Daily Prompt: Enamored

The 20 winters spend in New England means snow crunching under boots acts as a lullaby the nights I can’t sleep because your warmth isn’t filling the space next to me

Hoping your journey home wakes me enough to feel the freshly fed fire in the living room while I make you a cup of tea to warm your fingers and face enough to smile

But the spring showers erode layers built to hide the ruins left beneath

As if a massacre never happened here

My blood on his hands only appears on the bad days when I cannot shake his memory

But the rain also washes me anew

Promising me that ugly sometimes has to preface something beautiful

And goddamn you are beautiful

The summer sun illuminated the eyelashes on your cheek on lazy Sunday mornings through the curtains

Laying so peaceful in dreams

Leaves crunching under our feet as we giggle in the autumn breeze

Warming up in your arms on the couch, preparing ourselves for the colder months approaching once again

Only to find your side of the bed to be empty of a body

But full of yearning for you to have not given up

via Daily Prompt: Enamored

Daily Prompt: Homage

For every before me, whose existence still is between the lines years after their deaths

 

My sister talks about the children I will have that she wants to spoil

Assuming I will be able to have children with my future partner, assuming we want them, assuming they will not bar us because our genitals are the same

And we all know God does not want that and they are only implementing His word via my body as if they don’t wear mixed fabrics or eat shrimp

This morning I did not hear them yell faggot at me because I have learned to block them out with headphones but I did see their eyes raking my body with disgust

As if their love is pure and mine is dirtier than the marshes in the April showers plaguing our state

My friends tried to “turn me back” by telling me their disgust the first time they kissed a girl – assuring me that will be the only time because “I am straight now”

And for the girls with the baggy jeans and flannels hiding behind her messy hair – I see you

I know you are unsure of yourself but I promise I’ve got you

We can do this, even when you think the world is ending

When they strip our rights and try to kill us, I will be your sheild

Our people suffered through Reagan but I promise we will survive this one, even if we have to go back underground

They cannot take your magic from you

via Daily Prompt: Homage

Body

We all live in these vessels that carry us to the grave

Souls occupying until it feels like the right time to leave and start over

Leaving behind mourning of who was once in this now shell

My body has endured me opening it up in attempts to let the unease fly free

The chemicals my brain has been known to produce are out of date

The boards of this ship creak and let water in – only replaced when I am but nearly drowned

My skin is decorated with tattoos for a love I can no longer whisper the name of

His name still feels like a house fire out of control in my chest

I no longer wish for him to recognize my soul as one he once so intimately knew

This vessel I own in this life is littered with stories told and those yet untold wait to emerge through the old, the weary, the hand-me-down

I have not sank yet but dear god I know people are waiting to see the day I no longer exist on the same plane

But this worn out body has not seen its last days yet

Daily Prompt: Foggy

Empty planners are scattered across my room

I buy them in an attempt to remember things I need to get done but the key is remembering to write them down

A symptom of PTSD is memory issues

There are years clouded with smog dark enough to only let a few moments escape

A heart breaking in silence, knuckles to skin, going silent

Good years have a mist, moments slipping away to it yet many remain intact

There are years my existence was lost in all but photographs

I still walk around in a haze not sure where to put what memory

Unsure if this is all a dream or if I am actually here

via Daily Prompt: Foggy

Leaving

In a sea of people I hope your eyes find me happy

For I feel your presence everywhere I go

I so badly want you to be happy with your decision to leave

Yet I hope part of your heart is still broken – the part of it where I once lived

I shed so many tears for you for me to not want you to hurt

Loving you felt like drowning but I would continue just for you to keep loving me

I was so consumed by the fire I felt for you, blinded – I couldn’t see that it wouldn’t work in the end

The way you looked when you left is a painful memory plastered to my memory

I wish I could forget but I couldn’t help thinking about how beautiful you looked in the moments before

Oceans of green stealing glances, blond hair messed about by the wind through the car windows

If you regret loving me, don’t forget who you were then

Don’t forget what drew you into my arms