The things I see, the things I love
Listen to “Belongings (how I want you to leave)” which you can find at: https://lilacdove.com/blog/free-verse-poem-belongings/
The second is titled “This time (Freshwater Lilies)” and has never been posted.
Support my work here: https://paypal.me/LilacDoveCA
I told him he could have
Any part of me that he wanted
All the marble he envisioned
Chilled and defeatist, but forever unmoving
Sparkles that shape the tide of your marked ingenuity
Cold heaven, sacred
Worn out walls of fibers and satin sheath
At sundown, we rest and reprieve
Find solace in the mistakes that counted against us
One by one
Rosemary falls beneath you like evangelical riverbeds
Rainfall on a crisp white, bestowed meadow
Damsel in distress, sitting at Cape Cod
Breathing in the marine layer
Decadent, but desolate perchance
A personal favor for nobody
In particular
If you have a minute
Cos you always have a minute
For me
Save me some time
Buy mine sharply, but not robustly
Golden edges
Soft-lit amber haze that spins like a year of soft rock (lamenting, slowly)
Lightning
Moons that belong to seasons and
Seasons that belong to no one
In particular
If ownership is inconsequential of time
And we all have time
For other people
Do we, do we?
What is it that we desire?
If only
If only
I could have made my mark by now
I lapsed into a momentum where I could not shift my gaze correctly at the afterthought of
How I made sense to nobody
And nobody made love to me
Why would they?
Would they, even?
Would I let anyone see me in that still?
When my hazel eyes bend like the seas
How could I summon anything more glamorous than how the evening resides in a French solitude that complements my need for quality alone time
When I am not made of silk or marble but
Fragments of broken chamber orchestras
That cascade like I’m running away from forever
A soft drink on a Wednesday, in gloomy July
A honeymoon for your favourite runaway bride
On the flight, they asked if I wanted alcohol
And I erupted in a laughter that was
Seemingly inappropriate
For the vague informality of the occasion.
In rapture
I used to be unable to feel thrills because my being did not accept them as kind
One amongst the wolves
Rambunctious and heroic in nature, but a hero to no one
Don’t get me confused
I do find it amusing
How the symphony plays all of their longest songs just for me
And how nobody ever really takes hold of your name
Or your posture
When you’ve
Spent your life
Awake by pretense
An effort to be
In combat, like a dove,
A soft sparrow, seemingly longing for an ending to the illusion
With whom?
With whom do I share my fears!
What cave do I run to when I’m cold, covered in mud
Shivering and despondent
They know my face but haven’t counted the dots on my cheeks
They don’t know what I look like when I cry
Or why I do
If I ever
Decide to break the stillness of my figure
That makes me heavenly in God’s eyes
There is no reason to run
I say, I say to myself; I say it often.
Settle here forever in the dawn of the styrofoam melted cacophony where
I and you melt in two interchangeable pastel colours
Decide to go on a journey because we are
Bored
And so tired of being chained to our demonic vanity mirrors
Alone
But in plenty
Of patient, never-forgetting ambitions & daydreams
I lost the ending to our story
I just
Let it slip
Away from where I sleep at night
I let the silence consume my boredom
© Elle Silvestrov
This is a free verse poem about attachment and detachment – defeat on behalf of simplicity’s sake.
I didn’t expect myself to still feel like this
And my mother laughs because it’s only been a few days
But I feel like it’s dragging on
It’s dragging on
And we didn’t even come to the conclusion of what would become our song
So what am I here to do
Sitting in the corner of the modern, moss-green, vibrantly street-lit café,
A damsel in despondency,
A variation of your favourite four-course strings
A broken-down parlor path with a shiny diamond entryway and glass slippers lining the blizzard-sinking ships,
That match my cruelty
My taste for rabid tongue
The whispers I wouldn’t let you utter
And the hesitation you’d be lucky to never have suffered
A chance for melancholia to clash with the force of nature
To detract from a foreign film
A lost, aching still
An avalanche of surprise
Beguiled by sheer imagination and phosphorescent icing
That smothers a kingdom like the holiest ghost
Always bittersweet to the liking
Made for sharp, pristine vengeance
In my own reserved portrait of solitude
Gazing vibrantly at the majestic cars that drive by
The classics, the tragic
The ancient and recumbent
Reoccurring in stunning ways I could not even think to properly illuminate in due time
Typing
Silently
Wishing you were next to me
Smiling
The way you do
The way you do
So magnificent
Eyes glimmering in concave and crimson, blue
God, I was this close to being obsessed with you
I feel like
A teenager
An angry one
A bitter fool
Mad at myself because I brushed away the
The fleeting thoughts of nah, he won’t like me if I say that
Nah, he won’t like me if I wear that
Nah
I’m moving in circles because I forgot how to dance
I forgot how to feel alive
I trip over my own words
Everything is in disarray
I thought you were going
I thought you were going
I thought you were going to make it work
I thought you were
I thought you were
I thought you were going to make it work with me
I thought you were
I so thought you would have
Made it work with me
And that would be
Meaningful
Hopeful
Spontaneously planned
Crimson and clover all over
Soft rubber bands
Now you’ve got me in a pit and you
Hung up on me
I threw my cellular device on the street
I don’t want to talk to anybody
Anybody at all
Anybody at all
Anybody at all
Anybody at all
I’m not writing another poem about a boy that doesn’t have the strength to come
Tell me it’s not working
Stand there in your clandestine flesh
Stand there, giving me a real piece of yourself
Look at me with dandelions in my hair
Don’t say I’m too charming for you
Tell me I’m too alarming for you
Tell me I scare the living daylights out of you
And you’ve got other girls calling you
Answer the phone in front of me
Take the flowers out of my hair
Push me down on the tar-stained sidewalk
Bully me like you do on your bad days
Get your way
That’s how I want you to leave me
Not like
Not like
Not like
Not like
Not like
Not like
Not like
Not like
Worn desperation
Mixing in fevers of separation
But I thought I
Belonged
A free verse poem interpolating love and boredom, those mutually excluded. I write about my surroundings and how I respond to them; I write about you and how I’m feeling enamoured, but I won’t make this a love poem.
www.paypal.me/LilacDoveCA
I’ll slip like a satin glove
One abstraction over another, turn the pages, can’t stop reading textbooks on topics I haven’t reached yet in my academia
London print and soft pastels to remind me softness still exists
In little teacups filled with daredevil laughter
How do I
Distract from the blue light filter
I’ve got this covenant, this modern-day orchestration
A plate of cinnamon toast for two
With soy whipped cream and untouched, fresh blueberries
A breakfast in the comfort of our living room
With the television on,
Vintage advertisements
Try it for yourself, buy it, now!
We put our heads in our hands, switching places
Serenade me, serenade me
Run away with me
Impressed by my collection of 14.2 carat diamonds
I knew it wasn’t right, but I find it hard to stop myself from trying
When you hear me tell my truth, you think I’m lying
A country house’s ceiling covered in coral-buff-pink that doesn’t compete with the furniture and artwork in the room
I don’t believe I’ve lived this life before
I say silent goodbyes to the waves when I swim towards the shore
Never settling in life because there’s always something more
But I’m patient, I can wait
I know how to play this waiting game
But I’m patient, I don’t hesitate to hesitate
I know how to play this waiting game
You spend your life attached to the poison
You see the same things in every new person
But I – I find waves to weave my carefully knit spiderweb
The remnants of my being
(but I swore I could be tranquil)
I engulfed you like a macrophage
I brought you to the Heavens
They asked me for all my pennies and I said all I could offer were dimes
In an aster black & dune-white coin purse
With wild daisies in watercolour
Where I keep a ticket stub from our day at the ballet
Our day in the sweet vermouth from the South
Your shots of whiskey – endless, hopeless- almost!
But I found you out by the car, near the diner with the half-lit sun-kissed sign
That illuminates the grey tones of the weakened sky
I’ve yet to find a relation that feels like spiral twine
In due time
My dear one
It always takes time
Crumpets in bed, you’re so sweet; why are you doing these things for me
The back of your Carrera that you lean on when I find you
Down, downtrodden
In a medieval, Victorian garden
I found roses that smelled like the ones you once bought for me
I wrote secrets down on receipts for other people to find
And they’ll have no idea what I’m talking about
What I’m writing about
They always have no idea what I’m composing about
What I’m going on about
Often too timid to say what I’m handling out loud
(In the wild Texan landscape, I screamed without making a sound)
But you, cast like the sun’s sharp, contrasted rays upon the deep blue, dark steel water body that is
Where I swim against the current because it’s the closest I manage to get to what others feel from amphetamines
A satin blanket with a cushion for our picnic by the bayside
You, there, me – laughing when I look at you
Think I know why you do the things you do
But nobody is ever sure of anything, how can they be?
I’m the Chicago princess, the flat-rate bourgeoisie
Things that make most sense to you don’t mollify me
In the orbit of the moon
I am your apogee
How is your gaze so familiar when it’s just out of sight?
Inoperative like a 1990s old engine Civic brake light
But I’ll be the warm air watching your gunfight
With the resilience and nepotism of stunning graphite
Like the perfect backdrop
Like an ivory white snowstorm while indoors
I’m what the mosquitos won’t ever bite
I think it’s sweet, how people give you their time
In a palace where everybody always feels they’re running out of such a concept,
The ballgame isn’t enough
(Oh, you think you’re so tough?)
Pour me iced green tea
Show me you can be there for me
Tell me I’ve been disillusioned
Replace the terror in me
Satin-pink signature bowtie on the back of my tulle dress, and flower petals arranged to counter my dismay
I am a lovable girl
Who loves in the most appropriate way
The kind of girl that sends you straight to fame
Ambition my only pursuit, I write you love letters on the train
I am bored with how it hasn’t yet rained
In days
In days
In days
In days
In days
In days
In days
In days
All I want is some wine
To know that you’ve tried
But I don’t get what I want, but in case you forgot,
This is my castle; they built it for the queen
I’ve gone by my nickname since I was nineteen
I picked the cherry stems just fine
Wrapped them around you in due, hazel time
Not unsettled by rage, only burnt by hot sunshine
There is a time and a place
For letting me go tonight
I can only live in shades of blue for so long
You’ll call when you’re drinking
But the rosemary and fever dream has me thinking
That in this warm abyss, I’m finally putting myself first
I’m the most decadent of late-night desserts
(I don’t care if I get hurt)
Moving like the Chicago Transit Authority that picks me up every fifteen minutes,
To sit and watch the downtown splendor, the people having conversations
The luxurious skyscrapers with their gleaming reflections on the river
My god, if you could see it
My god, if only you could see it
Reels of the same film run through my mind
I look at the lilac flowers
That I picked out for myself
You handed your credit card to the cashier and made my head hurt
You didn’t want to be there
You pinched my weakest nerves
But they fired back, like dropped bombs on a 1990s Cadillac
I was confused when I looked in the mirror, and I wasn’t blushing
Why, as a young girl, did I feel nothing?
I moved, so briskly
I held them, so close
I always hold flowers so deathly close to me
Can’t help having something in my life I don’t intend to have and to hold, as the evening unfolds
I’m mesmerized by the dusky, disorderly, crimson, secluded, and mechanical sky
I can’t help having something in my life without keeping it close-by
I’m a porcelain and ivory, soft-hearted girl
All you had to do was try
All you had to do was try
Ice cream summer popsicle dreams
Muscle relaxant mixed with white amphetamines
To handle the chaos that you collided with mine
I think there’s a right place, and a right time
But if you call late at night, know I’ve had some red wine
So the pauses are longer
When you hold your breath,
No longer allowed to lay your head on my chest
Coming to terms with what I’m led to believe
You’ve been lying to me
I saw it; I grabbed it; I wreaked some fucking havoc
Internally, always
Internally
No longer lying awake as you, beside me, breathe
An exemplary paradise for your magical thinking
She’s the one, she’s the only one
Who cared to ask about
Things you couldn’t say out loud
To anyone, anyone
She’s the one, she’s the only one
She’ll be the one, she’ll be the only one
To tell you the truth
To show you who you are
She’s the only one
She’ll be the only one
I’ve moved in a geometric possession to the interwoven mention,
Of “boyfriend,” and “happy”
And “I don’t want to,”
A passing thought: was I gentle enough
As if in my lifetime, I’ve ever been rough
Like a foreign identity
I’ve latched onto lately
To remove your hesitation with no A+ on my exam
I rest my heavy head in my pale hands
I pull you back and forth like a rubber band
I’m swimming and I don’t want to come up to breathe
But I have to
I have to
Like fine black metal branches, delicate though not brittle,
The uncertainty
Is damaging
It feels
Like tragedy
Knocking on hell’s door asking if I’m ready for some more
Are you ready for some more?
The peaches were more vibrant than I could have dreamt them up to be
But they’re only on a painting that was completed in the 17th century
Find myself alone in this maze of lost equilibrium
There’s an error in your calculations
The past has nothing to do with the girl standing before you
It’s taken me 26 years to learn the blind cannot be cured by me
Even though it’s my specialty
Even though it was real to me,
Even though I
Count blueberries and pick off their tiny stems
On a blanket, it rains; I am hopeful again
For a time when I’m sitting in a boy’s passenger seat, and he looks at me
And he’ll feel so free
The thought of belonging to me
They have led astray me, but don’t go by a day
That I don’t count the ways
I grow softer, and softer
As I learn man’s ways,
I grow softer and softer
I don’t lose myself in the haze
If you knew what I know,
My god, you’d be amazed
Take that to the grave
My god, you’d be amazed
