I had put my
favorite jazz record
on, saddened I had
never taken you
to that club like
I promised;
but all I heard
on repeat was the
sound of your name
brushing my lips,
echoing cries
against a trumpet
and her sax, of a
love won then lost,
true jazz.
I had gone to that
old spot Sunday;
walking in, daring
not to sit outside
in good ol’ booth
number two – instead
forcing the patrons
awkward attention as
I grabbed a table of
six, for just myself
and a Guinness.
Smokers outside,
sipping in-between
under cooled beers
and vodka rocks;
corner pockets,
scratches, and arcade
games, the end of the
bar – lone road.
Knowing it wasn’t
the same here
anymore, I ordered
another and toasted
off to the memories,
waiting for you to
come and make your
final appearance.
I couldn’t describe your absence
between the vowels in silence –
a sharpened dusting of gray
rooted in the crevices of the
carpet to the popcorned ceiling,
screaming out memories of images
faded and burned at the corners,
dancing down the halls at a
quarter past two, most nights –
breaking vases and picture frames,
leaving shards of glass on the
floor to shine and gleam from
the light of tomorrow that
seems to never want to return.
But just as I’m befriending the
darkness, the sun rises again
taunting me with wordless sing
alongs about times months before,
begging and baiting me to join –
illuminating the apartment with
paintings on the walls of what
could have been, and what will
no longer be – and I scream.
The silence may be broken, but
your absence is still teasing me
between the vowels of moving on.
I want to be wrapped in your arms,
with your touch promising me words
of always, not your half hushed
whispers of things getting better;
actions become facts, and words
become sharpened knives in
battles of broken hearts my dear,
you taught me that once upon
a time – when all I had were
fairy tales and dreams of love.
when I love you meant everything;
where everything else I could
always look the other way on.
Because I loved like the
horizon to the ocean –
never getting to hold them
but still sparking sunsets
and warmth every time I see them,
doing everything in my power to love
them throughout the days and my best
to let them shine alone in the nights.
It’s no longer the dreams come true,
white picket fences and happily
ever afters – it’s wanting to be wrapped
in each other on a Sunday afternoon
kissing and dozing the time away,
with stories of white knights,
damsels and talking frogs, whose
fantasies will never compete with
our own imaginary reality.
I went back to that pond in the park –
the platform of trees off to the South,
half a mile or so beyond the road
with the same family of geese circling
around the island, demanding to be heard.
There’s a little girl again, throwing
bread into the water, and screams of joy
into the air; such sweet innocent youth.
The mosquitoes are worse this time of year,
the grass growing taller here and there,
but dead to sun spots everywhere else.
We should have brought wine with us
last time – it’s refreshing in-between
the breezes that seem to rarely say hello.
I sat on the embankment to the North,
legs stretched out, close enough to hop
into the pond with only a tight jump.
We spoke of Colorado when we were here
last – planning out the next year
of the rest of our lives, beginning
with bon fires and whiskey this summer.
It’s not as warm here anymore, or
perhaps that’s just your absence.
The crickets are still chanting –
whether melancholy or desire, I’m
not aware, but it’s lovely all the same.
The sun is behind me, casting diamonds
in the ripples, pretending to be more
than just a little pond in the park –
things are always trying to appear
to be grander than what they are, and I
suppose that’s my own problem reflecting
itself at the bottom of a bottle of wine,
and too much exposure with the sun.
There’s a small frog croaking about
three and a half feet to the right of me –
if only you had seen him last time,
you could have befriended him, and saved
him from the ultimate fate that took
everything else away from here – if only.
I had gone to that pond again last weekend,
and I had seen that frog you were so eager
to catch, hopping about like life was grand.
I thought maybe you’d like to know.
Your silence
is what hits the hardest –
the complete absence
of the sun on the
warmest of summer days,
the unanswered echo
of my heart beat crashing,
the lack of laughter
vibrating down my neck
to the tips of my
blue painted toes –
your silence screams
sonnets at the bottom
of my whiskey, and
I can do nothing
but listen.
Storylines in Verse 