I finally took the pictures of you
Down off of my wall
Saying no to this anymore
You no longer have my all
Every thought every breath
Every beat of my heart
It’s sickening, but all of that
Was yours from the start.
You told us that you’d come to haunt me
If you were the one who died first
And I laughed and shook my head but who knew
Someday I’d be writing this verse
Saying I know more about the afterlife
Than I ever did before you left
I haven’t seen a trace of you since then
So I know exactly where you went
You’re not here lingering, messing with our minds
You’re actually up in heaven now
You’re not by my side.
I can’t see you here but I know now
You aren’t haunting me either
Because if anyone was likely too,
Well, you were always a little bit meaner
You liked to be a butt,
You liked to be a pest
But when it came down to it all
You loved me more than the rest
And that’s why you’d haunt me-
I remember you said
But now you’re up in heaven, gone
Your memories haunt my head.
So I can laugh and say that now I know
A little bit, for sure, about the afterlife
Because you haven’t come back like you said
“I’m going to haunt you when I die.”
And I wonder do you
Still want Alejandro tattooed down your side
Where I want the lyrics to the song I turned to
When you left me shattered
And do you only hold her hand in the dark
In the secret
So nobody knows that you might be falling
So nobody knows that you might actually care
Did you care at all?
And I wonder when I see a movie
Do you only watch extended versions
So you might feel like you know more than everyone else?
I felt your heart that night speed up endlessly
Thinking that it was beating for me as I held on tight
Preparing for the best
You held my hand in the dark
And told me you didn’t love me
And I wonder
Do you still say those things now?
“You’re not pretty like them” and “nobody will ever love you”
Like that was supposed to be comforting.
Just like I never loved myself, you told me
No one will ever love me. Especially not you.
You held my hand all the while. It must have been midnight; dark.
Secret; you weren’t falling nor romantic
But do you still think of me when you pass a gazebo or hear our song?
I hope it tears you apart worse than you tore me apart
The night you decided I was just a stray dog to be kicked.
I hope you got the tattoo and I hope
She doesn’t hold your hand because you don’t deserve it
I hope your side stings from the mistake;
From the regret and the guilt when you see the scars
The never fading marks of what you did
I hope the extended versions bore you and you realize
You’ll never know what I learned that night
When my heart raced and yours finally slowed
Because that night I learned the world in the breaking;
You told me I would never be loved,
But from that moment I realized I already was.
So get the tattoo and hide in the dark;
You’ll never hide from the monster you are.
Turn the water hotter and hotter
Until the liquid scalds my bare back
But I turn it hotter yet
Wanting to burn away the memories that plague me
Laying right behind my eyes
Right in my brain that can’t be reached by
Water.
Hotter and hotter until I turn it off;
Nothing hurts anymore, I can’t feel
The handle won’t turn up anymore.
It reached its limit; I won.
The pain still there behind my eyes.
I’m losing the battle, breaking inside;
The second meltdown in a year.
One of the hardest things you can do in life
Is to be who you are in a world
That tells you that isn’t good enough.
That second guesses every choice you make and says
You did it all for the wrong reasons
That points out your failures and scars;
Reminders of a past that never leaves.
And the hardest thing you can ever do is
Pack up your bags and leave not because things are tough
But
Because you are worth it; you deserve what you want
Things are tough enough to leave,
But tough enough to stay.
You must get out for what’s best for you
Not what the world is telling you to do-
What the world is telling you is right-
What the world is telling you is your duty.
You must get out, see the world for what it is-
And win.
Plagued Still
Nobody can comprehend exactly
How this feels
And I’m not even sure how deep to go
Before this is real.
because the pain isn’t on the ivory wrist
It’s so much deeper than the flesh
But so hard to find with time
These wounds are far from fresh
What I want to kill cannot be seen
Or severed by a blade
It’s deeper, etched in the corners of my mind
Always on display.
But one day I will win and I
Will finally be the conqueror of this
Overcoming by grace this pain
No longer in need of that steel kiss.
Today marks a year where I have finally won.
Thoughts on Grandma
She never talks much;
Without him around she has a hard time smiling.
But you put on that old Johnny Mathis record
And her eyes will light up and she’s in love again.
She can’t hear the music
The words are indistinguishable
But if you crank it up all the way,
Shell catch a piece and start to sing.
And suddenly she’s young and in love on the dance floor
Spinning in circles as her dress swishes over her knees
All the words are still in her mind, which comes alive again
Even if just for a few minutes
But as the song starts to fade, so do the memories
And she sinks back into her chair and her faded blue jeans
While the memory of him dances away with her smile.
I would wait for weeks and weeks with no end
Just to have two days with you.
Hour after hour patiently
For two seconds in your arms
To have minutes with you, it’s true
I would wait three months alone.
One moment with you is enough
To satisfy me a fortnight or two
The ocean can call me back to its shores
As long as I know,
You will wait for me too.
This Only Makes Sense to Me.
I don’t know when I started to capitalize my name
(You must make me feel important)
You grabbed me by the hand and held my heart
(You knew just where to find me)
That first day, I think, I smiled for the first time
(You know just how to brighten my day)
8 months ago I wrote it down, insignificant
(But you came along, and stayed)
Now I write it down, proud, capitalized
(You’ve made me believe I am important)
I want you to go
But I desperately need you to stay
Like scarlet running down the porcelain
Flowers bloom where blood is drained
White scratches mark the years of growth
Petals destined to bloom and wither; repeat, alone.
Time is marked when I missed you the most
The carving blade shook off the flaws;
Creating new-
As the new porcelain vase was formed, right in your view.
Your expert eye was watching, nodding, approving
As time made the vase fall apart.
You watched me fall apart.
In That Circle, We Danced.
We sang for the moon and the stars and the Three,
We danced in the sand and the sea and the waves.
We sang for the stars and the sun as they raced
Across the silent curtain of the ever black sky.
They mingled with the light and the dark alike,
Proving neither to be wrong nor right.
We stood near the shore of the crashing blue
As the waves and the wind drove silence away.
And we sang, oh we sang with the voices of these,
Of the wind, of the rain, of the blowing trees,
With the light of the sun and the moon on their faces,
Their eyes as haunting as cavernous places.
In this world where the outer shell of all life,
Is covered with black of sickening lies,
The light does not shine, does not shed its hue,
And the darkness does not show it.
Then one takes a blow to the deepest heart,
And the black chips off, revealing the light.
Then you see as you are, as you hope full of the stars,
But some only find the darkness of night.
Alas there may be a fleck of gold,
As if reflecting the light of a crescent moon,
Nothing more than a sliver, a shimmer of hues,
But it brings to your eyes a smile to last,
In life, in love, in peace, in war.
That sliver shall change, more and more,
Growing larger and wider and greater in size,
And its light shall burn brighter than a thousand smiles.
A breath that’s a smile, a whisper, and a song,
A dance for all the people;
But mainly just for Him, and then ours eyes can see,
This sphere of wondrous light,
Which gives us hope not for just now,
But a reason to truly live
I was his jellyfish; spineless, yet lacking the ability to sting.
After the hell you put me through
I’m putting a number one to the sky and screaming,
‘Cause this one’s for you.
I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking to be loved.
Autumn.
Autumns when we were in love, I recall-
The shade of the sun on the trees at five o’clock
like the shadow on your face at night.
The leaves fell but were not dead; alive in colors
of titian and amber more beautiful than
the paint on the end of your brushes in your studio-
my favorite place to be.
You would tie your scarf around my neck before we
stepped out of the studio into the cold
and the wind would pinch at my cheeks; rosy
like the leaves on the pavement.
You smiled. You smiled every time.
And on rainy days we would sit on the park bench
on the edge of our town and sing along to the melody
The raindrops would make as they harmonized with
the shaking of the wind in our favorite trees.
And on really good days, I would get up and dance with you
And I smiled. I smiled every time.
But when the thunder rolled in, you would take my shaking fingers
and wrap them up in your own; your breath like
fire
against the frozen skin of my extremities.
I hugged you close, the way I hug my knees this autumn
as the leaves fall all around; only lifeless orange and yellow.
The sun shines the same, I suppose; and the rain,
well I know it comes. I see it but I don’t feel it.
As I sit on our park bench, no scarf, no dancing
and I cry. I cry every time.
The rain no longer sings; at least, I don’t hear any melodies.
They cleaned up your studio, I heard; they gave me
the last painting in progress.
I put it in the closet, it was just a reminder;
A portrait of our favorite bench, leaves on fire in the sun,
autumn in flames, a girl in a scarf- dancing.
You never painted yourself in before you left;
and then you never returned back to our home.
I hug my knees looking at the canvas
with the sparkling raindrops who miss you too
We cry together. We cry every time.
