Poem – “Absorbing Your Breath” – 3/20/2023

Sufferance. Brought up, on
teardrops to write words –
those too cruel to be rewritten,
though are rewound
in the countdown
of a returned life, to the earth,

while crying to be reborn,
without crying in darkness.

Eyelids cannot cover you,
in withdrawn attention
from scars, raised above
your poisoned flesh,

nor can I,
could I, turn myself away
from these woes, raised above
a meaningless breath
in me.

Like sunlight,
a fever, our union
dresses hearts, in floods,

as I’ll blame these tears
to keep receding us
back, into open ocean.

Poem – “Our Dream wasn’t Enough” – 3/20/2023

Standing before, the cover,
the shielding casket lid
of a story’s disappointment,
an ending – a concealment,

and still, I await
what comes next.

Eyes forward,
towards a funeral,
with song, rose, and failure
caretaking what steps
were taken
to recognize familiarity,

without similarity.

A brittle unearthing
of senselessness. I carried the stars,
the infinity of each droplet
to let you, come loose
into solid arms.

You found yourself,
dancing higher,
when those bleak,
vibrant rushes of emptiness,
entangled you
in familiarity.

I pulled open doors
for your feet, to enter through.
I drew you to
see sunlight,

when you were
deep in your fading frame,
letting floods take over.

Were you hearing thunder,
before it struck,
before we were lovestruck,
because you predicted
the exit? Before, the entrance
to a heart, emptied for you?

Emptied, without storms,
with nothing but clarity’s blue?

You brought yourself into black,
to keep familiarity intact.

Poem – “I Always Turn Around” – 3/20/2023

I always turn
to see you, in mirrors,
drawing smoke from your lungs,
with an aura of bleakness
aboard, in your eyes,

while tears, have left trails
for hollow footprints
to be anything
but a temptation.

It has meaning.
Cremating this heart,
while death still holds
a faint breath
from a tragic smile,

a gleaming lock
of withering hair –
all symbols to release
a sickness you keep,

returning your heart’s contents,
from a speechless throat
into empty hands.

I do love,
though I cannot
offer to bury you, again,

without reliving that sound,
thumping like footsteps,
over wasted earth.

Poem – “Whose Eyes Are You Facing?” – 3/19/2023

I can, run adrift,
distancing petals with you,
burning hope,
like with that familiar rope
we hold, tighter than hands,

and sometimes,
we did scar our hands,
treating pain as a remedy
when we were somebody.

I can always come back,
opening doors, like they were
of restored fortresses.
I can keep repeating
history’s elements
of limping flesh,

or I can
stall this approach,
raising walls, like they are
waves of an ocean
that separates our pull
through this current,
our current moment.

Are you leaving
tears, as a trail,
for my eyes to follow?

Are you holding back,
waiting for me, to crossover
from idle life
into graceful death?

Poem – “In the Storm of Yesterday” – 3/19/2023

You are, what regrows
safely – congested, in running ivory
from burning eyes,
those that only once
burned away
any shred of you.

Whenever, you
regrow, from thorns,
from bitterness,
in stale perfume –
to clinging memories,

keep on, move on,
while nothing stops
this heart,
from attacking itself.

Live on, go on
to subside yourself
among desolate substitution.

I’ll repeat, here,
what lingers inside buried cold.
You are a form, awash,
for a formless mass of flesh,
this old.

I am careless.
Surrounding myself
in dusty debris,

reusing sights,
of your face, amidst skies,
leaving light for me,
embracing shadows for you,
while tending to particles of snow
deep below,
in the undertow.

Poem – “Undue Residue” – 3/15/2023

I can run back
your grief, to those letters,
disowning your
needless trials,
empty as all air
you rush,

from your panting lips
straight into me.

You left, your words
like seeds from a grave,
rebirthing a forest
from shade.

To stretch,
even without roots,
to want for meaning
to take place –
for anything would be better
than coldness, while truth
had remained clogged
in your earth,
your bewildering mind,

your eyes, when they
need petals to be
undressed, like bandages.

Though, the venom remains
to reconfirm you
in words, cursed to hollowness,
exiting either from throat
or the tallest trunk
of any sickened tree.

Poem – “Unexplored Decisions” – 3/15/2023

I found out
that words are only markers,
or barricades,
to stall us
on this path to imperfect shelter.
We bring our lights forward,
burning in this rush,

of our faiths, tested at each step,
leaving this ground tremoring.

Our hands, held for needed moments,
to signal a disposition,
to feel this lingering side effect
to a life that only stopped
for the other,

with pauses only at reminders,
at photographs hanging in hallways
of our minds, of our journey
to reprimand any understanding
of previous loneliness.

Poem – “Relived Above, Revealed Below” – 3/15/2023

I came to believe
that heartaches were wanderers,
that teardrops were storms
meant to scatter.

I’ve found
that you’ve come here
to remind me.

You’ve come
with bitterness
to your bite,
with soundlessness
to your heart,

while with a mute pair of lips,
you’ll want for everything
that heartbeats had skipped.

You’ll face that fire,
bringing your veins to a boil,
hearing what little
another offering of words
had promised for you,

while under my wings,
you’ll burn, you’ll crave
to forget what you ignore,

while we are wandering through
with heartache to every smile,

with suns setting,
all the while.

To be buried, safely in your scars,
while coming up, to see
another’s fate that will be believed
as an emptiness, to be achieved.

Poem – “By the Smoke in Your Mirror” – 3/15/2023

Come to blame?
Those cracks, both of
a heart, of a mirror,
breathing smoke
over a broken reflection,

as you might be
what you say you might be,

or you might be
the same as those cracks,
repairable as the next
broken faith.

I brought you here,
to a place where
all of your scars can be seen
from an uncovered spot,
where shadows cannot
seal your worth.

Love has correction,
while life holds eyesores
in its unbecoming sanity.

You are seeing clearly
the woman of your sadness.
But you do not wish to see
the light that’s behind,

for will it create another shadow,
or will you turn around?

Poem – “Love’s Hope for Something Old” – 3/15/2023

I can confirm
there is an estrangement,
there has been
a taxing embellishment,
while there was always
a long-lasting sustenance
that has become
an overwhelming starvation,

as we were born
for beauty’s sake,
though never receiving
Heaven’s answers.

Escaping to Hell,
if only to find shadows
to conceal us.
Our light,
under an undoing disguise
were this world’s drumming sound,
bringing healing all around,

while now we lose breath.

Helpless, under our eyes,
where storms leak
onto hollow earth.

We fell for vacancy,
for a place where hearts
could be settled,
could be found,
though were buried,
and remained
unheard of,

losing their beats, over time,
though stayed for hope,
dancing for the same crime.

Poem – “Hold Your Breath Closer” – 3/14/2023

Make your stand
high above the delicate rush,
the evening push
to be carved in sands,
painted, stroked
in asymmetrical disaster.

Waves came in, faster,
drawing your head to a sea,
to see what could not
be believed.

You’ll crush what remains
as always itself, ample.
It eluded arms, that swing
their embrace, around
empty air.

At first, hearing a cry
in a shell, outside your own.
At last, you’ve realized
you’ve crawled out,
on your own,

nevertheless. Go, to find nothing
as alike, as what we had left
in our flooded ruins –
the warmest shelter,

floating on clouds, like feathers.

Throughout lightness, in light of what
we used to be, down to where
you came, to believe
was only another place
to play make-believe.

For, in love, we kissed illusions,
with mirrors all around.

In truth, to blame us
will be to name us
as only another one of us,
another one of those
who made it,

who did not make it?

We carried our hearts, forward,
like arrows from their quivers.

If one was golden,
while all others were black,
there were those hidden silvers
that were tears, from a moon
raining its grief
upon our shelter, full of holes,

full of everything we stole.

Poem – “Going Through, Always Without” – 3/12/2023

Another breath,
full of smoke. Full, with remedies,
reigniting certainties,
realizing fatalities, upon that
inborn rush, running with clogged veins,
fleeing with uncontrolled fire,
returning with unresolved desire,
leaving after going through,
without you.

I wake up, surrounded by walls,
hung with unfamiliar portraits.
I stand up, embracing a ghost,
hearing heartbeats bounce from corner
to darkened corner, with fevers erupting
in spaces where prayers went,
came back, unanswered.

Another death,
full, with stinging eyes. Emptied,
with uncured maladies. Reminiscing
over tragic calamities.

Closure was always
a degree, too high, while I
was always too low
to keep a smile held up,

while I went blind to sunrise.

Sunsets were to remind
a blank mind, of pages, folded
for this curse of remembrance,
this rusted token
of unkind sincerity.