That we even met was against all odds, despite my name being there in the trees in the town where you lived. You drove by my name for years — “It’s a sign!” — but now the trees are dead, and will soon be gone.
I swear to myself I’ll be picky in chasing the new love of my life, swear to myself that next time I won’t compromise on my needs. I’ve been doing somersaults to just get you to want me; it’s backbreaking work, and I’d like to be done now.
It hurts to not feel … Read the rest
There was nothing in the world
that I ever wanted more
than to feel what it was
like in your arms.
Now, I feel invisible,
not that I don’t matter,
just that I don’t matter to you.
We’ve always lived
in house of cards and
now the walls are crumbling.
Today’s poetry prompt words were: nothing else, invisible, and cards.
Photo by Roger Starnes Sr on Unsplash
You wondered why I’d become so comfortable with not cuddling as much, not hugging as much, and I said it’s because now I can count on you like clockwork to be here, to come home to this bed.
Had I known the time was coming when your affection would be doled out in limited supply, I would have taken more when I had the chance. I would have held your hand on the couch every day. I would have rested my hand on your leg as you were driving, I would have hugged you from behind as you stood and … Read the rest
We met when your only job was shuttling your children back and forth to their various activities, and now I know you loved that more than most things. You’d drive for hundreds of miles just to get the chance to drive them another few hundred miles.
You are a warrior father. You will go to battle for them but not for me. I am the one you defend them against. You keep me away to keep them protected, and it hurts me, it hurts me, and not a single cook in the kitchen has a clue, or would care … Read the rest
In the beginning
our sleeping arrangements were
“only once in a while”.
That didn’t keep it
from being a fairytale;
you were my whole world.
When the bed was ours
I won the damn lottery,
is this what’s called luck?
Today’s poetry prompt words were: sleeping arrangements, fairytale, and lottery.
Photo by Wyxina Tresse on Unsplash
I don’t want a big life,
but I don’t want a
small life either.
I want a calm, happy,
fulfilled life,
which is one I
doubt I’ll ever have.
Can you believe it
when I tell you I
want my parent’s life?
That I want their
quiet, steadfast love,
their iron belief
in each other?
I spent so many
years trying to
run from them
telling myself this
is the worst
that can happen to me
and I was so wrong.
It would be the best thing
to go to bed and never
wonder whether
the one you love
wants … Read the rest
You can tell I’m nervous when I don’t shut up, when I turn into a chatterbox that will do or say anything to avoid having to do or say what has to be done or said. I am not brave. I am not fearless. I am not even casual, ever, it’s always all or nothing for me, this or that.
But when it comes to you I’m able to slow down. Really, I have no choice. Your skin against mine creates a still silence that comes from nowhere else, only you, you soft mouse.
No one will hear you unless … Read the rest
It’s been twenty-five years since you’ve stood with your friends singing Hallelujah on a stage, feeling the vibration of a hundred voices lifting from the platform to the sky. It’s been twenty years since you listened to that same song on the way to your friend’s funeral. He’d shot himself to death at work. What a life. Now you can’t listen to that song without crying and you will always wonder how you couldn’t have seen it coming, and why no one ever usually sees it coming. There should be a prescription everyone gets at birth, an RX for love … Read the rest
