If pictures could speak
I've heard they'd say a thousand words
But if the language of them was foreign
Then, to me, it may sound all absurd
Yet, in the sound you could still feel
The tone at which they spoke
Softly serving as a memory
Of the places it did know

If pictures could speak
I would listen through the night
Laughing as the sun came up
Never sleeping but eyes creeping
More closed passing through a morning light.
I would listen to the faded laughter
Of times someone lived to say
Staring at the past, wasting time in present day

If pictures could speak
They may haunt the world I knew
But their secrets I would keep
In the cryptic art that someone drew
They'd never know I heard them
So silent, but still there
Always talking but never realizing anyone cared

I have a picture of you saved,
For no eyes but my own,
That I take out of my drawer
Every day when I come home.

I pretend you're here in front of me,
As your body remains statuous,
And cry into the picture
As my grief for you grows fatuous.

For though your captured smile is still
I hear your loving laugh.
That joy can't even be contained
Inside this photograph.

And though your captured skin is still
I feel your heat reach mine,
Radiating through the frame,
Its mem'ries stopping time.

And though your captured eyes are still
The beauty of your gaze is just
Too much for this poor photo
To be able to contain.

They say a thousand words
A single picture can confess.
But your frozen lips say nothing
As the sun sets in the west.

In your melancholic silence
I place the picture in the drawer.
Tomorrow I'll take it out again
And grieve your love once more.

- p. winter

Don't you               think
     maybe                I could be
  perfectly                 fine
        with                  out
     you                 there
         for            me
            all the  time
              when you
        weren't    there
         before       but
          maybe you're
        trying to
          make          
               up FOR ALL THE SMALL
                     THINGS YOU FORGOT

she sat there
with the disk whirring
in her laptop's DVD player.
the movie wouldn't play
because of some internal flaw
and she stared blankly
at the computer screen.
her bowl full
of potato salad
on the desk next to her frozen body.
her chest rising and falling
unsteadily
her eyes glassy
zoned out
to another place.

the pills she's supposed to take
to keep herself healthy
sit on the desk next to her bowl
of unfinished potato salad.

Picture yours, put it out
to your kaleidoscope.
Like the day at the full-blown noon
or the night on the cheek of the moon
a flame burning on the underlying dark
a dawn switches on the first light
a sun comes out of the night.
Visualise your latent one
put it on before your mirror!

Princely give the eyeballs a designer treat.
Paint your masterpiece at the day’s peep.
Hook the browsers at their first click.

crickets and
frogs alike
chirping to the beat
of a hot summer night

insects swarming the
lanterns and lights
summer sweethearts laughing
feeling their hearts ignite

young lovers and
insects alike
dancing to the beat
of a hot summer night

Paint a picture with my words, see the sun and the birds, clear skies reaching back for the horizon.. see the pain in my eyes, the fear I disguise, my wings shredded, torn, and broken.