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Jan 2021 · 463
Down My Spine
Sarah Spang Jan 2021
Roaming down my spine are shivers
Fingers, fear and dread
And films reels on a loop that trickle
Whispers through my head

Rising in their wake the goosebumps
Feather out and feel-
If only for an instant what's
Remembered then- is real
Jan 2021 · 436
Easier
Sarah Spang Jan 2021
It's easier to leave to turn and go
To mark my footsteps heel to toe
Grasp the door and flee the frame
And keep my mouth shut around your name
Jan 2021 · 502
Seven
Sarah Spang Jan 2021
Seven times we've danced around
That darkest mark of days,
Drifting past the gravity
From whence his path did stray.

Seven journeys round a sun
That no more knows the shade
Of eyes that witnessed 22
And barely more a day.

Seven trips and many moons
Spent staring at the sky,
Wishing I could raise my wrist
And grasp the reasons why

Seven's worth of dreams in which
The 'why' evades me still
And why I when I caress the skin
I feel naught but the chill.

Seven come and seven gone
And seven on my skin
And yet untouched by seven are
The memories of him.
Jan 2021 · 349
Must Not.
Sarah Spang Jan 2021
Down where the water sprawl to touch,
The banks of where the wraiths of us
Cling beneath the half-mast moon
My memories must not exhume-

The path of fingers, hair and skin
Where one touch ends and one begins.
Or how the words, too high a cost
Curled in the wind- forever lost.
Jan 2021 · 228
Preserve
Sarah Spang Jan 2021
I live my life in metaphors,
In memories- and muse
Of different ways I can preserve
The echoes left of you.
Jan 2021 · 259
The Greener Grass
Sarah Spang Jan 2021
The grass is greenest where it's watered,
Yet I know where it rains is broader
And here above-tipped gray- the weight
Informs me that my reach is great.
Dec 2020 · 209
The Goodbye in the Green
Sarah Spang Dec 2020
I saw goodbye in the green
And shuttered in the space between
The paces that would close the gap-
Where I would take my silence back.

Yet parted of lips bore nothing more
Then wisps of breath, just as before
And turning without tracing back
My march on forward stays the track.

With nothing more to fill the air
My feet sought miles far from there
And yet the shell marched forward when
My heart did circle back again.

And then the gap grew to contain
Seasons past, The wind and rain
Weeks to months, a year's refrain
Would never see us touch again.
Dec 2020 · 201
Breathe between the Waves
Sarah Spang Dec 2020
My arms cut through the water in a
Bid to stay afloat,
And even as my muscles scream
And ocean chokes my throat-

I twist and dart between the waves
To steal another breath-
Dreaming of the moment when
The stormy seas will rest.
Sarah Spang Sep 2020
I'd seen the seam of wet and dry
Of Salt and Sea, of Earth and Sky
Yet, once upon a yesteryear
When five was close, and ten was near-

The navy stretch front side to side
Spanned far beyond where eyes could spy-
And all at once it rushed to me,
That first breath of eternity.

Then- at ten I once again
Meet the ocean, only when
A set of eyes cast down on low
Wandered up from down below.

And all at once home was here
A feeling that would persevere
With each footstep, my stride would swallow
The Ocean's path was mine to follow.
To C, as always.
Sep 2020 · 118
I Follow the Winds
Sarah Spang Sep 2020
Walk out,
Ash and dust into the
Winter wind
Where your breath is nothing more
Than an echo to aging ears-

And I will follow
To find you in all breezes
Slipping a summer kiss
An autumn football game
Or a Spring car ride
Deftly into a place against my skin.
Aug 2020 · 139
Echoes
Sarah Spang Aug 2020
I paced the squares that mark the days;
Each footstep took me far away-
And yet the circle joined to touch
The echo of the ghost of us.
Aug 2020 · 174
The Breeze will Carry
Sarah Spang Aug 2020
I watched the wind on summer days,
The way it plays havoc with the meadow grass
And wish the words
MY words-
Could be plucked and carried on that breeze
Like a seedling
To go where they need to
And where I cannot.
Aug 2020 · 124
We do not Deviate
Sarah Spang Aug 2020
We are walking
Down the line
Our feet are pacing
Song and rhyme.
Side to side
My eyes do glance
The markers of
My circumstance.
Aug 2020 · 115
What should be and Is
Sarah Spang Aug 2020
The breathing to the side of me
Fades into obscurity
I sink below the membrane then
To pierce the veil of time again

Muscles within flesh and bone
Unfurl into the scent of home,
And there beside my destiny
I stow my sight to rise and see-

The way it was, The way I want
The way that's rocky back to front.
Aug 2020 · 101
Just of What was Left
Sarah Spang Aug 2020
It's not the end of everything
Just of what was left
And how to salvage nothing when
You walked out with the rest.

It was only one chance left
To shape the words with baited breath
And yet what slipped past gritted teeth
Plagues my waking memories.




I'm not the type to barter,
To plead for what's not mine.
But I would trade my everything
For just a touch of time.
Aug 2020 · 165
Away
Sarah Spang Aug 2020
I caught the tail of cigarette
In the parting peal of breath.
And even as he walked away
The shame washed all the words away.

I've written scads of nonsense, hence-
A futile need to recompense.
But all of this means nothing now
And nothing lends to reason how-

He may have strode those parting steps
To leave when there was nothing left.
But my words fed the final blow
The nail to coffin down below.
Oct 2019 · 173
Against the Haunted Line
Sarah Spang Oct 2019
Beneath half-mast moonlight,
Above the night-dew grass,
Against the inky darkness of the
Shadows that They cast-
The pines stood tall like sentries
That barred the dark and wood.
The wind wove through the treetops
As it's fingers chilled my blood.
The gaps within the ranks of trunk
Bore whispers of the void
My hopes, my dreams, my nightmares
Had been tucked away and stored.
And there, I gazed for hours
Between the teeth of trees
To delve into the reasons why
His specter haunted me.
Oct 2019 · 245
Insatiable
Sarah Spang Oct 2019
The breath that breathes "I cannot"
Precedes the one that does
And bleeds into that final phrase
That's silenced with a hush.
Aug 2019 · 184
The September Moon
Sarah Spang Aug 2019
The mirror of the lake
Where herons hurried during day-
Hailed the hazy nighttime
Off a long forgotten way.

The billows of the water broken
By the cashmere wind,
Painted a mirage of which
The hemlocks dwelled within.

And up against the inky shore
Where dafodils did bloom,
Two bodies did embrace beneath
The new September moon.
Aug 2019 · 393
The Air was Lilac.
Sarah Spang Aug 2019
The air was lilac on the day
The sunset touched the earth in grey.
The velvet breeze caressed the grass
Of meadows rooted in the past.

A ring of trees bore witness to
The blurr of light that cut on through
The dusky darkness of the way
Your silence stole my breath away.

We paced the clearing, fed our sight
With fireflies like Christmas lights-
And up above, the navy sky
Breathed starlight in a soft reply.
May 2019 · 246
What's Unsaid
Sarah Spang May 2019
The words unsaid are wraiths, unspread
To ears they should collect in.
Unspoken speech, they do not reach
The ears they should reside in.
Instead they're bred within my head
To ripen forth and spoil.
Each carapace returns to this
The over-barren soil
And yet, alas, the words that pass
Take root and choke the landscape
From world around they do resound
In never ending earthquake
May 2019 · 175
Chased in the Night
Sarah Spang May 2019
The cold night air is a blistering kiss
Touching images and memories that I'd rather not miss-
And yet my eyes trace roadsides as they buckle on by,
The moon's a silent siren in the aubergine sky.

I left my mind behind me in the whispering wind
As the tires drag down miles past the motels and sin.
The city bright and glowing lights slash colors down my face
And I find my mind's now in rewind to settle on in.

Oh the cruel air it does not care to spare me from the dream
Of lilac breeze, the swaying trees, the water's subtle gleam.
And the way your eyes sought cloudy skies - with your back against the earth,
You traced the lines above the pines and reveled in their worth

My weary feet, they hasten me; a foot down to the floor
And spinning tires, the cable wires are a steady blur once more
Yet, that hidden place, that sacred space, follows deftly behind
With the cruel wind- the city wind- that carries better times.
Inspired by The Cure, obviously
Sep 2018 · 365
Help or Hinderance?
Sarah Spang Sep 2018
Is the urge to quell a pain
I've bedded with a time before-
A need to soothe in other ones,
A wound of mine that still aches sore?

Or is it that, at night, face up
Within the cage I habitate-
I seek to mingle in the surf
Yet linger in the mess I've made.
Sep 2018 · 340
She
Sarah Spang Sep 2018
She
The area between the weight
Of fabric folds still resonates
A bitter echo of the pearl
You cherished as the waking world.

She clings- a scent, a touch and sound
That follows your steps 'cross the ground.
And though the coolness clears your head
Her sweetness drags you down instead.
Aug 2018 · 354
You Will Find Me [Alone]
Sarah Spang Aug 2018
You will find me
Street-side,
Where the gazes of cars do nothing to
Name me;
Breathing in Silver and moon
Lilac and asphalt
While they sleep in lattice mortar.

You will find me.
Where the Earth slopes in a sea of stone
Face up, skimming the summer grass with my fingers
And searching for the voices of the dead
In the cotton-wisp sky.

You will find me
Weaving through a sea of trees
Tracing their ashen skin
Like the carapace of each lover I've
Discarded along the way
Drinking the air of the
Earth and leaves underfoot.

You will find me
Surrounded and
Alone.
Aug 2018 · 242
I've Tasted (Tainted)
Sarah Spang Aug 2018
I've tasted Infinity
Acrid on the back of my throat,
Twisting my tongue around the periphery
Of what was both forever and fleeting.

I've dined on the Divine-
A place between The Nether and Earth
Where the smallest of deaths brings
The biggest of discovery-
Sending me crashing
One way or the other.

I've slept with Reality
Felt him slip, cold and hard
Into a place that will remain forever
Desecrated with truth and injustice;
Felt ****** beyond belief.

I've grappled with time
Shoving against a pervasive advance
That colors the way I see
The new line from things I've
Done and said
Built and Broken.

I've breathed and walked
The routes of monster and man
Knowing naught between the taste of blood and chocolate on my tongue.
Savoring both with bitter abandon.
Yet somehow-
My feet continue.
The day dawns.

I've persisted.
Aug 2018 · 610
Where I Burned
Sarah Spang Aug 2018
I was fire set upon
A bed of wood to flicker on.
The steady feed of brush and bark
Kept me ablaze to stay the dark

And yet at once, a time before
An oil fueled my cobalt core.
So mindlessly, I did consume
All things before their buds could bloom.


Further back, beyond that burn
I reveled in to quell the yearn-
There was chill that eddied forth
That ushered in the wind from North.

My fires faltered needfully
And lapsed into a harmony,
That warmed us both without the threat
Of razing us with hot regret.
Aug 2018 · 277
Drain the Shade
Sarah Spang Aug 2018
The stopped-smoke sky
Pervades the blue
To drain the shades
Of every hue.

The sepia lends light to how
My world is leeched of color now
Sarah Spang Aug 2018
I skirt the line
Tread the edge
Of the 'maybe'
At the ledge.
See the eddies,
Traces the swirls
That coalesce
To join our worlds.
Aug 2018 · 314
The Ending of an Era
Sarah Spang Aug 2018
The taste of green's
A bitter bite
That's left me bleeding
Fled my sight.
The restful red
Sustaining me
Has fallen Grey
Unerringly.
Jun 2018 · 497
The Dawn (Summer Scent)
Sarah Spang Jun 2018
In the dawn, I saw you there
With misty eyes and tousled hair
And with the sunlight flooding though,
I knew the summer scent of you.

You trickled yourself over me
The way the light pulsed through the trees.
And hand to hand we carried on
Across the dampened morning lawn.

Our pluming breath of spectored speech
Soared skyward towards the dancing leaves.
Gaze to gaze, brown to green
The morning lost it's sacred gleam.
Mar 2018 · 798
Leave My Hands Empty.
Sarah Spang Mar 2018
I feel this
Senseless loss
Leave my empty hands-
And wonder how
The place between
Can feel like an
Unreplenished chasm

When this was never
Mine to mourn.


Steel this
Bitter nothing
Beneath the sinew and bone
Before thought can burn
An aching corrosion
Left in
The nothing.

To
He
Outside
Me:
A
Stranger

You'll stay.
Jan 2018 · 907
Unframed by Metaphor
Sarah Spang Jan 2018
You're seated somewhere in
The realm of the unnamed
I've tried in jest to plunder you
With phrase; though you're unframed.


You are not a man I'll claim
With meter, phrase and line
The metaphors I'd set aside
You've not allowed to bind


In other ways I'll keep you
When the pen and page will not
My finger tips will bid you stay
When body's all I've brought.
Jan 2018 · 676
Unable
Sarah Spang Jan 2018
My sight, sick
Slick- a brush
Spreads your face
Layer by layer before me.

Unpeeled, my eyes
Sell truths my mind
Cherry picks, kicks around
Until they crumple,
Fester, shrivel
Fade.

For one brief
Infinite moment
I'm there beneath
That single layer,
Flush against
Soil, earth,
Summer and rain-
And the precise shade of olive
I've only ever seen
In the double sphere
Of each iris.
Jan 2018 · 929
Castle on the Creek
Sarah Spang Jan 2018
Of all things I remember
I'll always recall the sunflowers;
Benevolent guardians that kept
Whimsical treasures from the wandering eye.

There was a slick magic they harbored
Bottled in their rich, sun darkened faces;
The surrendered seeds
We gathered against the wishes of the jays.

I grasped them, granted access to the castle on the creek
Lighthouse in the wood that beckoned back after
The last crawfish had wriggled free
The final apple was plucked,
And the birds had sought refuge.
My written, unfinished effigy to the only father I knew.
I apologize for another hiatus, the well has run dry once more
Still digging around for more.

Thank you, all.
Sarah Spang Nov 2017
A touch of orange,
A kiss of blue
Through the mist and through to you.

Wade the waters
Wade the crowd
Wade the voices drowning out.

All their jackets,
Anxious eyes
Blurred beneath the Bleacher lights

Tipping Lips sought
Clarity
Alleged static - him to me


And I
If only I knew
That at the end
Blooms something new
And all
The words that I've said
Have scattered with the Mist instead


Icy water calendars
Swimming wave-
To-grid with her.

Stride the lines
And numbered squares
Touch the autumn in her hair.

The mists have come
The waters rise
The fog has blurred
And cleared her eyes

Here for now
Soon- gone again
Wrap her up and then stay again



And I
If only I knew
That at the end
Blooms something new
And all
The words that I've said
Have scattered with the Mist instead


A touch of orange,
A kiss of blue.
This is the first song I've written that I actually can hear music to when I read it. If anyone out there is musically inclined or had lyrical suggestions, I'd be interested in getting into something new.

Dedicated to Red.
Nov 2017 · 804
A Letter to Ash
Sarah Spang Nov 2017
CJ,

Another year past, with so much more unsaid.
We both had our fatal flaws:
I was afraid to fall too fast;
Wasn't ready yet-
And you wanted to dive into the unknown
Regardless of what happened.
I was too scared,
Too scared to have something so consuming and frightening.
I remember how kissing you was the most wonderful and horrifying things I'd ever done. I remember feeling the young, frail thing in my heart being changed permanently.
And it was just too soon for that.
I'm sorry I wasn't brave.
I'm sorry I hurt you by running, by pushing you away.
I'm sorry that our anger masked different kinds of hurt. There are words I said I wish I could recall, even if they were said in jest.

It's too late now,
Too late in the truest of ways
And I wonder all the time
If those two paths would have bissected again.
It would have been alright if they hadn't. Just the fact that you were still walking yours was enough for me at the time.
But now, there's an empty walk in the woods somewhere-
A place I stand, a crossways I look down, knowing the traveller I seek will never join me.
But if only.
If only, if only.

You would have been 26 this Friday.
When did we... I... get so old?
I wonder who you would have been with four more years under your belt? I wonder, but I know that you would have been just as miraculous to me now as you were then.
I'm shouting to the void, these words, knowing your eyes will never stroke each line I've typed. Penning a letter to ash- to masses of people who will read this and pluck a fragment of my grief like a shard of glass from the sand.

Embellishments aside, flowery language discarded: Happy early birthday, my love. With all of my heart and soul, know that I loved you then, and I'll love you past each year that your body is no more.

Always.

-Sarah
Sarah Spang Nov 2017
Move a little closer
Give me what you've
Planned to take.
We're both numb here
Blue lipped
And wanting around the
Flame
Taking what burns we can.

I know we need this
The way I need to
Lift away and dig around
In search of something
Redeemable
Though this act will only
Add another layer
He won't reach.
I shiver
Wasting away with the taste
Of fine whiskey
As a whisper on my tongue
Of a moment where we felt
Halfway human again.
Oct 2017 · 787
Skim the Airwaves (Abandon)
Sarah Spang Oct 2017
Skim to search the airwaves seeking
To abandon you
I fill this empty silence with a
Useless song or two
In silence creeping, weeping, you fill
Up my nodding head.
And all the words you've spoken hence
Flood forth to fill my head.
The voices on the radio say
All I should have said-
I skip those haunting broken tunes
And search for more instead.
Though truthfully excuses fail to
Negate what is true:
I fill this car with music to
Escape my thoughts of you.
Oct 2017 · 652
Sink into the Wrong
Sarah Spang Oct 2017
Extricate myself from him
And sink right into you.
Each layer that I disengage
Builds several ones anew.
I should twist and point myself
Towards the coming dawn
Away from shaded city streets
Away from all your wrong.
I sense a brimming something drifting
Past my searching gaze
Your drawing out the truth in me
Is soon to cause me pain
Oct 2017 · 715
Lancaster
Sarah Spang Oct 2017
Bound by the soil
The richness of knowing
Self, home, heart.
Who she was there was only
As true as the roots that clenched
County to country
Tree to earth.

There was a ****** to
Each footstep
Having paced each step thousands of times.
Some sets of eyes marked the way
As much as a
Curve in the road;
A sign on the street.

Perhaps it was the memory
The recollection layered in thick
Varying shades of red, gold
Ash and dust
On everything to see.
So many whispers, all vying to eddy against her skin
Her flesh.
Oct 2017 · 479
Ravenous (Drink)
Sarah Spang Oct 2017
I seek, stalk the streets like a
Succubi;
Greet the shadows as kin, ravenous.

Bright, our desire
Light, our pyre.

I draw on scent, on touch
Toss those bright sparks down my gullet-
Drink them like a stiff whiskey,
Watch them shatter when they clear.

They always clear.

I like the dark stuff,
Cinder and velvet
Just beneath the surface
And almost as smooth,
Trace their features before they're
Consumed, distilled, revealed.

Some take longer
Burn fiercely like
Small suns on my tongue
Remain once the glass has tipped
And they are the prize
I cannot theft.

Too bad for them
I'm always thirsty.
Sarah Spang Oct 2017
One release that rivets me
A nature's siren call:
That silver maple melody
That shimmers forth in fall.
Imbittered wind, imbued with hints
Of coming artic air
Sings a solemn, sweeping song
That strips the branches bare.
The treebone fingers snap and sway
In cadence with the breeze
The clatter castinet of leaves
Refrains forth to the trees.
Summer sonnets circling
Like vultures in my head
Take their leave upon the chill
And quiet in it's stead.
The gentle wash, smooth caress
The wind's voice strokes my ear
It twines around my puckered skin
And draws me ever near.
Away, anon, good riddance precious
Spirit of the green
Be off to slumber, underground
Until the coming spring.
Oct 2017 · 562
Negation
Sarah Spang Oct 2017
Four years
And the acrid proof still swells,
Drags down my face when I recall
The sweetness before the end.

Even angry
Hot metal hatred ready to
Scour a path to him
Something stronger finished first
Lept back and forth to show that
Words meant nothing in the face of
This.

I've worn a cranial path-
So trodden in the search for
How things go on between Two
When one ceases existing.

The why is evident,
The how has fallen to negation.
Oct 2017 · 555
I Will Love You Still.
Sarah Spang Oct 2017
I will love you through
Bump and scrape,
Play and study,
Onward over each
Bite and kiss.

I will love you through
Innocence,
Through sweating hands and
Hopeful eyes,
Through long baby hair that
Hid our faces;
Kept our secrets.

I will love you through
Each forgone bedtime
Through this speaker that
Kept us in the same room-
Long after bells sent us
Our separate ways.

I will love you through
Needless others,
Through the ones that mattered
And the ones that don't,
Long after each
Hello and Goodbye

I will love you as I wave goodbye
As you stay behind, skim the other
Side of the delta where we
Came up through adolescence.

I will love you as you hide
The truth, the gentle ecstasy of
Pill shaped promises to
Forget, to leave.
I will love you past each
Untouched phone call
Each slanted gaze,
Each gentle sidestep.

I will love you even as
You choose goodbye
Never knowing I would have
Chosen you, given the chance.
I will love you past the silver fire in your veins
Past the blue-tinged lips
The sightless eyes.

When the love has no where to go
When you are gone
When I am here.
I will love you
Still.
Aug 2017 · 646
The Siren
Sarah Spang Aug 2017
Knock me down
Without a touch,
You shook the liquor -
Curious.
My deft tongue sought
The courage there;
The confidence
That fled the air.
Gaze to smolder,
Grin to bite.
You paced the table,
Stole my sight.
Bitter clouds,
Buzzing lights
Lumpy cushions
Needful plights
Fleeting sweetness,
Gripping hands.
I sought the violence
He can't stand.
We grappled, battled,
Strove to take
The Novocaine
A stranger makes.
And once the numbness
Touched the brim,
My feet sought miles
Far from him.

To cleave the night
To flee the wrong
To stop the siren's
Rising song.
Aug 2017 · 740
Canyon, Creek, and Sky
Sarah Spang Aug 2017
The tales I weave
Wind through the trees
At midnight's witching hour
The darkened land
The night's soft hand
The blooming orchid flower.

They never stray
Across the day
To arid, fallow land
The baking earth
The scorching curse
The sprawling desert sand

There's beauty, hence:
The soft nonsense
I've conjured word to line
My dancing hands
My mind demands
To praise the desert kind.

I bless the hush
The jagged brush
Of lovely creosote.
The prickly pear
The burning air
The endless, sandy motes.

Each winding dune
The crests at noon
Like molten, golden earth
Reminds me still
Of good and ill
Of beauty and its worth.

My mind tips South
To scour the mouth
Of canyon, creek and sky
My eyes are open
To skies unbroken
To mountain peaks on high.

I've only spied
With inner eye
And pictures on a page-
Yet, in his gaze
His heated rage
I know the barren blaze.
Aug 2017 · 556
Dragonfly
Sarah Spang Aug 2017
I wonder when
Trapped inside
The dragonfly feels
Every inch of the walls
Curbing her from the sky.
Does her path know destination?
Or does she wait for a gap to the wild blue
That will never come?
I know her fatigue
The steadfast despiration of
Looking for an out
False windows grant
A glimpse of a simplistic freedom
Where carving the air has become
A fading dream.
Aug 2017 · 397
Untouchable.
Sarah Spang Aug 2017
Down, spiraling deep
All things coelse to the gully
Where exists one
Untouchable place
In the valley of this wretch.
Greedy hands seek
Nothing, though in jest
Perhaps I'd hoped they'd be it.
In truth, no one reaches down far
Where the unknown has no draw.
Sarah Spang Aug 2017
Will your lips run
Leagues from me
Curse my name
Each time you breath?
Your spoken rope,
Strung up on high
Would halt my breathing
Blank my eyes.

Or will you trap
Behind your mouth
The sins I've wrought
Upon your house?
Keep them silent
Keep them safe
And clasp them as you
Walk away.

I've marked the moons
I've read the tides
I've watched the sun
Drag through the sky.
Three long winters,
Three short springs
Have quieted
The needful things.

And yet in others;
Skin and eyes
Familiar faces-
Far and wide
Bridge the distance
Span the gap
That time has rent to
Keep you back.
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