This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

TS Eliot - The Hollow Men —

Substance: What I Lack in Commitment

ruefle:

What I lack in commitment,
I proved to you with
love and more love
the day after.

The night had been terrible
with your dark words and
untimely promises -

But didn’t I call to remind you
the sun was up for you?
Have a good day, dear.

Some days, you heard my
wisdom, but most days,
I was just a child to your

Clarity

We spend our lives in infinite pivotal moments of absolute clarity,
where long-seated complacency is challenged as if it were sudden. 
As if it were sprung up overnight and not grown like a redwood oak. 
We treat the problem by hacking off the parts we can: 
leaves of mediocrity and branches of routine and stagnation. 
We leave the trunk of the problem, the patterns of laziness, 
the indecision and the self-destructive behaviors.
We keep the roots of our upbringing and our experiences. 

While in our own complacent little world, 
we soak up the rain of news from those that surround us. 
Ecstatic to hear of their pitfalls, their misfortunes, their failings, 
because it brings our branches and leaves a little bit higher. 
At least, in our own self-deluded minds. 
It becomes easier to talk, to process oxygen into carbon dioxide, 
And say nothing of importance. 

We continue to pass on bits of meaningless wisdom, 
to take pride in the quotes and sayings of historical figures,
while adding nothing of meaning, of substance, of life to the continuum.
Our lives are a constant source of superficial beauty lying in wait, 
like forest about to be logged. 

Silently we sip sodas and other soft drinks,
Daintily we dance and dream of the dog days,
Finally free of frantic ant-like futile functioning.  

Devotion

It makes me satisfied to give,
my time, my money, my things,
and to share with you my life, my worth, my all. 
Talk to me until I am deaf,
type to me until my fingers bleed,
and my eyes blur from the glowing screen.
Puncture me and drain me of what I have,
cut me and gain my emotional support,
and I will hand over everything to you, willingly.

dreamsandashes:

The world is broken,
a garden of shattered glass.
No one it makes it though
unscarred.
But you? You have chosen
art.

This does not nullify your
mortality, far from it.
It merely lets you control
its aesthetic.

You are an artist.

You choose to show the
world how and why
you bleed, and that
will make you strong.

So, thicken your skin
and place your fingers
upon the keys.

You have blood to spill. 

So many poems about relationships
speak of pieces of the heart being stolen.
They declare how we cannot feel anymore,
and how we refuse to love again. 

They write about our souls and how
bits of that ghostly essence are drained away.
Even death is a conquering force, it comes
like a thief and removes spirit from body.

There is always the shifting of blame, 
Someone else used us like trash, it is
certainly not our faults that we allowed trust
and pieces of ourselves to be taken from us.

It makes it easier to live with the reality
that bit by precious bit we give our self-worth away.  

Illness

These tired old sayings drift through my thoughts.
“It hit me like lightning!” The first time I met you. 
“It was love at first sight!” You were my beautiful soul. 
“Destiny brought us together!” Well honey, reality tore us apart.
“We are meant to be!” When you proposed to me.
“We’ll be together forever.” Darling, forever is a very long time.
“I’ll fight for you.” When you told me about the disease. 
“If we could just stay in this moment.” And pretend you weren’t dying. 
“I love you.” Don’t leave me!
 

Possession

I dreamed that you belonged to me,
that you were mine to have and hold.
I could touch, tease, taste, and see,
and our pleasure was something to behold.
Our dates were the things found in lore, 
and the nights were filled with blazing heat.
But I, I woke up tangled in sheets, pillows on the floor,
and the slow realization of reality bittersweet.
If I were to be so bold as to make my desire shown,
instead of hiding behind friendship like a coward,
perhaps my dreams could become known.
Even as I tried, the words in my mouth soured.
When I wake, and find myself rightly expressed, 
With you, I am the one who wants to be possessed. 

Ink

I’ve often said there’s far too much blood
in my alcohol and coffee system.
If you open my veins I believe the liquid rush
is not blood, nor alcohol, nor coffee, but ink, black and sticky.
It spills out thickly in words and turns of phrase. 
It is my lifeblood of decades of absorbed language, 
through books, poetry, and day to day conversations.
But if you open my ink-scarred chest,
the most important words are burned from circulation. 
They are love and adoration written from your lips, 
stained on my heart. 

A superficial stream of constant words
drowns out the internal voice of what I really want to say.
Squeezing the life out of any available inanimate object 
prevents me from hitting you instead.
Life is a constant, balanced war between the violence I want to do
and the passivity I portray. 

Opposites

If we are destined to be the opposites that attract,
I am the fire that burns white-hot with passion,
and you are the water that quenches my thirst.
If I am the darkness that covers the land,
you are the light that brings forth the dawn.
When I am the hunger that drives a thief to steal,
you are the bread that satisfies his need.
I am as restless as the violent wind,
and you are the patient stone that calms me.
If I am all the snows of winter on the earth,
you are the spring thaw to melt them away.
When I am the stillness that dwells in silence,
you are the music that makes my heart dance.

In my dreams, I feel as though I could fly!
Really spread my wings, you know?
Take off, soaring through the air.
In my dreams, I can run farther than ever!
Faster than your average cheetah,
More endurance than your marathon runners.
In my dreams, I can swim the mighty oceans!
Follow the currents where they take me,
Drift along with multiples of fish.
In my dreams, I can be whom I choose!
A princess, a ninja, captain of a ship,
A person with no memory of you.  

Nothing seemed to go right yesterday, 
And icy rain poured out from the sky
Tearing my heart from it’s serenity.  

A thousand cliches of “Tomorrow is another day.”
Never feels quite right in the moment.
Until you wake up to the sun.

Want to run, want to hide, 
Take this feeling from inside. 
Hurt, scared, oh so angry
Why do you make me so crazy?
Echoes from the past, reborn!
Don’t stop now, I’m almost worn!
Taken my heart, and I stood by, 
You could never see me cry. 
Once I thought you proud and strong, 
Now I see that I was wrong.
I have been forever broken, 
This, given as your token. 
Hit me again, I’m not yet done!
Do you think that you have won?
Never will I give in!
Get out! I won’t let you back again. 
Every time your hand hits my face, 
Do you feel that you can put me in my place?
Hah, you are a fool!
Soon I will break all your “rules”.
Leaving you standing in mid-gasp,
As I finally slip from your grasp.  

—————————————————————————————————-

I wrote this poem back when I was in high school, I can’t remember the exact year but it was probably close to 2002 or 2003. When I wrote it, it was supposed to be designed as if it were written to a lover, but when I read it all I can see are the faces of my parents, which are who the poem is really about. 

I was going to just shove it into a mess of other poems that I was putting into posts and forget about it, but one line of the poem that I wrote struck me, because now that it is ten years later it made my heart twinge. 

It’s the line I have been forever broken.

Funny thing about time, and forevers and all of that. Time heals. Not perfectly, and certainly not in the way we expect, but it does. 

I’m not broken anymore.