i'm in a car with a beautiful boy,
and i keep telling him that i love him,
so it hurts.
he thinks it's platonic, thinks that i
couldn't turn the entire world
upside down just to show him
how wrong he is.
it's been a week, he says.
(i know this, and i know it hurts, so i
hold his hand except i don't,
not really,
because it all happens in my head)
i tell him, i know, i'm sorry.
and it feels like my hands are on fire
because all i want is to hold him;
i see the ashes leave traces everywhere:
on his face, on his hands, his arms,
his heart.
i blink and it's all gone.
i'm back in the car with the beautiful boy.
he reaches out and holds my hand
and my ribcage expands;
for once in my life,
this is something i cannot find a name for.

That song, that awful terrible song.
The absurd sting. The foolish decision. The irony of it all.
Me, staring down at the black and white grin of the piano keys,
every atom in my body screaming with awareness of you.
If I didn’t look at you, not even once.
If I kept my gaze elsewhere. If I leveled my tone to a sedated monotone.
If I talked about pace and rhythm and chorus and speed up there and slow down here and yes, yes, like that, beautiful. If I didn’t watch your hands on the bow or the bow on the strings
or the light on your face. If I crushed those violets of want blooming in my belly.
If I built myself a castle of steel through which you could never penetrate, maybe,
maybe, I could reach a quivering sort of equilibrium.
But that song. The melody mocking me, mocking my heartache,
pointing to my hidden places and yanking the curtain aside.
It shouldn’t have been romantic, not the stone in my chest, nor the
frigid fact of my unreciprocated feelings
but god, the room shrank until it seemed as if you had hollowed me out and
saturated me with yourself, that the end of me
and the beginning of you had become completely indistinguishable,
my heartbeat so loud we should have heard it echo off the walls.
That song and that glow and that loss. That soft desire, that song
I should never have suggested we play, that ruin.
That song and you and
you.

One day
We will have our time in the Sun
But until then
I will stand here
Admiring you from the Moon

You are
    memorable
       to me
              and
        I was
          probably
                      just
          another face
                in the crowd
            for you.

Confusion taints
My every thought,
Round and round in my head;
I can't stop it coming.
The words are
Running like rabbits;
I'm close to giving up.
There it goes again.

I feel the sand
Between my toes,
Waves lapping at the shore.
It sounds so peaceful.
We live out here
In Paradise.
Our lives are different,
But dreams are much the same,
He has his, I have mine;
I am at peace once more.



© Karen L Hamilton, 2012

you are a nightmare come to life;
you are a wish unfulfilled.  
you are the multitude of daydreams
running
through my mind
scenarios that will never happen,
scenarios that will only ever exist
in my imagination.

do you feel the same way i do?
it is a question
that taunts me every night.
as i lay my head to sleep,
i can't help but think of
your 'i love you's and 'i miss you's and
my mind plays the melody that is your voice
on repeat as my eyes close and i start to drift
into nothingness.

you never fail to sweep me off my feet.
you never fail to make my head spin.
you never fail to make my heart skip a beat.
you never fail to make me cry into my pillow every night,
thinking about how there will
never
be an "us".

do you feel the same way i do?
do you get the same feeling i do?
when your hear your heart pounding in your ears,
like an incessant little drummer boy?
when your hands shake and you feel your
entire being vibrate;
do you get this horrible feeling too?

the other night i dreamed i was holding him in my arms hearing his heart beat just the way i imagined it would feel like when our skins touch. he smelled so good something like the combination of everything i've longed for and the comforting smell before rain. but all too soon he started to fade and everything else turned into gray, i didn't want to wake up so i held on to him as tightly as i could clutching his shirt helplessly whispering "please don't go" over and over like a mantra but i still woke up in tears and my heart breaks everytime i remember none of it was ever real.

I miss your eyes
and I miss your voice
and I miss your kiss
and I miss your warmth.
I see you in my dreams
but it's not enough.

Nowhere near enough.

I catch glimpses of you
out of the corner of my eye
and I lose my breath
and my heart races again.

You're the shooting star
I never manage to wish upon.