With hesitant eyes Orpheus peered to see,

The glittering skin of beloved Eurydice,

But with that glance her soul did sink,

The memory of her sweet love, poured like ambrosia wine.

(I yearn for my words to drip like coveted honey)

Swept away by the hand of the wind,

Hyacinthus bled into lavender florets,

Apollo’s Spartan prince laid cold and gray.

For the god of medicine, there was no remedy.

(I yearn that my lovers will adore my broken body)

Craved Helen, splitting the lands,

Who Paris swiped for kingdom Troy;

Zealous infatuation toppling stone towers,

She lamented in a cage, no woman shall enjoy.

(I yearn for the soaring sensation of such mania)

Achilles woefully willed to Priam’s wild war

With Patroclus’ devotion by his side;

Though, now their bodies rest as one,

Two souls forever intertwined.

(I yearn for the bittersweet declaration of ‘forever’)

The jubilant youth, Persephone, spring’s daughter,

Unthawing the frigid heart of Lord Hades,

A wayward golden ray to him,

Though she need travel above to dance before the sun.

(I yearn that they may hunger for my presence)

Stories drifting through the eras

Until they float through my ears.

Love so persistent, persistently so vile.

These ancient tales bring out my deepest fears.

If I cannot love like each these figures,

Will my life, my story, linger?

I really hated you.

No really, I did, especially when you landed that hit

That jump-started a new era of life for me.

I told my friends about you once;

(Maybe more than once) after that they became your tormentors and I

Finally felt glad that I could kick and hit

Without thinking of what it meant for me and you.

We were just kids back

Then when you

Looked up with your stupid doe eyes and gave

Out words that burned like venom. I was meant to be the one with a

Snake-like attitude. And then that senseless kick.

When my face started to burn…I didn’t know what the fight fully meant. All I

Knew was that you gave

Me butterflies in my stomach and I needed to beat them down like a

Good boy is meant to do when he sees a guy like you. I remember the stinging slap

Of my stepfather’s hand. You

Didn’t know about any of that until last week at the bar when we were both too smashed

To drive home, so you called a cab. A

Butterfly flapping its wings again, just like before. Staring at your name on my license plate

Made me want to rip the hair out of my head. I wanted this to be over,

But that was never in the cards for us. You’re my

Other half that the world doesn’t understand. Ying, yang and all that. A kick to the head,

An elbow to the back, that’s how we spoke, how we loved. But then

The fights became dances, us two too evenly matched. What was I

To do except prepare for another set?

Jersey boy you lit a fire

That will never be beaten down, just like you back in ’84. I still don’t know what to

Do with myself when you say words like “our”

When it should be “mine”. Because of you I despise being alone in bed.

Down by the lake there’s an old rattlesnake,

He whispers a fortune to you,

Dozens of stories about each of your glories,

And all your miseries too.

He says, “You’ll grow into a find young man,

Your heart’ll always shine true,”

Speaks, “boy, don’t forget it.” Then he went and quit,

That rattlesnake swam into the blue.

Take all of his lessons, in each of his sessions,

Don’t the let cold wind blow through,

And just when you think, that you’re on the brink,

Remember that shoreline dew.

I hate theme parks,

And store perfume isles,

I hate the way that they smell,

And how they drive me so wild.

I miss slide tops,

And the metal, plastic bars.

I miss the way that I kissed you,

And how the world was only ours.

And I know that it’s too late,

I know you were never all that great.

But I wish that it were different,

I wish I wasn’t misread.

I hope I’ll see the shootings stars,

Praying to all the gods,

That I wasn’t so ignorant.

I loved summer,

And sitting by the pond,

I loved that way you laughed,

How you’d make me come undone,

Well good riddance!

Finally I’m free,

From every single touch,

And the way you’d scowl at me.

I know you’ll flinch before I do,

’Cause the punches don’t surprise me anymore.

I know it won’t be different,

I know I’ll always be misread,

Still I hope to see the shootings stars,

Praying to every god,

That I wasn’t so ignorant.

’Cause you were Jupiter,

And I was only Juno.

’Cause you were Immanuel,

And I was only Judas,

Second place,

And ruthless.

When I was a boy, fresh out in world,

I nearly left for the deep down below.

I fought for my air, and was stuck so curled,

Then soon enough felt the oxygen flow.

I was born and soon deemed a fighter,

Body laid under the sign of the bull.

I could hold the spark to start a fire,

Everyone said I’ve a future of gold.

But who am I but a simple wordsmith,

Conjuring up some sort of charm.

The fight that they spoke was only a myth,

Instead now there’s a ringing alarm.

Cause I am no Herculean soldier,

I am only a boy of eighteen,

I have only searched for closure,

Or a glimpse of what could have been.

I am the one that you left out weeping,

I am the one that you kicked to the ground,

And I am the one that has kept on dreaming,

Thinking that one day he might be found.

But I must say that I don’t have the fight,

That you watched all those years ago,

Someone has gone and turned out my light,

What am I to do when I’m cast down below?

Reading over your “What is the job of a poet”, I cannot help but feel a sense of reflection in your words. I myself am not much of a poet, though I do dabble in song-writing from time to time which some may protest is poetry in itself, but as a writer in general I have struggled with many of the things you outline in your piece.

I can’t help but create things, it's my natural human instinct to leave this world with more than what it had when I was born - a point I believe you make very clear. Writing is an outlet for me as well, for whatever emotion I may be feeling at the time as if I don’t pour out my feelings onto the page (or rather the screen many times) they will continue to be bottled up in my mind until the bottle threatens to explode from how crammed it is.

Writing, creating, connects us all together. We share our joy and our pain and pray that there is someone else out there who has felt the same. Again, this is our instinct as people to find community and cling to it with everything that we have until we are too weak to hold on any longer.

I aspire to one day rock people with my work as you describe in your first stanza. That is a writer’s job after all, to birth something from the muddled mess that they feel and experience and formulate it into something beautiful.

Beauty can be found in the most unlikely places.

- cfrestal

Naked feet on moss covered floor,

Blossoms of new from old,

Sunsets and rises to adore,

The sky shining bright gold.

Dancing around in the cool breeze,

The creek lapping my skin,

The long green grass staining our knees,

A glimpse of what has been.

Sundresses, trousers, light and free,

Crowns of flowers on heads,

Climbing up the willow tree,

Pants stitched with colored thread.

We were so young, and we were bright,

Resting from our classes,

We spent hours in the sunlight,

Now it's all just flashes.

Flowers make me sick, as do the chocolates, the bears, rom-coms, and the songs you would blast on your stereo.

You knew all of that when you saw my scowl as we passed each other in the crowded high school hallway: you had your arm around your new boyfriend, posting him for the world to see (a new one next week).

The couples with their balloons in the commons made my stomach churn in ways that nobody else understood. I had tried romance, but your touch made a part of me die.

I’m not equipped for that kind of life.

In my eyes, no story slashes through my heart more than that of Eve.

She has become the mother of every living person on Earth - and of everyone buried beneath the surface - but she has never had the pleasure of having a mother herself. Eve lived forced to be an eternal daughter. Not once could she search out the comfort of a maternal figure, to lay her head in the woman’s lap, consoled when her body changed and morphed into something new. There was no other woman on Earth for her to seek solace from, to talk of the mysteries that men do not understand because they have not been pained by them.

But worst of all, even more awful than her loneliness and despair is how she has been painted through history, through the story of the Bible, through every myth and legend that has stemmed from Abrahamic roots. Donned original sin, the original sinner. Had it not been for her actions, humanity would have forever lived in paradise.

How can any person blame her though? She was human, as we are, her biggest sin was being a soul stuck in flesh. Everyone lives with curiosity, and worse so with the ability to be manipulated. When life had been nothing but pleasure and goodness, how can any of us blame her for not knowing what would happen.

I mourn her and the way she has been dragged through history, the way that all women have been sullied because of her actions. I remember she was human - as so many others have stripped from her - and therefore made mistakes as humans do today. I see her in serpents and fruits, but also in lilies and crisp summer days. I want to remember her not as a sinner, but as a woman that was worth so much more.