"DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION?"

her heart was a red
fire alarm
going off with nobody

paying it
no mind
at all

her heart was
an evening hillside
as the sun went down

the light
stealing
into the ground

her heart was a favourite
pair of cufflinks
with one link missing

or an earring found far
too late many many
years later

her heart was a lute
that was mute
un-played for

many
many
moons

her heart
was a house
burningburningburning

down
razed
to the ground

the sneer of her
pyromaniac lover
lost in the shadows

her heart was
the junk mail
that came in one door &

out the other
instant
*******

she felt as if
someone had
pressed DELETE

her heart was
a crystal ball
that could foretell

nothing....
nothing
at all

her heart was
a knocked over
cheap cocktail

that left a nasty stain
on the carpet...
on the wall

her heart was
a tiny torn pink knapsack
that held all she had known

her heart was
the forgotten
iron

branding itself into
her nice new
blouse

her heart was
a field of poppies
seen

from a passing train
there&gone
again

her heart
full of the perfume
of memories

that refused
to ever
...go away

her heart was
the same train journeying
in and out of...love

*

Memory is seen( and felt )as a perfume...in its there and not-there-ness whereas the poppies are a splash of red glimpsed from a passing train.as she is overwhelmed by her senses falling falling...in and out of love. It's a bit of an emotional rollercoaster ride with what her heart was experiencing as she tried to put into words feelings that could not be...put into words

The poem issues forth from Rimbaud's commands to the energy of the time...." Le Poète vous dit: 'O lâches. soyez fous!' " to " Le Poète te dit: 'Splendide ta Beauté' "

The Poet says to you: "O cowards, be mad!" to The Poet says to you; "Your beauty is marvellous!"

Like drops of water ,
drops of Time ,
a swirling aurora ,
we gather the signs .
☆
Closer and closer
to rainbow bridge .
Closer and closer
who rides on the wind .

The Hamlets are gloomily lit
The forest hoovers its brown shades
where loneliness prevails
Yet let us pray for solitude
by the sunken  chimes of the evening bells
Smoke steeps in an empty grove
As the grey moon lifts
shadowless

I’m not crazy, I’m scared.

how can I apologize for the marks I’m leaving on your skin?
the way my fingertips are digging trenches into the same arms
that wrap around and comfort me?

how can I explain that though I’m planted on solid ground
I feel as if my ankles are being grabbed by unforgiving hands
and trying to pull me far far away.

as I’m dragged away I’m desperately trying to hold on,
but the tighter I grab your hand
the harder my nails dig into your palms
and pieces of you become pixelations
that disappear into the nothingness
leaving me with less and less to hold.

why do I push away all that I wish to hold close
why do I hurt everything that I want to keep safe
and why does love scare me so much that it makes me crazy
and turn me into everything I never wanted to be.

how can I explain that I’m trying not to be this way,
how can I apologize to myself when I feel defenseless.

I’m not crazy, I’m scared,
of getting everything I’ve ever wanted,
just to watch it slip right through my fingers.

{Nicole Joanne - 2022}

I thought if I let my heart bleed into my hands I would be able to mold it like clay into a form that wouldn’t be too heavy for you to carry

I thought that someday all these tears would wash away the pain I was feeling and leave me floating in your arms.

when I felt scared and alone I’d leave the television on, hoping the lights and sounds would keep away the monster that kept trying to lurk in my head.

I wish I knew that monster was only trying to save me - he wanted to whisper the things in my ears that I refused to believe you never said to me, to drag me kicking and screaming off the bed that comforted me with the scent of you from last night. he wanted to touch me and send shivers down my spine in the same way you did - he wanted to show me that sometimes evil is a boy with dark eyes and brown hair. that the monster isn’t hiding under your bed, but laying next to you in the sheets.

njr

I'm scared of the morning because of it's honesty,
the way it can strip the night of it's pointe shoes
and reveal the wounds of a bare foundation.

bones shiver as the sun rises,
the ******* of the night revealed;
skin under covers in the early hours more adorned
than the bare flesh of the evening waltzing to anothers movement.

I'm scared of the morning because of it's urgency
the way the sun is already racing down towards the horizon,
just to stare the skyline in the face with it's eventual blushing.

the worst part of falling asleep next to you
is knowing that morning will come
and it will promise to come over and over again
but you will not.

nr 2023.

because of you I sleep with the tv on these days
not because I think of you & can’t sleep
but because I’m scared of the dark
now that I know monsters exist.

njr

Simplicity is something to be admired
Intelligence is something to be adored.
Never undermine the ones full of questions
They are the ones not entirely corrupted by the streaming industries
Or easily influenced by the twisted truths of the world.
Let us continue to ask questions with the intent to learn and not with a preconceived notion.