B

The reservoir of memories of her and I
Is suddenly empty. I'm startled:
I expected somehow more.

When you throw yourelf into
something and put in everything you have:
The reserves, the backup plans,
All get dissolved and evaporated.

I'm left staring wide second glances.
I hadn't really considered plan B.

The Guide

You were once so peaceful
In the casual disarray.
Now your footprints
Guide your friends into the fire

The whispers of a problem
Dropped with minor insignificance
On the outskirts of a perfect morning

The woes of expiration date love

Flash

The rain reminds me of
Thought-ridden afternoons after school
Where the sprinkler would be the sky
And the street a river
Carrying the lawn clippings and bottle caps
Into the storm drain

We wouldn't tell our mom
About the thunder -
Instead watching the bright contrast
On each other's faces-
And told ourselves God took
Pictures with every flash

The Baker

You know you unfollowed me
And I haven't felt the same since.
Do you still care?
You said I was your best friend
But I don't know you anymore.

You looked so skinny
when I saw you last
Your skin white and veiny
Your lips pale.
I worry for you, friend.

Cakes and muffins;
Lemon bread and blueberries
Not even for sale
You work with the very thing you spite

You drown your worries
In tasteless wine
And hang your insecurities
On the clothesline

I don't know if you mind
My intrusion,
But I had to see you.
You mean too much:

You were always there to shake
The demons off me,
To pray like a believer
And offer your opinion

I cannot tell you what to do

But please think of yourself

Before you think of others.

Pray.

And above all, friend

Don't go down the tunnels

Of your self-thought misery

Without someone else.

History

Is it a crime to take things slow?
For sure I get anxious -
But that's not the reason
I don't trust just anyone anymore

I don't want caution to blow away;
You can't blame me
People never change their nature
History repeats itself to no end.

Scars run deep
and heal shallow.

Irony

It is somehow clarifying
To let something fall out of your life
And realize how little you needed it

How ironic that we don't talk
anymore

Fog

I don't know exactly what it is -
It doesn't ever seem to fall apart all at once,
Thread by thread it's tearing
Like the faded knees of her blue jeans.
Heads turn in half-shame
As half-truths replace the infatuation phase.
I'm too scared to admit
what used to be her constant support,
Is now a hole
Shaded grey to disguise itself
Into the crumbling ash buildings
that make up my love

I think back to how my heart
Would turn in circles
When she would sing in her car.
Now I'm left grasping for simple answers
As we sit in tense silence.

Eyes avoided,
While secrets and old habits are stealing
Back to the surface.

Excuses made,
Worry stains the back of my throat
With a bitter taste like copper

The lights in her eyes dim when she sees me;
I'm gone in her eyes already.
I'm just the fog she's wading through

Contrite

Crushed under the weight
Of all the many things I've done

Finally I see the missing piece,
Struck senseless again with guilt

The simple truth is that I am wrong
Once again I am stuck in this place

Every time I go back to this
I marvel in amazement

The blindness of my own eyes;
My hard-hearted pride in full view

Help me come back to the light

She Left Today

Physics can't explain the gravity
Of when someone tells you
They are leaving for good;
The hanging, deafening silence
Of exasperated emancipation
Lying open in our living room

Thrown towels and soft vowels
Underneath the breath
The missing consonants hissing
Like the bit of oil I left
On the frying pan in the kitchen
When you tried to make pancakes
(It's always my fault you burn things)

As you slowly brush past me
In the unearthly breath of silence
I catch the scent of your cinnamon skin

Now I am just wondering
Who is going to tell me
they love the mole on my
Left cheek when I wake up
Next Monday morning?

Leaving for Africa

Hey!!!
So I am sort of taking a break from the poetry blog for 2 years to go serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
But before I go, I'll give you one last poem. entitled Simple


Simple
The course humid windiness hit him
With a million smells
A million new faces looking straight at him

Why?
Why would this kid drop everything
To go across the world?

He's so out of place,
Doesn't even know french
Doesn't even know how to teach...

Not afraid,
Not scared of foreign lands
Or his trembling hands

Relying wholly on the Savior,
Giving everything
So that people he meets
Can have a chance

To find the truth.
And help others find it.

Save the Art

A drop of water
Falls from the furthest reach
Onto modern art in the garden:
Flushing the angles of the sculpture
And moistening the gum
Someone had stuck
to the bottom of it.

Longing For

I can almost feel her touch

Delicate and soft, but meaningful

It screams to my idle soul that she exists

She is waiting somewhere to be found

I am longing for the path to find her.

I promise the world that I will go anywhere

But will I do that much?

Will I be strong enough to take that leap?

I have a thousand words that I can say

Without doing anything or saying anything

Just sitting in my chair looking at my words

Which almost jump out of my paper

They are saying: “Be free!”

They say: “Go find the girl you were made for!”

But I’m still seated here, stuck by some hope

That longing for someone hard enough

Will bring them to you

Time Flies

I looked at the television screen

In an absence of things to do

What can this extra time mean?

What if time flew?

I think that the meaning of life

Comes from us knowing what to do

When we are absent of strife

Life takes forever and a day to go through.

Heaven-Song

When without my window a bird called
Early in the morn before the wind stirred
The sun was yet to rise, and through tired eyes
I looked outside to see the source of heavenly music
I turned in my bed and placed my feet on the floor
Then put on my coat quickly and ran for the door.
I must take note of this lowly bird:
It deserves to be heard loud and clear
Its song shouted to the rooftops of the world

Finding Meaning

I wish that I had found my stumbling feet

I wish that I had left it more to chance

Left my thoughts written on the broken street

(Left the little things on a street in France)

My sanity could not come closer though

My brain cannot handle the strain unknown

That must come whenever I still must go

That held me bound in chains down to the bone

I cannot comprehend the final hour

So I write to try to see the new fate.

Alas, I see the new bloom’ed flower

And I see what humans have missed to date!

Simplistic messages of what to give

That people searching find the will to live