the shadows of yesterday & the light of tomorrow

under the rain shadow (2024)
rêvasser (2022)
zugzwang (2021) (half complete)
tacenda (2020)
paroxysm (2019)
solivagant (2018)
evanescence (2017)
disenchantment (2016)

Ooo! Your graphics are so pretty, I also love your title!! I'm excited to read some poetry from you!

i. stories behind stories


I spend the day at my desk, putting together stories.

Between phone calls, I pick up the pieces and set them down again,
stitching quotes into the fabric of a narrative
and hoping it holds.

I don’t make the characters, I just try to tell you who they are,
to say it kindly, accurately; to say it well.

The pages roll off the press and post to the social media
and though this world is small, it’s all eyes.
My name on a byline never fails to make my heart stutter.

They’re my words, but they not my stories.

My papers ended up in your recycling bin, unread:
You were the keeper of the stories behind the stories,
the ones you used to ask me for at the end of the day.

There are words I can’t put on a page, words that need to be quietly laid
aside: the dirt roads and danger signs, the way the stars aligned.
How we laughed at the petty drama the businesses drum up,
the inside jokes not fit for print.

Your heart can’t hold them any longer, but
the printing press keeps churning out my name
while my own stories turn to rot in my lungs,

unspoken.

ii. longing

I wake in the mornings from tormenting dreams of you,
your name still on my tongue.

Your name’s still on my phone;
you might have messaged in the night.

But the you who still texts from Virginia
isn’t the one on my mind as I make the bed,
isn’t the one lingering around the edges of my vision,
a ghost of a smile, the imprint of a hand
on my waist, on my heart.

I know it’s not you that I’m pining for
as I sing in the car to music you never liked
as I cry on the couch in the afternoon light.

I miss the best pieces of you,
and sometimes the worst,
but all of it long gone by:
trapped in days where we walked the same streets
and dreamed the same dreams.

The wish of you, or of us,
tangled in forgotten fir boughs
and abandoned across the state,
our last hugs lost
among the clutter of my unkempt apartment.

You run around my mind until my head aches at night,
and I sleep.

Spoiler

@LuminescentAnt ee thank you! haha better buckle your seatbelt for the heartbreak! XD (jk, kinda)
@Wolfi ooh I love seeing people's favorite lines! Thank you for commenting. <3

iii. midnight on the river

I close the door behind me,
and a hush falls on the world.

my footsteps are heavy and slow,
but my soft-soled sneakers make no noise
against the sidewalk;
only the chortling of invisible seagulls
breaks the stillness of the night.

I am a ghost here,
passing by the open eyes of houses,
looking out at the night unending.
paintings and plants,
lights hung in the garden,
and no one awake but me
to see.

the quarter moon shivers on the river,
and the budding trees trace bare outlines
against the city-lit sky,
filled with smoke and stars.

the school ground is empty,
the chain link fence gleaming in
the floodlights of the road beyond.
some cars still drive, returning home
while I remain rootless here,
with nowhere left to go
when the light turns green.

iv. blossoming

wrap me in something pink,
like the sweetness of cherry blossoms:
let me sleep enfolded in softness
of gentle-skinned flowers in the spring,
tender as the inside crease
of your elbow. i want to breathe deep
the quiet-clean scent of
new & growing things
& lift my head from the weight
of the damp, crumbling earth.
pink, like the back of my eyelids
as the sun caresses my cheek,
coaxing me into the light of
another day.

These are all so good!

“But the you who still texts from Virginia
isn’t the one on my mind as I make the bed,
isn’t the one lingering around the edges of my vision,
a ghost of a smile, the imprint of a hand
on my waist, on my heart.”

Powerful.

while I remain rootless here,
with nowhere left to go
when the light turns green.

Very relatable.

your fourth poem is so wonderful que!!! it reminds me of when I used to live in this one house and every spring the crab apple trees would bloom pink and the crocus would bloom beneath them and it was so pretty and was always a surefire way to tell spring was finally here.

Spoiler

@niteowl thank you!! <3
@RangerofIthilien thanks! That sounds like a lovely place to live. <3 And yes absolutely spot on, I've just been enjoying seeing all of the blossoms this spring. c:

v. Enough

When will I be enough for myself?

Will it be weeks or months or years
before I stop looking behind me for you on the trail
when I hike through the bluffs we once ventured into,
remembering the kiss we shared in the grassy hills one summer,
even though I’ve washed you off of my skin
a thousand times since then?

When will I go out in the evening just for me
without feeling the gaze of every man my age,
hoping or fearing but all the time thinking
someone might try to ask me on a date
before I’m ready — when will it be enough
to just take up my own space for myself,
to be confident without hoping there’s someone to see?

How many times do I need to pray
before I realize the only person left to forgive me
is myself, that no one is too imperfect
to be transformed by the light of Christ,
before I can feel the joy of the path I’ve chosen
without the guilt of knowing these actions of love
are what ultimately drove me away from you?

I fall to my knees and stand up, again and again,
tell me when —

When will I be enough for myself?

vi. faces from home

it’s pieris japonica that calls me home,
a cascade of tiny silver bells I only just learned
the name for.
it’s something about the way the street curves,
the small pocket of green in the desert
that reminds me of the lush neighborhood streets
I walked in college, lined with rosemary,
lamb’s ear, grape hyacinth, rhododendrons.
it’s the comfort of a clouded sky in spring,
the slight smell of dampness, even if it’s just
a sprinkler watering a lawn.
cats wander the street beneath the shadows
of firs and ferns, pines and petals.
I only spent two springs in this paradise, two years ago,
a perpetual reminder of the shortness of the season
that soon burns out into summer.
if you ask me at just the right moment, the real heartbreak is this:
I can never come home again.
so I walk through these memories, these flowers.

viii. when will it be tomorrow?

one morning, I’ll wake up.
maybe it will be a weekend, sunlight sliding in through
the cracks in the blinds, the window just cracked for a breath of fresh air.
I hear the seagulls cry. I stretch, and smile.

as I sit up, my shoulders will be light, maybe my clothing will be light
upon my back, ready for summer, bare feet and bare legs,
the bathroom tile cool and firm against my sockless soles.
I won’t have to look in the mirror because I’ll know who I am,
and I won’t be vain or ashamed, I’ll just be.

and maybe my strong legs will carry me up a mountain
or down to the river to swim; maybe I’ll spend all morning in
the library with a book, or meet a friend for brunch downtown.
I could come home and do all the dishes and hum along
to the music I like, or water my plants or bask in the light.

it won’t matter if there’s work to do, or chores or paper cuts,
or if the trash is full again or it rains or if the drain clogs up.

my head will be light as if I’ve just cut my hair, my shoulders back square,
and you will be far from my mind.