"unpressed" poems
This morning before
I ever lifted my head,
I turned to see
Your half of the bed.
And what a harsh reminder
Of how I'm growing old
With your side of the bed
Still unbearably cold.
Your sheets are not tossed,
Your pillow unpressed--
All lovely reminders
Of my current distress.
Was it not merely a month ago
That I was curled against your skin?
We were perfect puzzle pieces,
Your shoulder to my chin.
All day long
We would curl up and sleep
With nothing like time
And business to keep.
But what a terrible disease
Lurked inside my mind.
I never thought I could be
So selfish and unkind.
If only I had known
I was capable of such sin
I never would have let
Our cursed romance begin.
I could promise to never
Let it happen again.
I could take my pills
Like I refused to then.
I could be so much better,
My darling, please see.
If only, if only
You'd come back to me.
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 7:56 PM UTC
Oh fairest of the rural maids!
Thy birth was in the forest shades;
Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky,
Were all that met thy infant eye.
Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child,
Were ever in the sylvan wild;
And all the beauty of the place
Is in thy heart and on thy face.
The twilight of the trees and rocks
Is in the light shade of thy locks;
Thy step is as the wind, that weaves
Its playful way among the leaves.
Thine eyes are springs, in whose serene
And silent waters heaven is seen;
Their lashes are the herbs that look
On their young figures in the brook.
The forest depths, by foot unpressed,
Are not more sinless than thy breast;
The holy peace, that fills the air
Of those calm solitudes, is there.
3.9k
Sometimes, I'd think that I missed it.
All the late-night conversations,
good morning "I love you"s,
glances exchanged in the halls,
awkward smiles,
adorable nicknames,
that bracelet.
But I don't wear that bracelet anymore,
not since you starting doubting all we had.
When the good morning texts were just typed,
sitting there with the send button unpressed.
When we started avoiding each other in the halls
because we couldn't bear to see the other's face.
When those awkward smiles we'd exchange
turned into just plain awkward.
When the adorable nicknames went away.
When that bracelet just sat there,
on my dresser instead of my wrist.
Sometimes, I thought I missed the way we were.
But now I know, we're better off the way we are.
Jul 7, 2023
Jul 7, 2023 at 2:17 AM UTC
Sometimes I can hear it,
the voice of a fallen leaf
lost to the wind.
Its gallant effort to become apparent
as if it was more then just one of the rest.
It says, "Let your footsteps be kind
and not trample my body,"
This earth is too fleeting.
I'm sure it would think.
To be whole and unpressed,
Not without burden
A small voice that descends
*soft like the drop of a pin.
"I can hear you," I whisper
among all these branches
They don't speak like they used too.
I'm sure the fallen would think.
May 14, 2015
May 14, 2015 at 9:15 PM UTC
The washing machine
Rattles
And I think of high school ***********
Ashamed
Of temptation I envision
A golden field
Burning in a grey Winter Sky
Hanging by the tip of my tongue
Love flees from my fingertips
Another notch on the belt like
The days, the months, the years
Numbers piling up
When did age become so important?
Wrinkles being the only way to tell time
Pain the only way to know one is truly living
Dreams ephemeral as the song of the angels
A lasting tradition never to be found out
Deep within these woods madness lurks
Underneath the tanned' bark of certain trees
A murderer picks his teeth with a rusty nail
The running waterfalls cease to crash
Midnight leaks onto the kitchen floor like spilt milk
And the wind - exhausted - stops to take a breath
Boredom thick as the pine and the bush
Rushing like the crystal river at foot
Unpressed by family in their telephone chatter
The dog waits at the edge of the door
In his eyes curiosity, demand, and vigor
There was something else I meant to do
A sign missed or misread
Maybe I missed a message in the mail?
A call that didn't come through
Seeing the glass murky in the mid summer sun
A nod, a smirk, a smile, a frown - blank
Beds made with the pillows fluffed dreams spent for bus fare
A knock at the door that is not mother
We try
Again and again for success
Not even knowing
If the wish will bring
Happiness or more
Further nightmares
May 13, 2013
May 13, 2013 at 2:25 PM UTC
My sweet little mollusk,
You polish the sea-tangy sand dollars smooth with the soles of your feet
You fill up your sweet siren lungs with a sun-sated breeze and submerge your bare fingers
Until they can sweep the slippery silt of the seabed abyss. I can’t sleep.
Your anemone fingers trace watery ripples through the ebbs of my dreams, trailing streams
Of fluorescent-blue algae sunk deep. Your barnacle tongue shatters ships
Into ruinous splinters of treasure. I kiss
The cerulean ocean that hides in your lips.
My sweet little scallop,
The galloping waves break the curves of your shallows.
There are flecks of unpressed sea salt brine in your irises, tireless riptides of foaming-bright promises.
Your skin has the silvery sparkle of scales that effervesce endlessly, bending beneath the fierce tides of your palmprints.
I’m dropping. The current caresses your cheeks’ fishbone hollows, rethreading the necklaces strung out of seashells.
You bury your face in the swells of the tempest. I envy
Your azure, I worship your lapis.
My sweet little mussel,
Your tussled cyan-coral hair is unbleached, unleeched and resplendent
I am rendered transcendent by the green iridescence of your silk seaweed whispers. I have drowned in your splendid.
I can still hear your aquamarine through the white roaring waves cracking onto the shore.
I want more. Your crustaceous sand whirlpool has nestled below the soft curl of your chest. You press the world’s oceans in the dip of your palms
And drink deep from the waves swirling under.
I’ve drowned in the water-spilled seas that are cupped in your hands,
I have drowned in the pearls of your wonder.
Mar 9, 2020
Mar 9, 2020 at 12:15 PM UTC