Author: poetryfest

There’s a myriad of things I’d change.

Those drinks with Levi were enough
and I came home just the right amount of giddy
and sleepy to climb into bed
but I guess they weren’t
and I ended up in yours instead,
strangely confident with a stranger
and interlocked in her body too
I let myself spill then
only to lie about the mess
when I left the next morning.

I’d change the fact I ever went in the first place –
but wouldn’t dare fix the way
I watched you make coffee
or bacon that goes in the oven
and how you season your eggs halfway done
and did you know I still do that too?
I’d change the child in me when I didn’t know how to speak
Stomped over hills of dirty snow j
ust to get away
from all the words I never learned to fully say –
that I wasn’t mad at you,
that I was scared of being too much
or maybe not enough
or maybe just not what you were looking for
and so through your door seemed like a better option

I’d let the steady time stay just the same,
in fact I’d add more freeze frames at the parts
I still remind myself to remember.
I felt like I was flying holding your hand
and I never knew there was romance
hidden in discussing the superiority of sauce
but somehow for you, it’s ranch.
I couldn’t even conceive of
washing someone else’s hair,
not with the care of my own routine
yet I found serenity in
shampooing the strands of yours with a swiftness
I’d change letting myself get
so tangled in your web
because maybe then I’d be prepared
for when I fell out of it so abruptly

Only I’d need minutes –
since it took seconds
to process how much I loved your laugh
and how much power
came out your lungs in the morning.
How endearingly bad
can you sing that one song again?
I can’t bear to listen to it anymore
or go to sleep much actually –
not without the warmth of your chest
Neither can I light that candle
or sip out that bottle
or not think of that sweatshirt
still drenched in your scent
but stuffed so far in my closet I’d have to fight just to get to it
I won’t.

I’d change how much of myself

I felt around you –
maybe then I’d have a little me leftover now
me left to give to my friends
who don’t know how much i gave to you –
how much my refusals to hang out
are shrouded in your absence
all my comfort
my nakedness
my hunger
my thirst
my desire
my affection.
I wet my toothbrush next to yours
ran our showers
spent countless hours
honing in on the very human woman
i knew that I can be –
but always alone
and never in company.
I did that with you,
so casually
so easily.

Remember that dude at the Walgreens
who hates his job?
Or all the people
with their very separate lives
and how intently we watched
from the window?
Or how we kissed in the grass
only to laugh at how much
we couldn’t grasp
the moving world around us?
What about the call –
I fell asleep,
you were drunk
and honest
and only wanted to hear my voice
you said
you only wanted to listen to me speak
How about when you told me you’d leave
but that turned into dinner
and then into scooping me
off the couch, into your arms
and off to bed?
Or how you always saved
all the Mochi just for me
even though you’d kill for something sweet

I’d change the way my brain
lingers on it all –
How it allows me to fall
just as quickly
and abruptly as before
It likes to travel to the realm
where we’re still just as real
That’s why it’s been hard to heal

Sometimes I’m okay.

Sometimes I can’t do anything
but sink into how much
I miss you

With all the changes
there’s one thing I’d never touch –
How much I’d been taught to love

Not like I have before,
sitting humans up on shelves
I couldn’t reach
never blinking at their flaws
while they were stupidly raw

Look,
you’re gross when you eat
mindless when you speak
and selfish
when I need you to fucking listen

I’d change thinking
I want
someone who doesn’t truly
care to know me
because I want know me –
I want to know me deeply
and the way I loved you
was too beautiful for you
to have let float away
I couldn’t make you stay
nor can I really make anyone

At the very end,
after the last period in our sentence
there’s just one thing left

There’s just
a growing

me.

GENRE(S): LOVE/HOPE/HURT/RELATIONSHIPS

Yesterday is gone and there’s nothing left that remains, besides the footprints of memories that are left in memories lane. Time after time I find myself drifting away, back to the days as a child when the world invited me to play. I would laugh for hours about some of the silliest things. Oh, how I yearn for yesterday. But things have changed. Every day seems to consist of haste. No time to do anything too busy moving at an alarming rate. Too busy to smile, too busy to laugh, too busy to slow down and realize we’re moving too fast. We’ve sold all our time for tomorrow before we even began today. And already have next week lived and not realizing how much time is ticking away. But if we could stop and preserve the moment that we have let pass, we would be able to see our lives’ through that timeless hourglass. Every day is made special; every day should bring forth a smile. We’re not entangled up in the cares of this world we’re back in touch with our inner child. Loving, laughing and playing the way we used to play. Oh, how I yearn for yesterday

http://artistsgarden.blogspot.ca/

My hand opens,
Fanning fingers splayed
Before my face.
Like the morning sun
As I wake:
So stressed, my hand, expanded,
Wears wrinkled skin
Flesh separating from bone.
Seen this way it says,
“Stop”
Or
“5,”
miming ancestors’ gestures in ancient caves,
evidence of will pressed on stone,
centuries old intent.
Now aging spots,
not lichen or moss,
speak of time lost or lent.
Then my fingers close on themselves,
fist squeezes a memory of punch,
skin stretches youth back over old bones.
Now open.
Now closed.
Now frail.
Now strong.
Becoming
now my mother’s angry hand
that tells of fear and vanity,
pulling privacy into a hospital blanket,
waiting to be clipped,
or covering lips to mask a laugh.
And later, gripping a cane,
then shielding eyes from shame.
Her hands were rubbed rough with life
and bent with disappointment,
avoiding touch, troubled by others’,
keeping love and hurt at a distance.
Feeling at the extremities
fled early
and at the end
holding those stranger’s hands,
she eluded me.

-Susan L. Brown
2021

Once upon a time is the way it started with
happily ever after the way, I wished it would
have ended just like all the childhood fairy
tales that always promise a knight in shining armor
riding upon his beautiful white horse to save
the day or even a Hero of some sort to slay a
dragon just before he ruined our wedding day
that is, after all, how it is supposed to be, is it
not? Boy meets girl, they kiss, get married, have kids,
then pass on in this life holding the other hand
still in love forevermore. I can still taste her lips
on mine from our very first kiss, just as our
two hearts started beating to the same song, the
same one they had both written together so
long ago and even though she might have
forgotten all the words and maybe even the
beautiful tune, the music still and always will
keep on playing way deep down in my soul
until the end of all time just like the melody
along with all of those memories will forever
play like a full-blown symphony in my mind
even though they all say that time’s supposed
to heal all pain. Mostly that is true
the fact of the matter is I will never get over
you and now you are gone, moving on with
your life as I am stuck trapped somewhere in
the past, yet whenever I hear your name, a smile
appears as my foot taps out a familiar beat
as my feet move like I am dancing in the street
as my hips start to grind at the memories of
making love to you start to find a place in my
heart, causing it to pound out the beat of the
music it used to need every
single night, as I start to think because before
we met our lives up until then were separated
by many miles of land and oceans through all
of the fabric of time, who would have known that
as fate would have it we would meet, causing
all of the falling stars to realign above us creating
an atmosphere of chaos and confusion which
somehow forced us to spend time and feelings
on one another to really get to know each other
that is when we shared all the words to a very
a beautiful song about love like our two
hearts began playing to the same tune beating
out all the rhymes and rhythms while they
were documenting the reasons we should be
together as that is when our souls
got involved then started dancing closely together
under the stars, the moon, heaven, and all of
the angels, above.

My soul grows cold when I let reality take up space
I hate its taste fragility laced and I want to erase it from the books
I’m hooked to frozen in time that’s where my mind finds peace
No intrusions please or you will meet with hands that bleed holding tightly
To what only my heart and God can comprehend
It’s like there is no end and yet I end
Loop over and over again. Lost black hole of dreams
Leaving me and on repeat continuously. They defeat and comfort me.
It’s love and insanity.
Half of me incomplete… beat
Missing pulse. I am lost having loss
In a haze that’s constantly afraid
Of seeing. Because then what’s the meaning when all is leaving and has left
Sometimes I hold my breath
Because the thought is more than I can bare
Or everything that I hold dear…
The affliction of the juxtaposition of joy and pain.
I hurt because I know and yet moments, I wished I hadn’t.
Leaving me breathless in abundant love that could not and cannot sustain tangibly
From dust to dust
It’s too much.
So I retreat into me. Silently.

©Rebel Fleur 2020

It’s our pursuit
Since we are newborns in birthday suits
From the womb to the tomb
Ingrained in our DNA
That thing they call L-O-V-E
Love
Rainbows and butterflies
Sunny days and blue skies
That feeling you can’t describe
When you look into their eyes
Love
We are all in search
Like a lighthouses glow upon the water in the darkest of nights
Or a plane in search at the highest of heights
We wish and we pray
That one day
Someone will come and sweep us off our feet so that we will no longer have to stand
Instead we will levitate
Elevate
To a different and better state
To be as one you must find the one
If you’re lucky you’ll find them early in life it won’t take much time
But even one second with the one is worth a lifetime
You see when he met her and she meant him
They might not have known it, but at that moment
Their stars aligned in synchronization
That rewarded their patience
For waitin
Tranquility
Some call it fate
Some call it destiny
I call it an inevitability
You can’t run
You can’t hide
You never know when it will strike
All we can do is embrace our innate desire to have love and be loved
True love
Real love
The type you can feel love
Not the story book or rom-com
Or tinder or e-harmony.com
You’ll know it when it happens
When you find that 1 out of 7.8 billion
Only that 1 will matter, the rest will dissolve
Disappear like a Thanos snap
Leaving you with no time to react
That
is love exemplified
They are love personified
So as he looks at her and as does she
It makes us all wonder how lucky we could be

Every story has its own tune. Every step you take has its own beat. Follow that pulsating throb within your cage. Allow the rumble to take over, fill the blood. Gear up for battle this is you’re calling. Let go of fear, take hold of your sword. You’re here to slay all the monsters to a loving peaceful death –Rebirth. Hear your cry loud and clear. Your message is set forth. Allow the journey to set. Never will your heart turn back to Black. Never will you not have Answers. No turning back now, Start Marching. Stand clear, walk tall, the unfolding truth your t​ime is now.

I smile to hear myself think.
I believe there’s a harvest in every wink.

I take my beatings with a side of cash. Yes sir, no sir. I will, I did, I do.
You’re just like the last one, just passing thru.

You look just like the last one too, Blank.
You feel like the last one. Cold. You smell like the last one. Pain.

I sit. I wait. I believe. I hope. I cry.
I hate, You. Just as I did the last one, just passing thru.

Drown me in this temporary state. I choose to call it comfort.
You tell me it’s everything I want to be. I tell you I’m leaving; you tell me I can’t go.

I take just one more hit. Eyes closed; mouth wet. Ooh. I feel my past coming back.
Lonely, Anger, Poise, Praise and Regret all those I choose to call love who won’t love me back.

Life is that you again. Yes sir, no sir, I will, I did, I do. I can’t, I won’t.
You’re just like the last one, just passing thru. I feel like the last one too.

Blank. No beginning, no end, nowhere to belong.
Imaginary memories I saw on the big screen, made them mine to fit in.

My heart bleeds with envy. I band aid the hole with lucy.
She gets me. No judgement. She comes with her friend rophy so we can do this again.

I smiled to hear myself think, I believed there was a harvest in every wink.
Lies have taken over, just so I can exist. Life you left me without a wish.

I took my last beating with a side of cash. Yes sir, no sir. I will, I do, I did.
I’m just like the last one. Blank, no beginning, no end.

When we first met I thought I was the luckiest man in the world.
I had found not only true love…but my true love.
We shared the same ideals, thoughts, and principles, blending completely as we enjoyed our own unique company.
When we stepped out, I was so proud. Having the most beautiful, talented but self-effacing lady by my side was indeed a dream come true.
The times we spent together were magical. The times apart, agony in the extreme.
Eventually, we became man and wife and like all marriages there were some bumps in the road but through it all, we supported each other, surmounting every setback…including at times ourselves.
Looking back, we achieved many things together. Some small, others monumental but all with a good measure of humility and a keen sense of gratitude to God for guiding us in everything we accomplished.
We have surely come a long way….
But recently I have found a new love. A strong woman who has conquered countless battles, both physical and emotional.
A woman who laughs, cries and thinks like me.
A woman who encourages me when my head is bowed and brings me back down to earth when it starts to swell.
A woman whom I know I will always try for….A woman whom God knows I would gladly die for.
This woman is someone we both know, but someone we have undoubtedly under-appreciated. Someone who is caring, giving, and brave beyond where I could or ever would dare to venture…
…And this woman is you my darling.
I have watched and wondered as the woman I first met and loved has grown into a partner that I rediscover on a daily basis.
I truly believe that we are now in a place where our relationship is like no other, as I embark on my odyssey to find more nuances of your beautiful personality, for me to worship with every fiber of my body, soul…my whole being, today, tomorrow and evermore.

Your golf swing is your unique footprint.

Your signature, your handwriting; it is the way you laugh, the way you cry;
it is your voice.
When you swing the club, no one can swing the club exactly like you have.
Yes, technically, it follows the angles and rules of the proper swing,
but the way you do it, no one does it quite the same way you do.

Or will ever do.

The golf swing is your signature in motion.
Your tag. Your fingerprint.

Your golf swing is unique to the world.
It is saying something about you that you can’t say yourself.
A physical message.
An athletic telegram,
from you.

Such a complex athletic motion that requires concentration,
muscle coordination, balance, and vision.

Your golf swing is your handwriting.
Is it hardly legible scribble or is it beautiful calligraphy?

Your swing is a reflection of you.
It is you.

Are you loud or soft spoken? Are you aggressive or more timid?
Your swing, the way you play reflects exactly those traits you possess in life.

It is the way you dance.
The way you sing.
Who you are and where you are from.
What you do and how you view the world.

More psychics should read golf swings rather than palms.
The swing tells you a helluva lot more about a person.

Unspoken and unforced.
A portrait you paint with each swing.
It is pure movement.