angel.

She has eyes the colour of raindrops.
Violin strings for vocal chords
And a laugh like sunlight fighting through thunderclouds.
A smile like lightning
And a heart well worn on frayed sleeves.
She treats her past the way an alcoholic treats an empty bottle
And there’s nothing left
Because she spends all of her time trying to earn her wings back.

So I’m trying to paint a picture out of jigsaw pieces
Searching for her reflection in stained glass windows
To try and understand her.
Why she keeps herself locked away
Like Rapunzel with long locks of regrets
Hanging heavy from her eyes
Wondering if the burden
Ever becomes too much for her cheeks.
Because she wears her sadness
The way most girls wear their skin.

Then one day she confessed her mistakes.
She said she was wrong for thinking he was perfect.
He who made her believe she could fly.
And the first man to tell her she was beautiful.
Until the day he got tired of her.
Snatched her hopes away
And sent her down to me with tears on her face
And a broken halo.
Her paper mache wings fighting to lift her up.
I think I’m praying to a broken angel.

She doesn’t remember what it was like
To have God as a neighbour
And treats joy like a friend
That packed all their memories in the back of a truck and left.
She tells me heaven is a lot more golden from the other side.
And down the block,
You might be able to get your fix for salvation
If the darkness didn’t swallow you first.
So she looked for rainbows…
A reassurance that the rain might give birth to music.
That nothing was ever as bad as it seemed
And baptized herself in nothing but daydreams.

Now I’m locked in her eyes
In a gaze like confessionals in the backseat of a car
And all her secrets gift-wrapped and addressed to her grave.
But I swear…that the first smile she ever threw in my direction
Must have felt a lot like heaven.

Every time I try to tell her
She loses control
And her lips quiver and spasm under the weight of tears
Heavier than concrete and hotter than lava
Hurricane Katrina in a whisper
Like my words were prayers being poured over her
Like an exorcism for all the demons she was left with.
And the rainbows she used to look for
Stopped reassuring her that everything was going to be fine
And turned into ashes of Armageddon in the sky.
A thunderstorm of disappointment
And a broken hearted symphony
Exploding with such force that it knocked God off his pedestal.

And all I’m asking for now is a miracle.
To bring her back to life
So her wings can carry her back across that horizon
Then I can stop praying to that broken angel.
See…
She has eyes the colour of raindrops.
Violin strings for vocal chords
And a laugh like sunlight fighting through thunderclouds.
And it’s been way too long since the last time I’ve heard it.
Forgetting that sometimes...
I used to think it that the angels were singing to me.

StoriesThatTheDeadCanTell.

One day…
We will lie six feet beneath the earth
And wonder where all the time went.
When our skeletons waltz with earthquakes
And bathe in nothing but raindrops
That tap dance across our ribs like xylophones.
And the clothes we were buried in
Have rotted away with our designer flesh.
Stripped to bare bones
No longer able to hide
Behind the tags on our shirts,
The confidence in our walk,
Or the thickness of our skin.
We are vulnerable.

The hollows of our eyes
Lie empty so we can no longer see the sun set
Or feel skin beneath our fingertips
Or smell the grass cut because we rest beneath them.
Day and night bear no differences
As we lie in our tombs
With nothing but shadows for company.

So I ask them why they put the dead in coffins
When we hated being boxed in our whole lives.
And the weight of the world
Presses down on our bones
With all the burdens of a guilty conscience.
Cracking bare knuckles and creaking joints
Knocking on the lids of our caskets
Until we’re only left with our spines
Being used as rulers to see if we measured up
To who we could have been.

And we can only pray that enough people cried
When they lowered us into our graves
To make us feel valuable.
And wonder if the dead can feel
The caress of fingertips on their tombstones,
The moisture of a teardrop
Watering the soil above them,
Or the weight of a wreath of flowers.

And wonder if those we left behind
Will forgive us for leaving.

The heart we prided ourselves on following
No longer beats between our ribs.
Nor can we stomach what we’re left with.
And the hands of time
Are the only digits we can still hold on to
As we count down eternity.

While the sand spills
From the gaps in between our bones,
We will remember our fear of death and laugh.
The chattering of our skulls
Creating the background music
For all the stories that we still have to tell.
While our flesh gives life to those who feed on it.
And life grows from death
As roots creep from our veins
And our blood waters their seeds.

I will lie there…
Past thunderclouds and clear skies.
I will remind you that, after you die
We will all laugh and trade jokes
About how afraid we were of dying.
But then we will know better.

SticksAndStones

They say sticks and stones
May break your bones
But words can never hurt you.
But what am I supposed to do
When your tongue lashes like whips
Against the torture rack your lips turned out to be?
And the words I never said are the ones that hurt the most.

Like…
I love you.
I miss you.

And my legs rattle like earthquakes
Wrestling with hurricanes
Afraid of what’s going to happen next.
Cold sweat drips in beads
Like machine guns unloading bullets
In a point for list of everything I didn’t do.

And those sticks and stones
Are the words I never wanted to hear from you.
So I tell myself…
…those sticks and stones
…wouldn’t have been so bad after all.

There’s no emergency room
For a collection of scars
From should have’s
And could have’s
And would have’s.
So I’m left with notebooks
And dried out pens as painkillers.

While your words form balled fists
In the pregnant silences they left behind.
Growing lives of their own.
Until the walls start to tell stories
Of scuffed knees
And actions stitched together with good intentions.

And in the end…
Those sticks and stones.
Are just sticks and stones.