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once this was the miracle elixir it was the draught of life once this was the fountain from which all things sprang forth now so dark, so sweet the drink that keeps me gasping venomous addiction stealing my light now this desiccated waterway runs with rust and the blood of the life it once begot. |
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so small in the face of your past and pain so helpless I'd give you my life to live again things I saw in your eyes never needed explained without knowing you I know who you are I can't give you a miracle. I can't keep you alive. I will not forget this. You'll stay with me for a long time. |
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what i see in you i see in myself and it's dark like a room where you're not listening to the lights telling you where to go and what not to bang into what i see in you i see in myself and i smash the mirror because i can't face it not in myself and not in you what i see in you i see in myself and want to hurt you because you're supposed to be wiser than i am so where are you leading me? what i see in you i see in myself the reversal hurts i can't look at you disgusted by it guilty of it what i see in you i don't see in myself nor in my future i'll learn from you i won't let this become me. |
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a feeling of futility: I, behind the glass wall not really a part of the bright lights but separate viewing from here the warmth and the colour I, within the glass globe here inside my bubble present but isolated safe but alone I float in my lonely way out and over the vast bay preferring observation over any involvement I see you below me down there in the mist and come down from my clouds to be near you if I knew how I'd like to let you in but I don't want to come out. not touching, not blending not part of anything unwilling to risk it we embrace and the glass wall molds to my shape and if you drop me I'll break but the glass wall remains. |
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I'm not in your photographs, living it up. I don't appear. I'm not in your outbox or inbox, as you never sent me a word. I'm not in your thoughts; you erase what goes wrong. I'm not part of you - amputated, alienated and lied to. I'm not your friend and I let you down leave me behind so I won't find out. Denial is not just a river in Egypt, love. Hope I'm there to hold you when the boat goes down. |
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I will draw you a map - a topography of suffering; geography of pain. I'll write you a memoir of what passed; write headlines on headstones: I am here; won't let anything hurt you. I will protect you. you're not alone. |
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immortalize this: waking in sunlight your breath on my skin before this glow fades feeling like we are one breathe together you are holding me not only in memory but all around keep this forever beyond all that falls between now and onward I belong to your skin now I am here we are one this is a moment that I will never allow to pass. |
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I'll be here to listen to your silence I'll wait as long as it takes I have words enough for us both and you can't hear me anyway. |
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get attention. no. shut your mouth. don't be pretentious. smile, look pretty and keep your thoughts between your pretty ears - don't say it out loud. polish 'til you shine, and show them all in photographs. do not tell them in words. fabricate intrigue. you may notice that no one cares how tortured an artist you really are. steal spotlights. no, don't let them see you. shut up; you're not playing hard-to-get. and you're really not that hard to get. you look good on paper. but it's all liquid crystal high definition online television. generally not flattering. you didn't make the cut this time. |
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this is the first time I wake without you after the long sleep and bitterness of winter as wind and sunlight stir new things into being you should be thawing and turning to the sky unfurling delicate green and open arms embracing this is the first spring that comes without you the tug of beginning on my spirit is less now my skyline is empty as you stand tall no longer my roots are no longer so deep in this ground this is the first time that I wake without you and, from this season I will grow alone. |
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remember how the fragile words would rush from thought to paper until I would overflow and build something solid and more real than I had before me remember when you didn't have to have me around but you wanted me anyway we walked on the grass at dusk and let it be what it was remember how it felt before colours became formulae before lines became boundaries when I wanted only to make beautiful things I forgot how good these things could be yet I find it all comes back to me. |
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so I fail and I face my fate so I learned a lot about myself and I gave a lot that I'd rather have kept but was unwilling to give it all and I fail as a result and there is nothing in my life that I do especially well nothing except write poetry that no one reads and I don't know what I want but I need a new me. |
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trying to remember why I gave this up draw a blank voices echo empty room where my life was all my poetry in boxes packed and ready going nowhere no one here where I used to be so they finally took this away from me? |
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I don't want numbers they blur the page before my eyes a body count even less do I want names the missing the grieving another night to mourn and days of sorrow coming fear and fire on the blue green planet as we slaughter our people ourselves mass devastation brother sister torture, terror we do not forget rest in peace you die not in vain rest in peace rest in peace and may peace take you home we do not forget they cannot forgive my apocalypse slithers near waiting to strike watching you tearing the beating heart out of the world. |
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don't know why words like snowflakes fall no reason but to speak of the coming tide subtle beauty night calling I desire only words like sunlight piercing to warm me bitter season winter winds now rending words from me like boughs from treetops to scatter on frozen earth like snowflakes freeze still the cheerful spring of poetry my white forest empty, silent, brittle, waits no warmth in words to thaw us don't know why words like snowflakes drift unable to tempt summer back to this place. |
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I put away every sharp object: pin and blade and dangerous edge. I still don't trust myself with scissors, even these days. Part of loving oneself is knowing how far that love extends. Part of being a family is knowing you'll have to leave. How far I've come, to stand here and to hold myself up - courage, pride, strength. I break so easily - tears to drown me; rage to scream at you endlessly - because I'm guilty of knowing that these days are numbered few. Regret sits on the back step with the pumpkin we didn't carve this year, because I wasn't here - unwanted, unaddressed and necessary. I'm not your little girl anymore - I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to go and grow up and go away. I stare at my wrists hating time for dragging me on through life; for tearing us apart and casting me into future. Oh, how I want to remain - I'm not your little girl now, but I'll always be your daughter and I'll always be your big sister; I'll always want this house; I'll never leave. I put away the scissors, and my ink and all my words. I chose to live that night, years ago, for you, so now I have to go. Part of being a family - however torn, however mad - is knowing you'll never have to leave, right? I'll always have what you gave me: courage, pride, strength and love; and I'll always be your daughter your big sister - always belong. |
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words that die on my tongue, once sole respite, cage me - accuse me of ignoring the truth. I don't want these words. my head echoes with absence. my head a graveyard for words unsaid - unholiest peace. - words move in; use up all the sugar; trash my fragile state of unthinking; tear off the wallpaper, exposing cracks. I kill words on the doorstep, pre-emptive. my domain is of silence and bitterness. no one knocks on my door anymore: loneliest relief. |
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I drift; afloat upon the tides of time and emotion; the waves of my life: a restless sea uneasy and ever shifting beneath me. only glimpses, in sunless moments, reveal the depth; the weight; the darkness, below the surface upon which I ride, balancing so precariously - it beckons, it threatens to overwhelm; to pull me in and under. the instants of shaken resolve and loneliness cast me close to the edge, where I view in dizzying clarity the fathoms-deep despair awaiting and reel back from the drop, the light in me refusing to be extinguished - my saving grace. adrift from all anchorage save for that within myself; I sail on over the deep, endless grey ocean - alone. |
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I wish I were wiser. three days later I put away my shoes and my expectations after that I stop looking at all the photographs and when that's done slowly I accept that it's really over. one of these days, I'll learn but until then I'll probably let me down. the dress hangs on the closet door; I expect no more from it. the chaos of good times made irrelevant by the reality I face. I wish there were more to me than wishing my life is one big good intention left unmanifest. |
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a sanctuary lost. no longer can I stand alone. there is no comfort in solitude. my voice, once the most steadying sound in my world, no longer speaks to me. there is no shelter left for me, nor in me. I seek respite in you. turn me not away. |