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 Aug 2014 Oliver David
r
I saw a photograph today.
Old, Berlin, black and white-
black charred stumps-
blackened limbs.

When they bombed the Tiergarten,
did the trees hear them fall
in the forest?

r ~ 8/6/14
\¥/\
   |     Berlin 1945
  / \
I sit and watch her bottom lip tremble,
And know that it's my fault.

The pieces that she can't assemble,
Are locked within the vault.

I sit and watch her eyes cloud over,
And have to look away,

She stills calls me her sunshine,
But I blind her with the rain.
She still calls me her sunshine,
Dispite the weathers change.
 Jun 2014 Oliver David
r
Caroline
 Jun 2014 Oliver David
r
Caroline loves the ocean.  
Her soul sails on a Carolina breeze.
But her music's in the mountains,
and her heart's back home
where it needs to be.

I'm stuck here
in a Carolina wind,
wading in the ocean
with my heart in Tennessee,
and my mind on Caroline.

Carolina's got everything
a man could want.
Everything he needs.
It's got the mountains and the ocean.
It has a Carolina breeze.

He has everything but Caroline;
everything but Tennessee.

r ~ 6/22/14
\•/\
  |     Carolina ocean breeze
/ \
Blame it on
Your absent father
Your addict mother
Your unexpected children
Blame it on
Anyone, and anything
So you never have to
Take responsibility
For your own actions

It's the whiskey
That hit me
It's my own shards
That tore me apart
It's a malevolent God
That lied about love
'Cause you don't do anything

Blame it on
My fragile psyche
My insecurities
My "impossible" needs
Blame it on
Anyone, and anything
So you never have to
Take responsibility
For what you've done to me

It's the cigarettes
That stole my breath
The weight of my expectations
That broke my trust
The spinning of my own wheels
That drove me into madness
'Cause you don't do anything
Everyone has a **** like this in their life.
You may have died young,
        but as long as
        my words live,

*You will never grow old.
Give them to me.
All the pieces of your broken heart.
Give them to me.

I'll take them.

All the rough-hewn misshapen bits of your shattered dreams.


Give them to me.
I will take them.

Give them to me.


They are wanted here.


All the parts of your misspent childhood. All the regrets of ticking seconds behind you.

Give them to me.

And we will build a cathedral. A stained glass window of who we are as tall and as beautiful as it should be.

Let me have them.

And we will make a mosaic that stretches as wide as the sky. Showing every color your heart gained from the bits and pieces left on the ground.

I will take them.

And forge a sculpture of how beautiful the ideas are that we cast out in our failings and we will cast it in our failings.

Let me have them.

And we will ***** a monument of all the small things in the shape that you remember them.
Towering. Looming. Striking. Beautiful.

Let me have them so we might bind the words said and regretted, (or worse) left unsaid in leather and call it scripture.

Our Psalms. Our Proverbs:

“The tip of my finger dangles like my tongue. Wanting to touch something beautiful.”

“If it were not for him, it would have been us.”

“You were all my brightest colors.”

“I wish I were more like you.”

“I wish I were less like me.”

“I am sped.”


And we will read them at dawn like litany.

Stretching our voices to the corners of the universe. Asking for the wishes you make when you are scared. Or alone. Or both.

That we may take them.

And make a blanket.

A blanket to cover our childhood and let it rest at last.

I will take them.

All the parts you no longer want.

Give them to me.

Because they are what make us beautiful.

Give them to me.

That I may forge them into pitch and feathers and craft mighty wings.

That I may take flight from your worry. And soar on the updraft of your misconception.

Give them to me.
I will take them.

Because I would rather burn like Icarus than to have never dared to fly.
This was a birthday gift to myself. I am giving it to you.
 May 2014 Oliver David
Hayleigh
I bit open a lie and it tasted like you.
If I was a mountain

That soared towards the sky,

With craggy snow caps

And stormy grey eyes-



Then you'd be the clouds

That swaddled my peak,

That silenced my thunder

When I tried to speak.



If I was the earth

The desert, in fact:

With arid dry soil

And mud, baked and cracked-



You'd be the rain

The downpour that soothed;

The balm to my bruises,

Relief to my wounds.



If I was the Moon

In the indigo night,

With stars as my blanket

And silver; my light-



Well you'd be the Sun

Just always behind

That lent me your glow

And caused me to shine.
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