Melody Jones

The night.

Deepest battles brought to light

White doves fly

Shattered.

Dissipate, letting the dark shadows master.

Pitch black abysmal.

Opening the eyes…

Gleaming into the world that lies.

Yet the truth is somehow confined.

Surrounded, while trying to fight.

Then the shadows stood still…

Shook from their sight and thrill.

Hold a white rose out, manufactured will.

Tormenting.

They smile…

Teeth with gripping fangs like a vampire.

The words they say, fills the space.

Making it seem like a funeral grace.

Their hands touch and feel like musk.

The smell they emit is alluring…

Addicted.

This coffin was beautiful affliction.

Obsession.

The dawn breaks with precise aggression…

Dead love, accession.

From the ashes, they fires rise.

“Meet me at night as I am yours till I die”.

The Eternal Tale of Time, Temptress of the Dead Starry Night.

Morning was the false plight.

When nightfall would stir the stargazers alive

When children would ponder the meaning of life

When the making of dreams broke free of the night

When the wind tapped its feet to the beat of our hearts

When the music was loud and the voices were ours

When friendships were made with the promise to last

In the city that was built from the dreams of our past

When life was yet another adventure to take

When the sunrise was reason enough to wake

When going down to play put no futures at stake

When the windows and nameplates were ours to break

When the greatest defeat was a football game

When the fights always ended; it all stayed the same

When singing and dancing came along with the rain

When ideas were wild and not asked to be tamed

When reading all day was the ideal state

When hogwarts houses were the most heated debate

It seems like a much better option today

Poem to the Nameless

My ink has promised

To bring me peace,

So it won't write Your Name.

But I will mention

The roses you plucked,

And the dry leaves when

They crackle in pain.

I will describe

The stars you quenched,

And how moonless nights

Remind me of you,

But I won't dare my ink

To bring you fame.

Naive to think

I can sacrifice the blood of pen,

Or to stain the paper with gore;

To shed tears, to write letters

As screams just to praise

Your Vanity once more!

But I assure you,

Your Name roams my mind

When the sun sets

And day is gone, when

Behind black clouds

The stars are hidden;

When leaves turn brown,

When roses wither and frown;

I assure you,

(In my mind) Your Name is written!

You turned my desire into a weapon

A shiny new pistol, the latest model

Almost eighteen and freshly forged

I didn’t see the pile of cast-offs

Hidden by your shadow

Until it was far too late

You kept me holstered at your side

Spring-loaded, ready to fire

Potential energy begging to become kinetic

Longing to do what I was made for

A single bullet in the chamber

Spun ‘round and ‘round by a lazy hand

The other five slots could stay unfilled

Because the moment I met you

I swore I’d love only you, for all my days

But you’re not a marksman

Just a cowboy, always chasing a moving target

Your distracted eyes watch her now

Trigger finger still wrapped across my throat

Brandishing me around for all to see

As proof of how young and desirable you still are

No one likes a showboat, sweetheart

All ego and foolish pride, cock-sure and heart empty

Anyone can shoot, it takes no skill

Precision and aim require patience, practice, mastery

And you tripped on your own spurs

Eyes already on the next prize

Discharging me off in any direction

Not caring who you hurt or

What I became under your touch

The spent shell casing clatters to the floor

Smoke rises from the empty barrel

I’m gone and only the ghost of me remains

I’ll always be grateful, in the end

That when the dust cleared

And the echoing crack faded

I was miles away from the mess you made

While you were chasing after glory

Brazenly calling it love

You can keep the dead weapon, sugar

It’s jammed now, one-time-use

I welcomed my desire back

Melted down, released, re-formed

Steel, where once I was nothing but plain lead

Tempered by the blaze and stronger for it

My desire was never yours to begin with

It was always mine

You simply held it for awhile

With inept, grasping hands

I sometimes wonder, all these years later

If you ever learned how to shoot worth a damn

The following are excerpts from a letter of advice she sent to a 17-year-old aspiring author by the name of Leonard W., whom she had taken under her wing as creative mentor.

I like to live always at the beginnings of life, not at their end. We all lose some of our faith under the oppression of mad leaders, insane history, pathologic cruelties of daily life.

Older people fall into rigid patterns. Curiosity, risk, exploration are forgotten by them. You have not yet discovered that you have a lot to give, and that the more you give the more riches you will find in yourself. It amazed me that you felt that each time you write a story you gave away one of your dreams and you felt the poorer for it.

You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings.

It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing.

Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications.

Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.