Category: Poems (Page 2 of 8)

no one’s second best

November 1, 2025 / Cheney / 0 Comments

I thought we were okay.

I was running on autopilot,
that I can admit,
but I know I was here,
present, conscious,
I know I felt loved even if
I felt it a little bit less.

I told myself “Sometimes,
it can’t always be 50/50,
sometimes one person needs
to offer the other more when
their well is running dry.”

So I offered you more.
I offered to give up my peace
so that you could have yours
for a while, and apparently,
that wasn’t enough.

You caught me last night,
deer-in-headlights I sat and
listened to all the things… Read the rest

It’s nothing, I’m fine

October 31, 2025 / Cheney / 0 Comments

If I asked you what you see in your future I’m sure
I’d only be met with silence.
Not because you don’t know where we’re going,
but because you know we won’t like it.

We’re not walking into any future we imagined,
together nor apart, in every way that’s meant.
Now it seems more like a slide into complicity,
acceptance, and “you get what you get,
and you don’t get upset” like we’re children
who never learned to play by the rules.

I suffer through sighs and the sad empty gazes.
You suffer metaphorical but actual pain in your heart,… Read the rest

patience for the pilgrimage

October 30, 2025 / Cheney / 0 Comments

there are so many months between me and here and there
but I can’t wait to prepare. I can’t wait to go from wistful dreaming
to actual planning, to opening a duffle bag and beginning to pack.
Clothes and deodorant and soap, various and sundry things to fill
the space in me (the bag) just like where I’m going will fill the space in me.

a whole entire winter and spring need to pass before this chance comes
and I have to remind myself it’s still a chance, anything can happen
in that amount of time. illness, death, job loss, … Read the rest

skin twin

October 29, 2025 / Cheney / 0 Comments

there are so many things about us that one could make
one say we mesh. we call each other our skin twins,
the same light shade but sprinkled with freckles. if we put our
arms against each other, i can’t tell where he ends and i begin.

there’s a comfort here i’ve never had before, the feeling that
i can let go a little bit, not be so close, not be so clingy, not
be so afraid all the time that he will leave me.

(and trust me, i have an excuse for the fear i can’t release)

but for … Read the rest

city song

October 28, 2025 / Cheney / 0 Comments

right now there’s ringing in my ears, and besides that the drip of
the cat’s water fountain and the hum, perhaps, of a water heater,
and i want none of those sounds, i want silence unless it’s something
i’ve been wanting to hear.

i want to travel to florida and see my friend Todd, i want to hear the
dull roar of a plane cruising at altitude, i want him to hear his eggs
crackling over easy, spitting and popping butter, before the whoooosh
of him pouring my scrambled ones into the pan. And the drip of his
coffee pot, … Read the rest