#nawripomo

It’s not a mess when it’s an open book It’s the exhibition of my imagination Flying through a thousand centuries The characters I’ve known loved and lost Outnumber the grains of Sahara

If it was not for the heroes and heroines Of my short-lived innocence, Then I would not be the person I am today

Even if I was able to read and memorize Every page in all these books It would never be enough

For I…

Kitty wears heart-shaped glasses

A vanilla shade of pink

Takes her teal handbag and

Hot pink shoes wherever she goes

Love is her middle name

Endlessly wanting to meet her

Eternity we’ve been chatting for

Now the time has come

An elderly painter forgets his name

But never forgets old secrets buried with a Dalmatian dog

He’s lost the TV remote but he never loses the loneliness

The retired counsellor and part-time scriptwriter has been like this since his Calamity Jane PERISHED.

i thought i was strong enough to begin with. i thought i could muster this boulder up the mountain alone. every morning it came rumbling down to my front door, waking me with thunder. i know it takes all day to get it back to the top so i forget to eat or shower or smile. i have forgotten that this is fruitless only that it must be done.

i am hoping it will be over soon. i am always hoping it will be over. i know one day the earthquake will be on the other side and that this ache is not eternal. that morning will start with a feast and i will take my time getting out of bed. there will be no guilt. there will be no memory of all the hours i left shoving heft away from my safety just my shoulders laying down flat and my back feeling unimaginably light. for now i will carry and push and give and try to drown things i never wanted to know.

like how i never wanted to see the anger on your face think that it was mine to fix. never wanted to be hoisted so far into the air or think that it was impossible to be done before. it is strange how love can haunt your bones even when you reject it so harshly. it is strange how hurt can separate itself from pleasure so cleanly. do you feel this too? the phantom pounding it's way through our veins even though we still remember how to swim and we never took that needle for ourselves. do you feel my tears slipping into someone else's eyes as i lay awake remembering your touch? do you cry yourself to sleep wondering how this went wrong? do you wonder, as i do, how we even made this into a mistake?

i haul you up the mountain every day and by high noon you are grappling for my throat. were you lifting me up? was i on your shoulders? if you had let me fly this whole time, would you still just be clawing at my tail hoping i'd stay grounded with you? but i am breathing now and you are an invisible monster a balled up memory of human flesh made gravel. your skin had been silky but for some reason it's all scales now. you told me this was help this was helping you were helping---i'm surprised you didn't know how disappointment could sink through your chest and dislodge enthusiasm and every single bone that you didn't know the shove better than i.

no, i'm not surprised you were blind especially since you insisted on the future. as the confusion passes, i find myself missing only the softest parts of you. not your lips but your eyes. not your hands, but your heart---your youth, your fervor. your joy.

i can feel that day coming soon when the thunder will just be storm passing with the wind and you will be story i tell over coffee as a warning to someone who has never known love before. who can't recognize their own voice being pulled into someone else's hands.

Liar. Keep the word taped to my tongue, But its settled in my throat And won’t make its way back out.

Liar. Keep this word close to my heart, Written on mirrored surfaces, Scribbled in my notebook.