It scared me so I knew We were going down I knew You would not turn around And still Like a beat I’m made of memories Crystal castles Made of ashes My forgetful apprentice With wrath like a vengeance Misinterpreted my withdrawn Glances at the sharp, flawlessly glamorized corners of the living room (Mine)
Velveteen heart-shaped sunglasses When I’m asleep, you know it plays Again on repeat The things You said When my hands were in my lap I can’t Even sleep I can’t Even sleep I can’t Even sleep
I can’t Find a song That makes you make sense to me More than The last Few words you sent And how Fast I sank My teeth Into my hand To keep From setting my bedroom on fire
All the wires All the while – They surrounded me like filth Carcasses of your hypnotic, granite, carbon imagination An avalanche of insecurities, I thought I had Swallowed In a strawberry, lime, and gin cocktail Held fragile
An escape would be too good to be true Though it wouldn’t make me think less about you
Soft skin In collapsing horizons Pitfalls Two doves on a swing I’ll give you my everything Every last piece of marble and copper
In the mornings, we eat vegan butter on toast And our evenings of suffering remake every inhospitable, tarnished spider web That fills us with a skepticism Too delicate to absolve (Mine)
In waves, so transient A hospital bed With white flowers for For me, for me, for me For me, for me, for me For me
And I deleted my profile because I can’t handle falling in love again I can’t help I can’t handle I can’t handle falling in love again I can’t help I can’t handle I can’t handle falling in love again I can’t help I can’t hang I can’t feel
Anything that could get me close Anything that could get me close
We were so close I can’t help I can’t help Thinking we were so close,
Free verse poem: The evening spent waking up (Chicago)
Tell me a fable A pretty one Lie if you can make it half-decent
It’s as if embers from my rotten tomb have come back to life as Soft pink edges Anatolic, seemingly vacant rings of fire Undertones of bluish-grey with a violence that Covers me in indifference But I want it to be rapture, in evocative coincidence A tint of reimagined tendencies My scattered disarray of silenced opinions And violet ultramarine hesitation
I try to be gentle But I step on leaves that crack Crossing my fingers, there wasn’t a snail Underneath
Behind my trepidation There is a vicinity with a lakeside residential view I couldn’t breathe when you were holding me I felt like I was becoming discolored Wondered what part of that I devised
A satin grey globe where we Envisioned our honeymoon Picked out places, names that seemed familiar A euphoric but decidedly shapeless language A foreign body Like tectonic plates Smooth, but not comatose On close on purpose A bittersweet taste A light that turns on when you want it to be dark A fire alarm That burns
A missed left turn Turn the page, crash, and burn And still I stand at the cashier, holding dollar bills that are paper thin Like the epitome of a half-circle Like the cigarette, you don’t put out Because you let the street take care of it Cherish it Marinate it in the heat of October in Los Angeles A vehemence down beneath that which can’t be seen And is never spoken aloud
Imbued by a cityscape, I miss more than you can possibly imagine The twinkling city lights A cacophony of everything that was so right for me Felt so good to me And the plasm lost its charge, and the dewdrops disappeared I never quite got over it
Chicago I miss you The way you held me close to you at night Nobody ever did it better Than you
I’m finding it hard to Be like a daisy In the breeze, that moves my hair To the other side
I hold my head in my hands I feel like
Coming apart tonight To tell you the truth
Endless interlaced reflection symmetry to tell me I am not what someone wants to find Not what anybody would look for Unless they were as disillusioned as my perception of self
Though it seems that tonight is the night I warned you I told you I’m coming apart just right
I just want To cascade over you like smooth waterfalls Barely a blink Come up for air In the clandestine, vogue-painted closet tone-deaf chambers Where satin and silk are interchangeable, Even though the mechanisms stretch far past What the modern seamstress can manage Irreversible damage To my hippocampus, and I think it’s making the horizon easier to navigate Isn’t that a lovely thought?
Jolly ranchers for two, I’ll split one with you I’ll split you in two The grave filth that the manager keeps echoing in his 9-story apartment building The couple on the seventh floor doesn’t know their floor has a leak And I feel like I haven’t been asleep for weeks For a prime suspect, I make a good candidate
And I make my bed Before sunrise, or in the afternoon I knew it was too soon to move in And a panic started beckoning within But if steel fences were like a goldfish that looks at you with a sideway’s glance when you’re paying attention to both his soft edges and the horror of your depleted reflection upon the opaque glass water chamber I’d be able to dissolve my fears ambiguously And not hold a ceremony Because I don’t like being on stage
Nor holding a payphone Nor sitting in an airplane aisle seat because I think that’s too far away that I am from blue I don’t regret letting myself want you For now, the trail has narrowed, and I’m even more sure of the concepts that my timid nature thought I knew from before
But hadn’t yet fully absorbed Even though my nerves Stood still with dawn’s headlights shining their vinyl arterial lining luminescence forward Softly but forever remarkable Diverging a separate path for a quiet evening amongst the vivid skyscrapers, That spill vacantly flowing and simultaneously churning blood all over the paved city streets and their locked corridors A lost art, I’m sure
I try not to step too close I love my lavender bedrooms wall the most I might as well write a poem about how they surround me, like silk cotton webs that disappear when touched
A new collection of elegant charcoal grey fine-point pens With ink that covers the palm of my hand A grocery shopping list Paid my bills on the fifth And ever since we split I’ve been wondering if nostalgia feels different to different people Or if there’s a place where one can collectively mourn To feel part of a generational gap that Splits into definitives Like a blueberry raspberry sorbet cut into two separate wholes, Both of which are for me
I turn the pages; I adjust my glasses I picture my cat telling me she didn’t like you And I almost laugh at myself, but then I think that would be strange I didn’t like the way you tried to pull her off the bed But it said so much I was probably too hungover to think very much of it at the time, that very second in your transparent presence that awakens me now But now, with my caramel espresso and my obsolete, filed manuscripts I venerate how smooth of a current I created
Like the gentlest riverbed That you could fall off your yacht into And it would absorb you without agony Without desperation or offbeat candor A modern-day orchestration of a segment of contribution You – to the waves The waves to the mariner’s life The ships to the tide pools, The time I couldn’t find, the time to divide
If something bigger than you consumes you, Without delineating a debt, Without drawing a line
How close is too close before it becomes just fine How fast do we absorb each other’s embers before we collapse in time
I still think of how I looked at you while you were drawing in the coffee shop
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
Portrait of Princess Tatyana Yusupova (1850) by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, oil on canvas
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
Sans Titre (Untitled) 115 by Eliane L. Guerin, oil on canvas
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
The Bath (1874) by Alfred Emile Leopold Stevens, oil on canvas
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
Mending the Gown (early 20th century) by Adolphe Borie (1877-1934), oil on canvas, figurative artwork
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
Open Air Interior Barcelona (1892) by Ramon Casos i Carbo, oil on canvas
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
