Love Letters

You used to write me love letters,
tuck them in places you knew I’d find
if I saw the edge peeking out at a particular time.
Each line carefully composed and exact,
reminders of how deep passion had grown, since the first day our eyes met, standing there
speechless. 
Because words failed what hearts knew to already be truth,
even if it felt like an eternity, to finally get me to you.
You used to write me love letters, for no reason other than to tell me you had been thinking of me, my smile
and remembering every thing I did to drive you wild 
when our lips met in the dark, 
my hands finding yours, my body keeping yours warm, 
holding you so close, as if I was afraid that someone might pluck you from my soul, if you didn’t feel my arms around you. 
You used to write me love letters, 
when the night before we shared heated words in moments of anger and went to bed in opposite rooms,
but sleep left us no choice except to remember why love brought us together,
and that this too would pass.
How I long for those days when you couldn’t live without my touch, my arms, my kiss…
The days before love letters became notes and frustrations took hold of explanations,
and excuses became the norm, reasoning away every layer of what I thought we had built.
You used to write me love letters, your words tucked in the corners of my heart where I swore I could never lose them,
or us
or you. 
But now you’re gone,
and I can’t seem to find a single crumpled paper to tell me why.

.the pause.

The pause

In between each heartbeat

Is where she resides

Loving, passionate being

Within the life force

Of my physical being

Feeding the hunger of my

Malnourished essence

When I take each breath

She moves in me

She moves me

She moves

And I stand

Still

In awe of her

Grace

carve

carving each breathe/ from one word/ to the next/ wondering if survival ends/ when the last letter/ of the last word/ sits still in its groove/ as shavings of memories/ lay strewn

- untitled -

I suppose I could spread letters like puzzle pieces and put them together
Hoping you would see the big picture rather than dissecting each word in each line as if they were personal attacks against your fragile psyche
You see it’s just the reality of the matter
These words are cut from the very corners of my lips, placed before you as a truth you’d prefer was a lie
We’re no good for one another

[lines]

I get tired of repeating the same lines

Same lies, like the ones you told me

To make me think this could be something

I refuse to accept that the words  

Bent and laid gently on my heart, are nothing more

Than acid, eating away at the lining of my soul

You move, like a tempestuous wind

I scatter like leaves, trying to pull myself together

I’m neither living nor have I ever been alive

I get tired of repeating the same lines

Same lies, like the ones you fed me

I’m starving

red.white.blue

today I

 rubbed my skin,

rubbed it almost purple and blue

but the stain of centuries abuse

hung around my neck like a knotted noose

this land was not made for you and me

stolen, bartered and reconstructed to deface

peoples, cultures and all that is divine and pure

this

this land was soiled with more than dark earth,

brown bodies and spilled worth

this land was rebirthed with a death

that continues to die

and reap the decay of moral culpability

for lives lost and change that dangles

precariously close to the edge of despair

"untitled"

these are the saddest words you’ll never hear me say
perhaps you’ll walk into a bookstore one day
hand in hand
with the next love of your life
and she’ll be holding her stomach, with her other hand, her unborn addition to your infinite happiness waiting to arrive
and she will smile at you as you turn over a book,
a book you can’t explain why you’re drawn to, but it’s a book of poems
and you flip to a page
and these words spill from the edges of it
like my tears falling as I write
and you remember without hesitation that
you were once mine
and I was once yours
and these words
and this space
between us
are merely that of circumstance
and you'll pause
she’ll watch you and grab your arm while asking
if you’re “okay”, concern lining the creases
in her unknowing face
and you'll say
“I’m fine, just fine” then you'll put my heart
back on the shelf
and walk away
again