Author: poetryfest

Performed by Val Cole

—–

POEM:

There’s an aging letter in the drawer of my nightstand
It lays hiding in plain sight
On top of my grandma’s fake pearls
And papers that were lost on their way somewhere else
It doesn’t call out
Just plain white printer paper
And though I always know it’s there sometimes

I can forget
For long periods
It’s everything and nothing.
It’s worth reading every so often
But I carefully push it back into the blind spot.
Dip it into a bath of negative ions
Nullifying any power it may have
While I continue outside the drawer.

It’s written neatly in someone else’s handwriting.
Although it says everything I needed him to say
In near bullet fashion, the sentences race to their end and stop abruptly.
Then another.
It’s everything I told him in the last chapter.
Hell, I hired the counselor.
It’s deja vu or a face you swear you know.
And every so often I take it out and gently look over the dictation,
The guided voice and pen.
And it’s just enough doubt
To stay uncertainly searching
Outside of the drawer.

Peformed by Val Cole

—-
POEM:

There is that saying how can you love someone if you can’t love yourself?

Then again.
It has me thinking.
I love my family.
My friends.
Inanimate objects.
My creativity.

But at one point I was an afterthought
I spent a good part of my life.
Truly not loving me.
Liking myself never felt honest, real.
Didn’t feel worthy
I never really drew too much stock of the idea of loving me.
And deep within I thought it was just enough.
Going through life. Being just blah
Giving parts to myself, to people.Who I didn’t love.
Just because I could. It was easy
I was doing things just to make others happy.
While It didn’t make me happy.
I lost myself in the process

Once I truly stripped myself down. To the core of me
That’s when I began to accept the fact that it’s OK.
To ask for help.
That. its OK.
To set boundaries.
Learn not to settle.
Be honest with yourself.

My sadness.My darkness.My Scars
The hopes I have.
The wanderlust of my mind.
Fully understanding of who I am

I began to love everything that is me
I begin to see this light that I dimmed down for so long

Then the realization hits that loving yourself is one of the best feelings in the world.
From now until when my time is up
I will always love me.

In this vast world, there is a place for all things:
for the dew that kisses the morning grass,
for the sun that dances through trembling leaves,
but the corner where you dwell
That is the only haven I desire.

When my gaze falls upon you, time does not halt,
but rather it gifts me stolen moments:
a sigh that lingers in the folds of memory,
a quiet conviction that love
is no mere folly of the heart.

You are the breeze that whispers through the orchards,
gentle yet unyielding,
capable of stirring the stillness,
of awakening the dormant chords of my soul.
When you speak, it is not your words alone I hear,
but the resonance of something eternal,
a name I have always known but never uttered.

I have wandered the shadowed paths of solitude,
where light seemed but a distant tale.
And then you arrived,
not as a tempest that tears through the sky,
but as the first star piercing the velvet night
subtle, yet wholly undeniable.

Loving you is not merely desire;
it is the tender anticipation of your footsteps drawing near,
the quiet reverence of your hand brushing mine,
not to claim,
but to remind me I am seen,
cherished, beyond the fleeting moments of this world.

There are days when life falters,
when the grey of existence swallows the horizon whole.
But in you, I have found solace:
a sanctuary where even the fiercest storms
cannot breach the walls we have built together.

How does one describe eyes that are more than colour?
They are a language unspoken but understood,
a vow of mornings yet to come,
a verse that needs no ink,
for living it is poetry enough.

Love with you is not perfection.
It is laughter in the wake of folly,
forgiveness given freely,
the warmth of a glance that says,
“Though the world may crumble, I will remain.”

And so, though seasons may shift,
though fate may conspire to test our resolve,
I choose you, endlessly.
For love is not the journey’s end
It is the reason the path is worth treading.

By Nicole Noguez Olivares

An icy june in the tropicals
A season of brown savnnah
When the temperature in our land sets low
And the struggles of life rise high
This is when I choose us, I choose us over the rest

In the corridors of the hospital
With burning smells of disinfection
In air filled with high hopes
This is where I want us
A pair of us saving lives

Back on the beautiful bed we share
Lying exhausted side to side
As tired as giant armadilos
After a long day of fighting Azrel
Is the life I pray for us.

Above all, and above every one
Above the famous nosocomial joke
I choose to be with you
For this is my life, and I made my choice
And I choose us.

No one knows how it started or came to be
None matter now
Snowflakes of disease
Fall from the infested clouds
And grow small flowers of illness

Young lady and younger dog
Pink leash matched with a pink coat
They play happily in the snow
Tomorrow’s moon marks day 3
Death’s sickle sounds soft in fresh snow

Fenced within the forest
The two do not mind
They continue to run and laugh and speak to each other
Like none other was there

The scientists and beings of medicine watch the pair
Learning the virus’ pattern
They play
Grow tired
Collapse
And play again
Two coffins wait for their arrival

Yet, morrow’s sun rises
Lass and Lassie have long gone
Fence intact and footsteps snowed over

Their cadaver’s were never found
Forest hand picked apart
And home searched over and over
The two must be happy together alone
Ancient sickle has frozen over it seems

WHY DON’T YOU GET BACK WITH CINDY
SHE KNEW HOW TO LOVE YOU
It wasn’t my ex wife’s nastiest tirade but it was nastier than usual
And you know, that’s what happened when she left
The universe has a funny way of speaking in irony
And it’s ironic that a few serendipitous swipes would have your picture sitting in my face
Gorgeous, untouched by time
I remember all the wrongs I had done to you
And parts of dead hopes I buried
Along with the bluebird in my chest
Long ago
I swiped right, you had already said yes

We picked up where we left off
Karma had been repaid 10 fold
Evident by what I just got out of
I atoned for my wrongs and in your sweet grace
you still saw the golden heart in my chest
You’ve been the only one to ever hold it
Your touch was so dainty, your hands tiny and tattooed
You always said you fit when I held you
I finally agreed, All of these years later

We were supposed to get married
We imagined what our kids would have looked like
The parents we’d be to each others
We shared our souls
We made love with passion
I’ve only known true passion with you, and that’s why we never work

The last time we were intimate
It wasn’t intimacy
It was fucking
Olympic level fucking
You’re delicate, and I told you I never wanted to hurt you again,
Emotionally or physically
But it was your birthday, and you wanted it
harder, and harder

Deep enough to touch your lungs you said
Until I turned you on your stomach and you couldn’t take more
Ravished
The heat of the June night cranked up 10 degrees

And with your blissful smile and those cut eyes
I knew deep down that’s what I’ve been to you
I know why your sons name is a play on mine
Despite him being the same race as his father
I’m a toxic fuck imprinted on your heart
And a whole me is to much of a old friend
rather than THE old fuck

Did you get that baby turtle on your ankle for me?

My crybaby

My little black suicide girl

I was nothing to you
but you were
everything to me.
Just a little something
to show you how
I love you too.
I’ve loved you
this entire time.
I’m sorry I didn’t
repeat those
three little words
back that night.
Can’t even imagine
how the pit of your
my stomach must’ve felt.
There’s a lump in
my throat where your
heart used to be.
I’m like a wounded cat
trying to receive love.
Simply incapable.
I’ve never experienced
what love was or could
be, should be
before you

Oh well.

The cab would have been too much,
did you take the bus?

The asphalt felt soft as I walked with
her to our favourite park.

Dating abroad never works.
I think we make better friends anyway.