Why do you treat me like I'm
Your Mistress?
Your little secret that no one else can see.
When your friend's walk by and
We're together
You never even look at me.

Why do you treat me like
Something on the side?
Your little hidden gem that no one notices.
When we're with each other
No one else matters
Until I'm left all alone again.

Then, why do I treat you like
My own little secret?
Can I be such a hypocrite?
I can't bring myself tell anyone
Anything
This isn't lasting, is it?

Shake me by my wrists
Tell me how much I've improved lately
and how nice it feels
to know that the word, home,
Doesn't mean a place
Please whisper to me
how scary love can be
Sometimes I am the human embodiment of the color
blue
Start at my collarbones
and
Paint me yellow

i've walked the appalachian train
and swam in the great atlantic sea

i've climbed mountains
and the stairs of lighthouses

i've seen concerts
and choirs
and musicals
and plays

i've mastered
the streets
of the big apple

i've been to disney world
in florida
santa's villiage
in new hampshire

i've been down the shore
i've gone down south

i've seen more
civil war monuments
than i ever knew existed

and way too many cities

but

of the things that i've seen
and the things that i've not
the sight of you
still takes my breath away

the thought of you
still causes my heart
to skip a beat

True Reflection
I saw him walking down the uneven concrete
He had a beat to his step, every move on count
Avoided slanted ladders and black cats on corners
Steel noose hung from his neck that resembled a cross
It dangled like an unsteady decoration
He had a long stride and I was on par with pace
Walked close but there was a wide gap in our bridge
Chicago wind pushed through us with cold shoulders  
It carried harsh fumes of a forest cremation  
Evergreen trees torched, leaves fall to the ground mourning
He enjoyed the smoke’s company, didn’t wave her off  
But she left as he heard chords of American horns
He bobbed his head to the sermons preached by beggars
Ran from synchronized fireworks between gangs
Glared at visual art of red and blue strobe lights
Treaded his fingers on chipped pale skin of town houses
And tasted the sweet sourness of a girl’s rain-check
His expression was content like the heart of a book
His smile fell in sequenced with the collapse of eyelids
I became aware that something was weighing his walk
Opaque bottles barely stood straight in his coat pockets
Staggered after each other like rows of dominos
Bottles fractured causing the cement to catch ripples
He couldn’t brake over broken glass he drove into me
Nose to Nose we touched as we were about to crash
I carved into the core of his eye and saw myself
Lying on the pavement with a blanket of fragments
And I realized I couldn’t remove the stained glass
Because what was there belonged from the beginning

On that warm pavement lang syne sings, on that silky water the present I breath in, on that cloth of heaven I weaved hereafter. A shelter for my glees, woes and reveries. I paused and found myself, I ground my sole to rest. On that path, in that bouldered, airy nest.

pain knocks on weathered doors
fastened ever tightly
cryptic access is denied
it camouflages in the shadows

stealthily it watches
hypervigilance enhancing
catastrophe awaiting
it strikes in latent graveyards

the gale begins to form
and unleashes its fierce torrent
the latch shattered and torn
there’s now an open entrance

creeping in it slithers
engulfing to encompass
digging up emotions
buried underground there

hovering and foggy
tho’ murky does not smother
but fleshes out the psyche
entombed and cobweb covered

it crawls along the edges
and peers in secret ledges
seeps into sequesters
like dust settled in feathers

it slides through every feeling
and when it’s at its blackest
it carves the darkness out
and let’s in sunlight’s presence

© 2016janetaylor