I have always fallen for the
evened numbered things in
life – counting stars in pairs
to the heavens and believing
in possibilities set in rhythms
of jazz serenading the moon,
closing my eyes with every
third lightning strike as if I
could avoid the rarity of odd
numbers as though there was
a burden or a curse that comes
in singularity; so perhaps, my
darling, I was meant to love
you, for a second time in life?
Set against the backdrop
of auburn and gold, rising
in the earliest hours of the
day when the world is still
full of promise, and reality
hasn’t yet tampered with
our dreams – where I can
still wake with the desire
of you in my mind, even
if I can’t reach out to you –
where I can still rise with
a smile, cast against the
glow of a sunrise set in
mid October, filled with its
own promise of a change
still desirable, yet to come.
There are words between us
that neither will ever say – deeply
rooted in an honesty that burns,
touched by the stars in wishes
set with memories and distance
in time. We’re dancing between
the silence, swallowing the words
every time they nestle on our lips
as though actions aren’t speaking
loudest, while we can pretend the
words aren’t there, even though we
both know what the other cannot
say; whispering to the moon every
night under the blanket of stars
covered in second chances that
will one day consume us both.
It was the way the ripples in
her eyes, shallow yet focused
made me dream; crossing the
waters and believing in second
chances past the horizon – still
moving forward against the
grains of the current of every
wish laying just outside of her
eyelashes, beating gently with
promises of possibilities and
an ounce of hope in thoughts,
believing in chances and love.
I could have sworn to the right
side of heaven, you’d never put
me through this hell; forcing the
silence to deliver your goodbye
as you quiver inside memories
of us swearing we’d never say
such words, light at the touch
and too fragile to fall, as though
it was only another action left for
us mere mortals here on earth, too
confined in confrontation to bare
witness – so you can preach your
silences, I’ll still speak the fluid
language of love, meant only for
your ears, even if you can’t hear
me past your goodbyes left silent.
I crave a few grains of poetry,
blessed from the stars in light
of the moon, swirling between
thoughts cast in the minds of a
hopeless romantic and a realist;
bouncing off the reflections of
the stars as they parade on the
horizon, mapping out the colors
of where the sun will rise and
counting down visions from the
heavens, whispering promises
to the moon in a repetition of
clues and colors, masquerading
as the onset of a lover found.
I played my final hand,
knowing the odds against
my favor, as all I needed
was the queen of hearts
nestled deeply behind the
blue print found in your
hand – as I waited patiently
for you to lay your cards on
the table, and yet instead of
taking all that was left of me,
you got up, silently walking
away, taking your cards and
my queen of heart with you.
With the whistle of the winds
past the earliest hours of dawn,
where the trees are swaying soft
symphonies outside my window,
calling for my memories to come
out and play, I am strolling gently
through dreams half buried in the
past, lingering twice on shades of
blues with a soft touch of violets
lining the horizon, with collapsed
wishes parading down like rain –
half entranced by the voice of my
muse singing lullabies, I whistle
alongside in hopes of her return.
I had spent the summer
in false hope and delusion,
placing every effort in my
attempts to tame the wind,
believing once captured, I
could silence the storms,
rocking them gently with
sonnets and lullabies, only
to fail with every lash and
blow; but now it is autumn,
with only the promises of
leaves falling, granting me
new memories to tame, with
every whistle of the breezes.
In a rush of swollen blazes,
spewing ashes of autumn and
charcoal, where the half burnt
breezes are being carried out
as though fragments bare no
harm, and memories are only
as good as the dreams in which
they are kept; with the roots of
flames burning blue in the light
of love and smoke hovering past
realms of suffocation, waiting
for life to distinguish the blazes –
as though indecision was just a
game, with all of us left burning.
Storylines in Verse 