Tag: original poems

We Look For Answers

in the palms of our hands, 
on narrow roads that 
twist and intersect. 

in wishing well eyes, 
uprooting the fibrous tunic in
our frantic pursuit. 

in echoing cathedrals
where we lay our souls upon 
wilting flower beds. 

in brilliant garbage dumps,
piled high, distorted into 
siren’s songs. 

in the mountains and grasslands and
the coursing veins that run through 
the dirt we were and will be. 

in the folded up papers
whose true triviality is unknown
until we are weaved
back into the earth. 

in the booming echoes of
our voices as we stand on 
elevated hills and yell into the valleys 
below. 

where they cannot be found, 
for they reside far beyond
existence. 

Miss Scarlett In The Ballroom With The Lead Pipe

I washed the sheets four times (once
for every year you dreamt beside me)
before your smell
no longer lingered. 

I deleted all of your
voice messages on my phone, but
they still replay 
in my dreams some nights, and
I will always know your texts by heart. 

I put all your clothes I gathered over the years, tangible
bits and pieces of you, into a garbage bag
and donated them, but 
I still wake up on cold mornings wishing I had 
that black jacket of yours. 

I tore apart 
every picture of us, and still 
it took me too long to be able to 
convince myself there was no missing
half in all those photos of just me. 

I have flipped it so many times, and yet
I cannot get the imprint of 
you out of my memory
foam mattress. The outline of your body
etched in chalk on a crime scene.

You Can’t Find This In The Dictionary

the sun entered your eyes
when they met hers
and the way you held her in photographs
defines love in a way my words cannot. 
i can see what love is, 
but my heart is closed and cold, chiseled
from unforgiving stone, and I will never
understand the warmth. 

I cannot see the way you look at me
or if the moon resides in your eyes. 
I do not like photographs; the way they
distort the perfect
pictures in our minds. 
So I may never know the definition of us.