Lilac Dove

• Love poem: Moth wings
• Poem: Haunted
• Love poem: Skin to teeth, nineteen times
• Poem: Ant colony (birthday balloons)
• Love poem: If you could, just, sing to me

Poem: Promises (wildflowers)

I’m growing strawberries in my garden
I buy canned Vanilla Coke at the corner store
When I came home Wednesday night, there were the most beautiful white roses I’ve ever seen laying softly on the kitchen counter
Courtesy of my mother
Who knows I’m dismayed by how boys don’t buy me flowers
Somehow it was a thousand times sweeter coming from her
Dewdrops on daisies
Fresh Baby’s Breath in fine, pristine garments
The things that used to scare me, I no longer find alarming
The way thunderstorms sound like amphetamines dropping can no longer harm me
I promised myself that I would keep my own promises

For a while I wanted someone to love me like I do, you
But that, would be insubstantial
Since I never got through to you in the ways I can only hope one day someone will, to me
Like looking in a mirror
When you’re trying to see inside
Of a building you pass by on your lunch break
That makes you feel mesmerized
But it’s oh, so fleeting
With a heavy mind and drowsy eyes
I lay amongst the wildflowers gasping for glimmers of hope
A reality I am capable
Of painting myself

A couple of days ago I lost the keys to my apartment
Tried to go around the back, and my cat wouldn’t let me in!
The nerve!
Like she was raised by wolves!
So I came back to the front of my residence, and when the mailman came with my packages I collected them
Stared at my name in sans serif font on the mailing label
Beneath the sunlight as it showered me with
Affection
Like the song I sent you
That you didn’t like
Because you didn’t favour the singer’s voice
But that was not
The point
It was
The words
That I wanted you to hear, at least read for heaven’s sake

But nobody reads what you want them to
And after hours of sitting against my black, metal apartment door
Wishing I had chalk, like a child, to draw horribly disfigured life stills on the warm cement
I found the key in my pocket
(I’m not very good at hiding things from myself)
But I am good at finding pockets of time to be alone with the sunshine
Carefully planned
Flawlessly executed
Only something a Virgo could do

Do you remember?
When my birthday is?
Or how badly I wanted those flowers?

Nobody remembers what you want them to
It’s frightening, really
How someone’s perception is so far removed from your control
But isn’t that
Delightful
That my mother knows exactly how to make me smile
My cat knows I need time to take to rinse my thoughts with sun rays and pieces of gravel

I deleted your text message
Like you had never come back
Almost automatically
I was surprised with even myself
But you will never know how much I loved you

Somehow that is fine with me
I promise

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Free-verse poem: Simon & Garfunkel, truly terrifying (New York)

My baby didn’t even have time to pack his suitcase
Left his things sprawled all over the floor
He told me he wanted to go to the city
Find the things he didn’t know he was looking for
He wanted more, he wanted more
He wanted more
Jars of honey, sweet fiber network
He wanted more
And I knew, across moments in space and time
That I had done my good deeds
And I could get my coat off the rack
He’s looking for more
In black tar and spiderwebs
He’ll find a new job in New York
A city that has too many important people in it for anyone to ask about

Gentle as the sea
Unbecoming as you dissolved directly into me

I cast the glow that tried to diminish my solitude
Playing Simon & Garfunkel deep into the night
To surround me in playful melody, and memories of nights in hotels
Where I didn’t know anybody
& nobody knew of me
& the thick, ivory, vintage & carefully sewn cloth that lay on the table where I had a drink (a mix of elderberry for immunity, and something with zinc)
I squeezed a lemon into my eye
(Just to try)
(Just to try it once)
I became like the night

Smooth in rapture
Rough like the ocean waves
Not asking anyone to hold me, because I wasn’t in the best company
Never understood why people use other people when they feel lonely
I find no solace in that regard
That kind of domination, to utilize temptation
What good would it do for me- my little, fawn frame?
My agony and stillness, harshly disillusioned
A maiden’s last words
A goodbye in a picture frame
Held up by safety pins for decoration of the living room, my sweet residence
Very far from New York

They read my poems and think they’re separate, short ones instead of long form stories
But at least they’re reading
It’s good for the brain
It’s almost a necessity to understand someone else’s pain
In my bedroom, I have roses on the left side of the bed
Audrey Hepburn on the wall
Reading a book, casually, a photograph taken & never explained
Who will ever take photographs of me?
Will anybody capture me in my own reserved solitude?
Press a camera shutter when my face looks nice from the angle the lens hits me from,
In the right light?
With a nice mannerism?
How cruel it is to live years without memories
Nothing to think about with morning coffee
Nobody to dream of when I’m feeling despondent

It’s not that I try not to, but I can’t stop writing
It’s like the medication hasn’t yet absorbed
You tell people you’re a writer and they nod their head
In agreement, almost
I think it’s an act of disregard
Find me a publisher!
Buy my book, whenever it comes out!
Support my dreams!
No, no
Nods his head
It’s an act of disregard
A repetition in disguised portrayal of an affirmation
Fleeting hopelessness mixing in jars of honey that fade to silk and an ambience destroyed by lightning in the dark
Making way for the gloomy inhabitants of New York’s city streets
As he neglects to pack his bags

He retracts
Shoulders back
Panic attack
Upright and tall, a self-preserved, startling enchantment
Eyes so sharp and clear but in my nonchalant mind I’ll still remember them as filled with fog
Some people- you can ask them a million different questions, yet fail to receive a hospitable response
A succession of worries
“What if the plane catches on fire, what will you do then?”
“Will you call me when you land? Should I stay awake?”
Fog, nothing but fog
Dove tails & tales of romance, swept like ashes falling from a neighbor’s cigar
An afternoon sky of abysmal disobedience

When we were young
We were gentle like the sea
And I was becoming something great, something to be remembered
But his benzodiazepines have no regard for memory preservation
So with every step he takes, every fragment of clothing he doesn’t arrange
He dissolves directly into me

I hear ‘The Only Living Boy in New York’ repeating softly in my mind
Holding on to the melody in a way that
Truly terrifies me
As I dissolve
Repeatedly

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