in appreciation

She walked out and lit a cigarette,
just one, to clear her head.
She's been trapped too long,
too wrong about everything.

I won't begrudge her anything,
not on this rainy day. It brings
a gray distress, unrest and
it hangs from her fingers, gently.

She sweeps across the quads, swiftly,
her arms crossed. Moving intently
somewhere better, a bit later,
but not quite ready to leave.

She's prettier than she believes,
yet she waits for a reprieve:
love gone sour, a regrettable hour,
a fast unraveling dream?

this is another one of those poems about someone real. i've always been drawn to people who look like they are troubled.

lucid

Dim, flickering light of yesterdays,
amiss, alone and out of the way.
Then a work of art, as if to say:
"Allay your fears, I'm here to stay."

A feverish dream. Wake up to find
a litany of "neverminds",
and sighs, and in the end
"goodbye". I'll stand to represent
the survivors, long dead inside.
Would I ever sleep again?

Don't try to commemorate;
it's a little less and much too late.
Say nothing, and everything will be
an honest, brutal summary.

this turned out much more meaningless than i thought it would be. i'm just having a lot of words pop into my head these days, not least of which because i'm trying so hard to write something else

bitter tea

Up at one and sipping bitter tea,
I'll write a poem about you and me.
So much in time, the left unsaid,
the buried truths, old ground to tread -

- "gently" said thee, not quite honestly.
What universal wisdoms will be willingly
divulged and twist the knife? I see
not much in murky misery,
so I'll keep to writing about me.

What's not tainted by you? I seek
not reprieve but grist to feed
a machine of unrelenting ennui.
Some semblance of life, maybe?

Maybe the one who's left will breathe
it in, and you, who's right, will leave.
But careful what you take with you
and leave me the loneliness I'm due.

I won't ask anymore of you, so do
as I do: forget, and learn to love anew -
- an emotion easily abused, and used,
and in the end refused.

I'll take responsibility.
What could I have done differently?

Maybe every line will be a suicide note?
On and gone, our life's footsteps wrote.
To stand along or to stand alone?
One mote of life, half-emoted tone.

And on this night, at not quite one
or two, or even none -
I'll sit here drinking bitter tea,
alone and lost in memory.

there is a certain moment i'm trying to evoke. i'm really quite proud of this one, despite how dishonest it all feels. i'm not sure where it all came from.