I could still see the reflection
of my lips whispering words
of love in the light of your eyes,
with every shiver against my
touch trailing down your arm
to find where two hearts were
beating out loud promises of
a new ending, an echo of what
was always and would always
be, even if ignored – it was the
reflection of my words in your
eyes as you turned to leave; I
wouldn’t have heard you whisper
if I hadn’t been saying the same.
It was the way the sultry beat
would drop at a moment’s
notice, lingering in the air to
be absorbed by hearts and
minds – breaking the meters
with repetitions and silence;
it was the way you moved
once the songs began, with
an element of grace swiftly
unpracticed, raw, and inviting.
Our love was a lot like jazz,
unpredictable, yet shaken, all
the while smooth at the soul –
I miss the melodies played to
only a trumpet and her sax,
at a beat only lovers can know.
I wear your silence as my
favorite blanket, warming me
as the nights turn to drinking
beers and watching the sun
fall sooner, the leaves changing
faster, all the while building up
wishes to cast on the stars.
You are still my favorite shade
of blue, silence be damned.
You are the comfort in a soft
embrace – the only warmth on
a night drunk on memories.
But your silence is still falling
as I had hoped my wish filled
stars would, and I can do nothing
but wrap myself up, and count
down the hours until the sun rises,
well past my wishes once again.
I had been reciting
those verses of hope
in memory for so long
that lighting the starch
edges and setting them
aflame wasn’t enough
to rid my methods of
repeat; I had become
falling ashes in unison,
covering the truths I
wasn’t willing to learn
while still hearing the
constant repetition of
hope from the distance,
bouncing off the echoes
of our leftover debris.
Four a.m. comes
roaring through
my dreams, waking
up the sounds and
feeding on the
silence, spouting
promises and lies
on endless repeat
until I can’t
decipher in which
direction the sun
will come up; I
am in a trance on
autopilot, with
my heart in the
heavens, waiting
for my clearance
to come down.
Let’s just ride; let us
hop in a car and ride.
Drive west through the
mountains and when we
get to the top shout out
all of our insecurities and
see where they fall, for
nothing can evoke our
fears once we own them.
We can continue driving
until we run out of road,
stopping in the sand and
kicking off our shoes as
we run into the waters,
drowning the words that
we have chosen to keep
silent, and when the moon
has set we’ll start all over
again, heading east past
the plains, or south into
the deserts – wherever
you want my dear, and
that’s the beauty of it all,
let’s just hop in and ride.
if I had a dream to risk
to come true, I’d spend
my night dancing under
the moonlight with you,
two hours past midnight
holding each other close,
we’d be laughing until the
morning light rose, reliving
our first date with twenty
questions and promises
foretold, foregoing the
dancing for blankets in
the cold, we’d have just
one night to allow our
imaginations to roam,
before separately we
each ventured home.
I spent yesterday in
silence, trying to
escape the repetition
of your name on my lips,
fleeing from my feeble
attempts at capturing
your beauty into verse;
yet even with a lack of
words, they circled
around my head, creating
visions of your laugh
reflecting off of the
outskirts of the light of
the moon, and I awakened
to a new kind of silent
poetry, and I was in love.
I never follow my
desire and it costs
me a heartbeat,
every day of my life.
No action, no tears,
just a raw lack of
an all consuming
lifestyle brought
down with a break
in my day, when
my lungs contract
without a blood
flow transcending
into my soul; I am
delirious with a
desire that I can
no longer follow,
and I am not whole.
Storylines in Verse 