The silence
is not deafening,
the flowers
are not listening
to my hushed soliloquy -
and so I speak;

I only ask for an ounce, but
I yearn for more bouts
of domestic felicity.
It's not some grand wish,
no mere flight of fancy -
only a gentle plea
for an interlude
from the monotone
blur of days.

At first, it sounds
so very twee:
layered harmonies
and classical strings,
like an echo of
Vivaldi's "Spring"

But Pomme asks,
"Pourquoi j’y pense encore?
Y a quoi de mieux avant?"
Why do I still think about it?
What was there
that was better before?

In an earlier verse,
I was slowly
singing towards
my dirge.

Does it have to be heavy today?
Can I not carry
every memory,
every almost,
every ache—
just for today?

I don't know how to love you anymore.
Is it love if it feels like obligation?
I don't know how to share things with you now.
So I let you create stories with your imagination.

I keep my failures and success on a shelf.
It's a way for me to keep protecting myself.
You knowing anything feels far too vulnerable for me.
Cuz you have a history of using it all against me.

You lean on me when I've never been that sturdy.
I've told you before but you never really heard me.
You tell me you admire my independence.
I react to your admiration with defense.
Cuz you never really listened and if you did,
You'd know what a lonely road it's been.

I know you never received the love you desire.
I sympathize for you, but that sympathy grows tired.
Because you could've changed the cycle with me.
Instead you repeated history.
I don't want to carry this resentment anymore.
But I also can't seem to leave it on the floor.
Believe me I have tried, but it's always by my side.
I cannot forgive something you were never sorry for.
I needed a protector.

Love is thinner than a piece of cheesecloth,
transparent yet confusing to navigate.
More conservative than a political debate
More hearts are broken than mended
.
I am determined to search globally for an end to this love.
We desire it fiercely and embrace our fate to heal humanity.

Love may be a fleeting remedy,  
Yet we pursue it with fervent desire,  
Yearning to feel complete.

How many times must someone
How many times must we yearn to feel complete?  
How many times will we be let down by this thing called love?  
He loves me, or he doesn’t.  
I love him, but he chooses to reject my advances.  
His heart clearly desires someone else.

Love is a cross that many of us must bear.
It can be a profound and challenging burden to carry.
However, I feel empathy for its victims in relation to what we call love.
Love cannot be controlled or confined.

I will not bring something
new into this world.

I have lost every thing ever given to me,
I will break anything I make;
I will make nothing.

I let her go,

I left her.

Turn your palms to the sky and ask for rain;
Turn your palms to each other and ask for help;

Turn your palms to me

Turn your palm to me

A cheek is meant to be red (oh rouge oh blush oh pain)
Turn my palms to the ground and ask for forgiveness
I’m sorry I thought-
I’m sorry I’ll try-

I’m sorry, tell me why

Turn my palms to each other
I hold the world;
Turn my palms to me
I swear I am sincere.

I have let everything break around me

I cannot fix anything, I make anew a lie, the taste in my mouth is not stone, it is grinding pebbles
paper becomes mulch wet chew salt ink

I don’t deserve this

I am angry
I don’t deserve this

Turn your palms to the earth and whisper your wish
Close my hand around my sword

Close your hand in the dirt

Your neck shall

Your bones shall

My blade shall


Everything I have ever touched has been broken;

Thank you for letting me embrace you

I will not bring something new into this world.  It was a happy dream.  Don’t let me go

Break yourself with me

Your stem is crooked — your head will fall
without help.  Your neighbour crosses your path
but lends no support.

You must be the only broken thing.

Why?

What hurt you? Did anything hurt you at all? If I could look in the past
Read you like a story
Satisfy the curiosity
— Did you snap
under the weight of a visitor? Or
Is your crown too heavy? Was life too kind; It let you grow fat and happy.
Was life too harsh and you begged for everything on the chance you’d get something at all,
until you had enough, and suddenly found you didn’t know how to stop begging?

There’s no story to read.
I walk away
and don’t think of you

until I’m writing a poem about daisies, and I walk
the same road I’ve walked every day
before — in my mind, in the dark of
my room, with bare feet
wearing a comfortable day dress to bed
because I don’t want to do laundry — and I remember you
I remember spotting you because you were different and
Oh, what a shame: this one is broken
unlike all the others
I had no rush so I stopped and looked
But there was nothing else to see so I kept walking.

This time I do not walk away.
I stop and look
and I think of you,
The broken Shasta Daisy, taller than all the others digging through the pavement
— you will fall further than them all, and you were the only one worth knowing.