I took a chance at romance,
swaying between the pillars
of you and I, where I could
grab your hand in an elegant
twirl, siting you, my moon,
to be the most beautiful girl,
as we lived happily, dancing
beneath the sky. With every
step, and every spin, I held
your heart and pulled you in,
as we were lovers, braving
the night – I took your hand
and the dance began, as we
swayed gently, just you and I.
I brought only wildflowers
lost to the softest shadow of
a rose, expert in their travels,
knowing little of the leisurely
kind of love and less fragrant
than a promising heartbreak,
those wildflowers were all I
had – vibrant and yet hidden
behind thorns of another love.
I watched them wither away,
just like every dying rose, as
though no love could be saved.
As the night progressed
into the gentle falling of
rain against the windows,
my words washed away
into memory, drifting by
the outskirts of streams,
in downcast symphonies
set to rhythms and blues;
with the winds twitching,
mumbling the remainder
of my thoughts, I am left
to drown in the hopes of
love in silence, hardened
against memories of soft
jazz, flowing like the rain.
In the subtle cluster of stars,
where my hands have danced
along the brightest side of the
moon and have touched with
the gentlest of embraces the
edges of our memories left to
the shadows, cooled down by
time and never ending space;
I still find your heart beating
with every falling star, left to
the hopeless romantics making
wishes on the remnants of love.
Somewhere in the transition
of my love for you and being
allowed to love you once more,
I lost my voice – gone were the
words that flew so easily from
my pen, left instead to the blue
inked stains smeared across the
pages, crossed out and repeated
twice more until love itself had
become this illusion and I could
no longer convey my affection
without the promise of bleeding
my heart on the page, and in my destruction, my voice withdrew;
leaving behind thoughts I could
not put into words, strangled by
time and longing, as though upon
its death, the truth could be free.
I’ve traveled to the edge,
where I could sit upon my
own dreams, counting the
stars as they fell in delicate
repetition of the beats of my
heart, soothing the fall with
the faintest whisper of blues;
my thoughts left to scour the
sky as I paint the horizon in
colors I’ve never before used,
watching and waiting for night
to fall, searching my mind for a
chance at escape, set against
a sight of lasting midnight hues.
Below the fading clouds,
the ripples from the tides
are caught in serenades of
the summer, with laughter
from the docks and sand
between our toes, with us
left wandering around the
lake, caught in that lasting
hour between stars and sun,
counting the fading shades
of the sky, whispering until
tomorrow to our sun-kissed
loving haze – we know how
to serenade our days, start
with a song of the lake and
hope summer never fades.
It was her words that held
on to me through the night,
in delicate whispers falling
sporadically like raindrops
to cleanse my beating heart
in reassurances of affection;
I feared the coming storms,
darkening the sky in littered
debris and crashing through
the shadows in far too close
lightning strikes, as I wept –
holding on to every whisper
of her delicate voice trailing
through the black and murky,
waiting for the moon to shine.
We were left to wander
the streets with the signs
of dusk looming, set in
motion beneath a subtle
hue of jazz found in the
stars, with you and I as
the trumpet and the sax,
trailing songs with our
footsteps, singing along;
we were born wanderers,
left to the rhythms set by
the land, following along
with the moon and stars
guiding us hand in hand
to the places only seen by
the inside of our dreams.
On the Phoenix we rose,
flying higher than the jazz
notes in June, with a steady
pour of those whiskey sours
at the ready, you and I were
back to the golden ages of
love after midnight, found
in the playful rhythms of a
trumpet and her sax; where
time for love had become a
luxury, yet the jazz kept on
swaying, and the drinks had
kept on pouring, falling into
repetitions of my heartbeat
singing against your chest –
we were flying higher than
the Phoenix, and we flew on.
Storylines in Verse 