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Raeann Burkey Oct 2013
They say sometimes falling feels like flying.
And every time I catch you eyeing me I wonder how it would have felt to fall with you.
To stand there hand in hand at the bottom taking in the view up above.
What if we had?
Could we have called it love the words we shared and the nights your breath entangled itself in my hair?
Would our secrets have surrendered and made themselves into promises?
Would we exhale the inhales that we had been holding onto and uncross the fingers behind our backs?
If we had fallen would you have looked down or trusted that the ground wouldn’t break our bones?
Would you have let the wind allow you to soar?
Or would you have searched on your own for something more than the tiny echo of a dream we had?
If we’d fallen would you have listened to the way our hearts were able to sing?
Yours the melody, mine the harmony; together they’d bleed so easily.
Or would the shouts from below drown out our song?
Would you have listened if the said we would never last long?
Or would you hear the voice of reason saying we could build a foundation to hold up the clouds and make a river to keep the stars set in stone?
I can’t help but wonder which you would believe in and where we would be if we’d known that love doesn’t happen on it’s own.
Maybe we would have fallen slowly and landed surely.
We wouldn’t have clung so tightly to the edge and wasted so much time worrying about the end.
If only someone had told us that falling could send us flying maybe we would have found letting go something worth trying.
So sometimes I close my eyes and see us cannonballing side by side to the ground realizing that happiness was never up, it was down.
But I never get farther than that because with eyes wide open I know that love is all about timing.
And even though we were almost there our words were just words and your breath found its way out of my hair.
We were too late.
No matter how hard we fought, time doesn’t wait for love to make up its mind.
So instead of falling we fell behind.
And I’m stuck here wondering what we missed every time I look into your eyes.
Date Written: 5/14/2012
Raeann Burkey Oct 2013
The other day it rained and while I was driving all I could thing about is how you never used your windshield wipers.
I remembered how I would sit in the passenger seat like a little kid watching the drops race each other to the bottom of the window.
They always knew exactly where they were going. They always had a purpose so it didn’t matter that they had an end.
I used to wish I was the windshield so I could feel the reflected red lights rolling down my cheeks knowing that they had a destination.
And it was with that simple little thought that my eyes became clouds filled with pointless precipitation. And I knew it was because of you.
See every time I think I can breathe freely memories escape like stoppers from my wrapped up heart just to make it bleed some more and remind me the dangers of driving through a downpour.
And every time I try to make sure that my tears have purpose otherwise they will never come to an end.
So I try to bleed you something beautiful with each and every blood cell pumping from my heart.
I try to tell you I love you. That I have from the start.
And I know that’s not what you want to hear, but I can’t get you out of my head and I’m beginning to fear I never will.
It doesn’t matter how many hands I hold or faces I touch something keeps telling me I’ll never love them as much.
I can try to pretend. I can try to move on, but I have never heard nature play such a sweet love song.
I want to know what else there is for me to trust when the pitter-patter of the rain is playing just for us.
It keeps telling me that it was all right to fall. That after all is said and done my tears will have won the race down my windshield face.
Then I’ll smile without hesitation like a child who gives you no other indication of what they have just learned.
But right now all I can feel is the pain as I trace a million blood red drops off the horizon wishing I could find your eyes on me because I don’t want to know that’s something you’ve forgotten.
I refuse to believe that your heart has rotten.
So the other day when I turned off my windshield wipers in the midst of a storm I told people I just wanted to feel the rush, when really I only wanted to remember us.
Date Written: 3/6/2012
Raeann Burkey Oct 2013
They say that the world is reducible to four elements.
That everything can be translated into mathematical equations.
And that love is just a chemical reaction.
But if that means we have to believe in everything we see, then I’ll prove them wrong.
Because there is no way to breakdown a touch and no equation that could solve the looks we share.
There are a million elements that go into breathing un-breathed air.
And I know that there are things that are better left misunderstood.
Like the stories echoed back and forth between the woods.
And the way time flies like shooting stars in the night sky or how dancing in the rain always seems to soothe some sort of pain.
There is just something that shouldn’t be explained about the connection between a mother and daughter or the sun’s reflection on the untouched water.
There should be no definition to the secrets shared between friends or how the world is going to end.
We aren’t supposed to analyze and interpret the silence after a fight or the meaning behind an untied, flying kite.
There is no reason to decipher what creates the color blue or the heat of the sand underneath you.
There can’t be anything rational about tears of pure joy or all of the things we’ve destroyed.
It’s impossible to teach a heart when to skip beats or words when they can speak.
Because beauty lies in the unknown, held by the hands of things that are better left alone.
Those hands are what create the empty spaces and unfamiliar faces.
They leave us mystified and misty-eyed.
Their fingertips are the ones that give us goose bumps and raise the hairs on the back of our necks.
They drive us crazy and wild and most of all they remind us what it was like to be a child.
When our eyes were open wide to the shape shifting clouds in the sky searching for answers, and every single last one of us were dancers, painters, singers, dreamers, and believers.
But time has stripped us of our innocence and filled our minds with ignorance.
Forcing us to see things that should not be seen and saying things that should not be read and convincing us that we can explain anything before we go to bed.
So I wonder what that leaves us when we close our eyes.
What will happen when we’ve taken out all the mystery of the night sky, when we’ve calculated and concluded just how many breaths it takes to fall asleep, when we’ve found and sold the exact chemical that will make our knees go weak?
Where will we imagine?
Where will we create?
Or are we no longer allowed to decide our own fate?
Are we doomed to hell because we’ve fabricated heaven?
Are all our dreams bound to lead to dead ends?
When will we close our eyes and believe in the things we can’t see?
When will our hearts set our minds free?
It is time for us to leave things misunderstood and comprehend that living with unknowns is good.
Once we take back our innocence and throw out our ignorance the world will finally make sense.
Date Written: 3/4/2012
Raeann Burkey Oct 2013
We love in reverse.
The way that doesn’t make sense.
Because the extensions of my body don’t reach toward you, but away. The lines bend back and not forward, twisting me into positions that I’m not supposed to be.
And when I walk the floor pushes me away heel, ball, toe
Instead of welcoming me comfortably toe, ball, heel.
And I know this isn’t the way this is supposed to feel.
But I still need you to correct me.
Place your hand underneath my chin and tell me the floor is not my audience. Close the curtains on the mirror and make me trust. This dance is just between the two of us.
Then focus in on my shoulders, push them down and make my collarbones appear stronger. Stroke my sternocleidomastoid as I épaulment and tell me that it’s the most beautiful muscle to see. Run your hands down my arms and create the energy that is supposed to flow from my fingers as they reach for arabesque.
Move next to my torso. Hold my abs together to keep my spine aligned.
Then move your hands in a soft semi-circle from the inside of my thighs and turn them out. Hold my knees over top my toes in the perfect plié.
And then straighten them to the most lengthened position they could be, leaving them with nowhere else to go but up.
Help my feet and heart to soar as they push off the floor and then you’ve set me free.
Lean your back against the barre and watch me dance your taunting choreography perfectly.
You have made me love what I do because every time I dance I do it for you. When I close my eyes I imagine you behind me guiding my soul and showing my body where it ought to be.
You hold me tight as I lay my head back against your invisible chest and I inhale, take one deep breath before you send me spinning back into the room.
I can feel you with me, but you’re never really there. So I push away the air with my hands knowing that with one more arabesque you won’t be able to resist this chance. Because my smile is always aimed in your direction when I practice your steps, your breath, your moves.
Only for you will I seek this perfection.
And the dance goes on and on; never ending. And I’ll keep feelings things that I know not to feel, keep walking toward you all heels
No toes
Because without you this is a dance I don’t know. The extensions are fake and the lines not real.
But that is love in reverse. The combination always looks ten times worse. So I’m hoping that you’ll step out of the shadows and take me back
To the dance we rehearsed.
Date Written: 3/1/2012
Raeann Burkey Oct 2013
I want to tell you things only you will understand.
I want to feel my hair running through your unkempt hands.
I want to make you a symphony out of everything you’ve ever done for me.
And then I want to direct the melodies through the air and through your ears.
And I want to keep them there.
I want them to sing you to sleep each night you are afraid to close your eyes.
And I want you to know you’re the person I want to write poetry to.
How can I make you comprehend that I feel your pain in the darkest of days,
That when you’re too scared to look back and too tired to look ahead, I’ll sing my refrain until the end.
When you feel like the world is out to get you and the sun will never shine again,
Let my whispers echo through your head:
You’re the person I want to write poetry to.
Once you’ve realize it’s all for naught,
That there are no words, no feelings, no lessons left to be taught and all the wars have already been fought.
When there are no more open doors, I want to take you by the hand and give you all the things that won’t exist and all the things you’ve never felt before, and then tell you that
you’re the person I want to write poetry to.
At any time of day
Under the moon or under the sun
In silence and solace
Or chaos and loudness
You’re the person I want to write poetry to.
Whenever you’ve hurt me
Or whenever you’ve loved me
Whenever I am no one and on those lucky days that there is no one else above me,
You are the person I want to write poetry to.
When I see the tears in your eyes and hear the truth in between the lines,
When your smile brightens the darkest of rooms and your laugh is undeniably true,
You’re the person I want to write poetry to.
Every time you slip and stumble and your heart is close to crumbling to the ground
I’ll wrap your wounds with words and tell you that you are the person I want to write poetry to.
Even when your song is loudest and you need no one else to sing,
I’ll be there echoing:
You are the person I want to write poetry to.
Because sometimes even the good days are bad and you’re unsure of how to be happy without being mad.
Sometimes everything isn’t enough and it seems like the road will always be this rough.
And those are the days
And those are the times
when I’ll be there by your side
Conducting the symphony you’ve helped me to create
Whispering words only you would understand
And as you run my hair through your unkempt hands I’ll remind you that you,
You are the person I want to write poetry to.
Date Written: 2/27/2012
Raeann Burkey Oct 2013
I don’t care who you tell or how they’re spelled, but I’m asking you to define me.
Make me your new dictionary.
Tell my fingers where to roam, create for my heart a new home.
Show my feet how to wander and my body to dance. Open my eyes and give them a chance.
Melt and mold my mind, sift through the memories and toss out those that are better left behind. Teach me new colors, create new shapes, and make room for the make believe.
Point out the things that I was too blind to see. Like the lack of light in the sunset and the spaces between growing trees.
Teach me to feel the wind on my brand new skin and the heat of the sun on the top of my head. Show me that we bleed purple and red.
Fly me to the moon and help me dive into the stars. Hold my head up high because we’ve come so far.
And when you’ve got tired of all of the things I’ve become simply introduce me to the barrel of a gun. Bruise and break my bones and remind me that I am only inside your head, a creation that took no touch but the tip of a pen.
Remind me that I am nothing but words, but that I was the most beautiful story to tell. It was so easy to picture heaven within hell.
And you know stories like that deserve to be heard.
So I’m asking you, no telling you, not to leave out a single word.
Because when you think of me I hope all the words I am will become the definition of your poetry.
Date Written: 2/22/2012

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