Waves crash and thrash
Fire burns and and makes only ash

Ice is cold and clear
Wind blows across the pier

All are different
But all can hurt

They’re just like words
Only words hurt worse

Dwindling through the air.
I am not convinced it's fair.

From whence comes this cold icy wind?
Ignorance; frigidly frozen.
In aftermath, my vision I'll rescind.
The glassy path I haven't chosen.

The past winter my friend.
In the avalanche I stand.
Buried alive in bone shattering cold.
My visage, your opinions unfold.

Why can't you see eye to eye.
Why is it that you presume I lie?
The frost frankly freezes friendship over.
When the thaw sets in - blooms the clover.

I am master of cold, but I bring only heat
My soul not sold, but you see what you need
There is nothing I can do, leader of men.
I conjure my cue, my mind is zen

Feel like the world is frozen, and I'm too hot for the ice to stand on and therefore I'm melting my way to the core of it all.

River by the bend
Winter seems to have no end

The sweeping sunset begins to transcend
ice became my best friend

It did not mean to offend
but, it did try to amend

Though the more it tried to defend
it spider-webbed and began to distend

Snow flakes settle on your lashes
Melt to cool tears
Rolling gently over your cherry cheeks
To kiss the corners of your warm smile
Bedazzling winter bling
Icy joy brought from heaven
Simply beautiful


© 2019 MJL

I knew it wouldn't end in fire;
We burned
Too fast, too enjoyably, to suffocate
In flames.

I found the scab, the source,
Small and round and secret.
Incapable of leaving it to heal, I finger the edges
Nervously until the blood flows
Cold and jealous and foreign and unforgiving and slow.

A tipping point we can't reverse out of,
We're frozen on the event horizon,
Empty like the air in February,
The oxygen burned out from our explosion.

I am only left with regret and this
Sense, clear and dry and freezing, that I've walked
Too far north and lost the sun,
Though clouds still part in the distance and wave
Toward the open spaces
With fingers unfurling in unnatural curls.

I claw back to calm from
Calamity and speak, knowing I have listened
Too deeply to words meant for other ears - words that do not tell
Me what to say in return - I am raw.

I stand at the edge of mercy,
Abrupt in my humanity,
Suddenly losing feeling in my toes.

I thought you were gone
Closer than the most distant star yet
Further than any constellation
Lost in space, floating
Somewhere along the bedstead.


But then
I realised that it was not disinterest
Because even though loving you was a frozen lake
Melted awake with every touch of your fingertips
To you, loving me was the sight of sea
In which just being side by side was as natural as breathing
Or the waves gently washing ashore.

I will be your calm before the storm
The quiet moment before the waves come crashing down
Tearing apart our illusions of the peace
And the sunshine on ice.

To this day, I don’t know
If what I really wanted was to leave and just let go
Or if I was just scared of the speed of the flow
What feels like yesterday, is a million years ago
I wonder if I’m just a coward
People always saw me as strong and hard
But now, I’m crying alone in the dark
Maybe, I’m just human or maybe just a fraud

Outside, I’m an unbreakable wall
No words, no stones could ever make me fall
But that’s just what they saw
Inside, the pain has taken it’s toll

The cuts I have is not seen with the eyes
It’s buried deep in my chest, cold as ice
I chisel them out of the cold when I write
It’s messed up I know, but it’s my vice

No matter what you think, I don’t care
Because emptiness is something I can’t bear
I’d rather be hurt and pay the fare
It makes me feel alive, I swear