Souvenirs (For You)

There are no more memories left to make;
we'll make no attempts for old times sake.
No more sharing pleasure, pain or laughter,
no more asking: "Want to come up after?"

And if someone else, who didn't know, asks
to know what it was that happened to us,
then say: "I just couldn't figure him out
and so we decided to live without."

"Hence when we see each other in the hall
we know a painful, forced smile would be all."
We won't be known as victims of distance,
just mutual denial of existence.

And though you must think I am quite the fool,
I hope you didn't try to be cruel.
Maybe I wish you would want things to change
back to the time when things were not so strange.

I hope that you hope I won't disappear
because in a way I'm still waiting here:
I am the pink cap left in the corner
and the orchid earrings on your counter.

Some lines of the above came to me quickly in class. Some took forever. I think I'm done with this now.

Souvenirs

There are no more memories left to make;
we'll make no more attempts for old times sake.
No more movies, concerts, parties and plays,
no more calls to ask: "Are you free today?"

And if someone else, who didn't know, asks
to know what it was that happened to us,
then say: "He didn't know how to give up."
and I'll admit that I fucked this all up.

But I won't deceive to hide my regret;
you're sure to be a hard one to forget.
Yet, with no roads through this patch of briar
I mourn this bridge I help set on fire.

And should I deserve another try,
I'll learn to know when to avert my eyes.
Though I can't bear your happiness alone,
I'll still be here if you're out on your own.

So I'll wait till you're as lonely as me
to see if friends again we're right to be.
But for now, you're just a shirt on my door
and just a tea set sitting on the floor.

This might be the most narrative thing I've written. I like rhyming exercises when you are in fact trying very hard to fit a certain meaning into a fixed structure. You don't want to compromise what you actually feel, but neither is it totally possible to get everything just right. There is something about that which parallels life. We're taking what we want and trying to fit that within something which is quite rigid, and we feel as if we have no control over. But at the end of the day, you have to realize that in the end, these rules are your own. It's possible to simply decide to stop playing.

Thursday, February Fourteenth.

As a figure I mingled in snowfall,
letting the cold wind stand in for your call.
Walking now leaves trails in snowy ground,
so how come I could leave barely a mark?

Empty laughter and bottles could hardly
satisfy for sympathy. Foolhardy!
And still I try to wipe the path from you,
so I can't follow if I wanted to.

No remedy for foot-falls already
made except to wait for fresh snow to mend.
But in the falling powder a picture
appears to chill my heart this lonely day:

My flowers rest next to your empty bed,
because you're in someone else's instead.

goodness that was a struggle to write. counting syllables was never my strong suit, and what results can only be described as forced. the only 2 lines that came naturally were the two that ended it all. those 2 lines did come to me in a kind of picture, which is one of those painfully beautiful images that would put an end to a montage sequence if this was some kind of movie. wipe to fresh flowers in a vase, but the bed is empty. wipe to a scene with two people cuddled in another bed. wipe again to someone else sitting alone by a window or something. i chose to imagine the transition as wipes because it gets used in cheesy romance-related movies. but that's not quite the point.

i think being in a temperate country is helping my creativity. there is so little variation back home in terms of weather, and here it is so easy to let my mood be led by the temperature outside. personal emotions mingle so well with the situation sometimes. the snow is helpful in considering what i frame in terms of the foo fighter's song 'walking after you', except i'm trying feel what it would be like to say the exact opposite.