The Words That Remain

Sometimes words tumble out

Falling over themselves

Like marble spilling

Across a hardwood floor

Sometimes words dry up
Like sand in the dessert
Hot, arid, blowing in the wind
Tears stinging your eyes

Sometimes words are like water
Gushing, flowing, roaring
Breaking through rocks
Reshaping the geography

Sometimes words burn hot
Like burning lava
Or like the sun
Slowly growing hotter

Sometimes words get cold
Like the chill of first frost
Sitting on the tip of your nose
Biting your toes

Sometimes the right words

Are nowhere to be found

While the wrong ones

Buzz like angry hornets

When all the words
In the this world
Has been spoken and heard

Only silence will remain

These three words will be true
After this heart stops beating 
The silence will forever speak
To you my dear heart, “I love you.”

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Vintage?

Shall I compare thee to a summer's vintage?

Were you planted in your vineyard

By the light of the moon

Or beneath the scorching sun at noon?

Were you watered by fresh water

Or sorrow filled salty tears?

Metal tears through

Your soft corky flesh

Shredding the last of your dignity

Along with your secrets

Tearing from you

The nectar you've long withheld

Clear glass

Like stars 

Twinkling

In a field

Of Black Velvet

Eagerly waiting,

Anticipating,

Thirsting

For a taste

Longing,

Aching,

Empty

Needing

Fulfillment.

You are the perfect vintage,

Ripened beneath the heat

Of a scorching summer sun.

Your flesh torn from the vine

Beaten, bruised unrecognizable.

A sip is all I require to know your origin

A taste is all I desire to understand your history

Yet, your scent filling my nostrils offer only

Memories of immeasurable pain.

What shall I compare thee my summer vintage?

Oh wine of my youth, have you reached maturity yet?

Or like my twilight, have you grown bitter over time?

Are you the unripened love I knew in yesteryear?

No.  You are the love I bore in pain and sorrow.

Full-bodied, aged to perfection, sweet summer wine of mine.

Fractured Images

I am looking at you.
Who else is there
Before me, beside you
Occupying space, breathing my air?

Do you see me?
Or is it my clothes,
Covering my dusky skin,
Held together by my hair?

Are you moved
By the smile
Burning bright
Like a ghostly light?

Maybe you think
Gazing into my eyes
That you have finally seen
Into the depth of my soul.

In the end
We part ways.
You return to your life
While I simply retreat.

And the person you thought you saw
Like smoke, simply disappears.

The Plunge

Here I go...
Having burned the midnight oil
Having only a few lines to show for my toil
I have taken the plunge

Past my fears
My tears
Sound of your jeers

Right into the gaping hole

Submerged
Beneath the waves
Of my thoughts
Endlessly looping in my head

A voice without a face
A shadow without a trace

I've done it
And I'll do it again.

Fear

"None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear."
~Ferdinand Foch (1851 - 1929)

I'm terrified.
I'm terrified of never making it
Of trying and failing
But mostly, I'm terrified that my little boy will look at me with large eyes filled with dispair or a belly swollen from hunger, his ribs trying to break free of his dusky skin. I'm petrified.

I had a breakdown. To look at me, to know me you'd never guess it.
I guess I hide it well behind my confident smile.
Yet inside, I'm terrified
Petrified,
Shaking like a leaf in a the gale of a hurricane, trying desperately to hold onto my anchor; afraid what would happen if I don't learn to bend, will I simply break?

God I'm scared. I'm scared to be transparent. I'm afraid to speak lest someone should hear me and chance being taken seriously. I have a lot to say, but who would want to listen? Or is that my insecuirty talking?

My heart is racing.
My throat is aching.
My imagination is running away on its own.
Fear grips my heart and squeezes until I can't breathe; it is choking me, as I gasp desperately for a single breath of air....not so simple, not really.

Fear sits at my throat, like an old woman on the stoop in the old neighborhood, watching all the neighboring children, keeping an eye on anyone that stepped out of line.

I'm stepping out of line.
I'm torn between the my fear to stay or go. I know I won't stay. I'm already going.
I just haven't quite figured out how to let go of the edge or to simply jump off the ledge.