Promise 9: Exist

Desperation is not something I wear on my sleeve.

What I want is to truly be loved, not lost.

And I, having given you my few choice years

the very few that I have to give to another person,

Perhaps made a grave error in trusting myself.

My desparation is not one borne of a need to find just anyone;

It’s the fear of making a mistake and I feel you were my greatest,

But I will not pretend, not even for a minute, that what we had

or rather, what we worked towards was anything free from flaw.

I hate to feel that way towards someone

whom I’ve grown to love so dearly.

When someone who knows I exist

tries to treat me like something that does not,

It sickens me. I’m hopeless for getting so close

And offering things I can’t possibly give.

It gets to a tipping point where I want to get closer,

But I will end up hurting both of us.

But it is not time to say such things.

You had to have earned this sentiment,

As I once had to in order to earn the privilege of doing so.

I wished to learn more about you and I reserve the right

To be careful of you as you have the right to be careful of me,

but it can’t hurt to at least be kind now, isn’t that so?

If only…

I still went through with it that despite that fact.

And I gave a piece of my heart for you to do with as you please,

And though that piece could bend and waver,

and my heart was kept from harms way.

My solemn hope was that you would make my heart whole again

But that piece has never returned,

It remained with you,

Never to be seen again.

What kind of life would I lead if I just wanted

to stay in such a safe distance away from it all.

where no one truly knows anything about me

                                                no one can destroy me,

Where :                              no one can doubt me.

                                    no one can prove

                              non-existence,

I never wanted to hurt anyone and I never wanted to, but-

I never would have dreamed I would ever get this close,

that I would ever get so close to wanting to destroy it all.

 

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Promise 8: Blank

Illuminated by a blank white screen

my reflection. The void staring back at me.

I see the lines on the display, like needles.

that prick my skin, I bleed not blood, but tears.

From my eyes, I scrape the disbelief away.

My heart in blank and my few thoughts,

fraught with frustration, my mind in blank.

As vacant as the bright white screen,

Blank as the sheet I wrote this poem on,

and about as painless as the clean slice

of the paper through and in between my fingers.

One look at my hands and I feel my index finger well up

with anticipation as I pinch the sides. Nothing.

A bloody disappointment, Not even a droplet.

It’s my writing hand that steadily holds the pen.

It remains frozen in place, with nothing to say.

Blank are my thoughts as I read the lines unwritten,

that would send all my happy thoughts to ruination.

Blank as the time before and blank as it was after it happened.

As void and empty as I wish it was after it was said and done.

I wish it could have been that blank like it was before.

and I could pretend that it never happened at all. Forget.

I could carry my vacuous smile when everything was so simple.

I wish to be so blissfully ignorant,

but now I try only to think of blank

Because blank is all I want to think of you.

Promise 7: Fragile

If I make both outcomes,

Either of which are inevitable

Make both a win-win situation

Then I nullify any heartbreak.

But what is more depressing

Than love with neither hope

Nor confidence that the fire

With its fragile ego unguarded

Could ever hope to make jealous

The passion that once bubbled within?

Effervescent infatuated bumblings

That boiled over in froths and spills

That overcame wills and various chills

And I on the receiving end thought

For once I wasn’t foolish enough to think

I would ever make it this far to finding

Myself with another soul in this world.

 

Promise 6: Edge

Encompassed from zenith to horizon,
From Edge to Edge of my periphery,
The splendid memory of you and me
Like the Edge of a cliff facing an ocean.

Your voice, soothing and endearing,
Swishing, lightly whistling, and hush.
Like a gentle nudge, the wind to push
A warm breeze that tickles my hearing.

So picturesque, as if taken from my past.
I swear I’ve seen light before it turns dark .
A reminder of how much I want to disembark
Beyond a view I never thought would last.

A misstep here means an end to a memory kept.
Waves crash, spurn stone in the perilous shallows.
I watch safely from a distance the danger below,
But here I am, at the Edge, anticipating my steps.

Since I’m not certain, I maintain my foothold.
Should my memory and reality stay distinct?
and in my good sense, perhaps my instincts
wish to carefully tread along that threshold.

I wish to take the next step, but everything I fear,
In some delusion or misunderstanding, I fathom,
That if my demise awaits me there at the bottom
I’ll stoically plummet to my death and disappear.

But since I’m not sure, and completely uncertain
I don’t wish to fall over the cliff side and dive off
If the sea wasn’t willing to break my fall that day.
That cliff would stay there as we last left it, then
And etched into my memory as the ocean sloughs;
Erosion weathers rock, sediment, and sand away.
But I will remain unchanged for when you pledge
That you will wait for me when I fall over the Edge.

Promise 5: Quill

My words, mine affliction

Your judgement, my cure

But I refuse the treatment

It, alone is mine to endure

I am ill with a proclivity

Of Seeing using words

To observe around me

All that is quite absurd

Taste rhyme or reason

To hear with eager lips

With teeth and tongue,

And talkative fingertips

Quill again dipped

In blood, our hands

Viscous fluid smears

Inky pages with tears

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Promise 4: My Love is Nothing Like a Phoenix

Can love shine brighter than a burning flame?

Through which, we see the passion up above

The ember’s easily extinguished frame

Shall never hold a candle to my love.

A spark ignites a frenzy that consumes

and smothers itself out to extinction;

I have no need for love’s ashes exhumed

The smold’ring ash, a crass immolation.

My love is not a fire that burns out,

Without a need for kindling, it thrives;

My heart, with not much fuss, it stays devout;

My loyalty for you, it still survives.

The Phoenix, my Heart never shall it mourn
Do not wish for my love to be reborn.

Promise 3: Collision

Another day passes and I feel that much closer.

What others face in distance is but time for us;

We are trapped in two worlds only minutes apart,

But those very moments bring to a grinding halt

What would otherwise be a peaceful co-existence.

Oh, Satellite that orbits thy heavenly body, align.

Shine a light that the stars may form a neat row.

What work it must be for the planets to meet!

Within touching distance of one another, and yet,

They never become quite so devastatingly close.

If two meet, then surely they must either become one,

Or worse yet, render one or the other unidentifiable,

Its course forever altered by the sheer force of proximity.

And the thought reversing such an event becomes at once,

An elliptical anomaly, and an unfathomable retrogradation.

I’m pulled with gravitational forces beyond comprehension.

Towards you, as the fateful reunion day approaches, I’m drawn.

Weather the catastrophic forces of interplanetary attraction.

Two separate worlds can no longer separate with impunity,

But we can both hope to be whole after the initial impact.

 

Promise 2: Last

I savor our final days like it was our last,
Like the cool droplets in the summer heat.
I count them down like all other days past,
And curiously ask when next shall we meet

But the days and weeks grow long,
And I, too, am weary of the gaps.
How far my steps and my breathing
Will carry me before I collapse?

I savor the end with you but not without conflict,
Neither bitter nor resentful of the time in between.
I am patient, but I am only human. It would seem,
What renders me vulnerable is not – the waiting,

It is the thought of becoming a liar.

And when waiting is all I can do
Because my word is all I can give.
The passage of time, my only respite,
These promises are given in earnest.

“I want you to be worth the wait.”
I hold in me that one final hope.
If you strip me bare to my core,
Leave me with that one belief.

I am not foolish enough to think that anything is owed;
Words are only as worthwhile as the hope they represent,
And we place such value on that air, it made so precious.
And your promises to me, are worth all of their weight.

But what weight does waiting have,
When promises are like bated breath.
When held, our days grow numbered,
and near the end, while there is still time,
I refuse to relinquish my last remaining hope.
It is the only thing I offer that will not vanish;
I would rather suffocate than to breath our last…

 

Promise 1: Shallow Depths

Tell me, that my feelings are shallow

And I wouldn’t deny you that fact,

For my emotions run skin deep,

But not for the fact that at my core

Lies anything superficial, but because

I lack the common decency to deceive everyone

Into believing that things are as peaceful as they seem.

Read it on my expression that refuses to forget:

On my brow and its various contortions and twists,

My lips curved downward: (pursed in shallow dips)

And my eyelids wavering with the sway of regret.

Placidness – is merely the semblance of my fabricated reality

When I invite you into my world, take a look into my eyes, and

Be not afraid of its depths or you and I will drown in its torrent,

Because my shallowness is as deep as my bare flesh, you see.

And the truth is that a single tear dropping in the calm

Is enough to send ripples that bounce, echo, and recall.

Whose amplitude gives way to greater magnitude –

And nature’s violent tidal forces take over.

“I can only hope to be the one to remain.”