I can tell I can tell in my own poetry When I’m slipping into cracks In the asphalt The rendition of your worst dreams – concave nightmares Existing perfectly intertwined in cooler but violet & violent, amber tones Softly, gazing Haphazardly Barely awake and hardly credible Flashes of cyanide to intoxicate the evening and ruin the damage that’s in disarray So perfect, it all always seems to be
Somehow I’m always awake when you are Or you’re always awake when I am Or we catch each other at the right times
Like doves passing muted harmonies back and forth Into the night
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
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
If you’re new to my collection of poetry, love poems are typically in pink, but this one seemed to fit a blue backdrop better than pink.
I’m alright with being an ordinary girl Not very many followers, not very many friends My circle is too small to heal me So I paint circles with the ink that bleeds off of a page when water washes away all of the bittersweet words Your old Cambridge literary journals If I ever loved you, it wasn’t on purpose
I clean up nice Baby doll dresses I-, I-, I always wanted to be famous Just to one person Just to be his world His source of power But I burnt out so, so young I can taste the bitter tar endings on my tongue The combustion of whatever you and me ever were to be
One word replies You think you’re so wise! You use black curtains to hide from the sun The only thing hotter than your large caliber gun A soundproof room A baby blooms Angel bed where there lives the city of sin Insensitive, discerning, you’re impervious to loss I wanted you badly But at what cost?
Franklin avenue where my bike crashed into your lawn And I fell down underneath the hot summer sun Absorbed it like water on sheets We laughed and had blisters on our feet You told me you’d never leave
You frustrate me when you don’t hit me up first Totaled your Panamera, you forgave me, cos I love you the most Laughed about it on an Instagram post
In your sleep you have the wildest dreams Most consist of you marrying me You’re more romantic than you make things seem Probably because you don’t know what’s beneath Your skin is so soft, so soft Grey fuzzy blanket for movie night in the loft With you all I ever want to do is get lost And all I think about Is me plus you, in any place
In any place In any place Let our sour love surface In any place In any place
Tell me you love looking in my direction Make me bleed out my inner infection Start a bone marrow collection
I close my eyes and picture the garden of Eden But you’re not there Well then The devil in the details is trying to tell me That this is what I need
A peacefulness cradles me in comatose, amber silk You’re hopeless and breathless I’ve loved you for hours Your despondent wake Your ivory powder
And I’ve loved you and loved you For hours Four hours I’ve loved you For four hours And hours
Too beautiful to me, it is The way the truth falls but doesn’t diminish its overwhelming servitude Grief like hollow images and stills To be flawed and fawned with grey embers & soft wax Rolled on Ireland’s greenest pastures My dream garden My avalanche
I wake up endlessly absolving my sins, unraveling for you Tell me what it is you want me to do I’m so aware of what I can and cannot be And I think it’s best you not be there for me I tire in my own sleep
Morning cereal For four in the afternoon You wash over me like an Avalanche Like my dream garden White roses and picket fences, freshly painted Soft tuberose fragrance Dismantling me from within Fabricated and built in great jeopardy Soft and of the finest fabric
I think of you in waterfalls, that I’ve never seen before I ask you to close the door I’m impatient in the mornings but by evening so wrapped up in comatose fiber sheath Toying with my own nerves On purpose Like a fever dream Like ants unscrambled Running out of fear, hiding beneath dust Moving pollen and feathers to their corporate offices
When I pass by you on the street With my kitten heels and utmost softness Try not to Try not to
Go back to your dream garden Your avalanche Beneath dust
Connected by the sheer composition that melts in broad daylight Collectively held at A disadvantage Brought together in the Spring when the ambiance paints a different mood For the dust underneath the conjoining ether Without reserve Still and unenthusiastic Hopeful, yet without meaning
Find me in my personal dream garden When the smoke clears
