Read Love & Misadventure Page 1




  Contents

  Part 1 Misadventure

  A Toast!

  Xs and Os

  A Dangerous Recipe

  Just Friends

  When Ignorance Is Bliss

  Heart on the Line

  Sea of Strangers

  Art and Books

  A Voyage

  A Thank-You Note

  An Endearing Trait

  His Word

  A Well-Dressed Man

  A Stranger

  Wallflower

  Rollercoaster

  His Cause and Effect

  Lost and Found

  Afraid to Love

  The Wanderer

  Part 2 The Circus of Sorrows

  Circus Town

  A Timeline

  In Two Parts

  A Bad Day

  Rogue Planets

  Closure

  A Question

  A Way Out

  Lost Things

  A Betrayal

  After You

  A Reverie

  Letting Him Go

  The Things We Hide

  Love Lost

  Time Travelers

  A Small Consolation

  An Impossible Task

  The Keeper

  Sad Songs

  Jealousy

  Waking without You

  That Day

  The Girl He Loves

  A Lover's Past

  Beauty's Curse

  Dead Butterflies

  Wishful Thinking

  A Heavy Heart

  Saving You

  An Answer

  Swan Song

  Part 3 Love

  First Love

  He and I

  Sundays with Michael

  Mornings with You

  Soul Mates

  A Fairy Tale

  Always

  A Dream

  Before There Was You

  Beautiful

  All or Nothing

  Some Time Out

  Souls

  Solo Show

  The Fear of Losing You

  Ebb and Flow

  Written in Traffic

  Angels

  Golden Cage

  Love Letters

  Codependency

  Canyons

  A Time Capsule

  For Michael

  The half of this book—

  the whole of my heart.

  A Dedication

  She lends her pen,

  to thoughts of him,

  that flow from it,

  in her solitary.

  For she is his poet,

  And he is her poetry.

  Part 1

  Misadventure

  A Toast!

  To new beginnings,

  in fear and faith

  and all it tinges.

  To love is a dare,

  when hope and despair,

  are gates upon it hinges.

  Xs and Os

  Love is a game

  of tic-tac-toe,

  constantly waiting,

  for the next x or o.

  A Dangerous Recipe

  To love him

  is something,

  I hold highly

  suspicious.

  Like having something,

  so very delicious—

  then being told,

  to do the dishes.

  Just Friends

  I know that I don't own you,

  and perhaps I never will,

  so my anger when you're with her,

  I have no right to feel.

  I know that you don't owe me,

  and I shouldn't ask for more;

  I shouldn't feel so let down,

  all the times when you don't call.

  What I feel—I shouldn't show you,

  so when you're around I won't;

  I know I've no right to feel it

  but it doesn't mean I don't.

  When Ignorance Is Bliss

  I deplore,

  being ignored.

  For—

  I am not a bore!

  But it's perplexingly sweet,

  and quite sexy too—

  to be ignored,

  ignored by you.

  Heart on the Line

  Love is good,

  it is never bad—

  but it will drive you mad!

  When it is given to you,

  in dribs and drabs.

  Sea of Strangers

  In a sea of strangers,

  you've longed to know me.

  Your life spent sailing

  to my shores.

  The arms that yearn

  to someday hold me,

  will ache beneath

  the heavy oars.

  Please take your time

  and take it slowly;

  as all you do

  will run its course.

  And nothing else

  can take what only—

  was always meant

  as solely yours.

  Art and Books

  Without a doubt,

  I must read,

  all the books

  I've read about.

  See the artworks

  hung on hooks,

  that I have only,

  seen in books.

  A Voyage

  To be guided

  nor misguided

  in love,

  nor brokenhearted.

  But to sail in waters—

  uncharted.

  A Thank-You Note

  You have said

  all the things

  I need to hear

  before I knew

  I needed to hear them.

  To be unafraid

  of all the things

  I used to fear,

  before I knew

  I shouldn't fear them.

  An Endearing Trait

  The scatterbrain,

  is a little like,

  the patter of rain.

  Neither here,

  nor there,

  but everywhere.

  His Word

  I am not,

  just a notch

  on his belt.

  What he feels for me,

  he's never felt.

  I am a word

  he has heard

  but has never seen

  for himself.

  Yet he wants to know,

  how that word

  is spelt.

  A Well-Dressed Man

  His charm

  will disarm;

  his smile,

  in style;

  his fashion,

  in passion;

  his words,

  his flirt,

  his tie

  from his shirt,

  to my wrists—

  his kiss!

  his kiss!

  his kiss!

  A Stranger

  There is a love I reminisce,

  like a seed

  I've never sown.

  Of lips that I am yet to kiss,

  and eyes

  not met my own.

  Hands that wrap around my wrists,

  and arms

  that feel like home.

  I wonder how it is I miss,

  these things

  I've never known.

  Wallflower

  Shrinking in a corner,

  pressed into the wall;

  do they know I'm present,

  am I here at all?

  Is there a written rule book,

  that tells you how to be—

  all the right things to talk about—

  that everyone has but me?

  Slowly I am withering—

  a flower deprived of sun;

  longing to belong to—


  somewhere or someone.

  A Rollercoaster

  You will find him in

  my highs and lows;

  in my mind,

  he'll to and fro.

  He's the tallest person,

  that I know—

  and so he keeps me,

  on my toes.

  His Cause and Effect

  He makes me turn,

  he makes me toss;

  his words mean mine

  are at a loss.

  He makes me blush!

  He makes me want

  to brush and floss.

  Lost and Found

  A sunken chest,

  on the ocean ground,

  to never be found

  was where he found me.

  There he stirred,

  my every thought,

  my every word,

  so gently, so profoundly.

  Now I am kept,

  from dreams I dreamt,

  when once I slept,

  so soundly.

  Afraid to Love

  I turn away

  and close my heart—

  to the promise of love

  that is luring.

  For the past has taught

  to not be caught,

  in what is not

  worth pursuing—

  To never do

  the things I've done

  that once had led

  to my undoing.

  The Wanderer

  What is she like?

  I was told—

  she is a

  melancholy soul.

  She is like

  the sun to night;

  a momentary gold.

  A star when dimmed

  by dawning light;

  the flicker of

  a candle blown.

  A lonely kite

  lost in flight—

  someone once

  had flown.

  Part 2

  The Circus of Sorrows

  Circus Town

  From a city so bright

  to a strange little town;

  on a carousel spinning,

  around and around.

  The dizzying height,

  of the stars from the ground.

  The world all alight—

  with his sights, his sounds.

  A Timeline

  You and I

  against a rule,

  set for us by time.

  A marker drawn

  to show our end,

  etched into its line.

  The briefest moment

  shared with you—

  the longest

  on my mind.

  In Two Parts

  You come and go so easily,

  your life is as you knew—

  while mine is split in two.

  How I envy so the half of me,

  who lived before love's due,

  who was yet to know of you.

  A Bad Day

  When thoughts of all but one,

  are those I am keeping.

  When sore though there is none,

  for whom I am weeping.

  A curtain drawn before the sun,

  and I wish to go on sleeping.

  Rogue Planets

  As a kid, I would count backwards from ten and imagine at one, there would be an explosion—perhaps caused by a rogue planet crashing into Earth or some other major catastrophe. When nothing happened, I'd feel relieved and at the same time, a little disappointed.

  I think of you at ten; the first time I saw you. Your smile at nine and how it lit up something inside me I had thought long dead. Your lips at eight pressed against mine and at seven, your warm breath in my ear and your hands everywhere. You tell me you love me at six and at five we have our first real fight. At four we have our second and three, our third. At two you tell me you can't go on any longer and then at one, you ask me to stay.

  And I am relieved, so relieved—and a little disappointed.

  Closure

  Like time suspended,

  a wound unmended—

  you and I.

  We had no ending,

  no said good-bye.

  For all my life,

  I'll wonder why.

  A Question

  It was a question I had worn on my lips for days—like a loose thread on my favorite sweater I couldn't resist pulling—despite knowing it could all unravel around me.

  “Do you love me?” I ask.

  In your hesitation I found my answer.

  A Way Out

  Do you know what it is like,

  to lie in bed awake;

  with thoughts to haunt

  you every night,

  of all your past mistakes.

  Knowing sleep will set it right—

  if you were not to wake.

  Lost Things

  Do you know when you've lost something—like your favorite T-shirt or a set of keys—and while looking for it, you come across something else you once missed but have long since forgotten? Well whatever it was, there was a point where you decided to stop searching, maybe because it was no longer required or a new replacement was found. It is almost as if it never existed in the first place—until that moment of rediscovery, a flash of recognition.

  Everyone has one—an inventory of lost things waiting to be found. Yearning to be acknowledged for the worth they once held in your life.

  I think this is where I belong—among all your other lost things. A crumpled note at the bottom of a drawer or an old photograph pressed between the pages of a book. I hope someday you will find me and remember what I once meant to you.

  A Betrayal

  I cannot undo

  what I have done;

  I can't un-sing

  a song that's sung.

  And the saddest thing

  about my regret—

  I can't forgive me,

  and you can't forget.

  After You

  If I wrote it in a book,

  could I shelve it?

  If I told of what you took,

  would that help it?

  If I will it,

  can I un-feel it,

  now I've felt it?

  A Reverie

  A dusty room,

  a window chair,

  unseeing eyes

  that gaze into

  the montage of

  a love affair.

  A carousel

  of memories,

  spinning round

  into a blur.

  Her mind is now

  a fairground ride—

  she wonders if

  you think of her.

  Letting Him Go

  There is a particular kind of suffering to be experienced when you love something greater than yourself. A tender sacrifice.

  Like the pained silence felt in the lost song of a mermaid; or the bent and broken feet of a dancing ballerina. It is in every considered step I am taking in the opposite direction of you.

  The Things We Hide

  And so,

  I have put away

  the photographs,

  every trace of you

  I know.

  The things that seem

  to matter less,

  are the ones

  we put on show.

  Love Lost

  There is one who you belong to,

  whose love—there is no song for.

  And though you know it's wrongful,

  there is someone else you long for.

  Your heart was once a vessel,

  it was filled up to the brim;

  until the day he left you,

  now everything sings of him.

  Of the two who came to love you,

  to one, your heart you gave.

  He lives in stars above you—

  in the love who came and stayed.

  Time Travelers

  In all our wrongs,

  I want to write him,

  in a
time where

  I can find him.

  Before the tears

  that tore us.

  When our history was

  before us.

  A Small Consolation

  Everything that we once were,

  is now a sad and lonely verse.

  When once I had so much to say,

  I am now bereft of words.

  Sometimes it is the order of things,

  that make them seem much worse.

  It's not as if you would have stayed,

  if I hadn't left you first.

  An Impossible Task

  To try

  or untry

  to forget you not,

  may be related

  somewhat—

  To tying,

  then trying

  to untie,

  a complicated

  knot.

  The Keeper

  You were like a dream,

  I wish I hadn't

  slept through.

  Within it I fell deeper,

  than your heart would

  care to let you.

  I thought you were a keeper,

  I wish I could

  have kept you.

  Sad Songs

  Once there was a boy who couldn't speak but owned a music box that held every song in all the world. One day he met a girl who had never heard a single melody in her entire life and so he played her his favorite song. He watched while her face lit up with wonder as the music filled the sky and the poetry of lyrics moved her in a way she had never felt before.

  He would play his songs for her day after day and she would sit by him quietly—never seeming to mind that he could only speak to her through song. She loved everything he played for her, but of them all—she loved the sad songs best. So he began to play them more and more until eventually, sad songs were all she would hear.