p. winter

a hummingbird lives in my chest
your voice is succulent nectar

- p. winter

a woman of little remorse
for all the suitors she dismissed
when she knew the one she longed for
was herself

- p. winter

I have feelings
Not for you
But for who you used to be
I still have feelings for the you
That had feelings
For me

- p.winter

i have tasted gold
yet still i return to coal
in hopes of diamond

- p. winter

A gift from heav'n
To bless my life
A man for whom
Is no worthy wife

But must I choose
'Tween he and He?
Two loves
True loves
Dismemb'ring me.

- p.winter

Sadness meets me every day
A new disguise put on display
Making sure where’er I go
I see him in each face I know.

- p. winter

my wrists are scarred
with memories
that only I remember

how easily you open the wounds
how reluctant you are
to heal them

- p. winter

I wish for my work
To bring a smile - and smiling
To not be such work.

- p. winter

and there's a smirk in your poker face
that screams
even the emotionless
can love

- p. winter

you buried yourself into my skin

and now, no knife can

dig you out

again

- p. winter

i lie within a patch of sun on my bed,
the sound of a guitar in the air around me,
and gaze across the street
while children laugh and dance at school

i am alone
but you are here

in the sunshine by my window
in the music that i play
in the laughter and the dancing
in the pavement ‘cross the way

i stroll through familiar streets
the cold biting at my ears and fingertips
i keep my eyes down and do not look at the trees
but i feel it in my heart when i pass the very one

i walk alone
but you are here

my hands cannot be cold
when they are rested in your own
the tree blooms in november
from the warmth that it was shown

i close my eyes and hope to dream
of anything but you beside me
for waking to an empty bed
would only rip my scarring heart open again

i sleep alone
but you are here

not only in the comfort
and the slowly fading light
but in the rosary i prayed for you,
and still do, every night

you are everywhere
and yet i am
alone

- p. winter

mama needs security
and papa wants maturity,
but grateful as I am for their
abounding generosity,
in giving me the world
they took my only world away from me.

- p. winter

I’d like to think we had an unspoken agreement
That our time together was not long enough.

But we remained silent and watched it end.
And maybe it was easier that way.

- p. winter

Plenty of fish in the sea,
Or so she was taught to believe.
Men come and go, like the tides and the waves,
But she almost drowned trying to get them to stay.

She kept them proud and warm
And waited out their storm,
Now she's pacing the shore with her heart in her hand,
Only one pair of footprints is left in the sand.

Maybe she was meant to be
The lighthouse for the lonely.
For again she is left with the moonlight above,
Watching the waves for love.

- p. winter

For years I closed my heart
And, in turn, my arms as well.
But you held me once
And now each day
Without your touch is hell.

- p. winter

perhaps i only miss
feeling desirable
feeling beautiful
feeling valuable

feeling like someone somewhere
looked at me and saw more than
noise and fear

perhaps i only miss
who you made me think i could be

she left when you did

- p. winter

We all want the highs and we all want the lows
Of emotions to which we succumb,
But when high is elation and low, devastation,
It's easier just to go numb.

- p. winter

Fascinating, isn't it,
How the sight of you was once all it took
To melt away the wax inside my knees.
How your eyes locked with mine and, without fail,
Monarchs took flight inside of me,
And the afternoon sky filled with stars.

And yet
I see you now
And my joints stiffen in the cold.
With every step you take,
I feel you leave
All over again.

- p. winter

If you had not reminded me
The choice we made is right,
I'd have run back to your bed
With twenty poems more to write.

For even at my strongest
I am nothing more than weak,
And I gladly would have suffered
Just to have another week.

- p. winter

This body
Has been with me
For as long as I have lived

Why must it
Betray me so

- p. winter

My memories so wistful,
          As I grab them by the fistful,
Glint with melancholy ire,
          As I throw them in the fire,
And my desperation spurn,
          As I watch them fail to burn.

- p. winter

You smile at me and, suddenly,
I find I understand
The little plan you must have just devised

To make me fall for all of you
You take me by the hand
And show me how love songs are improvised

- p. winter

The loving thing to do
Is take your heart and mine
In separate hands
To gently break together.

But if I wait and dare pretend
The ending is not written
Then our hearts, each on their own,
Will only shatter.

- p. winter

*******.
I want to yell and cry and break something when I think about him.
But I accidentally happened upon a photo of him.
And I smiled.
Without thinking, I smiled.
And my first thought was
“There he is. Look at him go.
Look at how he can, just by sitting,
Draw the attention of the world.
As if the sunlight changes direction
Just to keep him from the shadows.”
And then I remembered.
And I yelled
And I cried
And I broke my favourite mug.
Because, despite my best efforts,
I cannot hate him.

- p. winter

Father, forgive him,
For he knows not what he does.
Cast him not aside
With the thrown dice
And torn clothes.

Forgive me, Father,
For it is I who knows,
And it is I who throws
The dice and clothes.

- p. winter

more often than they should
my eyes land on you

they see your hair and flood my fingers
with memories of snaking through it

they see your neck and my lips tingle
yearning to kiss it again

they see your waist and my arms long
to wrap themselves around it
to breathe in the comfort
to dwell in the warmth

your hands
your laugh
your eyes
your clothes
your every move
they torture me to see
but i cannot look away

i shiver with want
but watch in silence

just too far away to hold you
for if i could
i’d never let go again

- p. winter

Your presence, twice the pain of what
Your absence e'er could be.
A ******* of sorts am I
To keep you close to me.

- p. winter

Death does not scare me,
It is the means
And the ease with which it takes
That haunt.

- p. winter

How long does it take
To fall out of love?
I count the hours,
With both eagerness
And dread.

- p. winter

Running into the arms of every shadow that
Resembles your silhouette,
I follow a bread crumb trail of empty words
Through a forest of empty fantasies.
With each step, I fall.
With each step, I learn.
With each step, I grow.
With each step, I get one heartbreak closer
To finding you.

- p. winter

we fade to hazy shadows
     with the darkness and the cold
we acquiesce to blindness
     without lover to behold
we lose ourselves to yearning
     with no prize for being bold
we leak into tomorrow
     with our hearts of rot and mould

- p. winter