In a brush of silence
painted on your sleeve,
fraying at the seems
with a hem of honesty
mixed with tainted chaos –
It is my favorite blend
of colors, discreetly
and artistically crafted
in your scent from
ages drawn with the
curtains, only coming
through with the days
past early September.
I am eager for the shade
to return, wrapping
myself in warmth and
boundaries, bidding the
sun to retreat and for
my days to feel like
home, once again.
The silence has
retreated, creeping
past thunderstorms
and rolling tides,
breaking wind
storms and sonnets,
collapsing into the
hazed waves of
destruction and blue;
beyond the riffs
of water curling
against two words
with a lone promise,
the sun is rising
again, drying out
the absence, and
singing tales of
honey kissed rays.
You listened
to so and so,
say yadda-yah
about doubts
and fears you’d
never once had
before; only this
time they were
miraculously true,
we were wrong,
yet only because
it was easier.
And if that’s
your kind of game,
I guess it’s a
good thing
I’m no longer
invited to play.
As the heat began to drop,
the sun looming over the
tops of the treeline,
I was hit with that
unnerving realization
that while I wasn’t
eager, nor exactly
willing – it was time
to let go, and breathe.
Watch the sun fade,
christening the stars
as I focused on the
colors and shades
no longer the whys,
just one last time –
I was ready. It wasn’t
home but I’m sure
that I’ll be missed.
I’ll never know how to say goodbye –
do I whisper it softly and allow
it to fade off beyond the skyline,
harmonizing with the sweet moments
captured in between the colors of
the sun reflecting off the trees,
or do I slice it in half, bitter
at the core with the pain and anger
that is raging through my thoughts;
the hurt beyond my control as I want
to flee and run circles and scream
all in the moments of your turning
away, with two knifes in my side?
Tell me please, before you leave me.
What can crush an illusion,
such as hope, but two words
with a lone realization?
It’s a false pretense
baiting the walls with
memories shadowed in deceit;
gone are the visions of a
tomorrow filled with laughter
replaced instead with baited
breath – rapid succession beats
tearing apart the soul from the
core inside, trapping the victor
in a whirlwind of what will
never be, and what never
shall even be dreamed.
It’s admitting failure in
the eyes of wanting to change
what can’t be tamed, what has
not even occurred, with what
we could only paint in fantasies.
An illusion such as hope is
our own downfall – a harboring
destruction in our quake of
reality. It is eminent yet
no longer promising; rising
in our ashes only to spread
its wings and recant our spirits.
So why do we hold on for so long?
I couldn’t describe your absence
between the vowels in silence –
a sharpened dusting of gray
rooted in the crevices of the
carpet to the popcorned ceiling,
screaming out memories of images
faded and burned at the corners,
dancing down the halls at a
quarter past two, most nights –
breaking vases and picture frames,
leaving shards of glass on the
floor to shine and gleam from
the light of tomorrow that
seems to never want to return.
But just as I’m befriending the
darkness, the sun rises again
taunting me with wordless sing
alongs about times months before,
begging and baiting me to join –
illuminating the apartment with
paintings on the walls of what
could have been, and what will
no longer be – and I scream.
The silence may be broken, but
your absence is still teasing me
between the vowels of moving on.
I went back to that pond in the park –
the platform of trees off to the South,
half a mile or so beyond the road
with the same family of geese circling
around the island, demanding to be heard.
There’s a little girl again, throwing
bread into the water, and screams of joy
into the air; such sweet innocent youth.
The mosquitoes are worse this time of year,
the grass growing taller here and there,
but dead to sun spots everywhere else.
We should have brought wine with us
last time – it’s refreshing in-between
the breezes that seem to rarely say hello.
I sat on the embankment to the North,
legs stretched out, close enough to hop
into the pond with only a tight jump.
We spoke of Colorado when we were here
last – planning out the next year
of the rest of our lives, beginning
with bon fires and whiskey this summer.
It’s not as warm here anymore, or
perhaps that’s just your absence.
The crickets are still chanting –
whether melancholy or desire, I’m
not aware, but it’s lovely all the same.
The sun is behind me, casting diamonds
in the ripples, pretending to be more
than just a little pond in the park –
things are always trying to appear
to be grander than what they are, and I
suppose that’s my own problem reflecting
itself at the bottom of a bottle of wine,
and too much exposure with the sun.
There’s a small frog croaking about
three and a half feet to the right of me –
if only you had seen him last time,
you could have befriended him, and saved
him from the ultimate fate that took
everything else away from here – if only.
I had gone to that pond again last weekend,
and I had seen that frog you were so eager
to catch, hopping about like life was grand.
I thought maybe you’d like to know.
It feels too early to be laughing –
a gentle crooning as the sun
is falling asleep, the bugs
singing chorus after chorus,
the songs of early summer.
This was your season, and my
laughter is hindering the
picture that I painted,
dreaming of these days –
you and I on the patio
with a few beers to our names,
counting down the hours
until the stars would appear,
simply because we had nothing
but time, just you and I.
But now we aren’t forever –
the crickets are mocking
in their mating calls,
the neighbors are whispering –
it isn’t fair that they
always loved you more.
Everyone loved you more, and
that was the problem, wasn’t it?
I can’t keep pretending that
I’m doing alright considering,
when I can’t even describe
the blazing heat of the
boulder that’s crashing down
on my chest every time
a spark of interest in a
memory of the two of us comes
screaming in, demanding to be heard.
No, this summer will be long;
with laughter evaporating
before it can even make
waves with the falling rain.
In an ice induced blaze,
I am struggling to keep
my head from drowning –
my feet are dangling,
grasping for any ground
to grab hold of;
my arms are stone cold,
too stubborn to grasp.
I was never the warrior,
too timid to fight back;
but yet I’m supposed to
keep fighting for you?
Give me a blade, a sword,
a word, or an anecdote –
I have nothing left beyond
a sigh of defeat
in a barren cause.
The cold too much,
the flames too high,
my battle never finished.
I have lost – a great burden
on the hopeful and enduring.
Now let me rest,
or leave me to drown.
Storylines in Verse 