If I think about it
Carefully enough
I can make my heart skip
A beat or two
From replaying times
I was carelessly
With you
A beat or two
Compared to a year or two
Of skipped beats
And skipped stones
And skipped feet
Feels wildly inadequate
Yet fully true
And while thinking of you
Carefully enough
Happens less and less often
There’s a rhythm
My feet and heart once knew
Now my barrier of entry
No skips…
…It’s not you.
P.s. You can read my other poems here.
How tragic
for someone
who would’ve loved
the unfiltered
uncompromised
untainted
version of you
to meet
a version
filtered, compromised, tainted
all because
you were busy
trying to fit in
trying to find courage
trying to be…
someone else.
P.s. You can read my other poems here.
I ask you
About your tattoos
Like everybody else
Probably… Obviously…
But why then
Change so visibly
If not to have people
Question… Ask…
Or does ink
Cut and dried outwardly
Do something
Visceral… Inwardly…
Nearly every inch
Recolored; redrawn; recreated
As if away from
Blank… Incomplete…
You suddenly smile
And there’s nothing I can see
That isn’t already
Finished… Complete…
Too late though
Your lines and your patterns say
Asked and answered
Inked… Dyed…
Another deal sealed
And the thought of us together
Filling in the blanks
Cut… Dried…
P.s. In case you missed it, you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.
Everything I loved about you
Is what I’ve used
To rebuild me
What used to be pieces
Of you
Used to complete me
Have become pieces
By you
Built into me
By leaving me in pieces
…Bless you
I’ve reengineered a more—
Complete me.
P.s. You can read my other poems here.
I remember you telling me
you met him
in a coffee shop
You went to get a drink
and thought it’d be nice
to see if he wanted one too
I simply can’t fathom
What luck like that
Must feel like
To be sitting; working
And be unintentionally chosen
By the rarest of butterflies
You tell me this
As we navigate broken rock
Near thundering falls
Where missing a step
Could mean broken bone
Or at least red cheeks
But I don’t miss
Not a beat; not a step
Not a single strain in thought
I’ve become numb
To this sort of pain
Luck stuck in reverse
I glance forward
You settle your wings
On a flower I’d never have seen
I glance back
Sun, river, flowers—this butterfly
Maybe luck is made?
Our path together ends
You float to bench nearby
And stop me from walking away
I smile; remember the coffee shop
And decide to say it anyway
Let’s do it again sometime
Knowing damn well
This butterfly
Is getting away
P.s. You can read the other poems I sometimes write here.
Love is most present Where mind is most silent Closed to new thoughts Happens near the transcendent When the world is rejected For what's found right here Hold steady in the moment Imprint each detail clear You won't realize it Until it's well over and gone These moments of mindlessness Will be what carry you along
P.s. I also published: 26 Cole Schafer Quotes from One Minute, Please? on Love in a World of Conditions, Screens, and Pain
I like you I’d be more specific But I don’t know how Unlike you, I Can’t seem to find My way around this here and now What words do I know? Humor! ...A Joke? Rhythm—stay cool; go slow I race to catch up As you question me different And whisper an aside Like somehow we were here Where small talk and formalities Were behind us like years I’d do more to reciprocate But what if this is just you Being damn good at what you do? Move too fast and I fear What feels like years Will dissolve back into just now Move too slow And I won’t even get to see With who or how you’ll go It’s obvious you know Words, people, paths —Your way around It’s only a matter of time Months, weeks, days —Before you’re properly found Which means what exactly for me? Now? Next time? Never? Who knows... I ask for my check, please And watch as another moment comes And another moment goes
P.s. You can read my other poems here.