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 Dec 2014 Tobias Engkvist
Tongues
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My soul is still
As slow as light grows
Over forested hills

My eyes are wide
As oceans that cannot
Contain their tide

My heart is silent
Though the love it holds
Is nearly violent

The revelation
That It Is Finished
Has left the wonder
*Undiminished
something snapped in me earlier this month
i think it was the bough that held most of what was rotten inside of me
but it could've just been the breath i was holding ever since the day i declared that your absence was never permanent, but i realized that this time it is
but this is not a poem about hoping that what goes up must come down, and what leaves you has to come back around
it's about how the clouds are looking more like laughing children
and i hear the birds in the morning without mourning you at the sight of an empty chair
i have found truth in a kind of beauty that has nothing to do with you

two weeks ago, all i thought about was what kind of person you have become and if they are anything like the person i fell in love with, but

if i've learned anything about love from you
it's that sometimes it means screaming until your voice shatters and other times it's found in silence
or growing out of old ways and apologizing despite only having fallen so hard, you left a crack in the cement

i've learned that the only reason anyone could ever replace me is because i left a hole big enough in their chest to need replacing
and by the end of it all, i got to laugh and cry and *** and be the truest, most human version of myself in the presence of someone else
i have a whole lifetime to do it all over again

i loved the things that you would do when you were you
that is enough for me
i write all day like an adult,
i am learned and i use big words
and i know how to accurately craft
a metaphor about pain and harm.

but at the end of the day
i return to childlike phrases,
“it’s not fair,” and i feel more
of a release from that than
a composition notebook
filled from cover to cover
with a million different ways
of saying that i still,
despite everything,
am not happy.
Stumbling down, I'd soar the skies
Lost eternally in your eyes
Drowning in an age of sand
I'd be sleeping in your hand
Floating on vast unconquarable sea
Know you will be there with me
& when the air is thin & dry
Id wet your lips with my last sigh

All I know is what I feel
That is why love is real
She's out there
And it's starting to snow
Sleepy-eyed and dreamy
Perhaps she'll never know
Why I had to let her go

My heart it flutters
And turns to blue
As she awakes
I hear her coo
She was just a baby
When my addiction ruled

In the old house
No one really cares
It was only I
That lost you out there
Nothing's ever fair
I'm so sorry, I swear
Re- occurring nightmare
Lost my daughter many years ago...
Now I notice
how your eyes burn
blowtorch-blue
when you look at love
looking back at you.

they could cut
through iron bars;
set free
the wish to settle down,
caged within men like me.
 Dec 2014 Tobias Engkvist
Onoma
As December gives
herself to
the advancing circle...
may the shape
of her final thought
be centered in peace...
on this our Mother Earth.
She said, "I can't swim"
With a voice so confident
The ocean believes
They're still best friends.
Kindness is the key to life
Because it shows respect
Peaceful people pray in harmony
Because it shows respect

Doves soaring through the deep blue sky
Destroying conflict between you and I
Freedom standing in the light
Making choices that are always right

When you show respect to others
In all you say and do
The respect that you have offered
Will be given back to you

Speak with courtesy and with kindness
And honour rules with pride
Listen, learn, treat others well
And you'll find your own self respect inside
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