[x]

SurvivalThe first time
you took off your clothes
in front of me, you slid
the white fabric of your blouse
off your arms and revealed
the pale ladders
of scars.

You never referenced them
directly. You said you were
lost, once. You said you
did things, once, and you
did them because they
helped you survive yourself.

I didn't say anything,
but you took my hand
and pressed it to the
ridged rows of your flesh
and for every line you left
upon yourself and healed,
I found another reason
to call you beautiful.

What You Aspire ToYou want never to be confined to shelves.
You hope they will keep you in coat pockets,
in purses and mouths. You hope they will needle you
into their arms, their hips, their shoulder blades.
That they will scrawl you in paint on alley walls,
on the whitespace of billboards, on bathroom doors
and trashcans. That they will scribble you down
on napkins and the backs of coffee receipts,
and that they will leap up on banisters and balconies
and scream you out at passersby.

You hope they echo you forever.
You hope they speak you out loud,
loud like a siren or a child wailing, like a train car
divorcing its tracks under the earth,
like

The MinotaurYou stand undressed
in front of the mirror,
and every time,
you cast open the gates
and step
into your labyrinth of
doubts, every time,
into winding passages
full of thorns
and black brambles.
You wander in
just to scratch
the itch
of hating yourself.

You pinch your hips,
and squeeze your breasts
and frown at yourself.
You are looking
for the minotaur,
for the shaggy head
and the bloody horns,
for the muscle and fur
that will put its knee
into your back
and break you.

You poke the lines
of your face, you
wander the moss-
frosted stones
and pick your way
through, you listen for his
lowing, for his hooves
stampin

Drink The SeaTonight, after your medicines
capsize you, after you sink
into the churning depths of sleep,
I am going to walk down
to the shore of the sea,
down past the white sand dunes,
down past sandspur and panic
grass, down to the dark wet.

Whatever chemical dreams
you dream, they will comfort you
long enough for me to fall
on my knees, put my head
against the soaking sand
and crash headlong into the surf.

I'm going to open my mouth
as wide as it will go,
and let the ocean rush in.
I'll drink deep, swallow gallons
and gallons of sea and shells
and galleons rotting under the waves.
All the humpbacked whales
and shark-stuck suckerfi

Deep EndYou went back up to our room to find a towel
and while I waited for you to return,
I bobbed in the deep end of the hotel pool,
watching an old couple kiss in the shallows.

I knew we would never last that long.

Not through decades,
not through crow's feet and laugh lines,
not through enough for our hands to wrinkle,
no matter how long we submerged
ourselves in each other.

Briefly, I considered swimming over
to ask what secret preserved them,
to ask what I could do to save us from drowning,
but before I got the chance, you came back down
and asked what I was thinking about.

I could think of no explanation,
so I said nothing and

I Did Not Read Your LettersI read them,
and then I threw them in the trash,
but make no mistake, I read them.

I swallowed them whole.
I filled my eyes with every word,
I sewed them in patterns
into my flesh of my body,
at night I wake to entertain the ghosts
lounging in my bedroom
with impromptu recitations
of your letters, of your thoughts,
of the shape of you in words

but I could not keep your letters.

I could not let them languish
in a dusty box, fermenting
into poisons in the closet dark.
I could not let them lie in wait,
like coiled paper vipers
ready to strike the hand that strays
too far and stirs the den.

You Might Miss The TrainMaybe I've fled,
The brick city, thus dead,
I've lived amongst the content
(No need for consent)
(No need to pay rent)
The year dawned as the last left
With empty words on my chest
With cold air on my breath.
I sobbed to no avail,
Sobbing doesn't stop the hail
Of feeling doomed to fail.
Most nights my blood froze
From being stuck in my bed
Consistent in pose,
No longer a victim of prose.
How those days took their time
I'll say - no wish to die
Just that something would come along
Catch my eye, being crazy enough to pry
Me away from me,
Help me moult, help my door unbolt,
Lay the path to the future, to now;
I didn't care how.
Determined not to

I Can BroodI can brood, oh I can brood -
I can brood till it changes your mood
Till the tides shift wrong and set off the moon
Till there's no dawn or no dusk
Until the Rockies are smooth,
I can brood.
My eyes can sulk under till the day fades at last
Till my neighbours and family fly their flag at half mast
Till my face hardens and numbs like a porcelain mask
I can ask.
I can request to be this mess
I can detest the rest
Lest they forget who I am -
The last legal move in this onslaught of chess
A game I can't lose at my best
I can't lose.
I can't find the time to choose
I can't give up because I can't remember what I have to prove
I can't stop leaving

To A Girl In The DesertThere is a girl in the desert
And I suppose I love her -
I suppose some nights she might love me too.
Our history is ancient and words wrought with "what if"s
The most classic of things life will never see,
But we are taught to dream.
I was never one to let the impossible think so highly of itself.
It's January now (as it has been for too long)
And it's still so early that I can say
"Maybe this year won't be the same"
But here I am, awaiting the words to get me through the days
Till I can lift up my complacency and actually make that tomorrow.
Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not.
Maybe she'll continue to be the "what if" I never forgot -
And when she's

Who I Once Knew.So, the bold soldier grows older. Leaves home to fight until the war's over. No one can change his mind, it's like he's not sober. There's not enough time in the world to describe emotions. He needs a safezone, so why's he hides in the open? No one can tell, he rides alone, then, cries an ocean, and, lies there floating.

Gazing Is Not EnoughYou have to envy
the old astronomers.

They could only gaze up
at nightly glitter sky,
up at the planets and the stars
and know they were
so very far away,
out of reach, and so,
could only be content to gaze.

Now, the heavens are too close.
Now, we are stung by the dream
of going up and out into the wild
black sea, to set our boots
upon the dust of untamed worlds
and to orbit stars so unlike our own.

It is almost possible.
It is possible,
we have gone up and done it,
but only the fewest of us,
and there are nations of us
burning in our bellies with
the desire to sail the sky.
Gazing is not enough.

They Never Last, Do They?I knew that if I touched you
Kissed you
Felt you
Like steam, you would drift through my fingers up into the air
Fall through them, heavy, like tiny grains of sand
That might could have symbolized times spent if I said so

It's my own fault, really
I warned myself, like shouting to someone there is a freight train about to--
Sound
Sound over bells over shouts over whistles over
I must have shouted it too loudly and my ears rung and I didn't hear as clearly as I could have and
It's a poor excuse I really tried to take care, but

It's knowing you're there that upsets me
Knowing you are there makes me want to be there.
I can feel y

The AccountI miscount because I always count on you.
It's a fatal flaw of mine.
My own hamartia.

I really should stop.
You are a few grains too short of an hourglass.
Your feelings leave as quickly as they came.

Next time I'll subtract you from the total in my mind
And save an invitation.
Tell myself not to expect an RSVP call from your number.

I recount because I used to count on you.
a h e a d of time, a h e a d of time
And perhaps now I will end with a good number.

RunDesperate to protect yourself,
Hesitant, you stand alone.
Staring ahead to those you love;
More scared than you would care to own.
Averse to letting yourself go
Afraid of trusting once again
Desperate to move on too
Not wanting it to be the same

Standing on a precipice
Wanting to trust, but finding tears
Determined now to make the step
And overcome all of your fears
No one knows how small you feel
No one sees quite how afraid
You know you have to take the plunge
Options considered; risks outweighed.

It's worth it all; you know it's true
You know its right deep down inside
Yet still you have to battle worries
Which you are t

Wishful ThinkingWishful Thinking (an afterthought)

I love like I never like to love
because lingering scents tell me
what would have otherwise been memories.

Loving like I like
and never compromising.
But here I am changing
my words around
back again
same dot on the map.

I am here in that ever-recurring
spot between certainty
and blind fate.

Heaping piles of regret
betrayel
solitude.

I've never been in such a shitty mood
and I tell myself
like I told myself
a thousand times.

"Not again"
"Not again"

"Not again"

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More from ~GabrielGadfly

How To Swallow SwordsYesterday,
you made the offhand comment
that you would like to learn
how to swallow swords,
maybe to join a circus,
maybe just for a party trick.

This is good,
because I do it every day
and here is how:
stand up straight,
shoulders back,
and tilt the head
to open the throat.

Close the eyes,
breathe out and calm,
concentrate,
whatever you do
don't waver this time
and just before
everything I have ever
meant to say to you
bursts out, gulp
and swallow it down,
swallow it down.

Gazing Is Not EnoughYou have to envy
the old astronomers.

They could only gaze up
at nightly glitter sky,
up at the planets and the stars
and know they were
so very far away,
out of reach, and so,
could only be content to gaze.

Now, the heavens are too close.
Now, we are stung by the dream
of going up and out into the wild
black sea, to set our boots
upon the dust of untamed worlds
and to orbit stars so unlike our own.

It is almost possible.
It is possible,
we have gone up and done it,
but only the fewest of us,
and there are nations of us
burning in our bellies with
the desire to sail the sky.
Gazing is not enough.

How To Ask Someone To Let You Love ThemI think you keep secrets under your skin
like trees keep rings and do not know it,
like the sea teems,
like dark and quiet space
keeps every ray of light
the stars whispered to one another
when they were still young
and dying to make love.

I think you keep secrets in you
like the desert keeps sands,
like sleep keeps dreams,
like cities keep sleepless people
and people looking for sleepless people
to fall asleep with.

I think you keep secrets
like secrets like to be kept,
and I want to learn them all.

WanderlustI consider creeping out
before you wake, out the door
and into the road and down it,
until this place dwindles.

Do not mistake my meaning:
I do not wish to be rid of you.
I only need some nights to be
elsewhere. I have become
too familiar with these walls,
with the silences and sounds
creaking and speaking between them,
with the shape of my body
between them.

I will go out now.
I will go out and I will stand
in the road and look down its miles
and wonder how many I could wander
before dawn came up and you.

What You Aspire ToYou want never to be confined to shelves.
You hope they will keep you in coat pockets,
in purses and mouths. You hope they will needle you
into their arms, their hips, their shoulder blades.
That they will scrawl you in paint on alley walls,
on the whitespace of billboards, on bathroom doors
and trashcans. That they will scribble you down
on napkins and the backs of coffee receipts,
and that they will leap up on banisters and balconies
and scream you out at passersby.

You hope they echo you forever.
You hope they speak you out loud,
loud like a siren or a child wailing, like a train car
divorcing its tracks under the earth,
like

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Bottle of Sadness

by ~GabrielGadfly, Jan 5, 2013, 12:57:38 PM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

Your little red mouth
is a bottle of sadness
and you think you keep
it stoppered up,

but the cork is cracked
and the seal is loose
and you drip
little splashes of sorrow
every time you speak.

In the morning,
I wake next to your wet sheets,
your pillow soaked through with it.

It smudges on the rims
of glasses you drink from,
it tastes of salt and dusk and blue
on your lips

and even when you laugh,
it boils away and steams
in the air --
the room fills with fog,
you stop laughing again.

I used to think
you had only liters in you,
but some days I think
you have the whole deep sea.

Bottle of Sadnessby ~GabrielGadfly

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

©2013 ~GabrielGadfly

This poem and many more can be found on my website, [link]

~Poelee Jan 5, 2013

I love this so much. The metaphor really worked for you.

Reply

~GabrielGadfly Jan 5, 2013 Professional Writer

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it.

Reply

~ThornDennan Jan 5, 2013 Student General Artist

I love how descriptive you were.

Reply

~GabrielGadfly Jan 5, 2013 Professional Writer

Thank you.

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