Jazz – Pop Vocalist | StoryTeller | Poet | Writer
For the past two years, he has steadfastly remained at my side. I hope I did not offend when I told him he had come too late.
“I died many years ago,” I said playing with the handkerchief I held in my hand.
He looked at me, and put a smirk on his face,
“Yes, I know. I hear your silence. I cannot kill, what is already dead.”
“So why do you stay?”
“To keep you company.”
Our silence, once again, returned.
Her decision had been made.
She snuck in, past the guards, during the very early hours of the morning. Having found his cell, she stopped and stared at him. In the darkness, she could see his swollen face, beaten so badly, she thought him nearly unrecognisable. This, she had not expected. She made the journey because she convinced herself that she needed to see him one last time. To tell him she was sorry, that everything was going to be ok, and he would back in his home soon, surrounded by his family. But now here, those words would not come. She was too afraid, and even more ashamed to call-out to him. She stood motionless for 15 minutes (maybe more). Still no words came. As she left, she heard him mutter – but she did not stop. She kept her eyes forward, carefully slipping past the guards once more, never looking back.
When you think nothing possible,
is the moment when everything
becomes possible.
I looked into the Devil’s eyes,
and waited for him to preach the Gospel.
If I won’t be remembered for my songs,
I want to be remembered for your words.
Never stop talking my love.
Never stop.
Your love is like a rose.
With each touch,
your thorns make me
Bleed.
My love, a deep red.
As deep and as the red as the Blood at the Cross, bleeding (and dying) for your sins.
Your love is like a rose.
I give you my light, my sunshine.
You grow before my eyes,
as you wilt in my hands.
I am your reservoir.
You drink.
And drink.
And drink.
And drink, until I run dry.
And still thirsty, you drink more.
Your love is like a rose in winter.
Grey, cold…lifeless.
Naked.
Exposed.
Vulnerable.
I am your gardener.
I see your beauty during the long, cold winter days and nights.
I value your nakedness, your vulnerability.
I am your protector.
Your love is like a rose.
You only know when to love when things are good.
That’s when you bloom, with your petals ruby-red,
as ruby-red as the Blood at the Cross.
Your love is like a rose.
Each day,
you dying
for…
your…
sins.
*This poem is not about a ‘Sarah.’ But the real Sarah, Sarah Haines, who challenged me to write this, my second poem, by giving me the opening line, “Your love is like a rose…” and told me to run with it. And to her I am, as the cliché goes, I am eternally grateful.
She is, and will forever be, an eternal victim of her own circumstances.
I turn the page.
You turn it back,
your hands dirty with old ink.
You let go of your future, so you can hold onto the past.
I want to dance, but my legs won’t let me.
Odourless.
The smell of yesterday’s worries.
I worried too, not for me, but for you.
Worried with songs and laughter, not for you, but for me.
I want to sing, but my voice won’t let me.
Tasteless.
I feed you a taste of your tomorrow.
This is your chartered trip to your undiscovered lands.
I watch you cry.
I want to speak, but my mouth won’t let me.
I am your pod.
Consume, replicate and then duplicate me.
You cling to my future, so you can hold onto your past.
I want to breathe, but my lungs won’t let me.
Empty words.
You feed me your empty words.
I take your words and fill them with meaning.
My meaning.
I want to hate you,
but my legs,
my voice,
my mouth,
my lungs,
and my heart
won’t let me
Standing on the edge of the dark and cold abyss, I heard you yell….
“Jump!”
The other day I wondered, who you spent Valentine’s Day with?
Was it a him?
Was it a her?
I wondered the other day, was that look for me, or was that look at me?
Did I mis-judge your smile?
Your stare. That stare, was it in my mind?
The other day I wondered, if you knew, I once stared (and stared),
and stared, at the back of your neck, waiting to ask if you needed a seat.
I lie, I just wanted to know if you needed my seat. Instead, I sat.
And I sat. And I sat, eyes closed, listening, listening, listening.
I listened to your voice.
I watched. I watched as you found another, a seat that is.
Gone.
My first of, what I now know, many chances, gone.
I wondered the other day what it would be like to lay next to you. No I lie, I wondered what it would be like to lay with you, entangled, enveloped; to look in your eyes; to kiss your lips, your neck; to touch your skin;
To…
To…
To…
The other day I wondered,
do you even know,
I exist?