Thursday, February 28, 2013

Who I Really Am


Is there room enough here for all of us

the many faces of me?

They don’t know how to coexist

and it seems one is always lost in the dark.

There is one, the poet, the dreamer the fool

with the innocent heart of a child.

She believes in dreams and fairy tales

and that her words will someday be heard.

Then there is practical, everyday me

the one who gets the job done.

She tends and cares and fixes and heals

she has nothing left for herself.

The new me that has come to life

is one I’ve not known before.

She is healthy and strong and pushing her limits

focused solely on herself.

I like this me, though I have to admit,

I don’t know her very well.

She is careful not to let anyone in

for fear they may knock her down.

She is fragile though appears quite strong

in function and in form.

Building her body from the inside out

to allow herself to stand strong.

She is new like the dawn and quiet

as the dawn becomes the day.

It’s hard not to lose her in the hustle and bustle

as life sets forth its demands.

I am fighting for her, I’d like her to stay,

like to get to know her well.

I know she so much to teach me

about who I really am. 

 

Friday, February 22, 2013

A Scribbled Connecting Line

For dversepoets.com
 
 
asked us to  write a poem influenced by the aesthetic or purposes of graffiti.
 
~
 
Tangible evidence, visible scars
we need them for validation.
Word written on stone, inked etched into skin
traces that we have been here, existed.
You see it more in big cities
where the nameless and the faceless run rampant.
Where people move daily through the motion of life
and pass the wandering and lost without recognition.
In small towns, it’s more of an anomaly
and by definition does not fit in.
It is the thing that does not belong
in this warm quiet place.
I lived in a small town where space was provided
a stone wall and chalk for you to leave your trace.
“We want you to matter here” was the message
“but don’t mess up the aesthetic of our precious little façade”.
I like it better when it’s taken, stolen
proof of life that had to be taken at some risk.
The image of some rogue artist or aching soul
seeking out a blank canvas where it was never intended to be.
There it becomes primal, raw,
something fought for yet owned by no one.
Once scrawled on a wall it is simply left
something once held within that had to be set free.
In being consumed by the passing eye
life is sustained as it seeps into another’s consciousness. 
 


Saturday, February 16, 2013

The Place That I Used To Live


I’ve lived in Desperate, I’ve lived in Despair

I’ve lived in Addicted and Drunk.

I’ve lived Half Lives, I’ve lived Half Dead

one foot kicking dirt in the grave.

I’ve lived both Bleeding and Scarred,

I’ve lived Broken and Torn.

I’ve lived in Fear, I’ve lived in Lies,

wishing Tomorrow would never come.

For a short time I lived in Heaven

with an Angel who showed me her wings.

I flew with her through the Clouds

but again found myself back in Hell.

I still owed rent on Darkness

my name on a lease in Despair.

And Drunk seemed like the shortest route

to keep me living In Between.

I came here to the Ocean

when Heaven sent me back to Hell.

To see if where the Earth meets the Sky

I could Begin again.

I’m trying to reside in Sober

having broken the lease on Drunk.

Trying to live in the Light

having hung curtains on the Dark.

The décor I’ve chosen is Quiet and Calm

filled in with Time To Think.

With daily trips to the Ocean

to rehydrate a Barren Soul.

I’ve decided to live in Happy, in Peace

in Sober, in Life, in Alive.

To forever leave the Darkness behind

the Place That I Used To Live.
 
*For dversepoets.com*
 

Poetics: Leonard Cohen and Place

 
 
 
 

Friday, February 15, 2013

Again


I’m trying to forgive you, trying to let you go

for the simple fact that nothing else has worked.

The cuts, the scars, the bloodshot, bleary, tear stained drunken nights

have simply led me back here once again.

I stood exactly where I’m standing now

this time last year just some hundred miles away.

Lost and alone and dying inside and really, outside too,

with no hope that I could ever see again.

That I would ever see anything but the hole

that you once filled in this space next to me.

That I would ever feel anything close to whole

and still that emptiness is the thing that defines me.

The hardest thing to bear is that I had you

and without knowing how I lost you just like that.

The feeling that I am nothing more than always being less

is paralyzing and eating away at me.

The other day I found a card from you that said,

‘to the woman who will always be more than enough’.

That’s what it all comes down to once again

which one of us didn’t live up to their word? 

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

It's about


It’s about finding yourself standing

at the beginning or the end of the road.

It’s about knowing that both places are the same

depending upon which way you turn.

It’s about seeing yourself in the mirror

and welcoming or pushing away.

It’s about who you really are

when everything else is gone.

It’s about fear and terror

and living with both of those things.

It’s about wanting to survive them

in spite of who they’ve made you become.

It’s about wishing you were different

or at least had done different things.

It’s about not destroying yourself

for being human and making mistakes.

It’s about trying to find something

that makes you want to engage.

It’s about wanting to be and wanting to live

with some sort of passion again.

It’s about leaving the past in the past

and seeing a future exist.

It’s about that and that alone

that is really all it is.
 
 
For dversepoets.com
 
 
 

 

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Friday, February 8, 2013

Recalling Moments


Moments flash like blinking eyes

the past brought to light.

I can see the moments I let slip by

or simply denied all the same.

Mostly they were words left hanging

echoing in the air.

But the feelings still attached to them

are part of who I am now.

I remember phone calls with secrets told

with fear and trepidation.

But the fear was cradled in words that would

manipulate response.

I remember the car ride through the desert

the pain, the fear, the guilt.

I remember that was the day I knew

I could never show you those things.

I remember being so afraid

of roads I’d never been down.

And remember being so disappointed

that I was walking down them alone.

I remember hearing language

words that cut and stung.

And saying to myself, as long as,

they are never directed at me.

 I remember taking my values

 and dashing them upon the rocks.

Because I knew they would never matter to you

another death of me.

So many things remembered now

the words are screaming out loud.

Things I should have said and should have done

are only memories now.

In homage to the things that died

I write these words on this page.

And pin them to the walls of this room

to never be silenced again.
 
For dversepoets.com

 

The flood


Listening to the soft quiet sounds of the rain

as it pours heavily down around me.

That feeling of being washed clean

of everything becoming new.

The days have passed quite slowly of late

in a long and listless blur.

In solitary moments of reflection

and the pain that seeing brings.

I’ve quieted the busy, the harried and crazed

the distractions all laid down.

The illusions and places to hide all gone

I am staring at nothing but me.

I hate this place every time I arrive here

and fight like hell not to pause.

But here is where I need to stay

until I can see myself clearer than you.

I need to see through the darkness

to want to stand in the light.

To want something of me to keep me here

or I will fade in the wake of you.

You were what I was fighting for

and in doing so killed off myself.

Left an empty soul on the side of the road

as I sped recklessly down that road.

As is bound to happen things fell apart

systems eventually break down.

But with nothing in reserve I could not carry on

and am still abandoned here on this road.

It’s pouring rain down upon me today

the earth beginning to flood.

I feel the urge just to walk for miles

until I am soaked, bathed, new.

I have been treading water for some time now

trying to stay above the line.

I feel like surrender is imminent

just exhale and sink within.

 

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Remnants


Isn’t interesting

what this has done to me.

The way that it has changed me

into someone else.

My face no longer looks the same

my hair, my clothes, have changed.

My voice no longer carries in it

the light that it once did.

I can no longer stand

so many things that I once loved

No longer do I see the twinkled lights

or hazy dreams.

The sight of touch or tenderness

now fills me with disgust.

A hand upon skin

fills me with unease I can’t explain.

Gestures, movements, connection between

is something I cannot take.

I quickly move away

or just avoid it all the same.

I am sick at the thought of you and her

sick to my very soul.

I can’t wipe the images away

from the corners of my mind.

That is the fallout, the residue,

the remnants of betrayal.

That is the thing I cannot find

a way to let go of.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

This thing


Tired of this road I’m on

sinking in the muck and mire.

Ankle deep and getting worse

my brand new shoes are stained.

I can’t find my way out of this

I can’t see any light.

The silence is deafening, it’s freezing here

I am slowly turning to stone.

The sight of my face is foreign to me

I’ve cut my hair and changed my clothes.

But I’m still the one underneath it all

and I just don’t care anymore.

It’s a vicious, spinning cycle

of pain and grief and shame.

From one to the next and the next one again

right back to where it begins.

It starts with me missing the life

that would somehow change who I am.

The dream that was taken away from me

when you walked out of the door.

The next step is trying to numb it all

and make it go away.

To drown in the depths of that darkness

just trying to survive.

Then comes the guilt that inevitably comes

as the numbness starts to subside.

The guilt that I am to blame for it all

because that is all that I can see.

Then comes the shame that this is now

the thing I have become.

This wretched mess, this disastrous waste

this thing that won’t go away.