Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Tom McCone Jan 2016
dug up my own bones, what
a shock, from the soil. found
myself amidst the roots and
stones, tangled up, not an act
of fiction or faith. just position.

and, so, turned to the wrought
ligaments of my jaw, i asked
"why were we buried so
shallow?". but, bones don't speak.
history is nameless and without
sight. we stand on the precipice
of a crumbling tower, and, down
in the cellar, ferment languages
unspoken. hands in pockets,
well, i wandered down,
expressionless, steps ringing
hollow on the uncatalogued
leaves of stairs, and drank deep
of tongues untouched. and such
are all knowings. and god knows
i learnt next to nothing, but that the
sun always rose. that lovers spurned
each twilight, waiting.

and for all of the square meters
grown up in glades everlasting,
for all the soil tilled and grass
come back brighter, my shoes
were all the muddier, my eyes
were full of eternal shine, my
****** heart was healin'. the
sky was only blue.
am Aug 2018
for the first time in years, i didn’t sing in the shower. the lights were off, and i didn’t even hum, and there wasn’t a message from you when i stepped out. my hair frizzed with the heat and i didn't stick my tongue out and take a picture, laughing as i sent it to you and when my mother knocked on the door it echoed in my chest.

even now, two days later, i’m still waking up on the side of my bed we laughed was yours and there’s a box in the corner of my room that i can’t even look at. i rip the polaroids off the wall in a fit, tear them to pieces with my fingertips until i’m crying and i’m no longer angry, just alone, and you ask me not to contact you. my fingers are stained with ink as i write this letter, surrounded by the things i spread out and uncatalogued, as if they weren't for you.

today i toured a college campus and thought about how i promised i would be at your graduation, right there beside you as you chased your dream, and i see you behind the bookshelves of a place i’ll never be. maybe it wasn't long ago but i once told you i would be there after you got home, wipe the smudges of paint from your chin and pull the paintbrushes from your ponytail as i kissed you.

i joked last night about not having to worry about finding an apartment with three bedrooms to my friends and i cried that night because one of them wouldn’t be ours.

it was always you and me against the world.

                                 when did it become just me?
- for the girl who painted my smile yellow and then threw the piece away

— The End —