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.
I watch as my love, my world,
begins to quake with the gentle
shakes of tears and silent pleas,
hovering in loneliness without
the touch of a delicate embrace
to ease away the troubled minds
of a heart left to break; with my
hands left grasping onto a shell
of the emptiness of another day,
I am left quivering in the silence
unable to mend my world, or fix
my own breaking heart, as I am
unable to save you from yours.
Truth was shredding
through the darkness
like the sun kisses the
stars awake, blending
shades of words into
wisdom and feelings,
cutting through edges
of blackened dust by
the fiercest of kisses;
truth lies in the dark
shadows, softened by
a denial of the unseen,
where words can hide
emotions and actions,
destroying any hope
of a peaceful recovery.
I thought I had your heart,
all this time I was calling it
mine, still believing that our
memories had been painted
on the walls of your heart in
crimson shades of the golden
days when a whisper was all
that it took, more than just a
look and I was yours and you
were all mine – but with days
fading, and the paint chipping
away, I ask myself how long
I shall be allowed to stay…
Bury me in the autumn,
propped against the dying
willows, so I can whisper
alongside them until the
mornings end – carry me
past the river, where the
roots are growing plenty,
caught inside the daze of
my lengthened goodbyes.
Remember me in autumn,
when the trees have faded
into whispers beyond the
river, where the age of my
innocence and youth still
linger in the roots; and if
the winds shall no longer
reach the willows, miss
me, in my final goodbye.
I struck a match at twelve
counting to five and watching
the smoke rise just long enough
for me to miss you – you were
my evening, night, and my air,
clouded in ash and memories;
with a burnt tipped match left in
my hand, as all that remained of
a time fueled in fire and desire,
where the rising smoke was a
promise we were infinite, with
city streets falling way beneath
us, now we’re just slow burning
into rising clouds of dust and ash.
Where the edges
are burning inward
and the smoke still
rises at dawn, where
the scattered ashes
lay entangled across
memories, left to
desolation in the
wrong – there is a
sadness among the
trails where the
butterflies used to
be, where death has
become the neighbor,
opening doors with
sighs against the
smoke, in order to
finally be free.
The words so fearlessly hung
from her lips, yet she refused
to speak them in the darkest
hours of untold truth – instead
struggling to gather strength to
mumble echoes from her heart
that would cause cracks in my
own unsteady foundation. She
was aware of very little beyond
the coming farewell, but she
spoke with a certainty of it in
her heart and it showed on the
delicate lips that I used to be
allowed to kiss with my own
certainty goodnight, yet now
had to casually watch tremble
as she tried repeatedly to say
the words that went beyond a
promise. Those words fearless,
yet the actions were fading in
moments as I turned to kiss her
lips one last time in memory.
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 