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Erica Winter Feb 2014
I'm drinking the memories of you away
On the floor, as worn and tired as this guitar
Even more out of tune
Unable to sing anything but the saddest songs
I'm done with writing words no one will read
Singing songs no one will hear
I'm tired of thinking about someone who doesn't think of me
Dreaming of someone who forgot me long ago
Tunes stripped from a soul that died when the first leaf fell
A heart that can't break is no good to anyone
What if it has been broken beyond repair?
Erica Winter Oct 2013
This loneliness would not seem so heavy
If I had never felt a warm heart
Delicate sounds
Sharp tongue
Trembling fingertips

The bitter part of bittersweet is never the most painful.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
The soft glow of the TV
Illuminates childhood photos on my wall
Two beer bottles sit alone on the nightstand
I'm drunk enough to find humor in two things
First-- that at least they have each other to comfort
Second--- that they're both empty, just like me.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
You fell right back into my life
A burning star with a deathwish
I can see you hurtling through the air
Holding my heart deep inside
To be honest
I truly welcome the impact.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
I set my childhood on fire
Because I resented my former innocence
My family was happy and I was carefree
I doused my toys and birthday cards in gasoline
Lit a match and let it sink on down
A single tear ran down my cheek
And the flames danced in a ritual of redemption and destruction.

I drowned my adolescence in the ocean.
Because all of the anger I felt inside needed to be put out.
My family fell apart and I was a tragic mess.
I searched through every old box and took out all of my accomplishments.
I fit them all in a glass jug along with a family portrait.
I sent them out to the ocean where I used to wish for things to get better.

My adulthood is hanging onto the edge of a cliff.
Because I still hope things will get better.
My family is getting smaller and I miss my mother.
I find that memories burn away faster than I once believed
And even if you send away the pain, it comes back to shore tenfold.
I’m building up from the ashes, reborn.
Because that’s when I have the most potential to grow.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
Perched on knotted driftwood
The wind howling past me
Toes buried in moist sand
Lost in the allure of the black briny bay
Endless constellations
All I thought in that instant--
I wish I were among them.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
It's an insatiable need for human contact
When I find myself hating solitude
I mean, not simply being alone in a room
Alone at heart
My soul longs for comfort
Instead of having the courage to speak up
I fake smiles
Hoping to eventually fool myself
Killing the inner pessimist
Feeling happy. Really happy.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
I crave a love with such burning intensity
that I need it like I need oxygen.
I want my heart to ache with longing.
I want a man to look into my eyes and reach into my soul
Pulling all distinguishable emotion out with it.
I want my love on a string that you’d be proud to wear.
I want to need someone as much as I want to be needed.
I want to hold your hand and feel like I could take on the world.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
I asked you to define romance.
I can't remember word-for-word what you'd said
I can however, freeze and replay the moment you replied.
Your feet were buried in the Earth
Fingers sifting sand
You washed your hands in the water
Sealed the space between us and held my hand.
We shared a perfect silence that could inspire God.
You then asked me to define romance
I can't remember word-for-word what I'd said, either.
I can however, tell you what I'd say now.
Romance is how I felt holding your hand.
We could take over the world without saying a word.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
Each burning sip goes down...
              and down
                  and down
                                 settling and washing over my mind.
It creeps up.
Suddenly I could care less
About what was, is and could be.
And I drift
                and drift
                    and drift
                               to sea to drown.
In emotion, in alcohol, in memory.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
Your silence is enough to make me ask,
"Did I mean anything at all?"
But I’m not taking the chance to catch only echoes.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
Stuck in a rut twenty three feet deep
One for every year I've failed on cue
Dirt falling in at a steady pace
Everyone with their lives figured out
They congregate and tamp down the debris
The possibility of getting out unscathed is that much harder
Looking for hidden optimism somewhere in the dark
Erica Winter Feb 2014
I've spent my nights falling in love with fiction
Imagining I could travel through space and time
I want a companion who won't turn away
Even the tarot cards know
I'm cursed to have no hand to hold
Erica Winter Sep 2013
Fifteen days
Since I learned to gather these shards of soul
Scars in tact, and love with all I was capable of
A leap of faith
My mind drunk on the wine
My body drunk on your bliss
I gave you all that was left of me
Erica Winter Oct 2013
The first day of a brand new start
I trudged with heavy feet to a baptism
I wouldn't mind keeping my sins
I'd rather dispose of heartache and heal the cuts so deep
I remember being pure with conscience in tact
Days before the holy water would burn to the bone
I need a blindfold to find my faith
Blurred and too faded for my soul to see
Erica Winter Feb 2014
Built up from the ashes of the fragments of who I used to be
I danced with the wild flames of lust that swallowed me without remorse
I felt no pain, only the heat of a strange love
My affection is evolving into apathy, dissolving
I'm numb from weeks of cold English rain
He was lost and I was scared
The bittersweet truth is that I still long to be held again as steady as that guitar
Worn with emotional battle scars
From the debris of that late summer spark
I stand tall, but not without tired feet
I surrender to a cheap bottle of wine, filled with sweet woe
Chia-like, I shall grow and grow.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
I was reluctant but the need to be wanted took over
Against the defensive moves to cover this fractured yet still together glass heart
I gently took it from my chest and placed it into your open palms
You threw your light into it, sealing every break with your lust for life.
The next morning, you handed it back because it was mine
I replied that I’m entirely too clumsy and that you should keep it
For that clumsiness is what broke this fragile heart
Time and time again in my jaded past
The letters that formed words
that formed phrases
that formed sentences
that formed paragraphs
that formed pages
that held my spirits high began to unravel day by day.
You can’t break what’s already broken.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
This hurt will fade.
It's the one thing I can rely on.
The hardest part is continuing to hold up the weight
It rests on your shoulders when all of your muscles are tense and tired from the strain.
We all need a break.
Closure. Resolution.
Something and someone new to make us feel at home
I’m just wandering down a long stretch of highway
With nothing but a worn map in my pocket
And a playlist that only reminds me of memories I’d rather forget.

It wasn’t just me or you.
The pieces just didn’t fit.
I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t miss you
Or if I said that I weren’t heartbroken, even months down the line.
I only hope that one of these days we’ll be in the same place
We'll look into each other’s eyes
We'll recognize the love, happiness, pain and misery that churned within
(which, at that point would have been so long ago)
We might exchange half-hearted smiles and a few words
We would separate and head toward different worlds.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
I am always the constant.
He is the little boy on the beach
Endlessly chasing after the same kite.
She is the wave
Always thrusting away from the shore.
I am always the constant.

He is the hitchhiker
Always running away and searching for answers.
Yet, I am always the constant.

A different boy.
He is the flirt on the street
Who always gives the runaround.
They are the countless numbers
Heartbreaking rebels without a cause.
He is the butterfly
Who has evolved into a beautiful person.
They are the mice
Walking blindly into the traps.
I am the constant.
2006.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
To think that you might be leaving, I can't help sadness.
It's a tsunami-sized wave that I can't stop.
I suppose, in a way, I would have preferred for us to have never met.
However, because we did meet and because I felt more alive than I have in days, weeks, months, years...
Because I shared my soul with you and you had open arms to embrace it.
Because your passion shines and exudes through your words and your chords and your kiss, I can't help sadness.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
You read me in every language
Hands down and held tight
I wanted to be the piece to complete your puzzle
With graceful fingertips and a quick tongue to match my own
I tripped on your words to fall down into and through you
Swept up and thrown into mutual inspiration
Passion too deep to throw into a sappy chorus
Craving the depths of the other’s body and soul
I am your instrument and you inspire me to sing a song of hope
Cheap wine and romance and you and me
Fingers entwined and the sheets that follow

My honesty is pure with no limits because you will never read this
I’ve dropped the heels I used to put on for charm and power
I hung them at your door and exchanged them for soft, broken in shoes
Ones that lack elegance, but worn with the intention to stay silent while you sleep
In the morning, you could believe I was only in your dreams.
Mid-slumber, your wrap your arm around my waist and pull me closer
I feel too at home, stripped of clothes in your arms
Erica Winter Sep 2013
I welcomed the day with a cup of coffee
Strong, but not as strong as I used to have it
No whiskey, but a year ago, there would have been
I never liked the taste of sugar or cream
I would only pour it in to watch the colors swirl
I liked the whiskey with it's warmth churning
Releasing insecurities and lulling them to sleep
They would climb up as demons
Clawing their way back into my mind
I've built an arsenal this time without needing a crutch
This time, I've got bullets loaded with confidence and good intentions
Lock and load.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
Woke up this morning sober
In the groggy intoxicating hold of sleep
For a brief instant, I swore I was in your room
Blankets at the foot of the bed
Wrapped up in you, mind and body
All I could think about
How beautiful you are when you sleep
How that moment should be infinite
Because we fit so well, and you feel like home
I tipped your chin up to kiss you good morning
You were gone
Alone, I could only feel the cold sheets where I wanted you to be.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
I remember the smell of summer rain
and how thunderstorms used to help me sleep when I was young.
I remember St. Patrick’s Day
and how the grass always seemed more green than any other day of the year.
I look at pictures of my family when I was eight
and it’s a harsh truth to admit
that I don’t remember much about my parents being together.

I remember having a sense of wonder in my childhood
that now I see was so precious and rare.
If we could all have that astonishment at the little things in life as adults
the world would be a much happier place.

Colors are no longer as vibrant.
I’ve started to look into the darkest corners of my mind
and the world to find new miracles and beautiful tragedies.

Christmas used to mean love, family and comfort.
Sleeping underneath the tree, the smell of pine needles would lull me.
Nowadays, gin is as close as I get from January to November.
With each sip, it’s the bitter taste of Christmases past
and the ripe, sweet smell of nostalgia.

People walk into my life through many doors and exit unexpectedly as well.
I’m in a forest, it all looks the same.
I turn at every tree with moss
Desperately searching for something new
and the hardest part is always searching
Never knowing which path leads to demise.

The friends that I keep are the ones I hold close
Are the good ones that stick through the depths of it all.
I remember the smell of my mother’s perfume
Yet the sound of her voice becomes more distant with each passing month and year.

Saturday morning cartoons used to be enough.
This wine is my blood and my blood has boiled out.

How to define pain and how to escape the wreckage?
I used to believe that time heals but the opposite has proven itself to be true.
The more details become unclear and fuzzy,
the sharper the knife becomes.
The more it hurts with passing days.  

I once heard that mourning is like being inside of a snow globe with flurries with slick, stealthy blades that sometimes float by and sometimes cut deep with no warning.
Time sharpens the daggers and that is a truth that is time(less).
Trust meant the world and gullibility was not a death sentence.
As we age, we find new ways to cope. We get by.

My dreams have been vivid and coated in a melancholy feeling
that I can’t break no matter how hard I try.
Woken up by the drunken calls of lush fools in the grass outside of my window,
I close my eyes and try to slip back into sleep.
Meeting failure, the clock taunts by the second
Synced with the laughter of the people outside, surrounded by friends.

Some say the glass is half full, some half empty.
I say the glass is being poured to the brim, on tap.
I take comfort in the solitude I used to curse in the early hours when slumber never came.
Erica Winter Feb 2014
We’re leagues and seas apart
You’d have to dive til you ran out of breath to find me.
I’m so far down.
We could drive past the places we grew up
Never stopping til we're out of the familiar

This station is tuning out during our favorite song

We might be wasted, but our time is sober
Erica Winter Sep 2013
Your soft eyes were inviting
Filled with hunger and wanting
The scorn and hurt still visible underneath
I never knew her name or how she hurt you
I intended to cauterize your open wounds
The patience I believed was infinite
Slowly spoiled into apathy
I'm truly sorry I couldn't be better
Erica Winter Nov 2013
My life is in irreparable pieces
I am down and defeated
Walking lost
Unable to feel a thing without you
Erica Winter Sep 2013
One day down the line
I'll have someone to come home to
In the meantime
I'll come home to paper and a pen
I'll write down every moment that will lead to you.
Erica Winter Nov 2013
Ten years ago I knew an elusive man
He used to call me Rhiannon
I knew the song but I never knew why
He said I'll figure it out when I'm older
Nearly a dozen years between us
Thousands of miles
I remember he lived in the California sunshine
I imagined he would start each morning greeting the sun
His only company a dark coffee and lit cigarette
Ten years later, I vaguely remember a man
He called me Rhiannon
I would hum the song for years, sometimes I forgot why
I would sing and sing but I'm still in the dark now that I'm older
Erica Winter Sep 2013
Stumble out of bed and discover your surroundings
Wake up from a dream but find yourself alone.
Turn on the shower, lather your hair
Rinse and repeat
Feel the water run down your back, emotional baptism
Heartbreak and some of the loneliness down the drain
For a moment, you forget where you are
You go through the mundane day
Try to appreciate the little miracles in life and nature
Random acts of kindness, spread good karma
Every night, missed opportunities are still on your mind.
Rinse and repeat
Old words are still alive in your journal, but fading.
Rinse and repeat
You still trick yourself every night in sleep
Arms still around you
Still, you wake up alone.
Rinse and repeat.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
Plaguing notions of death, loneliness and manifested memories
All in relation to tangible things
I ask if the power belongs to those who have wings
Escaping to a fictional utopia where they feel no pain
I’d rather be a sinner with good intentions
Never asking why, but why not
Pushing the envelope over the edge
Photographs burning
Flames dancing
Evidence of a life lived well gone with the ash
Erica Winter Nov 2013
The siren, I can't resist you
I've run miles with tattered shoes
Calloused feet
I've forgotten the color of your eyes
Regardless, your song has never left me
You lull me back into a sad oblivion
All I have to do is follow your blood stained shards of glass
Left from the carefully constructed house that was once your heart
Erica Winter Sep 2013
I no longer rest my eyes
catnap
slumber
or fall asleep
I crash into oblivion.
Erica Winter Oct 2013
He crooned soft and slow
Bringing the harsh truth to light
The ghosts of my past
They haunt me like the rest of them
I've never begged them to leave
Your sublime words were a worn blanket
They kept me warm for passing weeks
Before fading just like your smile
Mine is becoming more jaded every morning.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
July of my fifteenth year
on vacation with my father
Somewhere on the East Coast
Faded photographs rest untouched
in one of the many shoe boxes out of reach
The clearest memory I have
was in the deep end of the hotel pool
I sank down and held myself there
Eyes focused on the glimmering sun
Blurry through the rippling water
I felt vulnerable in the best way
Knowing letting my breath out
Would lead to going home
To an all-encompassing silence
While I only let out half of my breath
Before coming back up to greet the sunbeams
That memory never left.
Erica Winter Jan 2014
I was once fueled by the idea of love
You took all I had to give
I am now a fragment of who I used to be
A broken seashell in the sand
The empty passenger's seat on your journey home.
Erica Winter Sep 2013
I guess what I want to say is that sleeping alone never bothered me much
I thought I knew how to give myself over to someone
I thought I knew what it was like to feel wanted
I thought I knew what being broken felt like
I thought I knew everything before I met you.
I feel cheated because I never got the full chance to give you everything.
I try to chalk this all up to another experience in my life
Another stitch in the heart
Notch on the bedpost
The truth is that I left that seashell
As well as part of me that night
Thrown somewhere on your floor
In mad passion
Erica Winter Sep 2013
I wanted to be your comfort every night
I wanted to fix you when your heart would ache
I wanted to take in every word you say
I wanted to kiss your body with mine again
I wanted to be your strength when your bones became weary
I wanted to be your inspiration when the world was ugly
I wanted to be your warmth, a muse, a goddess
I wanted to be your home to come back to every night
I wanted this to happen outside of my wishful thinking.

— The End —