#prosepoetry poems on Hello Poetry

fray narte Feb 2020

11:11 and other socially constructed clichés

My 11:11s were made for sleepless nights
playing back all these scenes
when your heartbeat still melted against my ears,
every sigh that lingered on my temple,
every touch that lingered on my skin
11:11s were made for asking
this dimmed wall sconces what it would be like
to feel your body close the spaces,
to feel it next to mine once more,
of what it would be like to kiss you in the dark,
with complete abandonment,
like a wolf howling its heart out
to the moon after a sunset that lasted forever

It was 11:11, and now, I know
I should’ve closed my eyes
and kissed you that drunken April night,
and melted in your arms when I still had the chance.
Now, I close them, without you around,
wrestling with these fixations
trying to convince myself
that one more recall of the memories would be the last;
one more make-believe,
one more fantasy wouldn't hurt.
One more,

and one more,
and one more,
I said,

and it was 11:12
and suddenly,

it did.

#prosepoetry #prosepoem #poem #poems #poets #poetry #spilledink #1111 #heartache #heartbreak

fray narte Feb 2020

all these crumpled letters

Love, I said I wouldn't miss the sound of your early morning voice.
These sheets were weighed from all the times the dawn sent its sunrays
like palms filled with love letters;
but maybe I too, had become all the dawns that lingered too long.
I said I wouldn't miss the outline of your body;
oh how I planted kisses on every uncharted curve
but this bed is now a map of strangers from all these towns I do not know.

I said I wouldn't miss the hands, touching,
fingers picking each stray breath away;
I wouldn’t miss waking up next to you —
all serene, all magical than lucid dreams.

But darling, it's ten to twelve and our memories,
they covet me as the summer rain pours outside
and now,

I miss all these stupid little things;
the brief way you wince at papercuts,
the secret smiles after eye rolls
and radios turned to the max,
the way red lipsticks and love notes
linger on bathroom mirrors;
the water and steam have erased them now,
love, I miss the way you hog blankets;
the threads have now come undone,
taking down your scent with them,
all too painful, all too slow, it slips
even from these memories,

And I know I said I wouldn't miss you
but it's half past twelve, and I'm in your shirt
and the rain had stopped
but I think so far — so far love,

missing you has not.

#prosepoetry #prose #poetry #poems #love #creativewriting #heartache #heartbreak

monique ezeh Feb 2020

chasing the sun

The plane is racing toward the sunset. The sun glows orange and tiny and impossibly bright, like a singularity. It’s a speck of intense energy that hurts to look at, but who am I to look away? Who am I to pretend I can resist the pull of such power? Who am I to shield my eyes from the closest thing to divinity that I am able to see? We pick up speed, like we’re chasing the sun— like we’re chasing God. I think, in a way, we always are. I’d be lying if I said I’ve seen anything like it. I’d be lying if I said I held onto my breath after seeing it.

I've seen few things as breathtaking as the sunset from a plane window. It's something you need to see to understand, I think. The world is so big and so beautiful, and new things steal my breath each day.

#prose #prosepoetry #sun #nature #plane #flying #sunset #beautiful #sky #god

fray narte Jan 2020

safe space

No longer will the daybreak find letters
sent in a rush to the last of the stars.
No longer will it find
a box of fallen eyelashes and wishbones
and birthday candles
and all the remnants of these lips
wishing for cancelled plans and library dates
and warm Sunday afternoons
spent on kitchen floors,
running high on shared laziness and unwashed shirts.

Darling, love’s eyes are never ours
to behold in these daylight-tainted
sheets;

so if it’s darkness that shows me the safe space,
that allows our eyes to collide like seas
if it’s neon lights and the noise of the bass that look at us —
like we’re a well-buried secret
like t h i s,
can be poetry
just underlain by permafrost,

then maybe this —
you.
and a white flag waved in the dark: a fair trade —
can be beautiful, can be enough in itself.

Then maybe it’s fine not knowing;
maybe it’s fine not being yours.

#poetry #prosepoetry #love #heartache #heartbreak #unrequitedlove #unspokenlove #words

fray narte Jan 2020

journal entry #50

Today,
I am the emptiest space
and in the center is a black hole.
The sun, dethroned;
the planets have seen it all

and they can only witness so much.

Then again,
what happens in space is unseen by the naked eye.

#spilledink #spilledprose #prosepoetry #poems #writing #journalentry #blackhole #depression #words

monique ezeh Jan 2020

Missed Connections: Watermelon Girl

Looking for the “watermelon girl” from Sam’s Club earlier. I thought you looked like you were planning a party, but maybe you just really liked fruit. I watched you put six melons in the cart and then make a call. You nodded and held the phone between your cheek and shoulder, adding seven more melons to the cart. One of them dropped and rolled towards me. I picked it up and gave it to you, joking, “Have enough yet?” (Stupid joke, sorry) You responded, “I hope so. She always loved melons.” Then I noticed the tears on your face. I left you to finish your conversation.

Anyway, I was the guy with the bad joke and the brown hair. Wearing a green button down and blue jeans. You were the girl with dark curly hair and a blue dress. And the watermelons.

I hope it ended up being enough. I hope you see this.

#prose #prosepoetry #missedconnections #mundane #everyday #loss #fruit #grocery

fray narte Dec 2019

before sunrise

and i love you like this:

in these freshly washed sheets,
with our limbs tangling,
with your breath on my skin where my shoulder meets my neck
under your gaze,
under what's left of the stars,
in the air, the scent of coffee, and apple crisps, and something that's just purely you,
in these cold, quiet hours before the daylight,
in the every silent ticking of the clock
with newfound honesty
with newfound softness
with each calming of my breath,
with each time it's taken away
with the high of knowing you're here and we're here.
and with the fear of that high,
with the sunrise so far away
with us just lying here in the stillness, in the dark
in the inadequacy of poetry — darling this is peak experience. this is perfect.

#love #sunrise #prose #prosepoetry #spilledink #spilledwords #spilledprose #words #musings

fray narte Dec 2019

lucius

nothing good happens after 2 am.

and yet here we are —
a rather curious pair of star-litten messed ups;
they say that liquid mercury and bare skin
are never a good combination
but kiss me nonetheless;
hold me nonetheless,
burn me nonetheless —

after all,
temples get burned down for the idols they host.

nothing good happens after 2 am,
but then again,
this is no place for sunsets and poems and sunday dates;
this is the apocalypse —
trapped for centuries inside our skin.
so go on,
break me — crack me open and lick the wounds,
and then maybe we'll know why persephone keeps going back to the underworld.
and then maybe we can call it love.
so go on,
kiss me until running breathless
becomes our way of breathing;
this may not be something we survive.

after all,
the daylight is an estranged lover and we are this house's walls trying to forget.

nothing good happens after 2 am,
but you will be the reason for every word, darling.
you will be the nightfall-colored eyes,
the nails all painted black
from when you dug for the dirt in my chest.
you will be the forgotten histories,
the impenetrable groves,
the coffee shop clichés,
the storms that never pass,
the nights that never last,
the secret places and warzones
and cotton dresses and fallen peonies,
and a threefold heartbreak
personified —

after all,
heartbreaks feel better when they come from you.

nothing good happens after 2 am
but t h i s already is a cautionary tale, anyway,
even without the 2 am
and tonight will be us,
crying wolf and coming undone.
tonight will be us,
tiptoeing through a minefield of mistakes,
mistakes,
and mistakes.
tell me, what's the harm in another one?

tonight will be our mayhem
and our foreboding
and our free-fall —
fatal. irreversible. majestic.
tonight will be us —
foreign lands mapping each other,
baptizing each other, darling.

and tomorrow will be ours to regret.

#heartache #heartbreak #poetry #love #poems #prosepoetry #words #wordporn #spilledink #creativewriting

fray narte Dec 2019

icarus

i will pick you a bunch of sunflowers;
each one is icarus,
reborn from falling,
from trying to fly too close to the sun,
each one,
still facing its direction;
maybe it's a sunstruck shade of love, darling.
or maybe it's just a bad case of morning lunacy —

see, each one still has wilted,
each one still has withered,
each one is still a tale
of icarus falling to the earth.
and darling, maybe flying and falling for you
are still habits i'm yet to break.

— to the boy made of sunbeams

#icarus #sunflowers #poetry #poems #spilledink #prosepoetry #sun #greekmyth #words