February Poetry Compilation
Untitled
By Sienna Jane
do you ever wish how someone smells
i miss how they smell
but it kinda hurts
they don’t miss how i smell
they ruined relationships but i still miss them
i miss my friends
i wish it wasn’t like this
it’s only good for short periods of time
i hoped
there was hope and excitement
then disappointment and unemployment
they left
they came
she stayed it’s been the same
i miss
and i hope
again.
i’d rather not hope and be sad again
2021 should I hope for you?
or will you abandon me in 2020 too....
Impaled
step back / there's too much belief between the two of us / where i think i want you is between
my tongue and the roof of my mouth / worrying a hole into what is already
tender and obscure / soft, lonely skin
feeling all too hollow now / like a crown / or at least what remains of one.
i am a weary, rural highway / that has been gently impaled by time
and weeds that grow between the cracks in my asphalt / i let them grow
as an offering / for you to step over me, carefully / or perhaps i open myself to this growth
as a plea / for you to leave pieces of me unfixed / pieces that were once shaken asunder
by departing voices, tearing stories from each other’s tired throats / you,
a trespasser / and me, a road / run through their stories
because we both run through some town / and that should mean enough
for you to step towards another / place to call forsaken.
you wanted to leave me / with something to grit my teeth at / so i try
to memorize the sound of your footfall / in all of its pyrrhic consumption /
i’ll play this back later / i think / when the silence weighs too heavy on the earth / and me.
Comfort
By Turi Sioson
you distorted
my sense of longing
to the point of no return —
stole the ship from the borrowed harbor
and painted her a personable white;
left me sleeping in waters
where the sharks do all but bite.
you gave the ruins a name,
for the first time.
crowned them mayor of some uncouth part of my psyche
while i drank from the crease in your hands,
resisting the urge to call you by a name that has long since been banned.
you made it so obvious, babe,
that my desire
is anything but tame.
Music Box Lovers
Watch as you lift your arms
and twirl in the living room
Raise a drink to your lips
and tip
Your head back
Choosing to ignore the simple fact
of not wanting to go to sleep and wake up
Alone every day
She connects her hand
to yours and
spins
aroundandaroundand
aroundandaroundand
Choosing to ignore the couples walking circles around you
twisting in their happiness
While you stand in the middle,
in the same spot, as always
Look down at your hands
see them as empty
see them as cold
As if seeing them for the first time
They look foreign to you
Brisk winds blow back your hair
while you dissolve at the fringes of existence
wondering at the last time someone
brushed the hair back from your face
as an excuse to touch you
You wish you could remember
Music box lovers
Ballet and beer bottles
They both turn in circles in circles
silhouettes and
shadows
Blocks of bright beacons
to the envy of wanderers
Midnight window watchers
and late-night city crossers
Fixate on the small things
Lost sunglasses, an empty mitten, an abandoned coffee cup
Fixate on the
Longing to reach across in the night and feel someone reassure you
You are alive
You are alight
You are still here
Spritz of perfume
Wrists and sleeves and collar bones
Walk through an empty apartment
Echoes of the lonely reverberate
Pull your sweater tighter around you
close your eyes
Deep inhale
I dreamt about someone squeezing a shoulder
The softest graze of an elbow and blooming warmth
And thought about it the rest of the day
Ache for the simplest of gestures
But turn a cheek
when they are offered on a silver platter
Someone to walk next to
Someone to look out at the water and point to our frozen breath in the winter chill
Someone to make coffee
and meet my outstretched hand
Someone to be there
I think,
I am crumbling,
caving in on my own body
How will I dance if I am warped and worn away?
Lay down across the expanse alongside someone else
Try to remember what it feels like
to exist in parallel to another’s breathing
Without wanting to silence it
If you scream and no one hears you,
does it still count
What does it mean to exist?
when no one is there to witness it
Solace in the lives of others,
one day, will not be enough
Pretend someone new is
wrapped around you like twine
Spin and spin and spin and spin
Encircled by this moment
Around and around and around
and around
Swirl by the candlelight
Shadows and silhouettes and
Slivers, only slivers
Open your eyes and
You are alone again
By Michael Lee
Crimes of Passion
You were just looking
for the wrong things
at the wrong place
and the wrong time
because in this case
it felt just right
you saw no issue
who could blame you
if I pardon your crimes
will you forgive mine
if I let you walk
will you take my hand
could we flea this life
in which we met
we set things on fire
but I have no regrets
for smokes and ashes
helped us disappear
we ran out of matches
and ran for the frontier
I’m your accomplice
and your alibi
the two of us, heartless
made it out alive.
The Ghost of You
By Mary Holton
You were gone,
but everywhere I turned,
you were still there.
You lived within the bracelet I always wore,
the one you said was your favorite.
Within the songs we listened to,
especially the one that says yellow.
Within the half-empty perfume bottle,
the one I only wore around you,
that now collects dust on the back of my dresser.
I could still feel you in my passenger seat,
staring at me while listening to your Christmas music,
even though it was November.
However, one day,
I tuned the radio to the station,
but there was no music,
only static.
And I realized,
I was alone.
I now can drive around town,
without the fear of seeing your car.
I wear the bracelet,
because it is my favorite.
After all,
It is only a bracelet.
I can listen to what was “our” song,
without hearing your voice sing along in my head.
The coffee shop we used to go to,
is no longer our place,
it’s simply another shop.
The ghost of you is now gone,
no longer tying me to our past memories.
You have simply become another chapter in the story of me.
I now do the things I love,
not the things you loved.
I am my own person.
And you are just another face.
Another stranger I pass in the street,
with a life of their own,
no longer connected to mine.
I am free.
Clairol
I don’t like your hair like that
We nodded as I held the petrol,
and he the match.
Me neither.