A Friend of Mine
I have a friend who thinks in hypotheticals and lives in theory,
travels journeys through her mind before they happen
and she still ends up with scraped knees
and I say there's no way you could've seen it
I have a friend who walks always looking at the sky
and when it rains she lets it well in her eyes
and it blurs her vision blue, until the sky is clear again
but even if I bring her a hat, she'll gaze back up with a tilt of her head
I'd protect her heart if I could but it leaps with joy out of her own hands
She flits like a butterfly unaware of her fragile wings
and she sings like a bird and weeps like a willow
I swear her tears glimmer when she cries at simple things
Her love moves like the wind and cyclones around us
but in the eye of the storm, it's calm and quiet
because those she lets in—for good—to her heart,
she'll make sure we'll never want to leave it
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Your heartbreak does not count when it's by your own hand
If you did it yourself, you can fix it on your own
But you've led yourself down this thorny path
And when you listened to no one, you must brave it alone
You can cry and cry, but this is the path you chose
And when the road you thought led to home
ends in a cliff towards the rocky shores,
you'll have no choice but to return to the society you know
And you'll pretend to have learned something
when all you got was wasted time and pain
that you can't even talk about, because you'd kept it so locked away
that if you brought it up again you'd only remember your mistake
So in the morning when you wake,
Pretend it never happened, pretend you'd never gone astray,
no matter how long it was you were away
And if you pretend enough, maybe you'll be okay
And don't think of the roses on the other road
and don't discredit their thorns,
You can't blame it on the longing for the road not taken
when you've already travelled both
So when the sun rises let it sting in your eyes
Just carry your feet forward
They say better the devil you know than the devil you don't
but promises of hope and healing come with destinations unknown
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Given the chance, I don't think I'd undo anything I've done
And any pain I ever felt when I was in love with you—
I promised it would be worth it and I stand by that vow of mine
because unrequited as it was, I've learned enough to last me a lifetime
of strings and ties and twin flames and lies
and soulmates and best friends, ambiguous ends
The most tragic victims of love are those of circumstance
but I'm not a victim but a student, of love's intentioned hands
You turned me into a poet and I found my love for words,
and my admiration of love and of you, took turns
Any tears you caused me are the ink to my pen,
any joys you gave me are the forces guiding my writing hand
And as it becomes muscle memory I hope you know I'll think of you,
a catalyst to a change,
a nudge to a chrysalis to make me bloom this way
The past stories of my heart will be written on this page
and I'll thank you for the love and all I'll ever have to say
Empty Promises
Promises are playthings and baits
but it won't seem like it at the time
Sometimes hope outweighs truth
and the words he said were wishes,
things to fill the silence after you'd said them first
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You are the love you are looking for
when you stare at the sunset every evening like it's your muse
and when you listen to your favourite songs and tell them "this reminds me of you"
Even your tears are romantic,
for don't you think it's beautiful how the pain turns into poetry?
And at the end of the day aren't you among the wiser,
who've lived it all to tell of your endeavours?
And in the end isn't it romantic?
How you can live love again and live by it,
knowing it never really leaves but changes forms,
from a best friend to a lover, from a hug to a letter,
and it all flows back to you like water
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We're on a witch hunt for love, have you seen her?
She's taken lives and twisted knives and spreads wildfire lies,
and she scars you, like a scratch that blinds your eyes
She makes you bleed, she makes you plead
She has you begging on your knees
But in the end she never surrenders,
for when she finds you, you're hers to keep
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I'm on a car ride home at dusk,
listening to songs that spell your name
And I swear I'm not thinking about it,
but once you see patterns the picture will never be the same
Just like that, I'd restructured all my memories to weave around your frame
In the end, everything I remember is how you looked in those moments,
what you thought, what you said,
And by the time i'm here again it's all been ingrained,
branded and seared into the crevices of my brain
Even when I turn off the radio and keep my eyes on the road
I keep thinking what it would be like to take the next exit and drive home—
your arms, your face, your place
but I resist the temptation, and drive in lost-love-drunk silence
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I'll always wonder what you're like when I'm not with you
Is that glint in your eyes only mine?
Or those beginnings of a smile that come when I tell you you're worth it,
do they turn full when I'm not around?
When you're hanging out with your friends are you the same person I hug when I sleep?
Are there two versions of you, and the softer one belongs to me?
Which one's the real one, and do they both compete?
Cause I can't help but think when you look in my eyes like that, it's you, truly
But you don't let anyone see that close,
So if you think about me like I think about you,
you're the only one who knows
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There is a belief that beauty is ephemeral
but I think those who don't see the beauty in age don't understand
that anything preserved in it's original state
is locked away from the world,
like an insect trapped in amber,
like bones in a crypt that crumble the second they've been uncovered
Everything touched by life is touched by decay
and every good moment you live is just a second to your age
Don't you think it's better to walk hand in hand with time
than to live your life looking at mirrors?
So what? A blemish here or there, a wrinkle or a grey hair
People dry flowers because people think they're beautiful even after they're dead
but you can't find yourself beautiful with those marks that show you've been to hell and back?
Those eyes, oh how they've cried and how they've wept,
but those wrinkles show the countless times you've smiled through all that
There is beauty in change and there is beauty in age,
there is beauty in wear and tear and scars that fade
And those that deny that— youth only lasts a quarter of your days
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I wish I could look at myself from afar
for I can't see this close without scrutinizing
Every mirror I see is an opportunity to dig deep
into my own deepest insecurities,
dissecting each layer like I can diagnose my own disease
Clandestine Contradictions
Who are you to make promises that never see daylight?
Who are you to hold me so close when you sleep at night,
but treat me like less than a friend when you see me outside?
Who are you to call me, begging, on the phone,
"can you come over tonight?"
when you know I have work in the early morning?
Who are you to tell me that we can't be,
but despite all that, you love me?
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I find it ironic how
the second somebody asks,
I lose all the words I have to say
All the speeches, all the prose,
all the thoughts that prove I'm verbose disappear as if they'd never existed at all
But the minute I'm alone,
a thought peers through the doorway
and in a flash my pen moves with a dash
as it chases all the roles I have yet to play
A broken-hearted lover, a devoted admirer, or a man of wise advice
In minutes I have a paper full of words and I didn't even need to think twice
but they disappear as I bring them into the light,
I guess some poets only thrive in the dark
Perhaps it's for the best,
lest the sun scorches the pages made up of my heart
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Blood lost to heartbreak
Memories lost to longing
Can I have them back?