Tag: new poets society

Just Friends

When we say goodbye, 
I always stop short before
I instinctively fill the space where
I love you used to be;
like someone ripped out 
the last page of a book, leaving
it unfinished. 

It feels so unnatural to say goodbye
like that–like standing at the edge
of a cliff. 

Maze

All my mind is what if’s and self accusation,
but I know our limbs didn’t fit together quite right.
I know we both were in our heads far more than
we were in each other’s arms, and that
even with you next to me, we were galaxies apart.
And like any other maze,
we knew there was only one way out.
Yet we ran through narrow corridors and high walls,
frantically searching for anything
but dead ends.

But if it’s frozen and full of tar, it can never break

When your eyes freeze and turn to ice
I need to run or
I am impaled by your words
like darts—the poison
seeps into my blood stream and
I carry the venom
inside me until it claws at me
from inside my veins, restless
to get out.

So much
venom thickens my blood to tar and
fills the cracks of my heart
with lead,
and the only way to forgive myself for
being cold enough to freeze you, too, is
to let it out.

So when they scratch
and wriggle in my veins,
I cut them loose and
watch the black venom 
drip out. 

Two In One

I knew the lonely parts of your heart. 
They were my campgrounds
when my walls began to burn and
the ash and smoke threatened
to suffocate me beneath my
crumbling ribcage. 

When it was winter in my heart, 
and my veins became 
frozen red rivers, 
you always had a fire going
in yours. 
I would huddle inside the 
crevices between
your atriums and swim in your
bloodstream until I, too, was red
underneath your skin.