One Rainy Night

My back is against the wall,
I’ve fenced myself into this corner
so no one can get to me, no one near me,
you can’t get near me…
My heart is stained with nicotine
and I just can’t scrub myself hard enough
to get rid of this feeling, this smoke roiling under my skin,
I’ll just watch as the pressure mounts.
Dirty basements, flannel sheets,
who’d have known ecstasy was hidden underneath?

My back is against the wall again,
this time I’m armed with harmful thoughts.
Don’t get too close, you might get burned.
(Or worse.)
I scraped the surface raw and still couldn’t reach
the poison underneath,
and there is no amount of “Out, damned spot”
that will make it go away.
I’ve given up, and I’ve given in,
I’ll never be clean,
because the stains are from within.

Tags: Poem of mine

Sometimes, when the night is a little too long,
and the stars are a little too bright,
I drive by to see if you’re home.
Sleep is far too elusive these days…
It’s not that I miss you,
and it’s certainly not that I miss the person I was with you,
It’s that although I felt no identity then,
I at least felt that I had a purpose and was on a path forward,
and I was far more hopeful,
because I was always hoping, waiting, wishing
that things would change for the better.
Now, I feel bitter and jaded,
my optimism has faded away to nothing,
and I’m just a cold, hard shell of myself.
I don’t know what’s worse;
being unhappy but feeling relatively stable,
Or being unhappy with no sense of direction.
My heart still aches for freedom,
though I’m nearly drowning in it.
All I want is to feel wanted.
When will that happen?

Tags: Poem of mine

The lights reflect off the sparkles of my gown
but nothing outshines the smile on your face
as you sweep me across the dance-floor,
and subsequently, off my feet…
You say that I have never looked so beautiful,
you say that you have never felt so grand,
and baby, with me at your side, you’re king of the world.
You dazzle us all by your show of affection,
of the love so clearly radiating from your core,
I have never felt so proud, so happy…
When our hearts are ready to take off their dancing shoes,
and our bodies are beating so fast we feel faint,
you lead me up to the spiral stairs to the prize behind door number one.
“Unmask, unmask!” you cry,
and after tonight, the red death couldn’t possibly have held sway over all,
and as I take off my face, letting you see the part of me that no one else knows,
you suddenly put your mask on,
and you’re no longer you in everything but your truthful eyes,
(you never were good at closing the windows after leaving a room),
I’m not the monster you sought at all,
and your demons are unleashed with the streamers below.

Tags: Poem of mine

I’m drowning in your colours all over again,
and your pigments inebriate my heart.
Always, your eyes render me incapable of
thought, of speech,
of breathing…
Thousands of miles away… where is your heart tonight?
Does it beat for me at all anymore?
Your fingers have a home intertwined with mine…
So why can’t they manage to open the door?
I swear I could make you happy
if you just gave me the hint of a chance,
and if it wasn’t for those eyes, god damn those eyes…
Your heart is on your sleeve, but I put my heart there too,
and oh how I wish my colours were bright enough to make you notice
me.

Tags: Poem of mine

Beat me like the toughest boss,
you know I like it rough.
You leveled up for this?
I wanted to be the princess you sought
not the enemy you had to cheat to defeat.
The scope you had set, the AK-47 you cradled,
it was all to take me down
and I never saw the head-shot coming.
Silly me, I thought I was the final prize,
turns out I’m just one more obstacle.
The final frontier is just so damn hard to navigate.
Why didn’t you hold my hand through it?
I told you I knew the way, I’ve been there once before,
but my cliches just couldn’t keep you by my side.
So go, leave me on the battle field,
my heart is strewn in pieces,
about as worthless to you as the pixels you crave.
Onward, valiant soldier.
Game over

Tags: Poem of mine

In the little house on the hill,
the occupants all tread like ghosts,
taking soft, delicate steps,
as to not set off another explosion.
Every room is filled with faded echoes
of laughter and conversation,
reminders of happier times.
But there’s no laughter filling the little house now.
Instead, there is mistrust and broken promises,
and the ghost with the hollow blue eyes,
and the ghost with the jaded green eyes,
wonder what the hell went wrong,
to turn the house full of love
into a place where there is no longer warmth
and not a soul smiles,
and the silence is so loud that it screams.
One is sick of trying and failing,
and the other hates that she lose the one she loves most.
The world below is flooded
with the millions of tears they have cried,
and the house is overflowing with pent-up emotions,
and none of them can do a thing.
The only way to stay sane anymore
is to hold onto the minute hope that
eventually, things would get better,
and they will no longer feel this way,
and once again the little house on the hill
will be the home it once was.

Tags: Poem of mine

Last night, I went through some notebooks of mine from years and years ago, filled with literally hundreds of poems. I pulled out two to share. Here’s one:

The mountains shine a glimmering pink
as they are stained by the sunset.
I stood under a pearlescent moon
thinking of you.
The frozen blanket that covered the ground
cushioned my footfalls as I slowly made my way through
a frozen Calgary.
Hardly the winter-wonderland it was made out to be.
Downtown, the lights from windows shine like stars
against a darkening backdrop… like the stars from that night,
and skyscrapers puncture the sky above.
Sometimes I wish the city would burn
so that maybe my memories would be charred,
And the ghosts of you that still haunt me would fade away…

Tags: Poem of mine

In a field outside the city,
I lay staring up at the sky,
collecting the millions of oh so distant stars,
hoping that their sparkle would
come somewhere close to the brilliance
that emanates from your inside out.
How was I to know? (I should have known)
That no matter what I steal from the solar system,
you would outshine me,
a 60watt never could compete with the sun.
I don’t mind so much
that I cannot stand next to you
without being taken in by those
who orbit you like planets,
no…
I’m perfectly content standing in the shadows you create,
As long as I get to admire from afar…
You always were my wishing star.

Tags: Poem of mine

There once was a time where
I’d send you rainbows to make you smile,
but at the end of one, no pot of gold,
just my little red heart beating for you…
Those beautiful apparitions in the sky
were the colours in your beautiful eyes
whenever you cast their light my way.
Now though, now…
The dark, overcast skies are all too apparent,
the ominous overtones scream at me,
and when I see those colours now,
ROYGBIV set against gun-metal grey,
bitterness drips from my heart
sending the message throughout my body,
until even my fingers and toes buzz with anger.
I regret you every day.
I regret tainting something as rare and dazzling
as a rainbow on something as mundane as you,
because as much pleasure as I derived
by brightening your day with their warmth,
deep down, I needed them as much as you did,
because those seven colours gave me hope
that there was something worth
hanging on for.
Now that rainbows are nothing but shades of grey,
where do I go from here?

Tags: Poem of mine

| | | | | | |
The cursor blinks
blink blink blink blink
in the conversation window
as the background grasses sway.
Words pour out from you,
secrets spill like blood,
and I say nothing, just watch the carnage.
Inside my head, a silent chaos,
a stoic storm swirls fast.
It shouldn’t hurt this much
to hear about the past,
but beating in my head repeatedly
is sordid images, flashes of scenes
of skin on skin, you on them,
and I stand like a ghost in the shadows,
watching as tears stream down.
I shouldn’t have asked,
I never wanted to know,
but now that the words are flowing,
there is nothing to do to stem them,
I just read and absorb and break apart…
Yes, I’m still here, don’t ask.
I just don’t quite know how to answer
after having the storybook romance we had
shatter around me and fall to the ground
like shards of embittered glass.
I may be here physically…
but mentally, I am the static between the bed sheets
as you climb between legs of someone else
and silence the buzz of my spark
with a look that speaks volumes.

Tags: Poem of mine