lifethrupoems

Write like every word matters

Like the letters are etched into your skin

Meaning is a tale left unfinished,

Revived by recitation, an incantation


The folds of my heart form lips and speak

Thoughts turn to blood, blood to words

And words create a world before unseen

Unheard, spoken into existence by a wavering voice


Growing in strength as roots spread into the earth

Mountains rise into the night

Hands made of typewriter letters reach for the skies

Climbing up, clawing the empty air


Things are birthed from whispers and hushed utterances

Are nourished by the joyful voices

Of traveling nomads and housebound grandmothers

Who fill their days with speaking, telling, narrating

These things grow old and young, as we remember and forget

But they will never die, for we are storytellers

Writing worlds into life

What becomes of a flower when no one is looking

I wonder, does it remain open and fresh

Immortal and unblemished in the

Sparkling light of the moon

Or does it change, transform

Lose the pretty petals, set aside sweet nectar

Don moth brown wings and take off

Into the night, running away from the moon

Does a flower curl up into itself when

It knows that it will not be seen, will not be noticed

Close its petals and kiss them goodnight

Release the weight of maintaining pristine quality

What does a thing of sight do when it is not seen

A thing of beauty that, for a moment, isn’t admired

What do you become where you are unmade

There’s a heartbeat I can’t hear but I know is there

Hidden under frost and 5 pm sunsets

Burried beneath rain jackets and ear muffs I thought I wouldn’t use

Clothes bought in that moment of sun lay untouched 

Bottle growing old by the sink, full of sunscreen they said I need

I walk streets still overflowing from rains that I thought would cease

Red square remains hopelessly red-grey

Only two trees in the grove sport flowers

I came expecting suffocating crowds of laughter and senior photos

But it’s empty except for me and these two trees

The heartbeat echoes in the pink-white blossoms

But that’s all there is, all that’s here now

Only echoes of the heartbeat that was supposed to be here

There’s an emptiness in a cemetery

It doesn’t come from the lack of people

The lack of movement, the stillness in the air

It doesn’t come from the abscene of laughter, of kids running around

It comes from the emptiness within

They tell you grief is an emotion, but they’re wrong

Grief, when it’s fresh and new

Or when it hits you in a patch of sunlight decades too late

Grief is the absence of emotion

It’s that feeling of something being missing

Right next to your heart, it’s cold

And what is cold but the absence of heat

It’s the knowing that you’re not there

It’s the missing sound where your giggles would be

The missing light where your smile should be

I walk into the graveyard and it grows darker

The abscence of light reflects the absence of emotion

The grief within me spills over, the lack

It’s choking the flowers I hold

And when I place them beside the rock that bears your name

That bears what your entire life will become

They look more shriveled and dead 

Than when I bought them minutes ago

They’re empty of life and that’s on me

There’s only echoes of you left now 

The imprints of where you touched the world

In the people you met and the stories they tell

You were a person for the stories, I’ll give you that 

But now, now you live in nothing but echoes

And I, I live in nothing but the emptiness of cemeteries 

You are all and none, hiding from the rain

You are the people and the gaps between them

Hide in crowds of bodies, the heat keeps you together 

Air streams of sand swirling around an empty form

You are the feeling of being watched

Prickles and hair raising on the back of their neck

The swarm parts around the being they cannot see

And the feeling they dare not name

A gush of air tears you apart, wind your worst enemy

And as you fight to pull yourself back together 

A hand reaches out through the masses

Groping through the empty space

Feeling for nothing and finding it

You are found and yet you’ll never be

When did you get scared of talking

Of sharing, of simple “how are you”s

Of coffee catch-ups, and facetimes

When did sharing your feelings

Start to feel like peeling your skin open

And inviting people to come see the carnage

When did someone asking about your day

Become an accusation instead of an invitation

Close up the drawbridge, you’re on guard, but against what

When did asking someone to change for you

Become lounging on a throne of gold

Living in luxury but asking for diamonds

When did telling someone you were sad

Become a lie, a scam, you want attention

Greedy little baby, turn around and walk away

When did your life become something you were ashamed of

That you painted over and tweaked until you had a new canvas

To present at the art show of “so, how have you been?”

When did calling your friends become a chore

As you juggle hiding your sadness when they tell you about their life

And overplaying your joy as you tell them about ‘yours’

When did you become a liar, a faker

When did you become scared of the world

Scared of what people thought

Of the consequences of the truth

You can’t have a rainbow without the rain

Droplets smashing paths of heavy destruction

Popping balloons of joy and leaving floods in their wake

You can’t have tattoos without scars

Artful lines of black spiraling across skin

Beautiful, but it’s angry and red and bleeding

You can’t have light without the dark

How do you appreciate something 

Without knowing it’s absence

You can’t have love without loss

We love fiercely without hesitation, we know

It all comes to an end in a flash

You can’t smile without knowing pain

Tears make the smile lines stand out against

Sunken eyes, you’ve lived life well

After all, what’s life without a little pain

I never knew the word ‘hi’ could become sandpaper

Rough from overuse, scraping my tongue raw

Livelihoods, years of anxiety, a moment of victory

Boil down to two questions

What you do, where you live

That is all you become in a sea of anonymity

You are all and you are none, hiding from the rain

Desperately clinging to semblances of connection

Prodding at a joke until it decomposes

Nothing grows old when it’s all you have

You laugh until you can’t, smile lines etched

Into your supposedly adult face, chiseled into skin

It rains until you aren’t sure if you’re walking or swimming

Typhoons and hurricanes of pleasantries

Whirling around you, every one steals a bit of light

You watch it leave your chest, sucked into a blur

And you march on, keep paddling, stay afloat

It’ll all get better tomorrow

You return to a room like and unlike your own

Your presence half lingering, a ghost who’s almost gone

Snoring in the background, you sit on clean sheets

No space for both pillows, you’ve made a nest instead

You close your eyes to city sounds and another’s breathing

Green light cast across your face, the only light in the room

You’ve been extinguished, burned out with introductions

As you drift off, you feel the imprint of the word

Blood still flowing from the cuts it made, sharp edges

And brace yourself for the sting of sandpaper once more

I had a breakdown

At the bus stop

I can laugh and

Shrug it off

Reason it away

PMS, it was cold

I can pretend

It wasn’t the feeling

Of being left behind

Ignored and scared

Bus drivers fly by

Couples meander away

Intertwined, leaving

Me with silence alone

Its ok, I’m good

At hiding weakness

Tears fall quiet

Locked behind glass

I hide shuddering

With facade of laughter

Joking into a phone

With no one on the other side

Masks have many uses

They protect me from world

And protect world from the

Force of my sadness

I stand still, a pillar

Call out to no one

Because I cannot

Will not be weak

I tell my mother

The story with laughter

Breathless, but my 

Vision blurs secretly

Secrets, I have 

Plenty of those

Known as a bad keeper

But I keep my own

So I tell no one

Of my breakdown

At the bus stop