Hello dear readers! You may know me or you may…
(I’ve made another poet character! Because yes. His name is Valentine. This is all the poetry I’ve written for him so far over the last couple years. I’ll add more as I write them.)
Your Smile
I adore your smile, its shape and its sound
How you do it more often when I’m around
I hope that its shine always stays bright and new
And when I look deeper I know that it’s true
Though it’s quite picky on when it arrives
It comes at the simplest and strangest of times
It’s in its sweet message I blissfully drown
Can you do it more often when I’m around?
A loveliest treat of sugar sickly sweet
The addicting joy I feel when our eyes meet
A flick on the nose, a jibe or joke or jeer
Something stupid I did or funny to hear
To a tune that came out so perfect in sound
Just like you and your smile, I want it around
When I Think of You
I heard a song on the radio
And it made me think of you
There was nothing special about it
But it made me think of you
Maybe it was the acoustic guitar
Complex in its strums
And how it danced so gracefully
With the simple pounding drums
Or maybe it was in the vocals
Or something about the tune
But for whatever reason
It made me think of you
Today, I saw a tree outside
And it made me think of you
I don’t quite know the name of it
But it made me think of you
Maybe it was the rough exterior
The way its leaves sharply pricked
And threatened any passerby
A perfect hostile trick
Or maybe it was its earthy smell
Or how bright and gorgeous it grew
But no matter the reason
It made me think of you
A shiny leather jacket
I swore it looked like yours
The words ‘my dear’ or ‘darling’
A random arrangement of chords
A roll of clean white bandages
A chocolate bar in a drawer
An empty tube of eyeliner
A creak or crack on the floor
Spontaneous bursts of little traits
In darkness, they shine through
It’s stupid, but I always smile
When I think of you
Performance
The stage is set
My smile as well
The strings attached
A personal hell
Of self-taught lies
A permanent disguise
I cower. I hide
Behind bleeding eyes
Anguish filtered
Through a plastic funnel
Strained into silence
A rhythmic tunnel
Trapped in a cage
Of lines on a page
Even after I leave
The blinding stage
My Worry for You
The best kind of worry is my worry for you
I’d never ask for anything better
With you in my mind, life is not grey but blue
A beautiful drizzling spring weather
Since I know that when the sky finally clears
Flowers will grow from our stress and our tears
The melancholy is a beautiful view,
For my stress is a rainbow when it’s for you
Rock Bottom
I spill out my guts, for your eyes only
I place them out on display
Each one tells a story
Of agony and suffrage
With them on the ground, there I lay
I pick myself up again, gather my insides
For what else is there to do
When I have hit rock bottom
The worst of my worst
And my body is bruised black and blue
I showed you these colors, I told you my story
Now where did my lonely heart go
Empty of feeling
Emotion or pain
A tale more of comedy than woe
I trudge away, back from where I had come
Only skin. Only bones. Only buzzing of flies.
When I have hit rock bottom
What else can I do?
What else can I do but survive?
Seasons
Does a tree not grow exhasted
With every changing season?
How each leaf will simply come and go
Whenever it so pleases.
First it’s blooming bright and young
To each branch, it smiles so fond.
Then shrivels, quivers and falls to the ground.
And decays until it’s gone.
And with every single passing year
Its cycle neverending
Does a tree ever not grow fatigued
Of those it has loved all leaving?
Does it not weep with the rainfall?
Does it not howl with the wind or
Is it wrong to see it mourn so silent
In the harsh and solemn winter?
So it waits for the coming spring
And holds each leaf so tight
To enjoy the gorgeous summer warmth
And dread the winter’s blight.
The Queen
There once was a girl who’s world burned down
But her hands held the kerosene
Cheeks wet with tears with a grin so sharp
It’s not my fault, is what she screamed
But no one heard, no one even cared
No they all hid, all hurt, all scared
Aflame and alone, she sat upon her throne
Say, are you happy now, my queen?
Crossing the Bridge
My heart thinks itself a fearless daredevil.
It dreams of accomplishing everything
But it severely lacks both skill and dexterity,
Relying on pride and courage alone.
On a mere whim, it had decided to cross a bridge
To find a heart to love.
And out of so many steady steel bridges,
It chose the one of rickety wood.
The first step had a wide gap from the cliff
To deter approaching travelers.
Despite this, my heart took a daring leap.
It landed safe: a lucky start.
Each step was a risk
Each stride taunted damage
Yet my heart journeyed on, foolishly,
Blind of what was to come.
Many times, the ground almost fell beneath it.
It often had to carefully tiptoe
Or risk a dive to a creaky platform.
How it survived was truly a miracle.
Eventually, it came to the near end.
It was steady and reinforced with metal.
It was safe and comfortable.
But celebration was cut short.
Before it spread a narrow path of glass
Thinner than paper, sharper than daggers
Guaranteed to shatter under any weight.
An impossible task.
My heart had worked so hard; it couldn’t turn back now,
But seeing the glass, it remembered all the scars from so long ago.
They pulled it away from the danger and ripped away its confidence.
This would surely kill it.
So instead, it chose to stay.
Stay in the safety on the middle of the bridge
And stare longingly at the other side
Where love waited.
Maybe one day, it will take the leap.
Heartbeat Harmony
There’s a drumming beat in my heart.
It plays an earnest song.
With those sturdy strings of yours,
You could kindly strum along.
To the tune of our drifting souls,
We’d write a marvelous melody,
And and to the rhythm of our romance,
Play in rocking heartbeat harmony.
Little Rose: Part 1
Why hello there, little rose. It’s nice to meet again.
If you don’t mind, I have one thought to ask now that we’re friends.
How can you stand so tall and strong, with your petals plush and bright?
How do you live to bloom so full, after such an awful blight?
I ask, how does a plant survive when it’s wrenched from its earth
And thrown into a pretty vase with no water, sun, or worth?
Did you cut off all your thorns and shed tears to stay alive?
Or did you simply hide your prick
and decayed from the inside?
Now you’re lifted from the ground to a pot with the care you request
And plenty of love from every and all of those whose hearts you have blessed.
It’s nice to see a smile remains, but yet I agonize.
Have you adapted from disease, or is your joy a sad disguise?
Peacocks and Crows
When they caged us up and clipped our
wings. You never hung your head.
Between the bars,
you reached to me,
your peacock pride
invincible,
and you taught me how to draw a new pair
with a credit card.
In the downpour, your feathers shone,
like polished crystal,
pointed to the sky. And you told me
to always watch it close
because one day, you will fly away and out
of sight
and I was free to follow.
Even in the silence, you danced of rebellion,
sewed it into your clothes and sang it with every cry.
You wrote on my tongue, new words for pretty
for laughter and danger
and woman.
You called me crow because you saw beauty
in black.
And on that day
when you flew away and out of sight,
I promised to draw my wings and find you again,
dancing with the clouds.
Little Rose: Part 2
Say little rose,
Why do you like me?
Why do your roots reach out to find me
Through even my cruelest of winters?
I’m nothing special. Or perhaps that’s the point.
You love all no matter their flaws.
You find beauty in all you see
And bloom no matter the weather.
But it doesn’t make sense.
There’s not a thing about me for you to like.
Why aren’t you scared, little rose?
What stands in my place is no longer a flower.
It’s a creature that loss, pain, and hate have devoured.
It has gnarled claws and matted fur.
It’s still learning to love and to smile,
And it doesn’t want you.
You see, my heart can’t stand your springtime.
It doesn’t need your company.
My hands are too big to hold you.
I’m afraid they might crush your petals.
My mouth has never whispered,
So my truth may roar like a hurricane.
And my eyes are made of frost so cold you could wilt.
Don’t you know I have nothing to give you but trouble?
I don’t think you’re safe around me.
The issue is
You make it so hard to push you away,
For the more you pour into me,
The harder it is to hate you.
I’ll tell you a secret, little rose:
I like you very much.
Like a cactus likes the rain simply because it can’t help it.
You, you have your thorns, and your perfume is overwhelming.
However as someone with not-enough,
There’s something sweet in the all-too-much.
So I suppose while you’re here, little rose,
I will hold you.
And I will be careful.
Imagine
(Coming soon…)