This City

I search for meaning in your brittle streets,

like an elderly woman your stories have become dusty and gray.

Lackluster hips have abandoned their curves for rigid plains.

When I tasted you then, your quivering hopes

smoothed my mortal song.

But the years have taken away the crisp dampness of your skies.

Tears have dried to salt paths on your roads.

Buildings digress in conversation, whispering of better times.

The church stone’s green a slippery salvation,

further suspending my belief.

Smells of rotting dreams n corners,

fleeting specters lurk in alleys,

you’ve let us down, you’ve let us all down.

Sinking deeper into your cavernous wasteland,

I wonder if the charred remains of

your body are actually paved with my own

fleeting moments, the monotony of years,

a veil of misfortune making it difficult to see

as my mind decimates this place with engendered ennui.

So Long Ago

My first attempt at song lyrics… I’ve been wanting to write song lyrics for a long time, and a few days ago I was listening to a Silversun Pickups song, Kissing Families, it’s so beautiful, I love that it has a cello and the vocals are amazing, he has such a unique voice. I was so inspired that I felt compelled to write my own lyrics, not to replace theirs, which are exquisite, but because I felt these words so powerfully while I was listening to this song. So anyway, here’s my version, called “So Long Ago.” Now if only I can find a vocalist to record the lyrics I’d be happy. It feels weird to read the lyrics of a song without the music, so listen to the song and then try to envision my lyrics over the ones that are there. I know you can do it.

The season fell, last drop of rain

A tree’s regret, we felt a sting

Your burnt sketch a pile of ash, so what

 

I’m not there are you?

 

Our first kiss, I can’t recall

Climbing the ladder to let go of it all

Your broken record my solace ’til now

It’s your gaping affliction from a stained past,

The tarnished heart that you possess.

 

My nudity is forgotten and beautiful,

But now I’m gone and you’re too late.

It’s that I’m forgotten and ruined now.

So soon you’re gone and it’s too late.

 

Thank God our love is now closed.

 

Now the season’s gone, it seems too late.

It seems too late.

 

Well, sure as Hell your heart’s so close!

My window still calls, I see your face

The blinding gash, in me, you’ll never feel

But now I’m gone and you’re too late

 

Well, I think it was you I wanted that day!

It’s so long ago that I can’t say

The sound of your voice, your kiss, your face and neck.

Well, now that’s gone and I’m too late.

Thank God it’s over…

Warm Gun

I think I’ve written a “warm gun” before. Always tastes better the second time.

There is something that I’ve lost in the past year. I’ve lost it and I think I am on the precipice of recapturing it. To covet and caress and hold it, never to let it go again. I remember waking up some days before, loving everything, even the job I hated. I loved to smile. Meet people. Talk. Speak Spanish. Learn French. Be myself. Be alone and together and everywhere.

The return! I am surely in love with being alive. I am surely on the cusp of continuing my love affair, despite its interruption. Almost as if it snuck out the back door when I wasn’t looking, this happiness, this love affair, it bounded off into the night to play upon a mountain, probably a peak in the Alps somewhere, while I was stuck here slowly melting into a lifeless form, too distracted to even notice that anything was missing.

I met someone amazing. This person has witnessed darkness and devastation like to other. Loss! Oh the loss and the grief. But the smile, the love that emanates from this person is enchanting. Every time I see that face I feel as though I could do anything. Inspiring, beautiful, kind, loving and more than anything, so, so compassionate. Anyone can fall in love with that.

It is not often I meet amazing people. The type of person that makes you stop and think about life, the type of person that really captures you, haunts you. I’ve traveled the world and I can count on one hand the number of amazing people I have met. But I love them for that. They come and whisk away my imagination and then I am forced to love them. It’s such a wonderful feeling, to be amazed by someone and love them for it. To feel like they can teach you something, show you something, surprise you and give you something new.

And it is so easy to be happy, it is. It is a choice. A simple choice. Sometimes it’s so simple and obvious that you don’t see it in front of you. A wall, a person, an event. They stand and in their shadow drowns the choice, but it’s still there. It will never abandon us, because it is the one thing we truly have as our own… choice. It is impossible to have a person. I’ve tried. You cannot have and keep a person, truly. They appear to be yours, to be a part of your forever, the painting that you so tediously spread on your canvas, all the careful brush strokes, color, attention, and creativity that you give it, and then the person gets up and is tired of you, doesn’t want to listen anymore, and you are frustrated, and you do the same, and then the dance begins, the tiresome dance of preservation. The painting is burned, along with the person. All you have left are memories, tiny pictures. And then you forget those too, and the voices, and the music even. All the things that came with the person you wanted to have, all those things are gone and you have ash. And happiness, because happiness is a choice. And so is that warm gun.

Poetry

When I write poetry, I like to ignore technology.

It Never Was

“It’s not that I didn’t do things right,” I tell myself
at night, laying in bed half gone, my lids
effervescent under the moon’s full gaze.
It is surreal, makes sense only on the precipice of sleep
in the sweetness of that tender light’s caress,
only when I am alone in bed and he isn’t there,
the darkness wraps around itself into that bare sheet
where he used to lay and sometimes at night
when I was just on the threshold of a dream,
he would kiss my shoulder, and then sleep
was elusive until it became the pinnacle
of that final moment.
As if that moment were the only thing to live for,
and sleep was sweeter because of it!

Elusive sleep. Now I can capture it only after I douse
my mind in solvent, anything to help the memories drip away
to their death.
And each morning after the battle for sleep is won,
I step into the graveyard of my past, repeating, repeating, repeating,
“It’s not because I’m not beautiful enough, intelligent enough, profound enough. It’s not because I’m not creative or poetic enough. It’s not because I didn’t love or I didn’t care or I didn’t… it’s not…it’s not…it’s not…”