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Feb 2014
I have a watch.
This watch keeps me sane,
Keeps my steady pace
And keeps me safe.
It keeps track of time with a consistent and persistent

Tick Tick Tick  


Rose.
Do you remember the tale?
You think you know how it goes
But what you knew and what I thought never coincided.
We've ran our course and deception should end
So let me tell you how we really began.


Standing silent across the bar I spy a rose.
But by this dark and these glazed eyes all I can tell is that the petals are more red than black.
As pretty as she is,
I am more beguiled by thorns than a rosy red leaf.
Thorns that I will only find if I can caress her neck for a while and trace my fingers down her spine, Slicing my palms and pretending that our hearts are of the same shade.

If I pressed this thorny soul and it's black heart to your window would sanctuary be offered with open arms and pitying eyes?
Is there safety in those walls that I shan't be part of?
I can't miss what I've never had
And I will never have her.

But will she know the difference?
Do I look like the rest?
If I sing the song and dance the dance could I be ignorant and happy like them?

I've seen their kind a million times
I've seen the flowers dance and entwine their stems to grow together and die with each other.
Roots can be poison.
Especially mine.


You see I love me more than you ever could because you never met me.
Bloodshot eyes and a ***** filled disguise are all you've ever known
I am not what you thought me to be.
I'm a rose darker than the lies.
Now I've wiped away the ****** disguise to reveal to you a simple ruse to no end.

This letter meant goodbye.
Goodbye Rose.  


I too have a heart.
This heart offers life,
Offers up my love
And offers to spill my blood.
It offers nothing but pains and joy and love and sometimes it skips a beat.

Thump -  Thump  


Just 3 nights later
And I'm with somebody else.
Somebody fantastic and beautiful and ****.
I read her some lines from a piece I'd penned and made a move.
She bit my bottom lip in that first kiss and I knew I actually had a bed for the night.
For just that night.

Black hair, green eyes, soft red lips.
Pale skin and piercings with a skirt far up her thigh.
Gazes entwined with everything to hide.
Silent discussions of lust and loose morals.
A stiletto caressed my inner leg and we knew she was mine,
Is it any wonder why I returned to this?

I topped up our wine and kept her talking.
Watched her lips move and words fly without actually listening.
Perfection is easy to find if you just don't look.
Just ignore her and she can't be less than myself.

We called a cab back to her place.
Somewhere far from the bar that much I know.
Stumbled into the back seat and laid lips upon lips.
Crawled up the stairs on all fours.
Slammed closed the door and dragged me to the bed.
And we ****** under darkness in a frenzy of steaming breath.

Only 3 nights later
And I'm back to this.
To pain, confliction and perfection.
I clumsily left ignoring her questions and focused on dressing.
Caught a glance of a mirror and new I'd have no-one else's bed that night.
It was just that night.  


I listen to rain on my windows.
With each drop I lose focus,
Lose my wits
And lose my senses.
I lose my coherence as it falls in beats too fast to keep track of with their non-rhythmic

Tap Tap Tap Tap.


"Write a poem about right now. The **** that we're all in."

I now sit entirely alone.
Surrounded by the sad and the depressed and the lonely.
With love and hate mingling,
His paws scratching at the window with her face on the other side.
He doesn't seem to notice the others.
Tears soaked my blazer more than rain tonight
But at least they weren't quite as cold.
As if it mattered with warm *** in my blood.
"I loved her. This is the first time I've physically hated her."

So he bursts through the door with a ******* look that won't accept a no.
So lets drink!
Then we watch him emerge,
Maybe notice me leave.
"If you want to be alone I'll leave."
And notice my swift return,
With her fresh tears still burning on my mind.

I've been watching the foreground for what feels like days so let's go inside.
Time to spend with the rest of the party.
Just ignoring what's happening.
"Lets get ******!"
Turn the music up loud and maybe you can drown it in sound.
Light the incense and maybe the atmosphere will smell a little sweeter.
Bring that guy!
He'll take them off your mind
And help create a spite fuelled night.
...or just run.
"This! Is none of my ****!"
Then lets go.
You don't have to watch.

But I've adopted my own space.
Dressed in black and red,
Dancing in the front and the back.
Standing in the rain, under stars
Just watching the last cigarettes burn.
******* happy I've got my little red book.
Time to intervene and offer what I can
Although it's mostly for the story progression.


6 am and I'm still ******* smiling.
I made this night to its bitter end.
Seeing true emotion fly was just divine.
Maybe not for those involved
But emotion is life so accept it all.

"Now let me sleep and I'll write your ******* poem later..."  


Sometimes I dance.
It feels like pure joy,
Feels less alone
And feels wrong to me.
I feel out of place, I don't know the steps, the songs keep changing and none feel sad.

One, two, three
One, tw- ****!



I can remember when I left you,
No.
When I saved you,
No.
When I condemned you.
When you offered me your heart and your lust and I took them into my own and cursed myself with the role of a lover.
I accepted the gift but at least I felt conflicted.
Enough so to soon see that giving you joy meant denying what I am.

I am nothing but contradictions.
A hypocrite with a most debauched nature.
While I wished for nothing more than the red of your petals,
So too did I wish to lay with the weeds.
Much closer to my own kind,
like me they choke the beauty from flowers.
Only with a little less love in their grasp.
So I shifted from you and in poetic spirals of ink I set you free.
At least that's how I saw it.

But now I realise just how much damage a week with me is worth.
Your eyes look dimmer.
A layer of spite and tears stop me seeing any further than that.
Your petals didn't fall but they certainly faded.
What was red became black,
A hell I never wished for you,
And I can only pray that your shade is much more superficial than mines.
I hope it will wash clean and reveal a purer white than a spotless bride.
But that's just a dream.

Hearts are easy to see when they're worn on ones sleeve,
And I've changed hers for the worse.
A fate I had not foreseen and now she can't even see me.
Everything I once admired has drifted from her face.
But it's been replaced by perfection of a different sort.
Had this been clear to me I could have hid who I was.
It would have been worth it.
Just to leave her as she was.

If I confront her will she pour this new life into me and be as she should be?
Or will I leave her in the same void of pain and passion I found myself in?
I swore to watch over those left behind on the path to bliss,
But not those I dragged back myself.
If only I could send her back on her way.

Another letter perhaps.

Dear Rose.
I love you.
I'm so, so sorry...  


Ignore the heart the rain and the dance.
Stick to the watch.
Tick Tick Tick.
There's no pain or joy or lies.
Just stability and the consistent and persistent
Tick Tick Tick.
You're just a body who's mind cannot afford to be lost.
Look at the watch.
Tick Tick Tick.
I'm safe.
And at rest...

Thump, Tap, ****...
This is very long I understand. But I just wanted there to be a record of the story of Rose on here where it can be read in the way I find most fitting.
Adam Burke
Written by
Adam Burke  Northern Ireland
(Northern Ireland)   
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