Posts tagged poem

I
If my ink could think it would tell me
To stop writing about him
If I hear my paper rightly
As it flutters in the wind,
Muttering bitter nothings.
Little smudges on my skin;
The evidence of love, erased,
Scrubbed and washed down sinks and drains,
To find me again in summer days.

II
I’ll drink my words in evening tea
And wonder why it is that he
Still occupies these spaces
My heart and mind let out for free.
I’ll spend August chasing
Rhymes and phrases
Over butterflies and
Freshest daisies.
I’ll sit and drink,
And pause and think
And write him out of me.

You’re the name I hesitate to type, to write,
To murmur in the spaces either side of midnight,
To let infiltrate my mind,
Draining through the nooks,
And down my spine.
Across all my skin, you climb,
In blood, you swim against the current.
Fighting pulses, all you’ve done is
Wake the turning tide,
Burning eyes
Follow the contours of your thighs,
Little fires rage and die, behind the smile at which you glance.
These lips know our kisses would leave relics on each other’s skin
Mistakes of magnificence,
These hands know they could encircle yours like birds,
But resist.
I resist.
You’re the name I hesitate to wish, to miss,
To love.

The year I loved you was a whirlwind of bitterness,
Fears and doubts,
Blown back
By the littlest hopes,
Shouting above the storm,
Proudly waving the times we shared
Above their heads, crying
‘Think how in love they could be.’

This year, I love you like a blizzard,
I see you less and less,
You move me
Backward,
But the littlest hopes
Shout above the storm
With my voice. And they’re proud of you.
The snow drowns my sighing.
Think how in love we could be.

I wish I was a wanderer,
Because wanderers turn heads.
They stir bedsheets and burn bright in books,
They can captivate with looks,
Private glances, midnight dances;
The artisans of fine romances.

Wanderers have all the fun,
Just ask the stars and the setting sun about
The one the boy in the cafe follows with his eyes,
Until he drifts out of sight,
The one the locals shopkeepers smile at,
He stumbles over language, but it’s met with a laugh.
For little failures don’t linger
In a wanderer’s mind.
He doesn’t have to rehearse how to say ‘I’m fine,’
And sound convincing
In his native English.

He’s busy thinking brilliant things;
How dawn and dusk sing a duet,
No doubt, he’s seen them both,
In the company of
Fascinating people.
I can write them, and him, to life,
I can wish until my throat is dry,
I can walk and talk, perhaps I
Too,
Can be a wanderer.

You’re already more than I can withhold
In these cold, expectant bones,
Pacing rain-beaten streets
In the furthest dark retreats
And empty hollows, I can hear your name echo, encouraging
These dormant hopes,
This ignorant bliss
To surge and seek and seize and
Miss.
I’m missing you too soon,
I’m pounding bricks, you’re cupping fists;
Asking where I got that bruise.
I slipped… which is true.
I tripped, right over you.
This is it, here we go again.
The best laid plans of mice and men
Often go to shit.

(Source: birdcagesfromitaly)

I wish the nothings between us would grow sweeter,
That I could leap in faith, not teeter
On the tip of inhibition, on the tip of your tongue;
I thought I caught a glimpse of the words I long
To hear, but they fell dead or fled
The same second you turned your head

Away. But that’s coincidence,
You’re not one for compliments,
Except when they’re addressed to you.
Well, arrogance is nothing new,
Nothing I haven’t seen before.
I wish the nothings between us would mean more.

At least, as much as they mean to me.
But that’s a want too far, and, honestly,
I know that we are not akin
And lust is just a fleeting sin,
But I would fall from grace for you,
And fall flat upon my face, too.

(Source: birdcagesfromitaly)

You left me to starve
Off words carved from marble,
Gilded roses,
Fucking angels couldn’t have sang a song as sweet,
But I don’t believe it for a second.
I don’t dare to
In case it’s true.
Therefore,
My wrath is my craft,
And these words are for
You.

Every.

One.

Mine are bitter pills to swallow,
Infecting your honeyed promises
With medicinal honesty,
Until poison’s all that’s left.

Your words were handpicked to balm,
Mine, to wound, instead.
Your words left me to starve,
Mine, leave you for dead.

Your mutterings are lost beneath
The rise and fall of distant seas.
My sighs are for the wind to take,
And cause another’s bones to shake.
The gaps between our little speech
Prove kisses have too far to reach
But they still try, the sailors find
Them drowned in nets pulled from the brine.
Our sweet nothings unravel as they travel,
So their arrival is marked only with the faint scent of cinnamon and honey.
Let us go our separate ways
Or let us spend our mismatched days
Chasing each other’s midnight,
Until I chase seagulls down to the waves,
They soar and wheel in the greying skies,
As I run headlong at the tide,
And dive,
Promising myself,
At the other side,
Some foreign gulls are taking flight.

You’ll have to forgive me,
If I appear rude,
It’s just you have the most amazing i’s.
They shine, amidst constellations of consenants
And, honestly,
The way you punctuate your sentences with sighs,
How your syntax wavers from blunt to slight,
How you can leave me hanging off your every word…
Then pull the noose tight
Is extraordinary.
I’d adore to hear more, but
…I haven’t the time,
And you’ll have to forgive me.

I have learned
The exact shade of tea I like,
The colour of my window at midnight,
Not to dwell on sad thoughts any more than twice a day.
And
I can catch a spider on my own,
I sleep in such a way, that the bed doesn’t feel empty at all.
In fact, I like having the space to sprawl,
Unflatteringly,
And have no one else judging me.
The characters I read
May not talk, but they speak to me,
More than any of my current crushes.
What pushes me into life in the morning
Isn’t a text from my darling,
But the belief that I can, perhaps, prove myself
To myself
Today.
I can, and will, create something great,
Appreciate what I take for granted,
And continue to learn, to a fine art,
All that I am, and all the parts of the world I value,
See, I need to know myself, before I can begin to know you.

I’m pretty sure
I can continue to fall
Into the pit in my stomach,
For just as long
As you can continue to undo
Thread after thread
Of my parachute,
Woven from the thinnest yarn
Of esteem,
And confidence,
And hope.
Nope.
It seems it won’t be a smooth landing
After all.

Although
Puberty made me as ugly as the word itself,
Except my conflicting consonants were acne and rapid growth,
Although
Imagination made my heart melt from even the warmth of a smile,
And my thoughts dark, only lit when inspired,
Although
My skin still hasn’t learned how to handle the seasons,
Despite all my flaws, and all other reasons
To resent the spindly figure reflected there,
With a grin too wide,
And facial hair
Too light, to be sexy… or quirky… or cute,
When I pass him in the mirror, I try not to be rude,
See, he has to put up with as much of me as I have to do,
I’d rather greet him as a friend, which means I don’t have to like him,
We still end up cursing each other, blaming and fighting,
But at least he has time for me, when I don’t,
At least he will love me, when I won’t,
At least, wherever I’m living, wherever I roam,
I know that where he is, there is my home.

If I’m still up at midnight,
That’s alright,
It’s fine,
I’m fine,
I’ve no need for a Valentine,
To punctuate with a kiss at the end of ‘Good night.’

I won’t lose sleep over saving a tree,
I might feel guilty that those chocolates,
In a heart-shaped box, may never find a home in me,
But that’s all.

‘I’m sorry you’re single!’
I’m not. I’m not sorry your hair’s that colour,
Or that you wear it a certain way,
You can do with it what you like,
I don’t feel especially jealous today.

If I’m still up at three in the morning,
Maybe I’m not okay,
But that’s my business.

When it’s your birthday, I’m not sad it’s not mine.
I can be sad, regardless if I have a Valentine.

Nights have never tasted as good,
Since I asked for ink and he drew blood.
Since we kissed for sport, and he ran rings
Around my lips and hips, but his fingers
Knew too well a stranger’s skin.
There’s only so much heat in sin,
And my patience was thawing thinner
Come each morning. In fact, by dinner
I hoped he’d choke on his ego,
So I’d be his saviour, throw my arms around him,
In his devotion I was a drowning sailor,
Drunk on what I thought was bliss,
But sea-salt is a cold, course kiss.
It’s never tasted so good since,
But the shore won’t forsake his imprints.

I wish I could gather
All the scattered moments,
That made me question
Your intention,
And present them, as evidence.
Stand up, in the dock, and declare,
‘Here!
Here’s why I might love you!’
I’ve felt I’ve had to justify it
Everyday since I realised.
If I did recall these memories,
That don’t mean to you, what they do to me,
Irregular heartbeats,
Pre, mid and post-fall,
If you were the judge, is there proof there was love?
Did you witness what I did at all?