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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I crashed into sleep last night,
tumbling down a nightmare of
a rabbit hole, where love was
obsolete and solace was sought
after like a sacred form of drug,
mythical and scarce, as though
I wasn’t accustomed to comfort
inside my lover’s arms- I broke
by the minute, reaching out for
an arm to hold, only continuing
to fall further in a delusional and
obscure hell, where I was both a
ringmaster and victim, bound by
my subconscious, searching for
the remains of my piloted dream.
Storylines in Verse 