Poetry and Prose
Cracked Screens; Misunderstood Scenes
I was trying to write something,
something that would make you feel this.
This…
pain.
This ache.
This hurt.
That I feel.
I placed my trembling hands on the keys,
and a lump formed in my throat.
I moved the mouse around,
and my head began to spin into a dizzying blurr.
I whispered your name at the screen,
and tears slowly slid down my face.
Nothing could more effortlessly describe
what you did to me.
I’m now broken.
Just like my heart,
my mind,
and my computer.
Pause
I know the chapter has ended, yet
I cannot not turn the page.
I just need to sit
in the realization that
it’s over.
I have read the ending.
I know the final score.
I will turn the page,
I just need a moment more.
Judge Me Not
Yes, I giggled when they shut the casket.
So what I never shed a tear.
I’ll even admit I don’t regret remaining silent
during the choir’s mournful moans.
I’m sorry I find it amusing
but he did exactly as he promised.
He swore to dance on their graves.
To mock their judgmental eye.
That man never let me down, not even at his death.
So, it’s no surprise I find humor at the last sight
of he who won the final race,
by finishing in dead last.
The Lie In Believe
I believe my first kiss will be perfect:
A candlelit room with rose petals
My heart will be beating out of my chest,
as if its hum is mood music.
My eyes locked on his, his on mine.
A strong, tough hand will brush my forearm.
He’ll bite his lips and look at mine.
Our bodies will turn, as though our souls are speaking to one another.
I’ll slowly close my eyes,
he’ll lean forward.
Pop,
Smile.
Perfection,
nothing less.
“I love you” he’ll whisper.
I’ll sit back and wonder what my life was like before,
the most magical moment of my entire existence.
We sit down on his couch
beige, bland, lumpy.
He looks down,
my heart beating so fast it’s, murmur drowns out the movie blasting in the background.
Eye locking,
our bodies clumsily move to re-position our faces to one another.
Bodies stiff, July heat suffocating, I close my eyes,
he leans in.
Smack,
Hold.
Nothing.
“It’s my first kiss too...sorry”
I sat back and wondered what life was like before I knew I didn’t love him,
how I existed before learning I lived in a lie that was love?
Writing Raw / / Raw Writing
They tell me to write.
Write.
Write what’s raw.
What’s real.
Raw.
Raw.
Say it again.
Raw.
Raw like the bullet hole that I covered with band-aids rather than faced?
Raw like the cuts on your wrists were?
Raw like the evening sky that became dusk to then to dawn that night he lost it all.
Raw.
Raw.
Well is it raw enough yet?
Raw.
Raw enough to resurface the tears we so long restrained in order to keep order in our meaningless mediocre lives?
Raw like the faces we face everyday that unknowingly each try to convince themselves that getting out of bed again is worth it.
Raw like their bodies felt after they had been back-stabbed and left to die by the very people that promised them they would never leave?
That raw
...
Too raw?
But they’re just words.
Empty words to fill a page.
No value, no merit, no future.
Just a blank past with the lost hope to exceed beyond their initial view’s value.
Just words.
Just write.
Raw.
Paint Me as the Sky
I am not normal.
Don’t you dare label me beige.
I am no paint swatch
you can just throw away.
My spirit is bright,
a color beautiful to behold.
Lollipop yellow, no even more bold.
Closer to a periwinkle as perfect as the sky.
Don’t you have a clue, I could never be so cut and dry.
Not a squash brown.
Nor a color to bring you down.
My inner flame as passionate as the fire in my eyes
So no,
I am not normal.
I couldn’t be labeled that if I tried.
My precocious pansy purple radiates from inside
You’re walls my colors too will cover,
because soon enough you’ll discover,
I’ll never be a paint swatch
You can just throw away.
It Was Only a Kiss
It was only a kiss.
Only a kiss.
A kiss...
Kissing with something past the initial level of kissing, yes
Yes.
YES
But it was only a kiss.
Until it wasn’t.
Until is was no longer a movie, but it was me.
Sitting in the seat of my car:
Mascara running down my cheeks,
crying off my glue-on eyelashes,
all because some boy said it was
only a kiss to him.
On that frigid night,
After the party.
In the back of my car.
Drunk of what I thought was love.
Who would have thought love burns as it goes down?
Giddy and laughing,
I let myself loose control.
I let you take that control out from under me,
by being on top of me.
But it was only a kiss.
But it was oh so much more that that to me.
It was never just a kiss.
You were never just a boy.
It’s never just one drink.
One kiss is never enough.
Everything is never enough.
Enough is never enough.
I am never enough.
But it was only a kiss.
Finally Ever Never
I recently read a story
of four sons
and a loving mother.
These four brothers were finally in one room.
All together,
just as their mother
had so desperately wished for.
Only,
she wasn’t there to see it.
They were there to see her.
There she laid in the box
Pink flowers
-Hydrangeas,
her favorite-
surrounded her.
Each son wore the tie she had given to him
the Christmas prior,
The one they had taken out of the box
Only thirty minutes before.
Each daughter-in-law wore black
to honor the woman
who had given them the man of their dreams.
It was in this room
that these four men stood,
separated for so long,
finally reunited.
Death had achieved a feat
no amount of effort could.
So does that mean
That if I died
You would come to see me,
finally?
Running to You
Scholastic Silver Key Award 2018
Someone once asked me who I would run to if the worst thing had just happened to me.
I replied that “it would probably depend on who I was around”
Then they asked, “what if it was a room full of everyone you had ever loved, or been loved by?”
I stopped cold in my tracks.
I know who exactly I would run to.
But then again, I don’t
Because the person I want to run to did the worst thing to me:
he broke my heart.
I would want to run to him
But I wouldn’t.
And I wouldn’t run to anyone else, because it’s too hard to tell someone you’re not ok.
Watching the light dim in their eyes,
Their breath quickening,
Their voice changing
It’s almost like seeing their heart break.
Their body language portrays a panicked response
because they don’t know what to do.
And then comforting them,
When you’re the one who needs to be comforted.
So, I would just stand there.
By myself.
All alone.
Where I couldn’t hurt anyone else with my pain.
“So, who would it be?”, they echoed
“to you”, I lied
Ode to Dr. Jack
On one bright and sunny mid-May day,
alone sat a Freshman
with life in her way.
She had lost every battle she fought:
For office.
For friends.
For love.
For success.
The journey to graduation to her seemed quite simple
That was:
painful,
long,
and down right disdainful.
But lo and behold
along came a man.
A teacher by nature,
who showed her that life was not oh-so simple.
He wrote her a message that accompanied a grade.
He championed a club.
Promised her that fate was not so premade.
He labeled this girl
on that mid-May day,
this girl who had lost the eyes to see beauty within herself,
As a “warrior”.
A “force”.
And “one of my all-time faves”.
Little did he know,
this man that could do it all,
that those three simple words
carried the girl to now always stand tall.
As this girl now sits back in his class
she able to see how much his impact did last.
He believed in her abilities
when no one else could.
He showed her the bright side of things
by dancing around the room, as if he had wings!
He taught her that sometimes plans get off track,
and life can make everything go all whack.
So now,
when the world goes dark,
instead of falling back into a place of self hatred,
this girl is able to conquer it all,
and leave her worries in the dust.
From boys,
To battles,
To dances,
To death,
This man, this teacher, has stuck with her.
And his words,
along for every small step of the way.
Though she hasn’t told him the whole story
of moments fought before the glory,
She hopes to thank him one day
for keeping her mind from going astray.
So now, without further ado,
thank you Dr. Jack for all that you do!
Your eyes always spoke for you
They were like a deep blue ocean, pulling me in with their current
Your hands communicated your so called “passion”
The way they brushed against my skin
Somehow the thought still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up
Yet you were never happy
You were never in the moment
You were never there
You could be laughing with me,
Talking with me,
Kissing me,
Yet
You would be millions of miles away
With her.
She doesn’t love you, she wants you
And that’s the difference between us.
She wants to possess you.
I want to cherish you.
I knew I would love you the moment we met,
It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments.
One of those stereotypical moments.
An ‘all I could see was him’ moments.
My mind told me to be friends, but my heart, it wanted more
So did yours, or at least, that’s what I thought
Well, you can tell your stupid heart to get itself together
before it comes crawling on its hands and knees begging me take it back,
Because I have fallen asleep listening to its rhythm one to many times
I waited for you,
I listened for you
All I got in response was nothing.
No call.
No text.
Nothing but an empty screen and a broken heart
That’s when I knew I loved you,
And when I knew you didn’t love me
The Memory
Scholastic Silver Key Award 2018
The sky was purple with a hint of pink on the horizon line.
not blue
not orange
not black
Purple.
With a hint of pink on the horizon
The grass was wet, but not soaked, just drizzled.
Not soaked
Not dry
Not damp
Just drizzled.
The fire was low, but still bright and warm as when we lit the first spark.
Not grand
Not out
Not blazing
Just low
But still just as bright and warm.
You are laughing, the laughing where your eyes do more than your mouth
You are kissing, the kissing where your mouth does more than your hands
Your hair sticks up, but just on the right side of your head
But that little tuft had never bugged me for a moment
Oh,
But your laugh
Even the winter snow melts just a little when it hears it
Your eyes reflected exactly what they saw
Our life
Our family
Our love
Our future
But I also see another memory
I’m alone, but not the kind where I am by myself, I am with someone.
Not in a crowd
Not by myself
Just with someone
And that someone
is you.
We had never been more like strangers,
Not even when we first met
I guess that it’s true you can’t switch,
At least not smoothly,
From strangers
To friends
To lovers
To strangers
I see one more memory
Only this time, I am watching it play out in front of me.
You’re there, not close enough to see me, but close enough to feel the past, like a cool breeze down your neck.
Or should I say
like the soft kiss from the woman your arms are now wrapped around.
You’re not too close
Not too far
Just there.
If you look up,
You can see this memory too,
Staining my face.
Ruining my makeup.
Breaking my heart.
Burning itself into my memory
I Tried to Write a Poem
I tried to write about love,
But all I got was pain
The agony in self inflicted wounds
Caused by the emptiness of
A word
A smile
A bed
I tried to write about hope,
But all I got was loss.
The grief of an aching soul
Due to the death
Of someone still alive
I tried to write about trust,
But all I got was anger.
Over a battle lost to misunderstanding
A broken promise
A stolen kiss
A silent stair
I tried to write about the future,
But all I got was the past.
Moments dug up from the depths of souls
Trying to save their once happy selves
From a future fated with despair
I tried to write about love,
But that’s the thing about love.
Love demands to be heard
Demands to be felt
Demands to be remembered
Love requires itself to be burned into memories,
Only our minds chisel and morph it into something new.
Something hideous
Something unrecognizable
Love began that hope,
That flame that sparked your ideas.
Though our thoughts changed it to loss
When plans were completed incomplete
Love started that trust,
That planted seeds of romance
But spring soon passed, and the flowers began to wilt
As did the love away from our thoughts
Decomposing into something vile
Love put you on the path to the future,
The path that got you here
This moment, though different from what was originally planned
It’s here, and nothing can change it
And nothing should change how you see its origin
Because that’s what happens when you try to write about love.
You get it’s outcomes
Not its true form
Love is not just patient
Love is not just kind
Love is everywhere and invisible to all
So when you try to write about love
Don’t dig very far
Love is all around
All you have to do is clear your mind of your misconstrued views of it
I Started to Write a Poem
Scholastic Silver Key Award 2018
I started to write a poem
About the new “special someone” in my life,
To show you that I’ve moved on
That I’m no longer a broken mess inside.
I wrote how this new special someone and I met,
how fate un-twisted our pasts,
And intertwined our futures.
I wrote about how he made me feel,
when his arms wrapped around me
It gave me strength to conquer the world.
I wrote about his eyes
How their sea green tint could electrify a room,
And me.
I wrote how our first exchange was different,
A random bump
A shy smile
A luke-warm hello
I wrote how you made me feel.
How your hands on my hips
More often than not took more than they gave
Then,
I tried to write about your eyes,
And how they didn’t have the sparkle his did when he saw me.
How their color….
But, what was their color?
I couldn’t remember.
Their focused look had left me.
That’s when the realization hit me,
That I don’t need to prove to anyone that I’ve moved on,
That loss alone proved it for me.
Rosie Red
The cool morning breeze in the cafe.
The steam from the coffee on the table.
The sound of morning greetings and happy reunions electrified the room.
“How about this table?”
“Sure! But I hate people watching, so I want to face the back”
“Works for me. So, how was last Friday?”
“Oh, he was great. So dreamy, and knew just what to say to make me smile.”
“Well that’s just what you need after a breakup”
“Oh, that. That wasn’t even a breakup. It was just a minor speed bump on my road to success”
As her eyes look up, she stops
“Oh, you’ll never guess who just walked in”
“Who?”, I asked, as I whipped around in my chair
He walked in
The bell on the door rang
And echoed
Then, all sound stopped
All warmed froze
All happiness faded
“What are the odds? He never liked coffee when y’all were together.”
“Actually, he did. He got a…”
my voice trailed off
“Well, it’s not like it matters. You’re totally over him”
“Yeah, you’re right. What does it matter?”
Actually it does matter
He matters
Our past matters
The loss of our future matters
Maybe not to him, but it does, or at least it did...
to me
“Why are you hiding your face? Oh, well if you don’t want to talk to him that’s fine, I understand. I always hate seeing an ex’s after breaking their hearts.”
But that’s the thing, I wasn’t hiding from him.
It was from her
She was my best friend, she knew everything about me
We can tell what the other is thinking just by looking at them
And right now, if she took one look at my face
She would know
I still love him
The blush on my cheeks
The smile lining my face
The tears building in my eyes
They all told a story totally different than the one I wanted so badly to believe.
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