I cut the chrysanthemum flowers, and you ruffle through my drawers Pigeon blue and staining through You cut your losses Roll over onto the pink duvet cover You look beautiful on my bed Like you just got out of the shower Like you’ll finally let me hold you Sweet dreams for a nap You can have it like that Autumn is approaching soon, and your eyes are sparkling brown I’m going to find their distinct shade in the leaves of the fall Up to heaven’s gate, we can have it all I think you have somebody to call
Evenings Frostbite The way we fight Like water holding the boat afloat Like your friends and everyone else you know Stay here in the shade with rare sun rays reaching your chest and shedding light You need something bright Something that fits you To keep up with your wild attention span That pays itself its dues
You, my boy that lies beside me Neutral palette, got it down I love when you take me around town It’s nice when the evenings come around
Everything is sun-kissed because there’s a glow in the sky Cos I don’t have the patience to write an entire album about just one guy Can you feel me clinging to your new clothes? Before you insert yourself inside of them Taint the black Tar-boiled trap Tell me you like the sound of my name Lie to me all over again I ain’t writing an album about just one guy Held in importance but forgotten in spirit I’ve got to keep living
a free verse poem about finding stability & self-acceptance
I know That things won’t work out as planned I know that Because my mother taught me how to be a man But there are Parts of me that won’t let someone hold my hand Because I Because I Find graveyards appealing Harsh winter thunderstorms healing And the chaos within you is quite often revealing Of the doom and dismay your surroundings convey The filth The agony The dreams others built for you become destroyed I’m my own person
But when I drive home at night I don’t feel alone I just know I am
It was cold in Chicago And I wanted to lay down In the snow My frail body Seldom appears melancholy Singing you songs, breathlessly, to you in your sleep Though my voice is never the right pitch Maybe that’s why I wait Until you hit your steady dream state An abyss of perpetual ignorance to moral obligations
The impatience Is testing me Like a ticking clock Telling me I Haven’t painted The sky quite right Haven’t gotten the stars To my audience’s delight And I think I might combust From the tainted, porcelain figure I often wish to set on fire Because what burns Feels so warm In winter
It’s almost February The anniversary of A thousand slumbers A rainfall that struck me like Lightning on the fast lane on the highway Swerving between cars with my eyes closed Thinking I’m oh – I’m just so composed But me, parchment paper thick, practically comatose Wouldn’t keep anyone up at night When you haven’t Made a name For yourself And nobody Gets the intonation In your full name quite right Maybe it’s not The right time To say
That what burns feels so warm In winter My god The shades of blue How I’d devour the skyline Like an arsonist, I fade to grey Along with the trembling cityscape
I encapsulate all the seasons & am easily forgotten
I only hope to properly portray The vacancy light in this hotel I occupy
Me, Against the wall Cold, doll-like, confused Fingertips Painted the lightest shade of pink that the nail salon could offer me If only, I could be elegant I could like parts of myself that others don’t I could live my life like My father envisioned
When he said to me
That I was born In the perfect season For a girl who prolongs Finding a reason To burn this place down to the ground
Hollow Cave Where my old journals remain Where ex-boyfriends mispronounce my last name They never remember the best parts of you They never really knew How to get through How your eyes turn dark green when your favourite song comes on Or when the colour temperature is five thousand Kelvin and I feel ashamed That I woke up to find Myself Not in embers But filling a body With wholeness that only
Real self-acceptance could develop and create
Something permanent Is never Found
I’m no good with directions but I don’t believe I’m lost I’m exactly On my own two feet Waiting To leave a message after the beep
But I hang up, because I remember They can’t pronounce my last name The intonation Is weak And I Am so Much farther than I thought I would be At this time of my life Are you, at all, surprised?
When I look At the cars Passing me by On the highway, I wonder If they’re going Somewhere warm and inviting
I don’t know why That To me Feels so terribly frightening
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
Free verse love poem: Speaking volumes (white florals)
I’m in the pool, with your gentle gaze moving toward the horizon Smooth riverbeds, crashing yet Solemn Tender in their collapsing wake My sovereign ways trap you like hurricanes Find slumber in the rectitude of my rendition of a classic painting of a Prince attending to a young queen Dismayed at her place, though in a quiet peace, That glances violently towards a moral upbringing A softness I couldn’t portray
The Dressing of the Favorite (1857), oil on canvas, by Henri Pierre Picou (French, 1824-1895)
A sea-foam fog dynasty I swore was mine I told you the truth It mattered to me I found thoughts in my mind that I couldn’t hold back, entirely Though I did my best, To provide you with rest My satin sheath, vibrant with scarlet cardinal fibers The delicate breeze, like rapture Golden but never, truth be told, reflecting lightning that makes marks in the sky A tribute to no one Is every structure soon to fall down? The bolts unfastened, my lace dress & ultramarine form A silhouette only God could have created A boldness that scares away anyone who isn’t Strong enough To hold a woman in his arms and Not want to change her
The light pink August calendar I have on my contemporary glass tabletop That forgot the date when we Began things Paved was our course with giving looks at each other like we’re in a vintage film A theatre for just the two of us Hopeful dedication Watching our past conversations and having new conversations about those from before We don’t run out of things to talk about But when you find me watching the cars on the road pass by us, viciously, Counting the trucks Taking note of their model and make You see something in me that I could not tell you Not because I can’t find the right words I always find the right words
Along the Siene, Winter (1887) by Frederick Childe Hassam (American impressionist painter, 1859-1935)
I don’t know what you know And I don’t know if you know me But when your gaze becomes increasingly familiar, I cascade into a Reflection interrupted by the silliest words you stream together A childlike ambiance, golden in accuracy Crisp like a wave’s current Interjected with passing a cigarette lighter Getting higher From rays of the subtle light of day, Muted only in temperament Dulcet on the edges I told you I was yours I meant it, of course
Le Baiser (The Kiss) (commissioned by the French state in 1888, carved between 1888-98) by Auguste Rodin (French sculptor, 1840-1917)
We stop at the gas station; you run in to the corner store; you bring me honey green tea For your girl (that is a friend) Patient and kind A dove’s brisk white feathers Softer than mankind Rougher than a woman’s fingertips Comfortable in the chaos Surrendering to a time when you could count the green specks in my eyes And smell my white floral perfume
It seems as of now we have moved on to the Heavens Where you call me Venus And I mistake you for someone I’ve never known before An oceanic climate to the boulders we create When we feel inclined to say Why do I like you so much? Why do I like when you’re rough? I do still find, thinking to myself, whether I’m good enough But when the porch light comes on, I move the thought along To the binder where I keep my disarrayed opinions Resolving to find Some water to allow My throat to stop tightening when I get up during the night Patience, my ever-present accomplishment, finds its way to you Presenting an elegance you couldn’t get from anyone else
Improvisation (1899) by Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935), oil on canvas
I find myself in spaces When you are absent Distress being transient Because your face is
A discernment I couldn’t get from anyone else
The Aleutian mountains and the disintegrating cliffs Couldn’t mask the foundation I thought we’d bring Resolving to find Some water to allow
My throat to stop closing when I sleep at night I wonder if styrofoam composure could fail to observe my fright To weave in serenity in light shades of pink,
On days like today, I’m unsure how to drink Come, lay in bed
