With those lonely bare branches,
Goodbye kisses of the dropping leaves,
And lonely leaves gathered into heaps,
Street scenes with yellowish tint,
Like it was washed with calmness.
Somehow this sad season gives solace.

today it rained
I thought of you and how you might feel alone
and how I feel alone even though you’d never think it
I’m surrounded by so much love and I can’t get my thoughts away from the person I lost
and I hope you’re not still pretending to love the emptiness beside you and the spaces I once filled
you don’t have to like your solace as much as you pretend to
today it rained and I wondered how I’ll feel when you fall for someone new
I hope you give her the chance you never gave me
to show you intimacy and warmth and the kind of passion you keep searching for
I hope you stop looking
the way you should've when you had me

Someone walks by and calls me beautiful
Beautiful because I am sitting alone at this bright red picnic table

I am surprised
It is such an unexpected and lovely occasion
To wonder if I am a melody of an unsung song

Something familiar to passers by
Yet entirely unique

Like an art form that is effortless
Simply because of my place in that moment of life
Surrounded by a cacophony of college students
Some of whom are my friends

This was my moment of solace
Of solitude

"Click"
School photographer takes a picture of me tearing into my hamburger Piled high

Once the party is over
I am gone
Like a shooting star

He looks up in the sky and sees me
And while I want the one to join me ablaze
I feel the fear in his heart
Fear I will never be the fireball I once was
If I am suddenly plucked from the sky

Having this unsung
Effortless
Imperfect type of beauty
I smile as I think of the one
The actual one
Knowing it is him
Always and forever
And walking up to the big bright picnic table
Hoping to stay awhile
We lift off ablaze into the night sky

© 2018
Brandi Keaton

I was wanderer,
Wandering in the land of death and despair;
Blows and bruises were my food
Blood and tears, my drink.

I was a wanderer,
Wandering in the desert of solitude;
The sands were of broken promises
The sun was my life's Judas.

I was a wanderer,
Wandering in the forest of fear;
The trees were all overpowering and bullying
The animals were all predators.

I am still a wanderer,
Wandering in the infinite land, desert and forest;
In search of a home to where I belong
In a quest to find solace in the stillness.

I stepped pass my reason
As it writhed on the ground
And from it oozed
All the past voices
Howling with so many how’s
How to Love, how to Live
How to Dress, how to Deceive
How to tailor the parts of me for Society
But as it sounded I wondered
Why such reason
Ever was ever part of me
For I heard not a single note of mine
Being played from it

the water filled our lungs
and bled through the cracks in our skin.

bubbling, brimming

the sea touched my eyes and you were white
with seafoam, curdling between lashes,
silvers pooling over stark blues
on fingertips.

sinuous, submissive.

the piercing cold mixed with the rough salt
over tide-smoothed shells.

we breathed out our mist to cry over crashes of thunder.

enigmatic, flowing.

you are an acrobat, my prideful tide.  

your steel waters wash the sand from my legs
and glassy waves cleanse, twisting and curling,
releasing through our ocean breeze.

you opened your eyes and all i saw was sea glass.

My memories become
Motionless in midnight
Adept to freeze frames
Still seconds of past scenes
Linger on auditory loops
Repeat, remix, replay
Motionless my memories
Become in midnight
And at some point
The Spielberg center of my soul
Screams cut