Your words suffocate me.

But your pull is so gravitating.

Your smile is radiant.

But your brown eyes so intoxicating.

Being in your presence brings me warmth.

When I have a moment of weakness, you bring me strength.

But all these things, they seem so pointless in the end.

You make me feel this way, but I don't make you feel the same.

With you, I see happiness, but when I look into your eyes, I can still sense pain.

Maybe because you're not ready for me.

You're still hurt by somebody from your past.

What is meant to be will be.

So I will take these feelings with a grain of salt, because some good things aren't meant to last.

I grew hungry today.

I remembered how to suffer.

I accepted my fate, by dying;

returning, to my authentic self.

I came back, the same;

all pain, born again.

The long journey had gone ahead

to guide my sprouted steps.

Belonging as one,

I heard myself in a new voice.

Without effort, I began to teach;

without words,

without love,

without any attempt to possess,

for I cannot lose my suffering;

I will always be hungry.

~Jessi (poem & image)

The weight of a raindrop changes~

at times, with no resistance from the skies.

Tonight, one saturated drop descends,

carrying the hell of my conscious mind.

It splatters upon impact in a deep-seated soak;

bared and breaking down;

blood and stinging tears touch the curb.

My bruised spirit drips into another hole,

while you see my soul darken,

through my eyes- caving in.

All of me, slopes heavily to the side.

I fall~ condemned, to join the puddles.

There, where the storm is brewing~

and, it is coming ....

heading into the dark always starts off

with rain, as if to chill my bones,

so that they may shake off

the fear that I tremble- like a coward.

Guilty of the sin that moves me,

I give in to its pull ....

The car door opens;

the radio dials my thoughts;

the station sings out my shame.

I watch your hands steering,

stare at the flashing red lights,

and get lost in the lamp posts.

The glow, streaming as we drive by.

Your mouth gets twisted in my mind,

but your hair still holds the perfect mess;

as mine, interrupts the wind~

hiding my face from the interrogating rain that's beating the window.

Tires drumming along, right through me.

My eyes clenched, as if to drift away,

but, I can still hear what you say;

I'm twisting it further~ still.

You read me like a book,

ripped open at the seam;

exposed~ for everything.

You can see me;

you can control me;

you can kill me; after all that-

you choose to love me.

Yet, it's all in my mind;

even locked away- still,

trying to find

somewhere safe to give my attention.

But cruise control has set in;

I'm visiting old miles I don't wish to trace.

Please, I can't take these trips no more ....

I pray, the storm dissipates

and that it won't still be here, come morning.

~Jessi

Waxing half moon aligns

the tilted edifices of the skies.

Standing sentinels crowned in water towers,

allowing passage between shadows.

The neon lights bring out the night;

breathing in smells of vintage shirts

and ethnic food vendors;

taking in the energy of sirens;

as taxis race, to lay rubber.

Groups of clicking heels pass,

heading uptown to the next popular venue.

We stare up towards the rooftop.

In a moments mind, we take the time

to decipher our perception

of up from down.

One moon helps~ to be seen,

through all of waters reflections;

in every penny fountain wished,

or peered over the city cruise.

We drink in the gleam.

A glimpse in each sip;

unclosed cupfuls that pass the evening lines.

A shimmering glow,

leaving impressions on our faces,

as we look up to meet,

in gaze and wonder, the waxed,

halved moonlight, tonight.

~Jessi

“Gray,” she replied while straightening her back to accompany her brazen tone.

Silence stung the air circulating through the car. The emphatic delivery of her answer had disrupted the flirtatious fluidity that had entangled the two in uninterrupted banter over the past hour. She couldn't help herself. The color had once again started to systematically drain from the world she had come to know and love the closer she came to their parting of ways. It had all become too painful of a ceremony to shroud under the 'c'est la vie' facade she had been trying to maintain. 

Dorian focused her gaze upon the coastline, empty aside from the vicious winter swell pounding against the white sand shores. She rolled down the passenger side window, permitting her right hand to play with the balmy air outside, slicing through it in undulating waves. She closed her eyes and embraced the warm light spilling through the car’s windows. Longing for this paradise rippled through each of her days. He always initiated their stream of synthetically digitized interactions, forcing her to continually long for the happiness that swallowed her entirety. The technology of the future charged with eliminating the separation between people and places had been serving to remind her where she wished she was when she was not. 

“Gray? Why gray?” James’s confusion was soaked in to every syllable of his response after her abrupt answer to his playful probing.

She looked over at him. At his bright green eyes focused on the gray cement ahead of him as the car rolled closer to their end.

“Well.. Gray has this way of shading a person’s perception. It happens slowly and then all at once as Hemmingway put it. You are walking down the street wearing your rose tinted glasses and then it knocks the wind out of you. And you start to see the world as it actually is, existing in absence. Like the color gray, it is found directly between white and black on the color spectrum. If you look up the word “gray” it is actually defined as being without color. And when it hits you, well then your fucked. With your eyesight no longer impaired, you notice the world around you is functioning to fill an inherent sense of absence, because it creates purpose for humanity.”

“So you’re saying I create purpose in your life?” he teased with an arrogant smirk slapped across his face.

“No. What I am saying is that you have created an absence within me..” the pain was painted upon her words as she spoke, “that I know you will never relent to fill. We, you and I, exist in a poetically tragic state of passing goodbyes. You entered my life slowly then all of sudden the gray came crashing into my world and I was not ready for it. And after I met you, the world looked uglier. You are every shade of gray I want in my life but cannot endure the continuous pain that your absence causes.”

James’s face was tight. “What airline are you flying again?” The airport terminals appeared through the front windshield offering an opportune escape from responding to her imploring explanation.

“Hawaiian Airlines,” her chest hurt as it always had from his absence.

She wanted to stay. She wanted to live her life in love with his gray. She wanted to scream out into the gray world he had created for her and she found herself trudging through each day because of him.

The car stopped. She looked over at James but her voice was absent. She slid out the passenger side of the car and gathered her backpack from the truck bed. She came around to the driver side of the car and met James standing outside smiling at her. He hugged her and she kissed him on the cheek. He leaned in to kiss her on the lips but she pushed him back. “Aw, come on, one kiss for the road. I’m going to miss you.”

“No,” She turned her face away refusing his offer of affection.

“Text me when you land,” James offered, his tone sympathetic, knowing he had escaped responding to her proclamation of want and love.

Dorian managed a smile, turned and walked toward the airport doors. James’s voice echoed against the gray world around her, “I love you, I’m sorry that I will always be gray for you. Don’t go to Bali!”

Typical she thought, ‘don’t go to Bali, but you can’t stay here’ is what he truly meant. She looked up, watched an airplane take off into the bright blue expanse of a cloudless sky, disrupting its innate beauty with its gray body, and whispered to herself while walking through the sliding glass doors of the airport, “I love you too.’

I'm more than my mistakes; 

Every scar speaks,

have crossed a rake. 

though I gathered, 

all together

It felt as if,

Clouds had clattered....

Stop counting my mistakes;

With every fall down,

Confidence was at stake.

There I got up

tied my lase;

Listen the story

that I rephrase

All that matters is,

at the "End"

What are the possibilities? 

What I learned?  

What I earned? 

What are my abilities? 

Can I bring smile

to atleast a face? 

'YES' indeed it's a, 

blessing with grace....

Winners are those, 

the longer who stays; 

Hope does wonders, 

even in amount as trace. 

and here I am

Flying in air, 

satisfying myself

has often been rare....

Everything today looks

Fine and fair...

Actually keep counting my mistakes,

It'll help you analyse

what a 'Hero' I am 

during our future handshakes.......

I took water from the mountain

I slept in the trees

I listened to the thunder

as the lightening helped me see

I walked with my own step,

at my own pace,

with what I had on my back.

And the sound of the leaves rustling

was my only soundtrack.

~Jessi (image and adventure)

I go to the wind,

letting it carry me away;

in lift of guided breath,

my sentiments give way.

My strength~

wrangled and torn from the western sky.

My land ~

now a vast empty landscape.

Gone,

are the wild horses.

Once, when valleys were untouched,

the mane flowed free from poll to withers.

Spirits surged in leaps magnificent~

unrestrained.

I can only feel your presence now,

when I close my eyes.

Silent, a steed knows the touch.

I hear your pulses force within my veins,

charging steadfast for the sound.

Patiently, I watch the clouds pass by.

Tranquil or else tempestuous,

the breeze faces the open.

No falter.

No fade.

The wind carries me away.

~Jessi (image and poem)

#freeverse

I took my time,

tires spun slow.

Other cars traveled in the direction to go.

I had desires to follow;

the side view captured more than the lights.

Cut it close on a winding lane

(once or twice);

went down 7 miles away from an address I'd recognize.

I felt the switch of pavement.

Breaking stones vibrated at my forefoot.

I had taken a sip;

tasted his drink he left in the holder.

I spilled it.

The coldness soaked into me.

It broke my moment's thought.

It was hours of stretch until

nothing remained but to go home.

They say,

the longest way round

is the shortest way

home.

~Jessi (image and poem)