Admiring Accents
You open your mouth
And I stare
Your tongue twists and turns
Making a melody out of your words
Your native language
And the one you learned as an adult
Blend together so beautifully on your lips
I smile at the sound
And you begin to blush
You think you’ve misspoken,
Misused,
Made a mistake.
You ask where you went wrong
How to improve
And I laugh again at how different our point of views.
I am smiling at the miracle of communication
And human connection
I am admiring the perseverance
And intelligence
It takes to retrain your mouth
And your brain
To make room for more words and rules
You think I’m teasing,
Correcting.
You speak my language
But how do I make you understand?
Admiring Accents
You open your mouth
And I stare
Your tongue twists and turns
Making a melody out of your words
Your native language
And the one you learned as an adult
Blend together so beautifully on your lips
I smile at the sound
And you begin to blush
You think you’ve misspoken,
Misused,
Made a mistake.
You ask where you went wrong
How to improve
And I laugh again at how different our point of views.
I am smiling at the miracle of communication
And human connection
I am admiring the perseverance
And intelligence
It takes to retrain your mouth
And your brain
To make room for more words and rules
You think I’m teasing,
Correcting.
You speak my language
But how do I make you understand?
Unwelcome
I’ve been thinking a lot
About what you did to me that night
The act that you partook in
The act you made me a part of
The act that could have taken a part of me
That could have created another part in me
I’ve been thinking a lot
About how remorseless you were
How you held me in your arms
As I grappled with what you had done
To me
Not with me
As if I had left my body for a time
And returned to a new dimension
One where I could not trust you
As I had believed mere minutes before
I’ve been thinking a lot
About the terror I feel at seeing you again
At seeing your name pop up on my phone
At hearing stories of what you’ve been up to
How your life has continued
Stories from people who have no idea
You tried to take a piece of me with you
But I will not allow it
As I told you that night
You are not welcome to any part of me
Girlhood
When I was a child I fought and fought with my father
I wanted to go down the street
Around the corner
Just the next street over!
And a stern "no" was always the response.
I would beg and plead.
I would get cry and scream.
And my father would get frantic as well
He could see the resilience in me.
He sat me down at the end of each tantrum
Spoke to me on my level
Spoke to me with fear in his eyes, fear dripping from his lips.
"You can be the fastest
The smartest
The strongest
You can be better than any man - any place
But there will still be people out there who want to hurt you
Just for taking up space.
I refused to accept this
It just could not be.
How was I supposed to grow up
In a world that hated me?
So I ignored all of his warnings
I ran wild and I ran free
Up the block
Cutting corners
Two, three, even four streets over.
I got lucky, little me.
I made it to 10
Made it to 12
Made it to 14
Before I had to accept what I had seen.
What I had done
What had been done to me.
Not every girl gets that far.
Pondering
Have you ever wondered
What I wonder about?
Do you ever ponder
The things that make me pout?
Does it bother you how much I hold inside?
All of the dreams, desires and fears that I hide
The thoughts you'll never know
Emotions I'll never show
Conversations I refuse
In preparation -or is assurance?-
That your love
I will lose
How Do I Make Me Love You? A compilation of poetry
[Seasons: A Table of Contents
The flowers in bloom
Us in my room
Body to body
Skin to skin
You were my only
I was your forever.
The sun circled on.
The weeds grew, though we never saw.
Summer passed us by and suddenly
Suddenly winter had come
And all we had was the past tense]
[Temperature rising
She looks forward, not at him
But he, he is unable to look anywhere
But at her.
She does not feel the heat of his gaze
She is oblivious to the warmth of his love.
For her heart is cold.
As she stares off into the distance
She searches, though unsure what it is
She hopes to find.
She can feel the cold inside her chest.
She closes her eyes a prayer that it won't spread.
With no knowledge of her thoughts, her worries,
her icy pain.
He reaches for her hand.
It, like him, is warm.
She turns to him and meets his eye
Lighting a spark deep inside.
And she realizes what it is to have hope
And she realizes she does not have to be so cold]
[Lusting
Tangled hair
Needy stare
Legs bare
Soul exposed
Heart protected
Pain expected
Fear consumes
But desire wins]
[Good morning
He opened his eyes and stretched,
Arms extended way overhead.
She laid next to him sleeping silently,
Taking his breath away.
He smiled and stifled a laugh,
Stifled the words he wanted to say,
The words he craved to hear in return.
Or maybe, maybe now he would practice.
He snuck another peek at his sleeping beauty.
Butterflies grew in his belly,
Fluttered up through his throat
And stole his voice.
So he mouthed the words
And pressed his lips to her forehead
So that she awoke knowing.
Feeling,
Smiling up at him.]
[Home
Home need not be a place
If you look closely you’ll find that shelter
That comfort, that warmth
Tucked in the fine lines of a familiar face]
[Sanctity
Interlocked fingers and interwoven lives
A shared adoration and a shared address
Marriage can be written so simply
Defined so succinctly
But it is so hard to keep alive]
[An apology
I reach for your hand
But I grab onto the nothingness that lies between us
You promise to be there
But the darkness is truer than your words.
The darkness has never let me down.
And in your eyes
You eyes, which are pouring admiration down upon me
In your eyes I see the reflection of others'
Your handsome lips move
Your lovely voice speaks to me
But I can only hear the broken promises
Of those who came before you
I am sorry that I cannot love you]
[How
How do I say
"It's not me - it's you"
How do I say
That although I know your heart
Though I've seen it to be true
"It's not me - it's you"
How do I say
Thank you for the date nights
The late nights
The times you held me tight
I truly wish that to say this
To end this
That it didn't feel so right]
[Understanding.
There were no stars overhead, he knew, he had checked.
The moonlight illuminated nothing but her tears.
He had no idea how they ended up here.
Her shoulders shook as she sobbed.
His shirt grew wet but he held her ever closer.
Tighter.
He wanted to absorb her pain,
A pain he knew nothing about past its existence.
Its prevalence.
As he searched for a star, a sign,
Guidance.
He saw only the blackness of the midnight sky stretching beyond the horizon,
Into infinity.
It was then he knew:
This was the feeling deep in her chest.
The incomprehensible darkness of the sky mirrored it to back to him.
And then the moonlight illuminated his tears too.]
[Tonight
Grab another tissue
Politely close the door
Let your guard fall down
Let all pretense hit the floor
Your makeup will smudge
And the mirror will reflect
The heartbreak, the emotion, the pain
That you've spent all day trying to neglect.
You kept your bottom lip stiff
Your jaw remained square
But now, in the dark of night,
In the silence and solace of your recent solitude
You cannot help but tremble,
Crumble,
Shiver,
As you take off your boots.
Darling, do not concern yourself with tomorrow.
Inevitably, it will come.
Give in to tonight,
To the stars
And the moon.
Give in to the cool night breeze
As it caresses your skin,
And fresh air filters into the room.]
Omission
It kept me up last night
Though I didn't tell you
I let you sleep
You softly snored
As I absorbed the darkness of the room
And allowed my mood to mirror it
For it is only in the silence of the night
That I let myself acknowledge it
Or the lack of it
I do not want to admit
That I feel nothing
That I dream of nothing
That I continue to progress
To place one foot in front of the other
Only because I do not know the alternative
Only because the alternative
Is also nothing