Author: poetryfest

How can you miss someone you’ve never touched? Someone who you’ve never seen with your eyes and not through a phone screen because you are three hours apart? I always thought it was insane to be able to miss someone you’ve never touched before; that was until I met you and then realized that you can miss some when you have never seen them with your own eyes, being able to touch their skin, be able to hug them, able to kiss them; I didn’t know that was possible until I met you.

You are one to yearn for.
The ever-growing moss
Has planted itself by
Your bank today.

The sweltering heat
Must have dried you.
Your scarcity scars my throat
As I yearn to gulp you down.

If you wish for me to not
Dip my toes as you ebb
Why must you rise so high?
Why tease my one good eye?

For I cannot perceive depth
Not anymore as the socket
Remains hollow, not even
Does blood flow from the hole.

So I give up on judging
Through my sight but the
Sense of solace provided by the
Sound still speaks soulfully to me.

And as the sweet sound of your wave does
Bound like a hound, it does
Surround my mound and with your
Baptism I am crowned, your prince.

You’re quite sensible, as
Sense sails away with your tide.
For your existence and sense
Have quite weak an essence.

But then again, I gain
A painful stain upon my mane
If you refrain from obtain-ing
A soap that is quite plain.

For I have quite sensitive skin,
Too much of a ph can
Besmirch my good name
That goes alongside my fame.

I am quite famous, for love
And for the anxiety during
And for the hate afterwards.
So please treat me well.

So I may, leave you
With joyful memories as we
Swing on a hammock, and not a noose
As we die, of old age, together

As the unwanted children surround me
They shall say that they found me
With a smile on my face as they ground me
As the sweet embrace shall unbound me.

From this wretched earthly vessel
As I hassle and bustle
To build a castle and find a tassel
To hang my lonesome vassal.

For a right hand is of no use
To me anymore, without a left.
And to be left with loneliness and life
Is worse than having none left.

how are you?
.
have you been well?
.
have you eaten your meds yet?
.
what did you do today?
.
i have homework. i am at work. i am doing work.
.
i stay home only.
.
yes. yes. yes. yes.
.
i don’t have time.
.
i don’t know.
.
i will call (them) and see.
.
says not going to rain. sunday it will rain. 30 percent.
.
that’s not true.
.
i have work a lot.
.
i miss you of course. i miss you too.
.
stay good. be well. hello.
.

Love, let me burn at the steak
brightly lit up as a testament

ashes carrying the message
into the air, into the ground.

Let those ashes spread to the eyes
and ears of thousands, absorbing our truth

specks of glittery remains land,
singeing our existence into skin.

Let them feel the pain of pretending,
of yearning passion suffocated.

Let me immortalize our love
in the soil I become one with,

sinking into the roots.
Searing pain nourishes the trees,

raised with distant memories
of fleeting touches and anticipation,

of nights crying alone carrying
weight only we could bear.

Let me decay with the knowledge that
you won’t have to bear it anymore

That maybe my blazing cries will signal
the ire of an entity out there screaming

for time and space to find a place for us,
where our souls could be intertwined

as our bodies couldn’t be.
as we were always meant to be.

early mornings,
before the sun rises,
will be ours and we’ll smile
with our eyes closed,
wondering how we
ended up in a knot,
we’ll kiss and
I’ll giggle a whisper,
“now what?”
and the corner of your lips
will curl up,
and you’ll smile in that way,
the way that makes me
catch my breath,
and say,
“let’s double knot it.”

It was completely by chance
Our paths crossing
I, a lonely ship in the night
Him, the illustrious moon
He arrived into my life and brought a tidal wave
Leaving nothing untouched
Nothing unchanged
Nothing at all left the same
I had been sailing in darkness for so long
I think I forgot what light was
Could only think of the glaciers in his eyes
Only the touch of his hands
Only the way I want to dive headfirst into the ocean of his mind

The way he made me feel
So seen
So heard
So easy to be loved

Romance novels felt different now
From Dickinson to Bronte
I finally understood
Heathcliff begged Catherine to haunt him after death
Darcy and Lizzie let go of their pride for each other
Romeo loved Juliet so much, he wanted to die for her
I love him so much I want to live for him
He is the Eurydice to my Orpheus and I will turn around every time

I don’t know about the health of these relationships
Just like I don’t know much about star-crossed lovers
Or any of the chemicals my brain produces to make my head spin around him
But what I do know is from the moment his lips touched mine our souls were entwined
And there was nothing in this world that could untangle them
My entire being was sewn into his

I don’t believe in soulmates
But I do believe in Eden because I’ve felt it wrapped in his arms
All the heavens can fall from the sky in a fiery eruption because I have all the heaven I need
lying with him in bed on a Sunday morning
But this love is not akin to fire or ice
Not related to something so easily extinguished or melted away
This love feels concrete
Feels as certain as the passing of time
As constant as the speed of light and the strength of gravity

Now don’t be concerned, I’m not planning a proposal
I don’t have a ring or certificate to be signed
What I do have is a promise
Which feels twice as intense, somehow
I promise that when death finally takes its toll on me
When I do go gently into that good night
It is his hand that I will be waiting to hold on the other side
I won’t say I’ll love him forever because that’s bullshit
I will say I will love him as long as I am in existence
Wherever I am love follows
And that love is his
And if one day we’re both shooting stars
I hope other lovers gaze up at the sky
To wish upon a love as grand as ours

Elaina (Tanka I)
Dickinson licked seals
Of letters; should I deny
Myself the act of
Standing agape while you talk
Hoping to swallow your spit?

Tanka II
Sappho wept longing
For her bright and terrible
Enchantress; it is
No wonder that I bleed for
Your fatal captivation

Tanka III
The Aphrodite
Even pines after your beauty
She knows the quake of
Her chest splitting and her heart
Unearthing itself for you

thoughts of you
lingering
like smoke
remembering
I’m alive
hazily conscious
my world
too bright, you dim it
close my eyes
now I see
breathing arises
you won’t let me fall
fatigued
your voice like rum
heady confection
green
your eyes, a memory
of how the ocean glistens
from beneath the waves
while drowning
don’t rescue me
this is how I’m saved
revived
in your gaze
don’t let me come down
promise this high
this drink writes your poetry
who needs the sky?
when the ground is perfumed
by flowers from tears
I’ve cried out
silently though
you hear me and cast down
white petals, I’m crazy
this insanity fills me
and yet I’m still hungry
let me stay in this
melancholy
prophetic
this evidence of God
testify, this feeling
under the sky
inhaling the stars
fire, spirit ignited
this is my prayer
wishing to be drowned
in your eyes
over and over again
litany
don’t baptize me
don’t put out this flame
let me smolder
I’ll trade heaven
for one night
with you
the heat a thousand hells would envy
what is disbelief?
how time is lost
this illusion, delusion
let me contemplate
meditate on
this hypocrisy
sinful, the devil is made holy

Just as the delicate bristles of bottle brush trees
break and dissolve,
the prickle of follicles brushing against my arm
or similarly, whiskers pressing the mouth
steady my unbearable mind.

Give me the slightest bit of physical validation
and I’ll melt before you.
Make my hairs stand on end with just
the ridges of your fingers.
I long for the reassurance of nails
colliding with scalp, a rhythmic
scratch relieving tension in flakes.
Or stainless steel clinking awkwardly
between sweaty fingers.

Give me all of it
Pull me into you, let me grow drunk
and savor the smell.

I would walk barefoot,
Through a mile of broken beer bottles,
To spend one night with you.