#ifallfromeleganceandlandwithathud
“”Hope” is a thing with feathers...”
Only, I don’t think it is.
See, feathers mean it’s a flighty thing
And belie its true belligerence.
Hope may yet have feathers,
But forget not the claws.
Hope is a thing with brambles;
Hope has a tendency to stick in crops.
This little burr adheres to the underside,
Never noted unless poked.
It clings tightly in the smallest gap
And can’t be ignored once evoked.
Now, I grant you, Hope may seem rather rare,
But lay on your stomach at night; you’ll find that it’s there.
Aug 29, 2021
Aug 29, 2021 at 11:39 AM UTC
Growing old is gracefully (or not)
accepting the passage of time.
Generally speaking,
you have no choice.
Growing up is being slapped
in the face with the understanding
that you must be the hero
you have been waiting on
your entire life.
Growing up and growing old -
there's a difference,
but both will break your heart.
Sep 1, 2018
Sep 1, 2018 at 4:23 PM UTC
My prayer is that one day you will understand,
Maybe, understand what I did,
Understand that I did what I did for both of us.
But mostly you.
You see, it was never about me.
Not even now.
You may think me cold and callous
-heartless-
But I'm not.
You see,
I broke my own heart to save yours.
You will put yourself back together
And move on one day,
But I will still be stuck an infinite loop
Of mind games and second-guessing.
Maybe one day, you'll understand
That I shattered us (me!) because I loved you.
Dec 13, 2016
Dec 13, 2016 at 8:41 AM UTC
There are secrets that we never even give voice to,
Like squishing them inside ourselves will make them go away.
But, they don't need lyrics to have their own voice
-even instrumental pieces carry feeling-
And the music escapes when I open my mouth.
It tumbles out like a discordant symphony,
And I can't take it back.
I try, but I can't,
So, I stumble over the wreckage my silence has wrought,
Still denying the secret all the time.
*Maybe you know, now.
Regardless, consider this my confession.*
Nov 5, 2016
Nov 5, 2016 at 7:02 PM UTC
I can't help but wonder what you will remember of me.
That's every man's fate, isn't it?
To become a scrap of detail that snags or escapes a stranger's memory,
Stuck in a grate in the floor where it fluttered, discarded,
Or lodged in a permanent frame, dusted off every so often
to be a reference point
or to be a defining moment.
It isn't up to us how we are remembered -
- what is a rainbow to the blind but a refreshing mist on the skin?
And that's why we obsess: we have no control,
hard as we try, contour, conceal, and coordinate.
And that never stops us from trying.
But for a moment, consider this superpower that others will never have:
You can remember them.
You can't escape yourself, but you can remember them.
Will you remember them kindly? Will distaste be tattooed in your mind?
The things that are going to happen will happen.
And we can act according to how we want to be remembered.
But we cannot change it.
But our remembrance cannot be changed either.
It's a little spiteful optimism, isn't it?
Aug 22, 2022
Aug 22, 2022 at 9:34 PM UTC
In loving memory of Kurtz's last disciple:
Welcome to the circus,
A three-ringed show in
The center of the dark.
In our multifoliate arrogance,
We seek out a familiar face
And forget to turn on the light.
Fumbling by touch,
Grasping at straws,
When faced with the truth,
We crave the lie instead.
Each and every one of us
The architects of our own catastrophe.
Apr 20, 2017
Apr 20, 2017 at 3:48 PM UTC
We are so quick to blame the familiar.
Once fault is laid,
then the matter may as well be settled,
and it becomes someone else’s responsibility
to atone for our faults.
After all, there is nothing so unfamiliar to a man
as his own self.
Sep 19, 2018
Sep 19, 2018 at 10:46 AM UTC
If you'll be the moon,
I will play the sea.
Wherever you go,
Love, call back to me.
Apr 17, 2020
Apr 17, 2020 at 10:10 PM UTC
You took a red balloon by the string
And led it deep into the woods.
You snipped the string from around your wrist
With the switchblade I didn't know you had
And let the balloon float away.
You turned your back and didn't watch it fly away,
So you wouldn't know that it didn't fly very far.
The string tangled in the branches of an oak overhead.
You didn't see it; you were already gone.
*I had once had a red balloon;
I could have one again.*
I climbed into that oak tree after it.
Wrapping my other three limbs around the branch,
I reached my right hand for the string.
It came undone easily beneath my inquisitive fingertips.
I tied it to my own wrist.
It reached for heaven,
And carried me along with it.
Nov 12, 2016
Nov 12, 2016 at 4:00 PM UTC
If I ever to do anything to excess,
I hope that it will be kindness
And not its antithesis.
Jun 30, 2018
Jun 30, 2018 at 7:21 PM UTC
If you were a poem,
I'd hold you real tight,
Crumple your fragile edges
In a white-knuckled grip.
I'd study you by candlelight
And your secrets quietly allege.
If you were a poem,
Would you even be mine?
Would such a lovely thing
Belong in my desperate hands?
Your heart could contain answers,
But I'm still questioning.
If you were a poem,
Could I ever be brave enough
To share the wonder you see
With the world you love?
The thing is that you were the
Selfless one; it was never me.
If you were a poem,
I'd memorize every stroke
Of your artful frame.
Then, with your words
Stowed in my heart,
I'd set you aflame.
Mar 4, 2017
Mar 4, 2017 at 10:17 PM UTC
The struggle
of being
a modern day prophet
is that you are ******
to see all of the things
that others can’t
and you can never
explain them
to anyone else
so no one else
understands
why you’re so sad.
Mar 8, 2018
Mar 8, 2018 at 4:10 PM UTC
You wonder why you feel chained to your life - trapped in your circumstances. You just want to go, and you don’t know why.
I know why. The answer is easy when you’re not the question.
It’s because something long ago and far away has gotten its roots into your bones and you know - you just know - it will never let go.
Jun 17, 2018
Jun 17, 2018 at 10:33 AM UTC
Maybe one day you'll let me
Trace the constellations of band-aids
On your patchwork heart.
Maybe one day I'll tell you
The story of the ink on my skin.
Maybe you'll give me the words
You want to forget.
Maybe I'll tell you why I need to remember.
Maybe.
Heaven and hell in five letters.
Mar 19, 2017
Mar 19, 2017 at 3:31 AM UTC
I have found,
You can endure anything,
If you have to.
At first,
You think that you can’t make it until the next minute,
But,
Suddenly,
The next minute is upon you,
then the next,
and the next.
At an agonizingly slow rate,
Those minutes will turn into years.
This is how you survive.
Apr 4, 2019
Apr 4, 2019 at 4:24 PM UTC
I take all my thoughts of you
And throw them in a pine box.
Have to sit on the lid though,
Because they all pile up,
And the lid won't shut.
My feet can't touch the floor.
The box gives a rasping cough
And little memories tumble out,
Scraps of technicolor confetti
In my hair and on the floor.
*Toy soldiers resume their guard
Over that pine box with a beating heart.
Draped in a veil of translucent lace,
Hold me together or pull me apart.*
Music making my eardrums bleed,
It's all just catharsis in the end.
Confetti on the floor,
Base in my pulse,
Take my heart and do the work
For a little while.
I'll sit here with ink bleeding from my fingertips
Until every single thought of you is gone.
Jan 28, 2017
Jan 28, 2017 at 1:11 PM UTC
If life is a war,
Remind me again which side
I am fighting for.
Feb 7, 2018
Feb 7, 2018 at 6:55 PM UTC