Fountain of Youth

When I was young we would go there to camp, before my parents had signed for divorce. We’d plan our steps by the light of the lamp to watch the water fall without remorse. The path would wind and crawl through darkened trees and in the night the black sky’s scars would gleam. I’d hear the crickets whisper through the leaves and search for fairies dancing in moonbeams. Then once we’d reached the top and come back down, my dad would play sweet songs beside the fire; We’d sing along, our voices freely loud watching the smoke swirl off and up its spire. And now when life gets rough and needs amends I go to Silver Falls to breathe again.

Needs a good title...

I never knew you to be greater or less than
me. I was always connecting your heart to mine
with those two parallel lines
that represent an equals sign.

I never knew me to be dependent on your smile.
I was always denying that I loved you like a child
loves her blanket, lost so many years ago,
but now found again shoved into that narrow space
of barely existence where the mattress meets the wall.

I never knew that your hand held my breath
on the string of a kite that could yank in the wind and make my heart
catch. You’ve been reeling me in for some time
on your fishing line while I’ve been wallowing in my wishing mind,
pretending that we could somehow stay friends.

But days always seem to meet their ends
when the sunlight breaks and bends
at that narrow line of barely existence
where the ocean meets the sky.
I’m there, with my futile attempts to try
to save something good from something better.

My First Sestina

For Daddy

I remember sitting on your lap at home,
reading picture books, hand in hand.
I can see now that you were always leading me towards
something greater than yourself, so someday you could wave
goodbye, thinking about how much you love me from the doorway.
It’s always such a difficult thing to just stand by and watch.

I liked to help you pick out wristbands for your watches,
and go with you to Lowe’s where I could hide in the fake kitchens and play home.
You’d always find me, standing in the hollow doorways.
We’d laugh and smile and you’d take me by the hand,
and we’d leave happy. I’d wave
at the employees as we took each step towards

home. I like to live in these memories, but I can’t help look towards
the future. I can’t help but hear the ticking of your watch,
reminding me that someday I’ll watch you waving
as I leave the place that I call home.
I wonder how I’ll function without the comfort of your hand
each time I walk into a house that isn’t yours through a hollow doorway.

I like to still go to Lowe’s with you and hide in the doorways,
but now I see that people aim funny looks towards
us because we still leave hand in hand.
It’s funny how the older I get, the more people watch
us, but they no longer smile when I wave.

Sometimes I want to cry when I see you waving,
because I know that no one has ever loved me so much, watching me from a doorway.
I want to cry because I don’t like to leave you and my home.
I try to console myself, knowing that with each step I’m moving towards
an independent life, a successful life, but I wish you were here to watch
me grow. I wish you could be here to hold my hand.

Maybe I’ll find someone who will hold my hand
as well as you do, and it will look more appropriate so people will smile again when I wave.
Maybe I’ll help him pick out wristbands for his watches,
and hide in hollow doorways.
Maybe he and I will get to move together towards
that independent life, that successful life, and we can make our own home.

But for now I’m stuck watching you stand in the doorway,
with your slippers on, hand outstretched, waving,
as I drive towards a house that I refuse to call home.

Just A Lil Bit of Poetry

Here's a roundel, a style of poetry I tried for fun: to challenge myself. (Sometimes using colons and semi-colons makes me feel pretentious.)

The World Does Not Care About Our Ego
Is it any wonder that we’ve fallen to our knees,
crying and moaning, twisting and turning, we’re burning
in this set world where nothing is ever what it seems?
Is it any wonder?

We’re mindlessly running after things that we’re yearning,
constantly fighting and biting for blurry old dreams,
as we try to forget that the pot just keeps churning.

We search for meaning in all of the world’s threads and seams,
trying to forget that after death it keeps turning,
trying to forget that life does not heed our screams.
Is it any wonder?
End

A prompt from poetry writing class. The title had to be in this format, and I chose the name Scarlett because it was the only person I can imagine asking me what a constellation is. It's supposed to be an extended metaphor. We had a list of words to choose from that we could describe.

In Answer to Scarlett’s Question, “What’s a Constellation?”
A constellation floats in the sky –
a kite whose string is attached to your eye,
a balloon that has slipped from a 12-year-old’s wrist.
She stands in the parking lot
watching it float higher into the black night.
Sometimes it’s golden or grey or has a faint tint of red.
Or sometimes it’s shy, ducking behind clouds that fly overhead.
Sometimes you see it, you know it, you can name it,
but sometimes it doesn’t make any sense.
It’s something you share with a father, a sister,
lying on the hard ground that’s cold and dimpled.
You’ll point with practiced eye,
but unless your companion stares down the line of your arm,
the pattern will be lost in the cluttered tangle of stars.
A constellation that floats in the sky.
End

I don't remember what I wrote this for.

L.O.V.E.
I was pulling darkness out of holes for years,
trying to find something to hold onto.
I was always talking about changing
before I realized what your name could mean.

You put some life into me,
and slowly set me free by placing tears on my cheeks
and smiles where doubt used to be.
I’m not hopping over cracks in sidewalks
pr counting down the steps to my defeat,
now that I know what your name means.

I didn’t know that I could breathe
before you pulled me from the holes-
from the darkness that I couldn’t hold.
I didn’t know that I was you,
or you were me,
until I wrote your name down:
L. O. V. E.
End