Alone for Always

Do you know what it’s like to constantly sabotage your own happiness with incessant worry?
I do.
Do you know know what it’s like to constantly wonder what in the world there is to love about you?
I do.
Do you know how it feels to be so afraid to love someone you’ve given your trust?
I do.

Every word
Every moment
Clouded with doubt and uncertainty
Filled with questions
Silent and unspoken
Paralyzed by potential
What you don’t know can’t hurt you
Like unrequited love

You are a failure
Crippled with fear
Scared you’ll say the wrong thing
And push them away
There is no doubt
There is no mistake
You are filled with desperation
Begging to be loved
Wishing you could show
More than just this facade

Pathetic
The way you throw away your soul
To ease the loneliness
The way you put in so much
For an opportunity that will never be more than a maybe

You’re only an option
Until something better comes along
You’ve never been a priority
So why would that change now?

You’re not special or wonderful
In any sort of way
You are human
Flawed in every sense

So why do you keep putting others first
When they can’t even do the same?

Why
How
Do you not learn from your past pain?

Don’t you know by now
You’re just not good enough for anyone
A momentary distraction
Is all you’ll ever be

So why?
Why do you remain so naive?
Why do you keep giving so much
When you have nothing left inside?

Because I know what it’s like to hurt
To be burned
And to be without
To be the one broken by trauma
To lose everything I held dear

But everyone deserves to smile
No matter how brief, fleeting, or short-lived
Everyone deserves to know what it feels to truly be loved
And to experience true happiness

The world may be cruel and cold
But that doesn’t mean I have to be
If I can make one person smile
If I can make one person laugh
If I can give joy to those around me
Then I’ve done what I was made to do

Because no matter the pain
No matter the cost
I will always love
With all my heart

Nature’s Truth

In the early hours of Spring
When the shoots first meet the air
When the flowers begin their dance
Of colourful array

The joy of Beauty’s blooms
Delicate in the morning’s light
Threatened only by Winter’s returning breath

Cold and deadening
It creeps from night to day
Its fingers trailing
Biting and killing

Here stands alone
A loveless rose
Caressed and loved
By Death’s own touch
Standing still and stark
In a defiance
Alive against all odds

Resilient as she may be
She is forever changed

Every touch
Gentle or harsh
Causes her to recoil
For she knows not what it’s like
To let in the world that destroyed her

Morning Dew

It’s early morning
And dawn remains unbroken
You turn out the lights
As the door softly closes

A quick glance
Without regret
A soft mutter into the dark silence

A voice
That sparked joy
Can no longer hold you back
As time puts distance between us
And when the morning shines
It’s too late
For like dew
You are gone

Every trace
Every memory
Hazy and faded
Like an old photograph
Slowly disintegrating

And once more
I find myself
Staring into the abyss
Alone again

Beauty of the Change

Prompt: autumn inspiration

Caught between two worlds
Between waking and death
Her ice cold touch
His warm fiery breath

Each sharp inhale
Slices through flesh and bone
Each chill
Reverberates like sound through water

Then another symphony rises
Of reds, yellows, and oranges
Swirling
And lifting

The crisp cool air
Bringing back the memories
Of academia
And the bright cold sun
Burning in our minds

Another time
Another change
Each symphony greater than her last
Until silence
Nothing Gold Can Stay*

*Name of one of my favourite poems that describes the change of the seasons best

Mismatched

Prompt: Found poetry – utilize a previous work and turn it into a poem

I used the first bit of my short story addendum titled “Promise to Milton” to construct this piece.  “Promise to Milton” was part of a larger piece called “Life of a Schoolgirl” that came from a summer writing challenge which ultimately was the basis of my novel An Affair to Die For.

I did move some phrases around and add in some stuff so it’s not a true blacking out poem like I did with the Sherlock piece a while back.  And this is a lot choppier than I’m used to.

I stood
Called back

Remember

Raising an eyebrow
Shook my head

Remember

Last night?
A bell?
Paradise on Monday morning?
Rules to defend sleep?

Wednesday evening dinner
In front of the TV
A lot of work
To perfect my Wednesday
Wasted disappointment

Lifestyle lifeline

Prompt: Choose one of the seven deadly sins and describe it without ever naming it.

Justified by literature
Every luscious flavour accentuated
Each swirl of red, blue, and yellow
Each perfectly placed
Perfectly timed

Sweet notes heightened by fiery rage
A touch of acid
Hinted behind floral screens

The beauty
It mesmerizes
Even those who pay no heed

Endless
It invades our lives
Every moment
We are so dependant
But we hardly notice
When it takes over

Sweet salvation
Savoury redemption
Fiery passion
Caustic burns
Bitter retreat

We are slaves of biology
Manipulated by technnology
To want what something we didn’t even know we wanted
Until it’s too late
The damage done
Irreversible

No good can come from it
When consumed by such power of desire
In a society so fixated
Will there ever be reprieve?

 

Self Loathing Love

They say
To love someone
You must first love yourself
But I think it untrue

For loving you
I forgot
My pain
My loneliness
And self-loathing

Loving you
Showed me
I was capable
Of giving you my whole world
Of risking everything I believed in

By making my heart vulnerable
I was given a strength I knew not

But you shattered it
To a thousand shards

The resiliency of humanity
Will always surprise me

For from the ash and dust
From the infertile sands
A phoenix emerged
Burning ever so bright

Fire was never meant to be contained
Heartbreak showed me my true nature
That I will love
No matter the circumstance
No matter how broken I may become
No matter how many
Bandages
And stitches
I will always burn bright

For nothing can extinguish these external flames
Least of all
A boy
Who doesn’t understand what it means to love

Prompt: “You have to love yourself before you love anyone else” bullshit!  I have never loved myself, but you, I loved you so much I forgot what hating myself felt like.

Broken Promises

Leave it on the bedroom porch
So that I may see you one last time
As I scale on up
Your castle walls

Leave it on the bedroom porch
Out in the cold
Down in the dumps
Just as you left my heart

You closed yourself off
Not just with me
Just with everyone
You’ve ever loved

Isolated yourself
Created your own world
Hidden behind the walls

You think in your own world
You can keep her safe
To make her feel special
Like she’s the only one

And she is
She always will be
But open up your doors
For a girl in a world as vast as ours
She is special because you chose her

In your world
She’s the only one
The only choice
A last resort

Open your doors
To your friends of old
Those you once shared laughter with
Who no longer acknowledge your presence
You are as good as dead to them
Because in a way you are

But there’s still a chance
Don’t cut me off
The way you have with them
You and I aren’t them
We’re something more

Though I’m no longer that only one
That special girl
In your special world
I still love you
And always will
You’re the one I’ll never forget
The one who got away
But two worlds apart

I can’t reach you in your isolation
I can’t touch you
Or feel your presence
I know you are there
But I cannot see you

I fear it is
You do not understand
What it is to be loved
And to return the love of maturity
That promises made
Friends or lovers
Were meant to be kept
Meant to be honoured

And while it may ring true
That so much tragedy and turmoil
Encases our lives
Encases our existence
It’s the choices we make
It’s the priorities we give
To break free from the chains and shackles
That hold us in our place

You are still a child
With so much to learn
You are still a child who cannot love a woman untamed
Wild and feral
Like the wolf
You are still a child
Who cannot understand
To give yourself selflessly
Until you learn the meaning of man
A woman will always be out of your grasp

Two words
A promise
So long ago
Best friend
Weighted

Words
Though arbitrary
Carry with them
Power and meaning
That you’ll never understand

They’ve given me a strength
I never thought I had
A power even I cannot master
So do not hope
Dear child
That you can force surrender
When you do not even understand
The power behind your promises
Behind the words you thought empty

Because, my dear
You’re playing with fire

The Great Gatsby: Facebook Edition

Staring at the green light
Blinking in the distance
Thinking about her

But she doesn’t know
Doesn’t care
As I sit here pining
For a love I cannot have

It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do
To watch that light blinking
To watch that light fade out
To watch that light vanish forever

It was my choice
But yet I can’t bring myself to stop the pain
Never have I experienced something so excruciating
So exquisite that it drew out my very soul

It’s not that I cannot live without you
It’s that I do not want to

I thought the years
Would put some distance between us
But a hundred years would not
Could not
Change the love I have for you

Though I see not a blinking light
At the end of my pier
Your green light still remains
Taunting me

You’re there
But I cannot reach you
My love cannot reach you
Across the water
Across this electronic plane

You are my Daisy
My Daisy
Daisy…

Insecurity

She was all dressed
In silver and gold
The finery of nobility
Her manners were a lady’s
And she carried herself with class

She even had herself
Her very own Prince Charming
He was perfect kindness
Personified

But even Prince Charming was only human
And human are so easily fooled
And he couldn’t resist the lure of the witch’s magic
From the moment they met
She had transfixed him

Though he was not that kind of man
She was that kind of woman
Who didn’t care whose life she ruined

Without his knowledge
He hurt his lady
Abandoned her
Betrayed her love

And she kept thinking
“Was it something I did?”
“Was there something more I could have done to keep him by my side?”

And one day she saw him
Through a glass standing with the witch
Holding her close
It broke her heart

The tears came freely
But what surprised her was that the witch was crying too
She lifted her hand to her face
And the witch followed suit

She turned
And there he was
By her side
As he always had been

All these years
When she thought he had left her
For the witch

It was her
It had always been her