Author: poetryfest

In my dream, we’re not having sex.
I kiss your shoulder and you laugh in my hair and
I have a collection of time for you, sweet friend,
whenever you ask it of me

The stars used to speak in songs,
They’d come together like a harmonious band,
And expel a melody so tender to my ears,
I thought this was what they called love,
Only you used to be able to hear their music with me,
You and I merged into one galaxy,
The moon became a symbol of glimmer in the midst of darkness,
And comets weren’t as fast as the pace of my breaking heart,
We were caught in a spaceship of adoration, destined to travel together into the unknown,
We’d fly into space, where connected souls defy barriers meant to challenge us,
And when I believed the adventure was about to depart,
The engine abruptly stalled, unwilling to push forward,
We were stuck,
Trapped together,
Expected to merge as one, combatting trials and tribulations despite the obstacle,
We were a team,
Conjoined with unwavering fortitude,
Until I turned around to see that I’d been navigating the journey alone,
You became tired of waiting,
The thrill dissolved, and so did your love,
The stars didn’t align anymore,
Finally, you decided the journey simply wasn’t for you,
So, I was left at the bottom of the pits of my humiliation, having believed my own lies,
And set foot to explore the paths we once dreamed about,
But now, I think maybe you were awake this whole time,
And it was only me who’d been obliviously sleepwalking,
My heart shed its tears behind the walls of our shattered home, afraid to ever welcome another
guest,
Because I can see it now,
Where the stars used to sing to us,
They now lay across distant valleys that keep us miles apart from my fingertips,
Never did I think,
That you would ever feel so far.

My fingertips are sticky
with honey
My teeth ache
at your alluring savor
My skin buzzes
with the bees you keep
I leisure under your
leafing shadow
sipping from
your sweet nectar
My eyes are always trained
on your exotic features
I will kiss your wilting greenery
when winter comes
nurturing into a new bloom
more fruitful, captivating
than before.

that high summer, when everyone
fell in and out of love
and I fell in
to August, and you
spun by, with a sharp
slice of blood running
down your calf
from the beach grasses, I wanted
to lick it off
your sea salt hair
and rusty finger nails;
varnish rockpool chipped,
I remember your mouth
when we jumped waves
and we laughed so much,
I sometimes wonder if
we used it all up or
drank up all the ocean,
with wind around our shoulders
like warm evening shawls
arms and hands moved unburdened
dotted with lightening hairs –
I poured into my body
that high summer;
bare back
feather neck
hidden freckle
I breathed it all in
your shoulder warmed at mine
I don’t remember what happened
either side of those white-edged
postcard moments,
I suppose we worked
laundered sandy clothes
woke up in bedsits,
I wonder if our love lock
is still there,
on the beach fence
where we left
that one summer behind

Paradoxical,
falling in and out
of trite conversation
for the sake of something true:
profound ease, perfect fit,
conjoined pasts paving a future, a
pretty picture of glimpsed promise,
gilded around a pit of lonesome.
Restless,
falling face-first
into technicolor heartbeat,
entrenched in ritual tunnels:
dozen red roses, pink-cheeked dimples,
courtesy captured in a bottle, but
not carelessly, never corrosive, never
so corrupt as to drip vows and gestures like acid
with the intent to wear down and fizzle out, instead dripping
declarations like soft rain down the lover’s window.
Inevitable,
falling victim
to a fate designed by poetic capital:
lovely words, lopsided smirks,
lungs popped like pills.

Inspired by Li-Young Lee’s “Early in the Morning”

Before the paperboy
delivers the news,
Before the sun has broken the horizon,
Before the coffee machine starts
the morning brew–

I sit on the bed,
run the ebony comb
through my matted hair,
and listen to it snap through kinks.

I pull and tug, comb
and coax, pin and fix,
placate my mane
with warm hair grease.

My lover stirs, still exhausted from nighttime tumbles.
If I could, I would rejoin her—
let her fingers get caught in my hair
as I soothe her out of sleep.
But I know I will wait till evening,
after we draw the curtains,
and give in to the secrets
our mothers don’t know.

I’d give a lot to visit Avonlea
And sit beside the Lake of Shining Waters
With you in junebell-moss tranquility
Discussing life and teaching’s finer matters.
Pray, share the fragrance of that rose of joy
Which blooms immortal in your fairy land
And grant me lore of its geography
When ‘long life’s soft-lit path I find a bend.
You gave such joy to those across your life,
You made their days a bit more blessed and bright
By loving them so wholesome; may that I
In kindred share your welcome-loving light.
But that’s the shame of loving those in books,
For never will we chat by heaven’s brook.

my hands
I say, time and time again.
You do not notice.
You have never noticed anything.
As my body shivers, I fear you never will.

cold
I tell you, time and time again.
You do not hear.
You have never heard anything.
As my breathing shallows, I fear you never will.

my hands are cold.
I have mentioned this, time and time again.
You are interested.
You have never been interested.

how cold?
you ask me.

cold as death
I reply, my knuckles ashy.
You do not respond.
You have never responded.

cold as death.
I wait, my wrists heavy.
You do not respond.
You have once responded.

my hands, cold as death, could never be warm
I shout, my fingers numbing.
You understand.
You never understand.

why?
you ask me.

i don’t know
I lie, consumed by bitter air.
You do not help me.
You have never helped anything.

i don’t know
I insist, strangling our hope.
I do not help me.
I have never helped anything.

who would warm them?
I whisper, my darkness surrounding us.

I take a step.
I have never taken a step.

I would
you whisper.

Suddenly, I am no longer cold