I look in the mirror and I no longer see myself, I see the man you want me to be. I look behind me and see the ghost of my mistakes and the man I was before you found me. I still struggle with my own demons and I often feel like I fail, but you are there beside me and you see the potential that I do not see in myself. So I will do my best to be patient and let you lead me. I will listen to advice that you give and let your love comfort me. In the end I will trust that I will become what you see that I can be.

11:24pm, not 11:11
because I just realized how much I love you,
How much I think of you,
How much you
And your abscence
Have taken so much of me.
If you knew what that meant you would come back to life and actually kiss me.

If you weren't real, I'd make you up.
I'd spill my heart like rivers run.
I'd throw away your yesterdays
And write your name in outer space
With stars.

Silvered Screen Memories
By
Jude Kyrie*

The old Bijoux cinema closed today.
After all this time it closed its doors.
It is empty now overtaken by technology and time.
Perhaps a lot like me,
Its silver screens
have graced the best of Hollywood.

How often we sat there together my love.
Watching Bogart and Bacall share a kiss.
Later returning to our small flat
to make tea and love.

You were so beautiful my angel
All that I ever wanted or needed.
All that I ever prayed for.

Remember how I stood outside your flat

In the pouring Seattle rain
just to catch a glimpse of you.
I was young then and
so in love with you---So in love.

You have gone now of course
Such beauty is for the Gods
Not for ordinary men like me.
I shall miss this old place so much
Watching the old movies
flickering on the screen.
Thinking of our time together.

I know I did not move
on quiet as I should have done.
You see my love
My heart was very broken
and sadly
still remains so
even after all these years.

But sometimes in an old movie
that we had seen a hundred times.
Yes, I know the endings are always the same.
But In my heart.
I can feel your hand slip softly into mine
just like it used to.
And as I can feel it there,
just for a single moment
All is well in this world once more.

I would not change
a single thing about us my love.
Even knowing how broken
I would be after you left me.
And how my heart
would be vacant for evermore.

For once in my life,
I reached for a star,
and for a fleeting moment
I held it in my hands.

Inside a dark room.
In a locked box.
A lock of hair
a letter
A photograph
All my dreams
No one sees them
Brilliant Black

Inside a dark room
In a locked box
A love poem
A perfume bottle
A faded rose
All hidden in darkness
Brilliant Black

Inside a dark room
In a locked box
A house sad and silent
Full of lost shadows
No one knows
Brilliant Black

Inside a dark room
In a locked box
Dried tears.
My heart
shattered like crystal.
No one cares
*Brilliant Black

Like me,
my Poetry is far from perfect,
—a verbal oxen gored

Like me,
my words are often frail and broken,
—still crying to be heard

In me,
the message has found its student,
—to very humbly expound

In me,
the truth can accept a birthmark,
—for a promise more profound

Unto me,
the burden is left to finish,
—my life to pledge headlong

Unto me,
  the words now free—unsentenced,
  change imperfectly to song

(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2016)