You began the conversation with
“We need to talk”
but talk is the last thing I wanted
I knew it signaled the demise of the silence
that held things tightly and neatly in place
It would begin the process of unboxing
which is messy, in words
Our winter come to end
in dignified formality
you were gone
relationships
January
You were cold when I met you
with bitter winds and sleet that chilled the bones
and stung bare skin
Etched
but beautiful and dazzling
sun on shards of broken glass
a blizzard, a tumult
a beginning
Chosen
Indelible ink on skin
the blood red border of a new tattoo
A chosen scar to decorate or maybe hide the ones that weren’t
Chosen…
Only the grave
in silent darkness
keeps secrets so well
as skin thickened by never told wounds, colored and outlined in black
Keep(her)
I wear my heart
not on my sleeve
but dead center of my chest
for all to see
a few to fill
some to love
some to lose
and some to break
And that’s alright with me.
S.O.S.
You think you’ll find love
and you do for a moment
in the arms of a boy
with eyes that see into
the places other people won’t
or can’t
And you fashion an image
of happy ever after
very much like the movies
you watched with your grandpa
before he died
Only the rescue
never happens
the sun goes down
and rises without him
And you realize
you were holding
the life preserver all along…
Seasons
You are winter wind
that bites my face
and burns my lungs
Fleeting and painful
in the moment you are here
and in the next,
gone like snow that gently melts away
in springtime sun
Returning as the leaves
of summer green
and put to rest
by autumn darkness falling
a memory I live again
Like seasons…
Penance
perhaps you are my secret
left in the darkness of a closet
filled with dry bones
that rattle like fallen leaves
on pavement on a crisp and windy day
yet unlike those drifting leaves
I can not sweep you away
because you are alive
with beating heart
a memory I revisit in the silent night
with hope
that I may somehow change the past
rinse you clean and bright as dawn
bring you back to Innocence
and into light
forgiven
Ghost
The taste of dark brew
conversations overheard
from a wooden chair at the coffee shop
where the clatter of glass
a laugh a smile
all of these are reminders
of what was had and what is lost
and of the fleeting, dizzying pace of time
all things go on
as I go on
your ghost
like fading photographs
my company
Fickle
From dust
a breath brought you to life
in me
my heartbeat
my song
Shifting moods
and dark clouds
ushered in the storm
From dust you came
to dust you shall return
Eyes Closed
It’s raining and I find myself
listening to the wipers mechanical sound
As they shift back and forth across the glass
and marveling at the cast
the stoplight’s glow leaves on the road
Green means go
and so I drive knowing this way
will never lead to your heart
yellow, pause take stock and
grip the wheel I know the red light’s coming
stop or go?
Hit the gas…we all want what we can’t have
even when it means we might not make it through
T-boned in the intersection
it’s possible
Knowing this still
I careen recklessly forward
slick roads and all
Eyes closed
Golifely 