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.
You had one question,
wrapped around the idea
of one little verse, a slight
symphony of the heart, in
which you and I had once
been dancers, gracefully
swaying to the tempos of
love – you had asked, and
I said yes, with the rapid
beating of our hearts as we
took our final bow as mere
lovers, moving on into the
world as fiancés; forever
dancers, in this life of love.
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.
As the lines I had to write
took a new twist of the pen,
my words became mangled
together in thoughts and lost
actions, where my truths had
spilt over and were now left
a harbored mess on the page.
My unwritten verses sought
revenge against my untamed
writers mind – I had deceived
the voice I once followed by
moonlight, left to scrounge on
the scraps of ink and dreams.
I became filled with wild and
impossible thoughts, crushing
the landscape of paper and pen,
ready to burn the bridges of the
written word and set the world
on fire with tongue and verse –
poetry is not dead, it is rising.
I fear the depths of the
memories I’m not allowed
to wade in, watching as the
waves crash the cityscapes
against the life that you and
I have built together, where
our toes should be wading
along the trails of memories
in the making, not haunted
by the thoughts of those we
have tried to bury deep in
the sands – I fear the ocean
as I fear my own mind, lost
in the aftermath of what can
wash upon the shores with
any given change of the tide.
We were more than lightning
flashing against the open night,
with splinters of stars scattered
between our hearts and hands
we took a stand as the thunder
rolled, booming and crashing,
we laughed along in songs as
the rain loomed on – you and I
were always more than sparks
falling in the backdrop of night,
we were the illumination of the
storm, and the hero and the end;
tempted by the hands of fate, we
kept our sins to wash them away.
I had left the tainted fragments
of my mind buried in the ruins of
my heart – I had failed love again.
I had twisted the knife inside my
chest, letting the blood trickle out
and relieve me of my own burdens
of loving poorly and hurting those
in the wake of my pending storm.
I was relapsing into a destruction
of my own making and although
I saw it coming, I could not stop it;
another day of destruction, another
chance at happiness if we could find
a way to survive the aftermath and
resentment pulsating from your soul.
It was just another day, and that was
the only truth I was allowed to feel.
There was not an escape,
nor any sort of turning back;
we were alone in the crooked
shells of the world, holding on
with tethered hands and tired
souls, breaking insights as we
hunted for survival – there was
only a you and I, harboring our
love on mile markers and poor
gas station coffee, no ideas on
a direction, no actual plans for
an escape, just going and going
until we could pretend we were
gone, lost inside the disheveled
aftermath of a broken journey.
The sky was illuminated
by the lasting memory of a
thousand fallen suns; when
days fell to night, and lives
were created, then perished,
as an everlasting circle, left
bound in the remains of the
unbroken – with yours and
my silhouettes cast inside a
frame of memories created
and then destroyed, rising
into the gold dusted sky by
the love of a thousand stars
as the only constant of life.
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.
Storylines in Verse 