I think about the sparrows
still falling from the sky,
from that poem I once read
but couldn’t quite understand;
something about loneliness,
tugging mercifully at the old
heart strings like a good vinyl
playing in the background of
a coffee shop while it rains.
Or maybe it’s only projection;
self-acceptance of a battered
lonely heart unable to write,
unable to sing and fly, like
those broken fallen sparrows,
crushed beneath the weight
of sorrow and a writer’s pen.
Nebraska, hold me close
like all those summers ago,
when the warmth of the sun’s
rays bled through the open
windows, casting light onto
our hearts as we lay tangled
in bed after many days apart.
Hold me close like the early
days, when love was always
on our minds as we sprawled
out on blankets counting the
spaces between the stars and
filling them with our dreams.
Nebraska, embrace my heart,
like all those summers ago,
as waking up next to you was
the most beautiful sight I had
seen, when you became love,
basking in the summer heat.
Hold me Nebraska; hold my
heart and kiss my dreams.
As the stars shoot past
lone survivors making
wishes beyond longing
for a dream, I recall the
gentleness of the lonely,
when solitude was more
than just a single number,
curled up in satisfaction
of something more, with
possibilities of the infinite
bound inside the realities
of one plus one equaling
more than just you and me,
where all the mathematics
blended into nothingness
until the stars shooting past
carried more than just wishes
of a change in the numbers.
I was holding you still
as time catapulted from
underneath our feet, as a
foreshadowing memory
of what we stood to lose;
the details still dangling
by the threads as we are
rocketed forward, arms
stretched out, grabbing as
many loose strings as we
could, cherishing our life
as those threads unraveled
in our grasp – we remember
what we have lost, and from
there, all that we have gained.
At the turn of gold,
when the leaves are
sprouting in greens
and the purples are
splattered about, like
a synchronized feast
of celebrations fit for
a king – we became
lighter than air, as we
had danced among the
notes of spring, set to
be awakened, filling
laughs with dreams of
gold and greens, and
dancing until the dawn.
I had not felt the gentle
stroke of a pen between
my fingers in an almost
near cycle of the moon,
back when I was trying
to capture your beauty
in lyrical rhythms from
my heart, to have and to
hold, as though I could
actually cage part of you;
I had failed words when I
failed you – left to gravel
between the ink stains for
my final second chance at
a happy ending with you.
Hidden behind the shadows
where the night and sun meet,
past the lightly traced outline
of the horizon, where the eyes
play tricks of love and deceit,
are the fallen dreams we had
laid to rest, nestled inside the
buried limits we could not see;
where once dreams had been
kissed twice by daylight on the
horizon, growing in vibrancy,
are now forgotten by the fall of
dusk, left in withered remains,
bounded, begging to be set free.
The weight of my world
bared the absence of three
days of life, nestled in the
crook of my shoulders and
left with a weight I could
not carry – three days over,
yet three days weaker with
the constant absence rooted
into my skin, tainted with a
marking left to represent my
pride, as though absence had
become my savior and I was
only weakened by the weight
of a world I no longer knew.
With the gentle call of
moonlight and music
filling the sky with the
lures of love and life,
nestled in the aftermath
of a lovers embrace, we
took to a dance beneath
the stars, lost inside the
steps we hadn’t learned,
yet always sung along to;
one and two, then three
and four, always waiting
forever more – tangled
inside the rhythms of a
moonlight sonata, lost in
a dance still being written.
With a shallowed breath,
I whispered all my truths
into the night, where the
stars gleamed in a delicate
anticipation, holding onto
my fears and dreams as I
took to the moon, hoping
for guidance with a loving
embrace, searching for an
outcome beyond tattered
remains of a hallowed self;
I was within and without,
tethered to the night by the
ropes of honesty, bound to
the idea of an embrace in
which I could never receive.
Storylines in Verse 