Spilled Ink - Blog Posts

Anaïs Nin, from a novel titled "A Spy in the House of Love," published in 1954

“as you get older, you realize that you’re not always right and there’s so many things you could’ve handled better, so many situations where you could’ve been kinder and all you can really do is forgive yourself and let your mistakes make you a better person.”

— Unknown

T-Minus 21

Twenty-one guns in a sudden burst

he is number six and comes with

a false sense of security and unexpected

endings at no extra cost

run through the flowers to fall off the cliff

  Twenty past birth and settling too young

he is number five and he is easy he is

there he is sweet and he is kind

but he is not wanted

there is no hurt when the time runs out

  Nineteen and accelerating fast

he is number four and he is nothing she

has known before or ever expected

it’s only perfect to a point

so the crash and burn is all the harder

  Eighteen is self-centered and self-loathing

he is number three and he makes her feel

good but he is nothing that she wants

and little that she needs

it breaks her heart to crush his devotion

  Seventeen owns naivete in every color

he is number two and he takes the pale pink

of unearned trust and stains it dark red

with sudden abandonment

it is her first lesson in one-sided love

  Sixteen sweet doesn’t know any better

he is number one and he is her sun

and she is burned by his brilliance

brightness masking flaws

he is the high that will always be chased

  Fifteen to One and more lifetime lived

than the rest combined but somehow less

if they knew what was coming

Perhaps

they wouldn’t have rushed.

A Reaction in Four Parts

When I asked if this was what you wanted,

you wouldn’t give an answer. The cancer

of uncertainty gnaws at my muddled

mind as I look back and wonder if all

this time was just a game when I saw you

in goodnights and birthdays and holidays

and futures. What sutures do you use to

close the wounds of unanswered thoughts? Perhaps

the good is lost in the bitter flavor.

  When I asked if this was what you wanted,

you responded with anger. A stranger

emerged, unwilling to talk, to give a

glimpse of what was beyond the steely stare.

I’d praise you for your perseverance, your

unwavering commitment to this last

decision, if only I could know my

words would even be heard. No pity in

your words, to make letting go easier.

  When I asked if this was what you wanted,

there was sadness in your tone, screaming through

the words that reluctantly emerged. I

could feel that you felt the pain that you dealt,

even as you said it didn’t matter.

Your subtle silences spoke volumes. This

was special. We were special. But that can’t

matter when you know that special can not

overcome unconcluded history.

  When I asked if this was what you wanted,

you wouldn’t give an answer, because the

answer is clear: what we must do is not

always what we want.

Handle With Care

An inevitable conclusion

looms just out of sight of

my weak and wondering

eyes. Either we will last

forever or we will burn,

crash to the ground in

ugly flames of sulfur and

shame. Goodbye, good

bye, hello, goodbye. No

more farewells I beg,

either stay or go. My heart

cannot handle one more

hello just to end in another

goodbye. If I let you go it

will surely break. Please,

stop these mistakes that I

am too fragile to take.

Open

That brief moment you hold me so tight

your arms tremble and your voice

breaks and for that brief moment I see

into your heart and soul, your very being

and I see how you long for me and you

ache as I ache, ache to pull me closer

to bring you in to make you a part of me of

you of we not two, one being held together by

a silver cord of connection that no one or

two can sever, the pain in your eyes when I

must let go since I am one and you are one and

together we are still two not one but

someday the goodbye will cease and I see

for that moment you long as I long and I

know no doubt because I see you and you

see me and we are as close as the sea to the shore.

The Boy That Never Was

There’s a candle in my window for

the boy who never was.

It flickers just as brightly as

the laughter in his eyes. The warmth

inside his heart is matched by nothing

but the flame, and the tiny drips

of melted wax, intricate as his mind.

The candle burns to mourn this boy,

the one I could have loved.

He may have lived - this boy, indeed.

But mine he never was.

Sometimes

Sometimes I wish you hadn’t died.

You left him so broken, beyond repair.

It was all I could do to keep him afloat,

treading water, a burden too heavy

for me to lift. You left him drowning

in unspoken love, unable to let go of

a deflated life preserver.

Sometimes I wonder what you’d think of me.

If you could would you thank me or would

you tell me that I could never heal him?

It was my job to gather the wreckage

you left behind. I taught him to love again,

but I could never teach him to let go.

I could never empty the ocean of hurt.

Sometimes I believe we could have been friends.

He clung to me too, driftwood in the open sea.

We must have something in common. He said

he thought I would like you. Even when his

heart was sore and his lungs were filled,

drowning in the memory of you. Friend,

can I tell you a secret?

Sometimes I hate you more than anything.

I hate what you did to him. I hate that no matter

how far away you are he can’t let go of you.

I hate that he will always love you, how he

doesn’t know how not to love you. I hate

you for dying – not that you chose to die. I wish

you had chosen. Maybe then he’d accept it.

Sometimes I feel like the other woman.

He’s still swimming through the waves,

fighting the current to get to you as if he

doesn’t realize you’ve already been pulled under.

I try to bring him back to shore, to my safe

harbor, but he’s still anchored in you.

Sometimes I think you are selfish.

When you had him you took him for granted,

and yet you held him tight enough to keep

him clinging to you like a buoy out at sea,

clinging to you for air. And now he still clings.

You can’t tell him to let go. Not that you would.

Sometimes I wish he had never met you.

Sometimes I am happy that you’re dead.

Sometimes I wish you never existed.

To Tokyo, With Love

Long lost lover living out

of sight, out of mind. I find myself

forgetting how it was to lay

eyes upon you, to lay beside

the water, to feel the soft caress

of your whispered words on my

waiting ear. Lover half a world away,

I no longer remember the sharp

glint of your smile, the sensuous

depth of your laughter. All I remember

Is your impossible perfection. Absence

makes the heart grow ill, poisons

memories to be larger than

love. Stay away lover, I fear

you’ll rob me of my love for your

image. I have broken a commandment;

I idolize your memory above you.

Equations in Momentum

If one train is moving south

at sixty miles per hour and

another train is moving north

at the speed of still,

will they notice the wind

rushing between them as they pass,

or are their worlds too far apart

to make a difference?

Loitering

Smoke curls from the ashen tip

of a long-lit cigarette on a moonless night

The streetlamp light arcs through the rain

tiny diamonds disappearing to dust

He breathes out death, lungs burning

one more light will make it okay,

further from the end, another hour

for the pain to fade a little.

Smoke disappears like the rain in the

navy air, and yet the cool ice of her eyes

is all the more vivid in his empty mind.

Sunset Over Atlantic

The tan line on my ring finger has faded,

just another reminder of the time we’ve lost

since that day at the beach when my ring

washed away with the tide. We couldn’t afford

to replace it. Maybe I should have taken that as

a sign.

Gas Prices Skyrocket

He bluffed, “It’s the cheapest you’ll find a vintage sports car.”

She huffed, “It looks rather new for a vintage sports car.”

Love for the ages: soft, steady, slow, and sweet, or a

flame: fast, beautiful, and deadly, like a vintage sports car.

Pulling off her shirt she felt revealed, reviled, repulsive,

telling herself it’s not trashy if you do it in a vintage sports car.

Cherry red, blood red, red wood. Scattered under moonlight.

On the accident report they called it a vintage sports car.

Heaven forbid honesty! Hide your feelings, your secrets,

undercover. Like in the driveway, a vintage sports car.

Status symbols: a Rolex watch, a million bucks, a

yacht in the bay. Trade your wife for a vintage sports car.

The past thrown away, left to rot and not be remembered.

Left to decompose in a junkyard next to a vintage sports car.

Lost, lonely, loveless? Ditch the club, forget online dating.

One thing that can never leave you: A vintage sports car.

To escape your problems you must run far away.

My suggestion? Zero to sixty in a vintage sports car.

A gold-digging robbery! Get away with his money, his heart,

a license plate reading RAY-RAY on a vintage sports car.

Forward, The Only Way to Go

Rusty white with a big blue stripe,

the old pickup, a pick-me-up

in the shape of a flatbed truck.

He drives fast with the music blasting,

windows cranked down because the AC never works,

or maybe just to share his music with the world.

His voice pours out the window to the beat of a drum

as the pounding music rocks and swells

and brings the old radio back to life.

It’s an adrenaline rush, that old white truck,

and the driver inside. Four wheels, one heart,

flying on a song down the old dirt road.

With the blood of a cousin, the heart

of a friend, a protector, a brother, a guardian.

Wings hidden beneath thick skin, or rusty white paint.

The heart of freedom, a crazy heart.

A heart with no direction, a truck with no map.

Windows open, open heart.

To The Once Ingénue

The giver of blood and love is fragile

as it beats faint within the fold of your

broken breast. The giant’s grass of the forest

sways gently in the wind, unaware of your

selfish weight crushing the earth below.

You used to dance with grace as light as a breeze

among the blossoms of spring, but now you

have been stripped and knocked down, lying

heavy in the cold dirt of disenchanted

winter. You bury yourself in the decay of your

innocence as the rain of remorse now pours down

your cheeks. The one who did this to you feels no

regret. You let him take the silver trinkets

from your pain-streaked body and he

hung them from the bedpost that he might

admire those trophies of his conquest.

You have given up that blissful ignorance that you

once held so dear. Now you must stand alone and

face the world, for he is not there to lift you.

There is no changing what has been done.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Before our first date you bought me white lilies. I guessed you didn’t know the symbolism. But as the two of us become one for the who-knows-what time – you, deep inside me and I, clenched tight around you – I wonder if you did. Sometimes I feel as if we have become dead together. Your burning skin pressed against me, answering my need, no longer smells like cinnamon, only sweat. As your lips caress my collarbone, my breast, my navel you no longer taste strawberry, only salt. This four-story apartment building, box-shaped and bland, no longer is a stepping stone to a better life, but just another reminder of how our plans fell through. I remember the lilies as your hands squeeze my aching flesh, too warm for a corpse. The sun rises and the birds chirp and I convince myself that we are not yet dead. Even if that sun has long faded our yellow curtains. Even if we hardly speak. Even if you no longer call me liebe, though  we still make love. Even if your touch is the only thing I’m still living for.

So ends the collection, To Save A Wretch Like Me. I hope you enjoyed, whether you read the entire collection, or only caught a few poems along the way. If you haven't had a chance to read the whole thing but enjoyed what you saw, I'd encourage you to go back to the beginning and read the collection, since I think it works well as a combined product. Whatever your feelings on my work, though, I'd love to hear from you, praise, critique, comments, or questions. Or jokes. Whatever, really.

Thank you for reading!

Beauty from the Beast

Sadness was my gut reaction

when I saw her picture in your wallet.

She: more beautiful than me,

eyes brighter than mine,

her smile sweet, pure honey.

But behind my sadness came joy.

Joy that you have someone so beautiful,

someone to love and to love you

as once upon a time I did.  What we became was

ugly, but it taught us life. We were not a waste.

But as our beautiful flowers bloomed,

we came to see we could not share the sun.

Our petals grew shriveled and brown,

choked by the harsh sting of broken promises,

of life and truth, and what is not meant to be.

He is now my light, and she is now your fire,

and as we grow apart we will grow closer to them,

and they will and lift us up toward the sun, and

we will be alive. Apart, we will grow to be

the beauty that we now know we can be.

Closure

Upon this wall I sit and watch the tide

roll in and out, affection for the sand

as indecisive as your touch. Your hand

grazes mine. Is it true we really tried?

Perhaps I missed it when you tried to hide.

Your touch lingers, and I feel it demand

a part of me that no longer can stand.

Was this love just far too long denied?

But there was something here, and it still is

alive somewhere inside our broken hearts.

This poem is far too sentimental,

And yet I feel somewhere, somehow that this

needs to be said, before we fall apart

and crash into the waves that we feel call.

Liar

You forced a laugh and told me

You were heartless

As your head fell into your hands,

Hiding a pained smile.

I’m glad you’re a liar.

Spring

Cut through the pallid skin of the fresh corpse of winter. Bleed beginnings.

The close of winter is a silent night, still darkness giving in to a vibrant day.

Dying frost. Awakening Blooms. Welcome to a new world.

Sweet, the scent of birdsong and blue.

In the movies, this is where the newborn enters the scene.

The dawn light breaks on pale pink, the bright call

of miles to go before I sleep.

I swear it’s too hot for this time of year.

Venus, why bring love in Spring if it dies in winter?

Dying minus the end equals resurrection.

Passerby

You know, I really love it when you pretend

that I don’t exist.

You climbed out of your car,

alone in the grocery store parking lot.

We made eye contact,

I almost dropped my bag of eggs.

You locked the car and zipped up your jacket

and jogged to the door, out of the cold

as if I never even existed.

Not even a smile?

The least you could do is acknowledge me.

My stomach clenches as

I shove food into my trunk.

My appetite is gone.

Warm Body

Time can never erase the taste, the touch,

the heat of smooth, soft skin. My fingertips

ached to pull him closer. Hands felt my hips,

urging me onward, still forward. So much

depends upon simple contact, and such

sweet, plum caresses from succulent lips.

But this is not quite right. Fantasy rips

and he is not my warmth, the one I clutch.

Not lover, friend, my partner strong and bold,

who brings me to my sweetest, perfect form.

He is a stranger, a poor substitution,

an improper plaster cast, hard and cold.

He could never mold to your humor or charm.

You are gone, he is just an illusion.