The hand that written have
become frozen.
Words have become
meaningless.
The paper is just an empty
blank space.
The love story is never
the same.

How can I say I love you,
when a poet died
and words are no more a word for love?
But instead, words have become a hurtful way
to **** somebody soul,
Like the poet.

you burst blackberries between
your fingers. blue juices, sweet somehow,
drip down the curve of your wrist, bleed
like ink over the soft lines of the palm,
skin-colored fortune tellers. the spilled
blackberries leave letters in their ink-paths
here; perhaps an anagram of my name.
now sun calls you daughter. she nursed
you in her light-womb, watched history
unfold on earth like a crane stretching
its feathers. dropped you like a blessing
and brought the first sunset, beckoning sky’s
cotton-candy pinks, sugar-coated cream,
freshly-squished blackberry colours. dancing
down your hands still, sweet, saccharine
ink; all earth’s berry bushes stretch their
twig-arms toward you. the apple trees
call you sister, pick you bouquets of
honeysuckle. sun warmed their blossoms,
they say. their smell is smooth and sugared,
melting in your rosy-fingered hands,
like soft slices of daybreak, snippets of
syrupy dawn. you are eve now, stretching
bare skin in twilight, opening love-laden palms to
blooming bushes of roses, plucking them from
their stems like petal-coated candies; the apex of
nature, zenith of earth’s creatures. a thousand
years wax and wane; beyond the limits of time,
you are one with sky, all the sweet seconds in
history condensed. you pop a blackberry
into your mouth, delicate ink-skin bursting.

as a young girl
I told my mother
I would never get married
and I stuck by that
for years

I got a boyfriend
but I knew
I was never
going to
actually
marry him

but as time goes on
and I get older
and people around me
are getting married
and starting lives
I keep listening to love songs
and noticing
what I want
in a husband

and I am not one
to settle
or settle down
but I made a
google doc
devoted to songs
I want played at my wedding
even though
I've never wanted
a wedding

my loneliness keeps creeping
in
watching me
but
I've finally
succumbed to it
and I want
to make it go away

and for the first time
in my ever expanding
life
I want to stop being alone
and can't stop pondering
childlike
dream wedding
fantasies

****

summer nights are best spent with you.
greedily scarfing down ice cream,
watching our feet touch the sky from old playground swings.

and the ones in your mom’s car
-the soft music, the hard music
singing to melodies that we’ll never know.

each night, we feel each’s wishes.
i, i want to give you fairs, and cotton candy,
and hold your hand as we walk along the sidewalk.

i want to twirl you around,
because though we’re very summer friends
i want to keep you forever.

our feet scrape the gravel,
toes tap the sidewalk,
noses breathe in the air.

distinctly, i remember something
-us in a concert,
our shoulders brushing as we danced.

i remember laughing with you in the water,
because i hated being short,
so naturally i had to climb you.

i remember every year
we laugh away these nights,
until they become memories.

they, were, definitely,
polaroid worthy.
you’d give a blank look.

and then spring would come again,
and we’d be sitting in your mom’s car,
watching the sunset again.

remember this?

it’s getting cold.
her work begins to pile up on her desk,
paper cascading around her off the table,
sitting ignored as she thumbs through a book,
humming softly.

and she feels ever colder,
because though she knows the sun will touch her face one last time,
she feels the impending sense of everything changing.
her freedom, her sleep, and all those books
-piling up around her in dizzying towers she can’t seem to hold upright.

each poem has become an ode.
no longer does she right those summer love poems,
notes of dreams and pining and romance.
she’s grown lonely,
and grown up.

each ode is to who she was
-the kind girl with the widest eyes and strong opinions,
this new girl with no focus,
drifts and watches the ink run down the page.
she’s so worried, because she doesn’t care.
and doesn’t care about that.

tomorrow will be better,
she says, sighing with tiredness repeating over and over again.
tomorrow.
tomorrow.
tomorrow.

but the pounding in her head won’t go away,
and all the doubts sink in
-you’ve lost your edge.
-you’re not doing enough.
-you’re never going to do enough unless you break.

her heart seems to beat colder,
slow down and she’s not that old.
she’s young, and she feels herself,
the brightness and ambition disappearing,
and they’re replaced by content and a sense of emptiness.

These are not the scars of a saint,
red rivulets run down my skin
like crimson tinted paint.

Scratches made in a state
of sorrow and frustration
anguish so deep
that the thought of facing
one more moment
becomes a daytime nightmare.

We steel ourselves
struggling against a beast
that will not fall,
but rages fiercer
then the fiercest forest fire
scorching all
and leaving
only one desire.

We seek the cold
or at least
a certain numbness
because there is
no softness
to our existence.

Broken
and bleeding
in the porcelain
bathtub
as red water
runs over
the edge
and we
succumb to
the eternal sleep.

It is a deluge of thoughts
that rush through
a brain that struggles
to contain,

a treat of glass
figurines
that stand straight up
set to crash
and be smashed
to smithereens.

To be crushed
by the immensity
of all things
that can
and will be
even a case
of
the was
and never was.

A bowl
filled
more than thrice
to the brim
with all of life

Heavy
and dripping
from the sides
all that overflows
is what
we write.

Bubbles blow up
dancing in
cold shadows
as multi colored
oil spirals
circle
inside those
soapy dreams.

Fireflies
lite up
late nights
while flint rocks
make shocking sparks.

I sit on
the rough rooftop
looking up
into the dark
infinite,
that same space
that shared
those strange moments.

These thoughts
are carried long distances
between
those strange instances,
a pleasant past
of playful moments
that never lasts,
but blast pass
all those broken
memories.

Perhaps,
I held to many
expectations.

Is it right
to expect
a mother
to have patience,

To not lash out,
to truly think about
the hearts of
their child’s aspirations.

These are my specters
visitations
of previous incarnations
of pain.

Perhaps,
I should not
hold high
the standard
of acceptance
and appreciation.

That was not her job.
She did do her job,
maybe not
as the perfect
maternal figure,
but she was a provider,

Perhaps,
that is all
that I can truly ask of her,
my mother.

A soft sympathetic voice
cries

Please,
don’t forget
what I was,

a child of love.

Please don’t
let go
of my heart.

Please,
be kind
and kindle
the hearth fire
of compassion.

Please don’t run
when I need you
to stay.

Please,
oh please
don’t
forget me.

The gentle voice
slips away
as the barer
stares coldly
into a blank face.

It is a dark mirror
that marks his change.

He is alone
licking the salt filling
from his cheesy crackers
before crunching them.

Then it is time for him
to do his last patrol.
A set of standard keys
jingles against
the walkie talkie.

It is quiet except
for the extra foot steps
that sound on the ground
behind him.
He turns and
tracks them
to an empty elevator,
that seems to be
changing
floors
of its own volition.

He follows grey stairs
that step up to nowhere,
then walks along
the long quiet corridors
pursued by the sound of
the stuttering
heating and cooling system.

Small papers
covered in
water colors
spin in
the shape of
folded white flowers,
sadly lacking
any rosy scent.

Photos from years ago
adorn the thin walls
of the day worker’s
cubicles,
in the darkness
they seem to blink
quizzically.

The sweet perfume
of holiday treats
lingers and draws him
several feet off course,
towards tiny red lights
that flicker
shifting
in the strange spectrum
of dimly lit rooms,
as the coffee pots
burn off
the last bits
of brown liquid.

A stray stag statue
stares creepily
at the fire alarm.
In the darkness
it seems to shift its
antler covered head
in the direction
of the security guard.

He brushes it off
and finishes the
last part of
his hour long walk,
to find a door unlocked.

He hears a cough,
then jumps in start
turning to see
his evening relief
fifteen minutes early.