"barest" poems
Stop me if you've heard this before
but I feel this feeling fleeting,
running opposite me
to lands unknown
where lost dreams go to die.
Why are words so fickle? Leaving at the lightest touch,
the barest hint of anything new.
A world, undiscovered,
lies within a place I can reach only when I am most bare.
My purest form of self,
mewling and screaming,
pulls from me this insatiable insanity.
Yet with the slightest digression my sleeves roll themselves down
and it's gone again.
I am lost into reality like some suited being,
honking at the other monkeys in futile attempts to make up for lost time.
Was it worth it?
Is that loss of captivation worth an ounce of conversation?
Bring me back to that place.
I want to feel the pen warming between my fingers again.
That smooth ink feel on dead, life-giving friends.
Is this the closest I can get to holiness?
Oct 4, 2018
Oct 4, 2018 at 4:47 PM UTC
She listens to No Doubt singing
"I'm just a girl,"
while shaving her legs.
The hair collects in the bathtub
all scattered across
like blown dandelion puffs
over the water's murky face.
Tiny wishes for
the barest underarms and legs
but she's a women
'they make us bleed'
or so they say.
'Cause I'm just a girl
I'd rather not be,'
while my innocence
circles the drain.
Lucky me...
I'm torn and *****
'living in captivity'
but "I'm just a girl."
"Don't you think I know
Exactly where I stand"
May 20, 2015
May 20, 2015 at 2:40 PM UTC
To it, I've never been.
but I've dreamed of a place where everything
is coated in corn and comfort.
Wished the past had taken me,
can't help but feel it was about my skin.
Cactus candy and cowboy boots.
Zydeco and haunted hotels.
The voodoo Frank sang about in the end.
The horns sound the streets.
Close curtains, be discreet.
Encircle the barest neck,
with colorful beads.
His family reunions
made me realize I'm on my own.
Until I met a prettier soul.
I don't kiss frogs for love.
I forget the ease in slime.
and let the grease define
an unhealthy outlook.
Sip another lime or a sour.
A ginger begs the hour.
Lonely never leaves,
but warmth is a soco shower.
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 1:11 AM UTC
I dreamed of going to a ball once, all in red and gold--like Settareh from the old tales.
Only, I had no pari to help me.
My veil was secondhand, my gown plain, and my anklets of paste and plating instead of diamonds and gold.
But there was this boy, you see.
Not a prince, not the captain of a ship or a faerie lord, not a warrior, a healer or a mage...just a boy.
And I had the barest will-o’-the-wisp’s hope that he would dance with me.
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 9:44 PM UTC
346
Not probable—The barest Chance—
A smile too few—a word too much
And far from Heaven as the Rest—
The Soul so close on Paradise—
What if the Bird from journey far—
Confused by Sweets—as Mortals—are—
Forget the secret of His wing
And perish—but a Bough between—
Oh, Groping feet—
Oh Phantom Queen!
2.3k
This collecting; this laying out of treasures. A piece of watercolour paper cut to fit the sill of a window, then each object placed in a sequence. Stones and shells at first, then slivers of wood, a crab, a starfish. Eventually, small objects from inside the Fishing Station. Strange and so different away from their location. Strange to be displayed as distinctly separate rather than a gregarious jumble of ‘finds’. Their shadows fell with such delicacy across the paper, turning as the light turned, sharp-edged now, smudged later. I would catch her sitting before these collections, observing their properties as the window projected different qualities of light with the passing day. I had them to myself in the early mornings when I crept from our bed into the grey blue light of the dawn. I would sit before them with a china mug of tea feeling my body come to terms with its own self having left its shared part of me in bed. Every day seemed more precious than the previous. As the calendar moved relentlessly forward I realised we had begun to speak in whispers, beyond whispers in fact. I would look at her and speak silently in my head, as I do when I ‘say’ our silent grace, when I close my eyes and pause before the delight of a meal shared. She would nod, or answer with only the barest movement of her petalled lips. The most delicate stroke of my arm was a poem; a hand resting against the neck a chapter of novel. The volumes of words that we had between us come to own tumbled away into the machair. And living slowed right down. Every movement had a graceful turn, bend or flow to it. If we stood close to each other there was rarely the need to venture into an embrace. For once we were not about to part, we became completely, utterly together. We would listen to each other breathe until even that became absorbed into the sea's great breath we could feel from the cottage windows ruffling the waters.
Sep 7, 2012
Sep 7, 2012 at 2:35 AM UTC
I have dreamt this dream for several nights now. It started off in colour; blues, greens, whites and yellows and with only the sound of beautiful piano music and the barest of floors. Each night the vision grew in detail but faded in colour, until now it is in black, white and gray with the actual colour only implied by my memory of it.
The scene is part of a room, a corner, in a very large and majestic house. The floor is hardwood with no carpet. The walls are a very light, warm white with somewhat high ceilings. I am standing (you cannot see me) looking towards the corner of the room where there are French doors. The door trim is black. The doors are open. It is night and the moonlight is streaming in the doors and in a window, off slightly to the left. Chiffon curtains frame the doorway and blow in the slight, cool, night breeze. It is a warm summer’s night and the fresh air is scented with an ocean fragrance.
To my left, just barely in the picture, is a glossy, black baby grand piano. The ebony of the piano is a sharp contrast to the soft white of the sheer curtains as the breeze wafts them towards the heavenly tones. The music coming from the piano is the most beautiful sound I have ever heard. The notes reach into my chest and engulf my heart. The pianist cannot be seen. He is just out of the frame of my mind’s eye. My heart tells me it is he.
I awaken from my dream and lie there, still, with my eyes closed. Not wanting to lose the tranquility, I re-feel the dream again and again. In the foggy abyss between dreamland and being fully awake, I imagine him sitting at the piano. His hair falls in loose curls as he is slightly bent over the keys. His fingers fly over the ivory as he plays with passion and heart. His love of the music is evident.
He is wearing a crisp, white tuxedo shirt and black morning suit with the tails falling over the back of the piano bench. He has not yet adorned the formal tie needed to complete the ensemble. Or maybe he has already removed it.
This is the artist’s private time for peace and composure. As he closes the piece of music, he raises his face to the moonlight. His moist eyes glisten in the silver glow. His face is relaxed and calm. As he slowly closes his eyes, a soft, contented smile graces his lips and his body sighs. He has found the completion he seeks, in his music.
Sep 29, 2013
Sep 29, 2013 at 8:49 PM UTC
If heaven wasn't so far away
If I could drive there in just one day
I'd pack my car and get there fast
Or fly there with a rocket blast
Thank my God for hearing this plea
And for letting your eternal soul go free
I'd fight a thousand armies
to a win a raging war
Or paddle against the currents
with just a canoe
if I only had one oar
Defending all your beauty
and the light you gave us here
I am not too far,
my heart is always near
I'd walk a thousand miles
just in my barest feet
Or hire a passing, ghostly shipping fleet
and watch the troops of demons to their
grievous quick retreat
I would walk through the hottest fires
of a crazy burning hell
Or surf the oceans fastest, highest
waiter, water swell
I'd slingshot through the stars
Or float up on a bardge
Just ask the Man in Charge
I'm' waiting for the call
to bring you home again
I'm waiting here for you
back here ...
back in
your earthly Glen.
Cherie Nolan © June 2016
Jun 6, 2016
Jun 6, 2016 at 8:49 PM UTC
What I want
For Christmas is
Just the barest
Of necessities
All my teeth
Not just two
So when I eat
I can chew
A skip and jump
Back in my step
So each morning
I have some pep
A pair of glasses
Which self defrost
A set of keys
Which don’t get lost
All my hair
Put back in place
So I don’t have
That barren space
A pair of shoes
With self tie laces
So I don’t have to
Reach those places
A set of arteries
That don’t plug
A nice cold beer
Which I can chug
To have someone
My brain equip
With that new fangled
Memory chip
So it can tell me
My intent
When I stood up
And why I went
A bunch of prunes
Which are pre dated
To work just when
I’m constipated
A gizmo that will
So to speak
Turn off my wee wee’s
Little leak
So I don’t have
I’ll just be blunt
Those little dribbles
In the front
A cork that fits
My *** hole, please
So hemorrhoids don’t pop out
Whenever I sneeze
A longer arm
That would pass
Behind my back
To wipe my ***
On this I’ll end
My little list
I don’t want Santa
To get ******
BOEMS BY JA 103
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 9:26 AM UTC
I feel as if, the world conspires against me. Wondering day by day just how it is going to get in my way. Gone it seems has the flavor that colored my actions with interest. Left only with the barest of actions that inspire the desire and thirst for life. I feel as if I labor in vain like Sisyphus cursed to push my ambitions up the hill of my toil just to have them rolled back to where I began. I grow weary of this existence, tire easily at this fate. My mind finds an escape to wonder blissfully of paths never taken of how good life could have easily been. And so I begin to question my self as I sit alone on this abysmal shelf with nothing more than my thoughts to keep me company. What is the point of this seemingly pointless journey. Why do I toil like a simple servant advancing the goals of others while mine own sit there neglected. It is a question that I on many a occasion have reflected, as I stood time and time again bereft of any goal or ideal. Is it merely character that is being built, others will tell me that I build morals that will serve me in my future. Still others commend me for the sacrifice I show, and for a time I grow content with that. But in the end I find that I have not moved, have not progressed in anyway that I can see. So I go on to deep myself worthless, and my mind and body dull from their lack of use. I have ambition more than I can handle. What I seem to continually lack is the resource then the resolve to see it to completion. I see the ones who have climbed to the heavens to dine with God himself and I ask myself. What do I miss? What don't I know? What has escaped me such that I cannot seem to soar higher than this meager place. And yet an answer does not show it's self to me. And so I stay and ponder these things. Where the answer will come I do not know. Where I will go, I have nothing but the question mark as an answer to show. But somehow I know that someday I shall move past this blocked way. And there lies the hope I hold closely that in the end my work and my toil will not be wasted. Not be put under the tag of useless. I hold that hope and that is the way I continue to press my way through this world.
May 9, 2012
May 9, 2012 at 5:31 PM UTC
*Our skins barest bare
in this long awaited retreat
we sit on adirondack chair
waves washing our feet.*
We know such times are fragile
like dreams leaving at dawn
are like an imagined mile
before are breaths withdrawn!
We ponder not on what to write
not pour one word from breast
just wait for when seeping night
push the ring of flame to the west!
When one by one they come on the far
two shadows grow on the shore
we string one poem with a silken star
hearts sing in joy encore!
We let our bloods flow to the sea
our souls on sands lay bare
When new tides rise in the morn to be
find two adirondack chair!
*Life is but death's glorified twin
a delirious din in the hush
our days a riddle of earthly spin
an illusory maddening rush!*
Apr 10, 2014
Apr 10, 2014 at 3:56 AM UTC
You look to me with such clarity.
A sense of durability,
with a dash of humility.
The impossibility, of the greatest infallibility.
Leaves me quaking from your all desirabilitys.
Tranquility, before the fall.
White hot, rush,
over the wailing-wall.
The infamous red curtain-call.
Entering the entrance hall:
urban sprawl, to reinstall
the purpose to this circus for all.
"I love you."
There I said it,
removing my bulletproof-vest.
What a relief,
from upon my chest.
Undressed flesh of my *******
the indirect test, to attest your barest of virtue.
It's your turn, my love...
To return the favor.
Speak the words,
I know I'll savor.
"I love you.", say it with meaning.
"I love you.", prey for it while you're sleeping.
"I love you.", lay with it while dreaming.
Know: I saw you trip and fall...
as if it was a variety show.
Even though, the desire to know, was still there.
I wanted you...
Nay,
I want you...
I wanted you,
to know,
I saw you take the fall.
Jun 19, 2014
Jun 19, 2014 at 2:17 PM UTC
Angels watching over you
And I
I am nothing but a blank stare
Amused
Knowing that you are everything
a man could ask for
Knowing that I
will be the one who breaks you
Hardheartedly I applause
At my own misleading specious
Chasing a mirage impassively
In the distance where
no sane man laid eyes
I am looking for a being
Less astonishing than you
looking to feed my ever lasting lust
Insipidness is consuming me
or maybe intense devotion
I feel
away from my nature
the barest animalistic side of me
and you
you are judging me with those humane eyes
Jan 27, 2011
Jan 27, 2011 at 6:03 PM UTC
Battered by the words
thrown my way I hesitate.
I know what needs to be said.
I know how to defend myself.
I know how to fix that tired
arrogant smile of yours.
You never walked the mile.
Never carried the load.
You never faced down the barrel.
Never lived as a boy without sanctuary,
or as a man without a hometown.
Nine words never changed your life.
Six seconds never changed your world.
Love never found you, and you’ve never
hunted for it, not in earnest.
The sacrifices for friendship are a burden
to you. Do you even know how truly
pathetic that is? Could you ever?
You’ve never fought in the night,
or run throughout the day.
Never let your blood stain
those you trust so that their own
might be spared.
Never so much as lifted a selfless finger
in repent of your nine selfish ones.
Never been so happy someone died
instead of you, only to hate yourself for it.
You are a boy. A man child.
Hold onto that arrogance.
I could blow it away with a
sentence. I could show you a world
where love and trust and hope are
tantamount to survival.
The world is cold and dark and
amazing and you haven’t the barest
idea at all.
I open my mouth.
I close it.
Sleep well, you sad
wonderful
man-child.
Jun 12, 2011
Jun 12, 2011 at 8:03 PM UTC
my bedroom carries the headiness of stale captivity. the teeth of a years old trap are gathering debris where they’ve gnashed on my leg. my loved ones come to relieve me of my suffering.
the gentle winds bring me dead leaves in layers of red, yellow, brown and the occasional purple. “look at how they’ve changed,” the winds say. “things can change for you, too.” i brush them away. indignant, the winds whip dust and pebbles that become bullets at the right speed, threatening tornadoes that will never come. i wait until their lungs tire.
the cleansing rains rinse the matted blood from my wound and refresh my hot, mangled skin. “doesn’t that feel great?” the rains say. “you can feel like this all the time if you put in a little effort.” i dry myself down. angered, the rains disease the trap with rust and drench me until my bones attempt to float away, threatening tsunamis that will never come. i wait until the water recedes.
the giving earth sprouts a flower in the corner of my bedroom. “life is still growing, waiting for you,” the earth says. “you just have to come to meet it.” it’s a beautiful reprieve for my senses, i almost go to pluck it. as i come to realize my motions, my heart drops to an unknown place away from my chest. i hesitate. furious, the earth wilts the flower until it blends in with the rest of my bedroom. it shakes the ground violently, deepening the pain of the metal in my flesh. it delivered on earthquakes but threatened no aftershocks.
the lively sun dries me of the failures of the wind and rain and earth. the sun says nothing. i make no effort to repay its warmth. it reciprocates that lack of effort.
i have exhausted the affections of the elements, and in their abandonment now rests a deep stillness that urges me to look around.
over time, i have accumulated the barest of pleasures — some unread books, some unplayed records, some small tokens of loves long gone — that mimic a home, but bring you no closer to what that is supposed to feel like.
the odor in here is disgusting. unsophisticated in my aching, i wish for a sweet-scented breeze, or a balmy rain, or a fragrant flower.
or maybe i will just order a scented candle.
Nov 11, 2022
Nov 11, 2022 at 3:03 PM UTC
High and mighty
Jaws well defined
High brow
and high cheekbones.
Sharp.
Sharp like your tongue
when you mean to be mean.
A face well befitting
Your cold-
Your cruel streak.
The incline of your chin
Your smirk on thin lips
You think you intimidate?
Maybe...
Maybe if I didn't look
beyond your angles.
Maybe I'd be hurt.
But your eyes.
Round-
Round, shining, bright eyes.
No angles there.
No matter how hard you try
to darken your makeup
to sharpen your gaze.
You still have the eyes you had as a child.
Before you sharpened your angles
You think you can hold a steely gaze?
You think you intimidate?
When I look past your angles
the fear falls away.
And in your brown eyes I see you naked
stripped down to the barest form of your rage:
Hurt.
Oct 24, 2012
Oct 24, 2012 at 11:28 PM UTC
He was born this way
In a world filled with light
But none of which he could witness
They simply called him ‘The Blind Man’
As he wasn’t very unique in any other way
Entranced in his wanderings and musings
One could spot him
At the corners of supermarkets
Wandering and loitering, almost interchangeably
Nobody had ever approached him
Even the notion of ‘parents’ was alien to him
As they had apparently thrown him out, at the sight of his unreflecting eyes
Perhaps this gave him a tint of bitterness
Thus, The Blind Man lived
Approaching life with the barest of efforts
Considering by the second why he couldn’t end it
It was in this musing which he found himself that fateful day
Once again enveloped in his blanket of self-pity
But, for the first time, found himself approached by another
She was a petite little thing
Able to count the years she had lived in the palm of her tiny left hand
But her heart was greater than most foretold to be older (and somehow ‘wiser’)
It may have been a comedic sight for an outsider
A blind, helpless wanderer approached by a pure, innocent creature
Yet, such a sight invoked a saga told through generations
He asked her what she desired, as he had never experienced another’s interest in him
She said nothing, only holding up what seemed to be the smallest of morsels
He never found out how he understood her meaning
Only that the smallest of her motion seemed to move the world around him
He wondered, as he accepted the small portion of cheese and bread
Wondered how suddenly the world had become so bright
How the smallest of hands
Could somehow give the most
The Blind Man had lived his life in darkness
Shunted away from society, convinced of its malice
But sometimes, all it takes is the smallest kindness
To change the greatest of convictions
He asked her for her name
And she whispered it out sweetly, before being shunted away by her wide-eyed parents
He mouthed the innocent syllables silently
And then, for the first time in his life
The Blind Man opened his eyes
May 30, 2018
May 30, 2018 at 7:55 PM UTC
Sara L Russell
Bright colours in a pool of crystal clarity
reflecting all the spectrum of our days
slip down into a quagmire of nonentity
with nothing left to sully or erase.
This cold disease that strips a man of human soul,
is worst of all the ravages of time;
behold those eyes, devoid of everything you stole,
yet blissfully unknowing of your crime.
This bright man, worn away to barest minimum,
this one-time writer and great raconteur,
this poet - will not travel to Byzantium;
his world is fading to a senseless blur.
Jun 13, 2014
Jun 13, 2014 at 1:16 PM UTC
The suit in question
Is grey. Pin-striped white.
Double-breasted. Three piece.
Blue tie, grey hatching.
An absolute nightmare to change into.
I drop my jeans
In the monastery stall,
Shed my shoes.
Old friends.
The trousers, slacks,
Rise morning fog
And sleep in the stratus
Of my waist.
I really wonder how
The men of the then
Could have worn them.
So much taller.
So much grander.
So much straighter.
White shirt with
The butterfly tracks,
Make-up stains
From a billion ancestors.
Dead relatives that don’t
Respond to the call.
I take their places
Without a single
Crumb of guilt,
O feel the guilt.
The vest. Easy enough.
Yeast but grey and it
Rises horizontally.
I’ve just noticed pockets
Sewn into maddening teases.
The barest suggestion
Of an opening.
It holds like the bowl of the moon.
The coat. The great monarch.
Organizer with a clipboard
Ensuring the quality
Of a burlesque of silk.
So strange.
So other.
So queer.
In a minute or two, the
Hyperhydrosis.
It really is my only hope
Of describing my true temperature.
I will ignite in a biological
Soliloquy that can
Pronounce all those tricky
Thoughts I’ve given up
For the stage.
Gentle gravity,
Cruel crushing backhand.
Burst my complexion,
Steal my aqueous words.
Again, this suit.
How many Lomans,
Bankers, adjudicators,
Businessmen and Babbits
Have lived out their deaths
In you?
Brave rain cloud,
Where is your lining?
I feel the quip swelling
And project it to the back wall:
Only the costume knows true reincarnation.
Apr 9, 2010
Apr 9, 2010 at 1:21 PM UTC
I LIE IN THE BOTTOMLESS PIT OF BITTERNESS
What have I done to life
That it kills me even though I lie
Down in the bottomless pit of bitterness
I am ****** down to the barest state of anarchy
Too choking and breathless, I can’t talk
Catatonic, I stand in dumb
Severe as I lay in me numb
I can’t wish to have life within me
I only choose to let go of it
If it will let me, leave me!
Leave me! Leave me! Life
For I hate you and everything in you
I am a genius, always eager to go along
You are too jealous of me
And capture me in your wicked web of limbo
That I may suffer and strip away like straw
Waiting to be burnt for the cloud smoke
I barely uphold my breath and strength
As tears and mucus mixed at my chin
All streaming down to my mouth
Am sick and tired of wiping
My weakling hand also tired of wiping
I’ll only let the constituent enter my mouth
Or pass down the earth
What have I done to life
That it kills me even though I lie
Down in the bottomless pit of bitterness
Rolling in painful rub of suffering
Dejection and rejection am screaming!
And sobbing as I struggle to doddle out
Of the brutality of life
Leave me; let me go for am tired
To be thrown, tried even tired of tossed
Who shall set me free, who shall deliver me?
Can you hear my cry?
Help me! for I am drawing
into the boiling ocean of life
Aug 1, 2016
Aug 1, 2016 at 10:45 AM UTC
Evening falls like an old friend,
And all the dead poets have arrived,
It is a gathering of all their spirits,
For another try at stirring the muses.
We see Keats, and Shelley, and Sandberg,
As they slowly materialize before our eyes,
Then Woodsworth and Dylan Thomas,
Both simultaneously step into the light.
Shakespeare wants to come, too,
But his turn of a phrase won't do,
Because we want Dickerson and Frost,
And the bard must wait until his time has come.
The bonfire is roaring, the starry, starry skies,
A cool evening breeze steps lightly across our faces,
Then Shelley begins to step forward and write in the air,
Such phrases and sketches once again a delight to read.
And, I, a poet want to beam in a trance of worldly proportion,
I can not speak, or utter even the barest of grunts or utterances,
Then Shakespeare, never to be outdone, begins a love-sick sonnet,
While the crowd of hosts take notice and smile out loud.
This gathering of dead poets seems like a dream of dreams,
As they stand proudly upon the dampened ground of forest leaves,
And Walt Whitman wants to recite from "Leaves of Grass" once more,
While I, a student at the beginning of life, take copious notes galore.
Dec 29, 2012
Dec 29, 2012 at 8:39 AM UTC
some stories deserve to be flaunted
but some storytellers prefer to keep them safe
of stories where the darkest parts
are hidden in everyone's everyday lives
yet we never seem to notice
a single word
a single touch
the barest of bare whispers
they may one day spin a complicated story
even though they'll never be told
have you ever heard the story of
how a sad girl threw her blades away?
"don't cut," he had said, "put those away"
and she had listened because she was happy
"i'll only allow you," he had smiled, "one cut"
and she'd asked him what he meant
"but only if you think i've made you sad"
he had been so confident
but of course there had to be an ending
the story ended with one cut
(a life ended with one cut)
have you ever heard the story of
the star serenading the moon?
with a hopeful heart and fiery passion it
sang songs of love
to a naive moon whose face turned to the sun—
to a moon with a captured soul
and some people do question
what purpose do stories even serve?
aren't they merely fictional tales
spun from one's deepest heart's desire?
this is one problem that we face
we believe in the lies
but refuse to face the truths
aren't our hearts so deep in denial
let me ask you, can you breathe?
with every single breath we draw
a new story is finished
it only depends on us if we want it to be known
or it'll only stay in the depths of consciousness
and no one will ever ask
we can tell stories in the form of poems
or a bedtime lullaby
but storytellers we are
because the endings lie at our fingertips
and we are the ones
who will choose which finger to point
- - -
Aug 30, 2013
Aug 30, 2013 at 2:42 AM UTC
In the time before,
I was empty, miserable inside,
A wretch whose every smile was war,
Whimpering for a curtained place to hide.
The day, desolate;
Night, in its black stillness much the same.
Pitched pain, itching for an exit,
Legs set to cease the heaving hate and blame.
Now, I feel my heart
Beating love-blest power through my chest.
Before unfelt, its bucking start
Divests the owner, all along mere guest.
Symphony, rise, crest,
Condescend to my low-sighted view.
I sleep to wake, straight-up obsessed,
Eight letters and a period for you.
Careful now, don’t jest,
Lest my past peers profitable heist,
Dethroned selves sing out through the mesh,
Anguished, set to vanquish their sole poltergeist.
So, patch; never cease
Paragon of love’s delightful dawn,
Persisting for the barest piece
Of you, the whole of why I am not gone.
Oct 16, 2017
Oct 16, 2017 at 12:58 AM UTC
I'm looking for a home.
I always think I've found it,
But I'm beginning to realize that maybe life
Is all about finding home,
And if you find it
You've finished.
Maybe life is just about chasing
Whatever makes you feel like you're home.
You know those people who burn love letters
After the breakup?
I'm not one of those people.
It hurts me to think that anyone could.
What sense is there in denying that something good happened
When such little good comes into such a long life?
When you said we should get a tattoo together
I knew you'd leave someday.
Is that weird?
I knew, that moment.
And I was sad about it for a month
But I never said anything-
When I know things, I just know,
And there is no reason to rush the end
If it's coming anyhow.
I wish I could say I didn't expect you
Not to miss me.
I wish I could say I didn't expect
Not to miss you.
But I see it all coming.
It's my special gift.
I know what home is
And I know when it leaves.
See, I don't leave home.
Home leaves me.
And that's okay.
But I think I need to say
Because I think it is important
That for a minute you were home
To me.
For a minute, your arms were enough.
Your husky smoker's voice,
Your fairy wing shoulders.
For the barest moment
I could see home in your eyes,
And oh,
I lived in that moment.
I am
Such a wanderer.
I'm not sure
I'll ever have roots.
No.
No
I'm not sure
Roots
Will ever have me.
Growing up I used to cry because I missed home.
With my head in my mother's lap
In my living room
I was just too young to explain
That I didn't know what I was homesick for
If I'd only ever lived in one house.
I thought I found home once,
The real kind
And I'm still homesick for that feeling,
That addictive, safe feeling
Of thinking you know what the next day
Will bring you
But
Just like home
That knowledge is never what or when or where
You expect it to be
And it never stays for long.
This isn't a love letter.
This isn't a goodbye, either.
Or maybe it is.
I suppose that
Is up to you.
I guess all I wanted to say is
Knowing you was like driving by a house in the suburbs
Late at night
And all the lights are on
And someone forgot to draw the curtains
So before you round the next curve you can see by accident
A slice of happiness
And maybe you see yourself there
With someone's arms around you
And a cat on the back of the couch
And in that moment
You're home
And then whoosh
It's gone behind the trees and you
Have to keep going forward
Because
Well
You've somewhere to be.
Knowing you
Was kind of like that.
Mar 11, 2014
Mar 11, 2014 at 1:51 AM UTC
give me your
ghosts
& I'll fight the
fairest faces of the
earth
to prove you don't
belong where
you are
we only expose the very
barest
of our skin to the
things that know not
how to love
& he still turns away
disgusted
at the sight of a
tear
we continue to find our
little hope
in loveless places
& you continue
to puzzle me
with your peculiar
grace
we would have made
phenomenal outlaws
driving down the
desert highway
resistant to death
& calmly causing a mockery
of the
cracked and brittle bones
of the vast
decaying wilderness
yeah, we would have
if you'd only let me
use your gun
for the greater good
Feb 12, 2012
Feb 12, 2012 at 6:13 PM UTC