Sometimes you’re controlling
but that’s okay
because I know that you love me
and you will always be there
You’re the only one
that has always been there
It’s like I’m a ship
and you’re my captain
You always grab a hold of me
when the wind blows
and the seas get tremulous
you steer me away from the chaos
When life gets too hard
I know that if I sink
you’ll go down with me
Oh captain, my captain
Sail me away

- Submission

It must be a crush
yet I feel crushed by you
by this tidal wave of infatuation
crippled by the thought of your lips
You crush me
when you don’t look my way
metaphysically I suppose
I barely know you
I’ve mostly invented you
in my head
like a character in a fable
creating expectations
that you could never live up to
because everything is better
inside my mind

I stay up at night
wondering if you’re as lonely as me
You must be
We’re alone in our acumen
No one gets me like you
the way I see art
the way you drink to escape the hell in your head
I wonder what you’re trying to forget
With every sip
every intellectual prose
Our minds slow dance
to Sam Cooke in the moonlight

The truth is
you could be anyone
I just need someone
to think about
to obsess over
to distract me from myself
so that I don’t realize who I am
and fall back into the abyss

In my head you like
néo-noirs
Dorothy Parker
and ***** martinis
like me
We talk and talk
about decades we never lived through
romanticizing the music and fashion
neglecting the oppression
You help people all day
and slay dragons at night

Something about that cocky smirk
reminds me of him
It makes me nostalgic
of all the words left unsaid
that I can whisper to you instead

You lull me to sleep every night
with mellifluous nothings
and I sink into a slumber
and dream of your ocean blue eyes
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead

Then I wake up
and you’re not there
you never were
you’re not real
just my own imagination
playing cruel tricks on me

We would never work
I’m too grounded in my hopes for the future
to fly to the moon with you
Your glasses are too tinted with rose
to see me in the light
And I’m too cold of a person
to start a fire with you

Your face changes
from time to time
but you’re always here
radiating in perfection and fabrication
I wonder what you will look like
next time
I don’t know who you will be
but I know that you will
crush me
all over again
I think I made you up inside my head

- A Mad Girl’s Love Song

The people who can’t fall asleep to silence
are the people to be the most worried about
The people who are terrified
to be alone
with their own thoughts
with the voices
Where darkness knows no bounds
there’s a reason it can’t be measured
They don’t make bedtime stories or lullabies
for people like us
The monsters under our beds never go away
they just get scarier with age
Because we chase our nightmares
the way others chase dreams
Strangled by our own memories
I’m looking for gray
in patches of black and white
Blood still drips from those sunflowers
painted on my wall
when I dare to close my eyes
because I’m still the broken girl I always was
counting sheep in my ripped nightgown
torn like my innocence
Clutching onto my teddy bear
lost like my soul
Hush little baby
don’t say a word
You wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s ears
with your pain
There’s nothing to distract you from you
At least we can behave like stars for awhile
For we never shut our eyes
until the sun is in the sky

- Insomnia

Does she ever catch
that grin on your lips
or the glimmer in your eye
when you’re thinking of me?
I bet you draw my portrait in your sleep
Your blue rose
Your broken diamond
You never forget the lyrics
to your favorite song
See me
Breathe me
Bleed me
Don’t forget me

- Selfish

I wonder when I’ll stop
looking for approval
under the sand
buried like your heads
I wonder if I’ll ever live my life
in honor of me
instead of
in spite of you
I’ve splashed in these shallow lagoons
and climbed these trees a million times
but I don’t belong here
because a purpose for someone like me
is too colossal to be contained on land
So I sail away from the island you’re all sired to
and I find bliss in the places you’ll never go
I drop my anchor
where the tides are high
and the minds are open
It’s a shame you’ll never experience this beauty
because you’re too afraid of drowning

- Shallow

Little did they know
That I had a mind of my own
Everything you've done and said
Will come back to bite you
By tomorrow you'll possibly be dead
Act like the devil and you'll meet him soon
Little did they realize
Of what I am capable of
All of those little lies
Have grown into a dead tree
And I'll torch it
As I watch all of the secrets
Vanish like lives
And then you'll die
Goodbye

She kept staring at the full moon
Her friend, confidant, fixation
Regretfully, I learn later, her escape
I kept talking in eerie silence
And keeping company to no effect
She like a bird tethered in a cage
I remember that night
Solemn the scar
Fourteen years hence
We were parked along a beach in Hawaii
Paradise one would think
Man and wife
Gazing in the opposite direction
I learn later our lasting vacation
Somewhere in the distance
Happy palm trees dance to the music of the waves
Whitecaps accentuate the moonshine of the night sea
Statues of tall mountains stand sentry
Separated by a treeline
Rolling hills, bare picket fences
And a defining moment
In the darkness and contrast
In·con·gru·ous
I see a few horses approaching our view, us
No doubt curious
My wife jests, as her eyes, depart the moon
Her reverie, her prayer pause
As the inside of the car shrivels
My heart braces
Her words, one by one
Denouncement at its finest
As she looks back at the horses, then me
"Even the poppies are in love
They're so stable"
She says this over and over
For my effect
Her eyes glassy
Her voice but a whisper
Steel, still
Drawing the horses nearer
Where soon their eyes
And noses peek through the fences of gloom
Big and brown,
Neighing
She begins to tear
Again
Sad and red
Real childlike
Her past begins to flash
Where she says something to the effect
That she once worked the corner of 42nd steet
In San Francisco
A bombshell went off
The horses sank in their seats
Lava spewed from my head
Mount Robertson in ashes
No votive candles could save her
Or us
Her angels on her shoulder
Lost to her rescue
Only albatrosses
Sinking
Sinking, us
Again in reverie
"Even the poppies are in love
They're so stable"
On and on
"I once worked the corner of 42nd Street
In San Francisco"
Her words, again, like ice
Melting
Reverberating in my mind
Where did I go wrong, I thought
Melancholy on the rocks
That night a man
And a moon cried
The sublimity of her message
The pantomime
The mock of steel
The planted seeds
The turning point
I can only gaze at the rolling hills
Now with two horses hoofing it back to safety
The darkness
The lost rebuttal and love
Her full moon
So prophetic
My teary eyes and mind could only wander
Past the happy palm trees
To the pieces of the puzzle
"You don't love me any more"
Deeply, I dug, wanting to find the answers
As her eyes and fingers quickly curled my lips
My insides a mess
She blows out my candle
Takes away the shovel
I knew
She knew
No words needed to be expressed
Only these
"Even the poppies are in love
They're so stable"
Soon it seamed,
Seemed
Stitches of our love ripped apart
That car that was once parked along the beach
Paradise searching
Now more suited for a funeral procession
As we  bereave the aloha attire, hotel, vacation and then the airport
As two ships departed in bereavement
Rudderless, without sails
Our port becoming a pretense
The living room couch soon my refuge
Saturated with my tears
Faithfulness and honor
Her bi-polarity worsening
Sadly
Truly
I didn't know at the time
If only I had known
Had some understanding
The winds at war
Of what was in her harbor
More of the anchors of doom
Holding her down
The barnacles, erosions of her mind
I could have helped
I will always remember that night
Fourteen years hence
Two horses short of being stable
And the battles in my mind
The tears
The waning days and months
Where the seasons and time felt lost
A year later,
A morning dawn
Mourned
I looked into her vacant eyes
The stillness
She was finally at peace
No longer tethered or caged
There was a full moon the night before

Logan Robertson

3/04/2019

Remember
How you became
When you wanted
To hurt me
The souvenirs
On my skin
Red, purple
And black
The truth is
I would have
Worn the bruises
As a jewel
Gifted by you
But not anymore
As I pulled out
All the stuffing
From inside of you
Like a rag doll
And rested you
Deep…
Down…

Spoonfed a mouthful of soft poems,
the pangs of unthanked love numb your heart
to fortify against the abrupt attack of truth;
That one feels is a weakness,
or if he does speak of it is a fool!
This is but an unhinging maze
to soak the mind in waves of guilt and despair
stagnant as a melted nightmare...
And thus, the heart believes it
only to begin to freeze forever more.