11-20: Poetry in Autumn: 30 Days of Poems for Life, Love, and Creativity.
.20 We Vanished
I thought we’d find our way back.
Until all of your best days stared back at me from a social media page.
Things we always said I would be a part of, that is until we stopped saying anything at all.
I still have the texts you never replied to. I hoped it was just a phase. That life was too heavy.
I’ve come to accept the silence as a decision you made, the choice to disengage, not mistakes.
Sometimes I think about reaching out, but we’ve both changed, and I still don’t know what else I could say.
Maybe some friendships just fade?
Forever always feel so sure, until it’s been forever since I’ve seen your face or heard about your days.
You were the kind of friend that made me better. Together we held off the bitter.
I used to let my mind wander but it’s steadier these days. Most often I hope you’re safe and at peace in your faith.
I can love you from afar, even if it’s hard. I won’t beg for your love, for I’ve found that love always finds its way.
.19 Less of Me
I wouldn’t take it all back, but I’d give you less of me.
I’d still choose to know you, but I’d never let you love me.
I’d never dream of calling you mine, my heart wouldn’t let me do that.
I couldn’t walk away, and I’ll live with the scars every day.
I’ve always been afraid, and you made sure I’ll stay that way.
You don’t get a say, I gave you a thousand chances to stay.
Today, I am strong. Tomorrow I might not be.
But I know for sure I’d give you less of me.
.18 A Note for the Difficult Days
The toughest decisions you’ve ever made, are the necessary ones.
The uncertainty that surrounds you, it is only temporary.
The in-between is a difficult place to be, but just a moment of your history.
The wilderness is hard, but it passes, always.
Look up and look ahead. There is a new horizon.
You will get there. Step by step, day by day.
This life without pain, it would be perfect.
Perfect, it is overrated. For heartbreak is born from love. Defeat born from striving.
Today, hard it may be, a shadowed page in a beautiful story.
.17 Carry the Women
The ones who carry you.
Drop everything and bring them sanity.
Close their wounds with words and walks.
Charge the world to see their beauty in the ways you do.
Celebrate their striving, recognize their survival.
Hold their hopes. Guard their secrets.
Stay with them on the desperate days.
Reveal what is beautiful in the throes of heartbreak.
Carry the women as they have carried you.
Completely, fully, when it costs everything.
.16 Token
The city feels like home.
The place where I rest.
Just as I am.
In it’s disparate nature I feel belonging.
Here, I am me and I see me.
Our stories, never the same.
Connected by our shades and cultures we carry.
In plain sight, I am able to hide.
I want to live, I want to breathe.
Here I can.
.15 Soul Out of the Grave
This chance, singular and swift.
Life, it shall be lived or wrestled through.
Don’t carry your light to the grave with you.
All the art, and all the expression.
Let us soak it in beside you.
Reveal what you have. Who you're inspired to be.
We can love all the layers of you. All the color you bring.
We don’t need to understand, only stand in awe of your hands.
The stories you tell. Make us think, question things.
Paint on our hearts, hold our tears in the reflections of your photography.
Create your dreams, let us witness what you call beauty.
Try and try and try again toward something no one else can.
Life grants you permission to bring something anew.
.14 Departure
Do you miss me, the way I miss you? How could you?
It’s true, the world keeps going. Forces you to hold your screams.
They have to keep striving, surviving. Their lives passing by.
Only raised to reality by their own tragedies.
Everything stops. These lungs must belong to someone else. There is no air to breathe, no space to think.
The lines in the mirror, they belong to you. Age, the gravest reminder of what is forever.
No one told you, you’d lose everything. I wonder, did you really live at all?
.13 A Life
I hope you leap, and dream, and see all you need.
I hope you go slow, and fast, and not all. May stillness find you often.
I hope you say yes with abandon, and no when you need to most.
I hope you love, fiercely. Friends, lovers, the grieving ones.
I hope you grow, let life take your breath and grant it back again.
I hope you laugh, at dinner tables, in cafes, even when life is heavy.
I hope you love, again, with all you have. Bare your soul.
I hope you cry, rivers built of despair and elation.
I hope you forgive, even when you’re brokenhearted. Left gutted.
I hope you dance. In the sun, the kitchen, on a dirty dancefloor.
I hope you try, again and again. Even when you’re at the end.
I hope you fight. For good, for the ones who are less free.
I hope you live.
.12 Refugee
We need not war to make peace.
We need not be loved to give love.
We need not withhold water, for it belongs to the earth.
We need not know many tongues to speak to the hearts of immigrant sons.
We need not walls, but pathways to freedom.
We need not fear, for they come with more than anyone should bear.
Without a home, we could grant our own.
Liberation.
.11 Shadow Art
Visions of color and light.
Half empty sketchbooks.
Unfinished poems. Discarded ideas.
Inspiration tucked behind safety.
Songs, beautiful and known only to you.
Laughter, choked in the bowels of an untold joke.
Paint, waiting for your inspiration.
Music, better with your rendition.
Where the hidden parts of us live.
Expression, waiting in the dark.
