Poem: Promises (wildflowers)

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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Love poem: Soy una princesa (productos mexicanos)

Love poem: Soy una princesa (productos mexicanos)

Oh, you won’t like my picture?
Because you’re mad at me?
Which one of us is reverting to our old ways?
I got something real cool just for you
Rosas blancas
Oh but – they’re mine, they’re mine
They’re mine

I go to the market, Productos Mexicanos
Roll my window down as I drive
Close my doll-like eyes
And the sunshine hits me in the most pleasant of ways
Saying to me, saying to me
You’re crazy
In the most pleasant of ways
Nobody leaves voicemails like I do
Nobody looks as good in a dress as I do
Deserving of rapture
Deserving of fire
Gasoline and lilac fumes to invigorate the night
Soft candle-light, hold me real tight

Yeah, we’re getting high from nothing at all
My mom was right about you
Your concept of me isn’t capable of changing
I need freedom, I need freedom, baby
To be who I want to be
It’s the only way I can be, who you and I both want me to be
The only way to be free
The only way to be me

I need a boy I can speak Spanish to; I need a boy who’s Latino
City Terrace Drive, I take the 605
I want a boy with his own apartment, his own car
Rev it up on the highway, scare the living daylights out of me
With your thrill, hot thrill
Wind in my hair
Let me be free with you
Follow my dreams next to you
Walk alongside you, and only you
Be my thrill
Avalanche on a hill
Inspire me to be whole again

Walking around town, thinking you’re so cool
You don’t have a car & you dropped out of school
Painting portraits of me is the only thing you’ve ever done for me
Ever done for me
Ever done for me
Now it’s done for me

Soy una princesa
No olvides eso
Yo soy la reina
Llevo el mejor perfume
So what do you have to lose, when you can’t see through me
Can’t understand me
Doesn’t even try
I’m vacant as the forever in-bloom, wide open sky
I write and I do not know why
You’re not calling me right now

Right now, right now
Right now, right now
I want a white wedding gown
El supermercado mexicano

Rosas blancas
Rosas blancas
Give me white roses
Love me on purpose
Rosas blancas
Rosas blancas
El supermercado mexicano

Thought I lost you there
Thought I lost
Thought I lost you there
Thought I lost

But I always
Always
Always
Always
Always

Win

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

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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Love poem for a boy: Physics study hall

Love poem for a boy: Physics study hall

There was a boy with a voice like yours in the physics study hall
I thought it was you
I could feel myself glowing
A little bit
But when I looked in his direction
I only saw my own reflection
In the clear glass of the windowpane
And I looked so gentle
So foggy, so full of you
So full of it
(Hope)

It comforted me
Me there, temporarily filled with bliss
Listening to a voice that was just like yours
Of a guy that was distant, too, but reminiscent in ways
That surpassed my expectations
But ruined them at the same time
(I wanted you, there)
(I wanted you, standing, there)

While I was editing my little daily tasks in my peony-covered black planner
Carbon black
Panic attack
So remarkable, engrained with tact
Grab me right back
Panic attack
Hold me like that
Crisp edges
Distant, so distant, so distant it seems

Lake Michigan, Chicago, Illinois

Take hold of me
Run with me through the pouring, strong but absently delicate rain
Ask me about my past
Tell me about back home
Where your parents are from
Where your sister lives, with her husband, and why you’re not married
By now
In your late thirties

Tell me about the years that you came of age
To blossom, to endure
Rabbit holes
Soft edges
How you became a man
Sharp, marked silhouette, dark fragrance
Cascading vision
Bold and crimson
Smooth and hollow
Ambient surfaces
Ribbons tied with cherry-lined trails
Puddles on the ground and clusters of snails
The stillness seeps beneath me so absentmindedly

I’m reading about
Restriction enzymes
Wondering what I’m going to say to you
When I see you
And I’m wearing my Chicago Cubs baseball cap
Because I know you’re a Dodgers fan
And I wonder
To myself
If you’re going to say something
About that
Fact

And you
Didn’t
And I’m alone now, in the car
About to drive the fourty miles home
Not vacant because I’m too whole to begin with, to be disembodied
But still
Not knowing
Which fragrance you wear
And seeing
Your long blonde hair
Falling alongside your bold, hardened face
That was not looking
In my
Direction

Like a marble that rolls far, far away from you
I thought I heard you in the physics study hall
But I only saw my reflection in a still-glass superficial surface

And that told me all I had to know

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Free verse poetry: Dream garden (dust)

Free verse poetry: Dream garden (dust)

Avalanche
Dream garden
February twenty-nine

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

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