I get drunk to not think about you,
yet you slip through the cracks,
every night you dance in my thoughts,
just to fade when I open my eyes;

I hold onto the scars that remain
because that's all I can bear to
keep after we were over;
I kept the wounds open just to hurt

Sometimes I touch my heart
where you rested your head
& I cry alone at night when
you aren't here laying down

It doesn't really matter, though,
staying stuck in the past hurts;
looking to the future without you,
that is truly what doesn't matter

I am not heartless,
life just taught me
to use my heart less.

I don’t always allow my heart
to make choices for me.

Life is saddened by love,
because when those
you care about die,
it hurts more than
if they were a stranger.

That’s why I always say,
love is not a happy journey
where the sun always shines.

It can be a barren landscape
wasting away with fattened pigs,
and chickens who lost their feathers.

Love can burn like the hot sun
in the Mojave Desert.

It can drink your blood
until you’re ready to pop.
Leaving you to die
from a broken heart.

© 2017 Amanda Shelton

When at the peak voltage
streetlights **** the stars
and behind closed doors
rumbling slumbers
down the cries of the nocturne
awakes a world of opened windows.

Home from the last show
eyes colored with screen idols
shadows huddling over supper
talk of the length and worth
the plot intrigues and intricacies
the creator's whims and fantasies
while unbeknownst the night lengthens
tiring the shadows
that excavate the trash bin's bottom
for living through the morrow.

The filaments feel lonelier
as those last windows shut down
starlight wasted
on an enveloped town.