not even the rain

While I still remember.
Now excuse me while I go hyperventilate over the thought of writing all of this and brainvomit random lines all over my WFP in preparation.

[#1 will be edited in here]

ETA
fisher queen
do not, for a single moment, let me believe that
no one has ever done this before.

when i shut the door and close the windows that
no light nor sound may come disturb us, i will, perhaps,
bury thoughtless vows under the arches of your neck, or
pretend to be the first to press my lips upon your brow, and
parade my love under cover of kisses and laughter, imagine
you to be some country nobody else will ever know.

promise me; that when those words seem too close to
taking flight, you will simply shake your head at me, and
in that tired, wounded voice of yours tell me to rest, to sleep;
to listen to your old stories, and be selfish, and ask no questions.

apnea
met a boy the other day who had worms
crawling out of his eyes and dark
flowers growing in the spaces of his joints; said
can i do anything for you, and he shook his
head and opened his mouth, waited till all
the water had poured out before saying
don't worry, i've already forgiven you.
i'm sorry i said, but who are you? and
watched him leave and not answer.

found a mop, for all that lakewater; wondered
how it would feel to drown, and
found out i already knew.

to the lady at the gate
i lost my voice somewhere back on that airplane, and
i would apologize; i took my eyes away, and i
think she saw the sun over the clouds and
thought herself brave enough to wander off and play.

i took her to the ocean, you see; let her dream in
the waves and drown in the sand, and point to the
sky and ask after the birds and the places where they
land, before i tucked her in and hugged her tight. she

does not understand yet; that there are things not
even she can bear to be, that she is no falcon to steal
away--if only for an hour!--from gravity. let me go, that

i may take her hand; you must understand
that she is young, and scared, and lonely.

Spoiler

Okay, this one sucks.

en revenant
there are voices in the corridor that carry over, and
there's me with my head pressed to the other side of
the door. when morning comes would you recognize me,
ears thrumming with stolen voices and my hands like
skittish mice scrambling to find a nest under my skin?

that's your face on the mirror, that i painted on so it would
not be broken, and those are your clothes on the floor that
i wore so i wouldn't need to go away. the phone rings and
when it gets to voicemail i can hear your voice, saying please
leave a message, i'll get back to you. you've never believed
in ghosts, so let me tell you this: when you come back
i'll be waiting, and if in fifty years kids say this place is
haunted, i can promise it won't be by you.

Aliénor
I wonder sometimes how many lions must have
lain behind the mirage of your eyes; how you
could smile without showing fangs, and if in
the summer the sun sometimes paled against
the radiance of your grins, the tarnished splendours
of your crown. They must have asked, then—
your sons and your husband and all these other
men—if perhaps you had been born something
other than simply human, if you were under
those dreary skies something entirely new;
if you could die, without taking the whole
world down with you.

_________
omg proper capitalization

Spoiler

What is this I don't even

aphasia
I want to dig out a place for myself under
your skin. Because you see I've been to where you
are going right now, in the white-walled room inside
the mind where all feelings and sounds fizzle out and
die, and I remember how very good it felt to let the
door fall shut and take away the sky. And thus I know,
also, how terrifying it is, and how nice it would have
been to have another voice there, woven into nerves
and vertebrae and at night humming a little song to ease
the heavy, leaden feel to your feet and your tongue.

Lovely as always. My personal favorite:

I wonder sometimes how many lions must have
lain behind the mirage of your eyes

Not so sure about these lines:

how many lions must have
lain behind the mirage of your eyes

but I absolutely adore:

...how you
could smile without showing fangs...

[...] if you were under
those dreary skies something entirely new;
if you could die, without taking the whole
world down with you.

Very powerful ending. Nicely done

[removed for 'sent to poetry contest' reasons]

Spoiler

lol more crap

telescopic series
He always thought, watching her, that there
must be a way to quantify the way
her hair swayed or to predict, with perfect
accuracy, the exact angle of the bend in her
knees; yet when he tried to set it on paper
it turned to nothing but inkstains and scribbles.
He kept trying, studied her photographs and
ran equations over some thousands and
thousands of pages; then he got close, and
went on a litte further. Finally he thought he
knew her well enough not to be scared, and
bought flowers; knocked on her door. Don't
you know? her mother said; She's dead.

Wow.

Elaboration: I really love this. At first I was like 'Why is he going outside now? that's so weird. I didn't know that would be in the poem", but you just brought it out beautifully with the mother's response. So it's awesome. SO THANK YOU. I'd love to see it worked out and made even better if you have time like after NaPo or something.

Acts of Faith is fantastic and you know it.

You know what I loved. The fastforwards. The pauses. The drama of the sudden stop, the sudden and terrific moment of hesitation -- it's just what we need, in a poem of this length, and in this style. fisher queen and en revenant I also enjoyed, and I think it's because in these three, you have the goddamn perfect flow, as usual, but you bring to it something else: personality. While I've loved all of your work for it's simple readability, the ones that strike me the most, and the most quickly, are those that not only glide, but also attack, twist, turn, in some way; I know you love light imagery, and flight, and love, and (so do I) but we've seen it / heard it before, and so it's those little details that are different and surprising and refreshing that really add that spark to your work, that something that differentiates your writing and gives it more depth. Like:

that's your face on the mirror, that i painted on so it would
not be broken, and those are your clothes on the floor that
i wore so i wouldn't need to go away. the phone rings and
when it gets to voicemail i can hear your voice

and

Pause.
It's summer and you are painting smiley faces on
the walls, and there is a jagged beauty to the spilled bottles
and the burned letters on the floor. I can see it now, you say,
but whatever "it" is you never precise; and maybe
you never noticed but

that was me on doorstep with my lungs full of smoke and
my mouth dry and some part of me just begging to
run away.

Some very precise, personal, intimate details. I want to see more of those.

Haiku because I suck.

solar flares
I stood and watched five
airplanes converge to the sun,
and my eyes teared up.

strike one
The oak tree by your house was
struck down last year, while you were
away. I hear the winters are rough over
there, but you know how those summer
storms go here—barking against the doors and
throwing themselves against the windows,
with their voices roughened by muddy waters
and thunderheads and the wind like fists
raised high and ready to fall. In the kitchen
the lights flickered over our heads, and your
parents smiled wanly, thinking of you, while the
darkness moved to settle over the lines age
was carving into their brows. And the house
was trembling like a beaten dog, and the oak
still stood unbowed. You can imagine how it was
then—the skies weary and grey, then suddenly
the light splitting them open, and a crack of fire,
and then nothing but the rain whistling through
the grass and the wind humming into the chimney,
and the clouds slinking off to leave only a few lonely
little stars, gleaming like the eyes of some giant
tired at last of raging and ready to walk away.

lol i was bored/masochistic and this started as an attempt at typography that spiraled into complete crap and then it was different and then i couldn't bother fixing it so i pasteded an old thing on my brain is kaput mmk

Spoiler