#keepsakes
Love letters are how she expresses herself.
How she thinks
She shows her love for you by keeping
Every detail, from passed notes to poetry.
She has a bucket and folders full of things
Kept close to her
Things she carries along in the beats of her heart.
She will write about the ones whom she truly loved,
The ones who caught her heart with an arrow
Said Cupid sent them.
She looks thorugh all these memories when feeling gloom
And i a doubt of herself
She reminds her well-being that
That bucket is loves stuck in a box
Reminds herself that she is of pure honesty and love.
She cares so deeply
Reminds herself that those letters she never sent out
Are words beautifully played in a tune from her heartstrings.
So when she writes be prepared
Ready to know that what you are reading is a cry for help
Off her emotions
The dots and erased words were shredded up into
A million pieces by her tears.
Know that when she writes it's her cry.
A lullaby that she sings with strings and feelings.
Know that these love letters are more than
Folded-up piece of paper
This is how she loves
How she cares
shows her beauty from the inside.
And when she sends them out,
Her heart is given away in spread out
Many shards scattered within them.
She will lose herself.
So why she cannot get rid simply of this box of memories?
They are the pieces of her put gently into a paper
That is why she will go through from time to time
At her most emotional state
Because that is how she finds herself again,
And it's not that she’s stashed away
She carries it with her,
To show the world that she is not afraid
Of its outcomes that may stand in the way.
She is bold and courageous
Does not show a shed tear
So when she delivers them out
And know that it’s over
Be prepared.
Nov 7, 2024
Nov 7, 2024 at 1:02 AM UTC
I'll wear your
bones like jewelry
in my ears, like
precious
trophies, and
like pins in
my hair.
I love you so much that
I wish nothing more
than for
you to be
with me
always.
Feb 23, 2021
Feb 23, 2021 at 9:50 PM UTC
Photographs
by Michael R. Burch
Here are the effects of a life
and they might tell us a tale
(if only we had time to listen)
of how each imperiled tear would glisten,
remembered as brightness in her eyes,
and how each dawn’s dramatic skies
could never match such pale azure.
Like dreams of her, these ghosts endure
and they tell us a tale of impatient glory . . .
till a line appears—a trace of worry?—
or the wayward track of a wandering smile
which even now can charm, beguile?
We might find good cause to wonder
as we see her pause (to frown?, to ponder?):
what vexed her in her loveliness . . .
what weight, what crushing heaviness
turned her auburn hair a frazzled gray,
and stole her youth before her day?
We might ask ourselves: did Time devour
the passion with the ravaged flower?
But here and there a smile will bloom
to light the leaden, shadowed gloom
that always seems to linger near . . .
And here we find a single tear:
it shimmers like translucent dew
and tells us Anguish touched her too,
and did not spare her for her hair's
burnt copper, or her eyes' soft hue.
Published in Tucumcari Literary Review (the first poem in its issue). Keywords/Tags: photos, photographs, pictures, album, keepsakes, mementos, ghosts, phantoms, past, memories, recollections, tears, grief, anguish, glory
Apr 11, 2020
Apr 11, 2020 at 1:34 AM UTC
Album
by Michael R. Burch
I caress them—trapped in brittle cellophane—
and I see how young they were, and how unwise;
and I remember their first flight—an old prop plane,
their blissful arc through alien blue skies ...
And I touch them here through leaves which—tattered, frayed—
are also wings, but wings that never flew:
like Nabokov’s wings—pinned, held. Here, time delayed,
their features never merged, remaining two ...
And Grief, which lurked unseen beyond the lens
or in shadows where It crept on furtive claws
as It scritched Its way into their hearts, depends
on sorrows such as theirs, and works Its jaws ...
and slavers for Its meat—those young, unwise,
who naively dare to dream, yet fail to see
how, lumbering sunward, Hope, ungainly, flies,
clutching to Her ruffled breast what must not be.
Keywords/Tags: album, photos, photographs, pictures, mementos, keepsakes, cellophane, yellowed, leaves, pinned, held, imprisoned, time, delayed
Apr 1, 2020
Apr 1, 2020 at 5:27 AM UTC
Inside this box are but three things
--a ruler, a boxing glove, and kite string.
Because I never could keep my sordid
life straight.
Because I never did learn to fight my
own battles.
Because I never will soar as high as my smallest dream.
Why do I have them in the first place,
you might ask?
I just love reminiscing.
I'm a sucker for nostalgia,
even if it's over my own failings.
Dec 2, 2019
Dec 2, 2019 at 4:00 AM UTC
Today, you came home to a package.
It was a box that I had taped up tight.
Inside you found your worn out high school hoodie.
When you unfolded it, nearly every picture of us fell out like confetti.
And at the bottom of the box, in a thick hemp cloth, you found a framed picture of you
looking miserably in the mirror, back at me.
I was behind you, smiling and deliriously happy.
The picture was in pristine condition.
I wrapped it the way my ancestors would cover a mirror
after a death in the house.
They did this to keep the spirits from passing to another realm.
I did it knowing we had ended that night and that you would forever be looking back for me.
You will be miserable and I will be deliriously happy.
May 25, 2019
May 25, 2019 at 5:17 PM UTC
Maybe I kept all the photographs because the people smiling in them are always so much happier than I am
Perhaps I kept a box with all the letters because the writings in the notes are always so much more sincere than the hate I spew at you now
And I certainly know I kept a memory of all the most intimate moments so I could play them back on repeat when I am feeling ever so lonely
So yeah, maybe we keep close all our tiny keepsakes to remind ourselves of the people we still have the capacity to become once again.
Apr 8, 2018
Apr 8, 2018 at 10:19 PM UTC
My closet I shun . . .
Little room we both lived in,
. . . Photos in boxes.
Dec 30, 2014
Dec 30, 2014 at 9:54 PM UTC
Could there ever be a
Home in me again?
Ran so far away, all
I
See is the end.
Tangible, you are not.
Instant sacrifice is my lot.
All the blue,
Nestled too deeply in my feeble bones.
Don't
Ever
Answer,
No.
Will my blood boil thick for
Anyone else?
Keepsakes tell me it's
Easily a loss of time.
Now, go, my love.
Everyone
Loves
Someone else.
Over and under; I'm
Never more than just a vacation.
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 11:16 PM UTC
You gather all this worth
Hoard it underneath
A thinning stretch of pale landscape
Sinking with every birth, retreat
No one visits, no one inhabits
Perpetual grey, another day
The blur between blinding white and black
That frightens all the children away
To upstair attics, ageless rests
Amongst damp death, worn life
What a monumental memory
Keepsakes we cannot relive (relieve)
What a monumental tragedy
Keepsakes we cannot forgive (forget)
We will all shrink
Head or heart or soul
Skin and frail bone
To earth, alone
We will all shrink
Head or heart or soul
Skin and frail bone
To earth, alone
No one visits, no one inhabits
Your memories
What is your memento?
What is your vice?
What keeps you stolen from the sleep at night?
What is your remembrance?
A better, worse time?
What keeps your heart set aside from life?
I know mine, I know mine
Her dead living eyes
Apr 10, 2013
Apr 10, 2013 at 8:05 AM UTC