Category: Poetry

I trespass
on your gardens,
lingering here, observing emptiness
from a vacant pair
of eyes, encased in wonderment.

To let you know.

To let you flow
from this barren setting
to an aftermath,
reunited with color,
retelling your tale
around fire.

To hope, beyond all that,
that you will break free,

beyond all that
keeps you occupied
in your searing mind,
from those that
have settled you into memories
that continue to rewind.

To let you go.

To let you run
to find the setting sun,
to bring it up with a rope,
drinking gold
from a well,
one where love and beauty
forever dwells.

You cannot be
what they will catch,
like a fly for a web,
like a child for a bandage
after falling.

I know this danger.
Loose, endless, and simple
in its message,
though reminding you
of all that never was
in your palms,
like fallen petals.

I realize where the snow falls
on each tress of your hair,
brought back to set up
your eyes, to see the sunrise,
but you’ll be looking back,
soon enough,
not soon enough.

You’ll be drawing curtains
over illumination.
You’ll be bringing yourself back
to those tides,
letting go of the rain
caught in your whirling eyes.

You’ll be remembering
all those figures passing by,
as you’ll be treasuring
the dark, in its depiction,
stamped like a letter
that defeats you, depletes you,

but given to your hands
to remember you,

to remind you,
that you were more
than what you see towards
all closed doors.

While everyone watches,
as others desert,
we are fewest
to see what remains
inside two pairs of broken hands,
sifting through remains
of burned photographs.

Living in each other’s breath,
living for the moment
when we will be buried alive,
mistaken for further death,

though we are eternal
in the pain that keeps eyes open,

aware of our truth
with our noose coming loose.

I know to know
if we will continue to follow
this long road, like outstretched arms,
when clouds begin to gather,
when breath becomes smothered
in distant, grey scenery.

I want to know
how we can keep up
in times we lift the other up,
against flashing thunder,
against what threatens us
with sorrowful rain,

Would we sense glory
on that next kiss,
within the dark,
the rain?

You’re there, laying on
clouds made of your restless rest,
thrashing in uncovered
nightmarish hue,

while letters are written
as stains, in your heart.

Another pitfall,
another ruined night,
running with the collective –
driving yourself through
the madding crowd,

finding a torch
to set your mind aflame,

finding a church
to bring unholy tears.

Who gets to know
who you pray to,
wanting for salvation
in your setting eyes,

those that weep?

Who are those that keep
your fears,
from releasing rain?

If hope can keep us
pretending to be present,
seeing nothing but gravity
taking leaves down,
crumbling our walls –
those that have been built
on muddied, bloodied ground,

I will, too, pretend to sleep,
hearing our hearts when they weep.

Coming down, inside our graves.
Crawling around, like earthworms.
Being naked, while fighting
against infinite turns,

as we thrash in this place
where we have crashed.

We hold hands,
we are tangled in veins,
as we have been roped in, from our feet,
to be dressed in burning pages,
wrapped in heated bedsheets.

Loose, like the gravity,
while kisses are painted, everywhere,
like autumn that scorns the bloom,
having ignited in this echoing room.

Cradling the other’s head,
in gnarled hands, while reading
what the other is thinking.

We’ll remember nothing
the minute we fall asleep.

She’s used to leaving
rainfall, behind. Where there are
footprints, retained at what
kept anyone, going – she would solidify
nothing, while everything
kept itself moving.

She’s used to seeing
destruction, disease, and
all that we never were,
inside her. A heart that feels bliss,
at the red behind a kiss,

one that none of us received,
while drawn open curtains exposed
those misunderstood remedies,
those that we believed
might be her serenity.

I have been going north
to see the blue,
to find whatever might be
brand new, when the sun
has begun faltering,
beneath these defeated feet –
an ungraceful setting.

That setting
of eyedrops, dewdrops,

petals, leaves given weight,

and I am still moving
forward, for something to see,

after I have mirrored myself
on someone, on something to leave,
in peace and finality.

Keeping here,
painted in smears,
letting go
of teardrops from a moon
whose face is that of a silver trace,
whose presence waits
for another night,

seeing me, unanswered.

Broken song.
A wail from a throat,
and in the reiterating of speech,
I repeat what I thought
was never said,

was never repeated,

was never said
when we were never wed.

It was said,
a long time ago.
A promise, upon a time
nothing but history’s footprints
were abandoned in the snow.

It wasn’t meant to be repeated,
it wasn’t meant to be erased
to do it, all over again.

Another night in reliving
this squall. Forming tears,
to hurl, overboard,
as I am warming
my wounds on the fire
of what stings in your absence.

A pencil has traced
you, in the looming clouds,
having grayed on your leaving.
I have kept what words
would receive you,
would let you come blooming,
but you would not,

as I am here,
forming tears from empty air.

No one seems to know
where I am, though they can hear
the thunder crawling
from miles, ashore.

They can hear
all that replaces itself,
out of empty air.

Some children are running along
a beach, made of stones,
made of numbness,

while people bathe
in currents, stretching
like arms that cannot take
that light, at a distant lighthouse,
to rectify what will always be
an eternal night.

Red wine
brought forth,
from a pair of raised hands,
to a set of aged, dried lips.
Your stare never erased
its point, of no return
of what keeps me releasing
time, into your palms,

the grasp where grains
are counted, recounted,
like droplets
from a barren sky.

I retain nothing
at the slightest glimpse
of what was left,
drawn in imperfect circles.
All that is left
is a withered rose petal,
drying in your touch,

as I am all that remains
wondering how
an ocean disappears,
or if these sands will soon follow.

In great thirst,
naked upon your skin,
I reside in twisted junction.
I stabilize myself, even among absence,
even in this space,
where you are, no longer,
where waters are remembered,

hiding themselves behind curtains,
having receded behind eyelids.

We were, under these trees,
remembering. What were we doing,
listening to thudding memories?

To thoughts, being buried
in chests, under earth,
underfoot, and lost
in the undertow
of a river that keeps us
moving backwards.

We drive ourselves upstream,
pledging our naked eyes upon kisses,
smooth with the sands
where we once traced our names,
like promises onto immaculate
displays of white.

Lovers, in sight,
within their brittle embraces.
Found, in the depths
of each other’s heart.
Going under,

and losing our light
only when we black out,
carrying what we keep close,
without rebellion.

Just a haunt,
with the keen eyes, the dual faces
that keep coming around.

What keeps us conforming
to this space, above and below
rain-soaked ground?

We’ve lived like figurines –
carved, but never complete,
in vibrant sceneries where we drown.

Who knew
while our ends met,
that the journey would catch ablaze,
that the suns were set,
that, upon our pain,
we would never be fazed?

We still took
to cast ourselves off,
like fishes who gained their freedom,
but we were still on hooks.
We were still
hoping – being behind curtains,
behind the shield
that kept us stilled,
for unmentioned seconds,

within gnarled arms,
among histories that burn
with receding futures.

We drove to the finish line,
listening to the anthem of our heartbeats,
hold inspiration like a noose,
giving us weight, handing us gravity
to keep us weak upon our knees.

We found sensation in the madness,
as we found sadness in the resignation,
but we still took off, once again,
to show the world
what we have sent.