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.