Our Understanding

Right Now you aren't yourself, and that's okay because really, nobody is. You see right before a new year we all die a little bit so that we can be "reborn" with new chances and a fresh canvass. You have exactly one year from today to create a masterpiece for us to display at the next big art show. Who are you going to be this time? 

Waiting by the Telephone

I don't know why they haven't figured it out yet, you're just another knight in tin foil looking for someone to save. 

Something Not so Important

I've never really been all that close to you, but congratulations. I am just passing on the word cause as news travels through the grapevine words and cheer often get lost. But you know as well as I do that Strangers are funny people, and sometimes they say the words we need to hear the most. So I will say it again and then let you get on with your way:

Congratulations. 

Blue Skies and Sunshine

You always were the lucky one.

Raining Stardust

You are so perfect that even your tears are mesmerizing. 

Like a Sword

That pen in your hand is so much more potent than your tongue will ever be.

Happy Holidays

I wish I had something to give you, I'm so sorry I don't. You're my crimson angel and my northern star so Merry Christmas Darling!

Mary Jane and Molly

You always were some of my worst habits I don't know why I left the door unlocked or the lights on for you to find your way back in. Especially after that first night. Oh, but don't worry darlings, next time you show up I won't even be here. 

Greatfather Winter

Darling, I know that I'm so far away from you, but I promise you I'll be there by the time Winter arrives. 

More Mystery Bruises

You're not even here this time and I'm still waking up black and blue. I guess, even my blood, sweat, and tears seem to miss you.

Nobody Takes the Stage

I remember you in ways no one else ever would. Hearing the secrets you had no one to share with when you had no one to share with when you were young every time someone around me whispers anything. Arching my back to make just enough pace for your arm every time they play that song. Seeing that smile the sun has always been jealous of smiling right at me as the lights dim and time slowly fades away. I remember you in ways no one else ever would.

Even though we both know, you forgot me long ago. 

The First and Millionth Date

The steam is busy waltzing itself away while the snow rises higher and higher and giggling stars laughter grows louder with each second to pass. you're sitting across the table with that perfect smile on your face, the sparkle in your eye is shining brighter than ever and I've never felt more at bliss than when you put your hand over mine and said,

"Finally. Together. I've missed you so much."

Darling, I couldn't agree more. 

Never Trust Strangers

It was never you that I needed - just something new to burn. 

Just One More Time

Sing me to sleep Love, let me rest my head over your heart, and tell me that everything is okay because in your arms it really is. For me tonight and I will be your everything from now until the end of time. 

Just Waiting on the Seventeenth

There are words you will never hear me say and so many memories you won't get to make but this is still yours even if you are not here to blow out the candles or to enjoy the waxy frostingless cake (I remember how you said that cake is better just as cake). There's a new-found chill in the December air and the sun may not be here in the morning, but I am going to smile through the darkness and sing the song anyway.

Happy Birthday, Hun!

Downtown for the Holidays

I passed you by on the street again today, you were still talking to yourself about who knows what this time. There was dirt on your face and your baggy once white shirt was stained to hell. Something about the way you sat there on that cold, green bench outside the library suggested that you were waiting on someone that you knew would never show. I passed you by on the street again today, others looked at you with sorry eyes and muttered things like "You're crazy" and "Go away" while I sent you all the love in my heart and if I hadn't have been in such a hurry, I would have sat down next to you and found a way to make you smile, again. 

A Heartbroken Birthday Card

You must have been an illusion because your ghost loves me more than it ever loved you. And maybe if I label you as a dream dreampt up by Loneliness maybe that will help ease the pain. Hun, you should have stayed a stranger an infatuation from a distance nothing more than wishful thinking and a face too pretty for its own good. But if for some reason you were really here, if any of it actually happened and your birthday really is on its way, I hope that someone new is able to give you the world and all that you deserve. I hope you have another great year ahead with nothing but the best laughter filled moments and memory filled days of the time you spent with the people like me. The people who love you with all their heart, who only ever wanted the very best for you. The ones who are no longer around to see you smile. You must have been an illusion because your ghost loves me more than it ever loved you - and if you're not, if you are real, we both wish you a very happy birthday.


Happy 22nd Taylor Hocutt....

Just a Reminder

Happy 17th Birthday

I remember when you took me to see "Fiddler on the Roof" and I remember the way you smiled at me as if I were the sun and you were the lead researcher for NASA. The song we danced to in the middle school gym still plays through my mind whenever we talk - even as seldom as that is. When I'm laughing I hear your soft chuckle along side mine and when skies are gray the blanket around my shoulders feels the way your arms would all those years ago. Your name makes me smile and cry at the same time. I remember when you invited me over to watch a movie while everyone else watched the football game. And how you called me "Happy" instead of "Maddy" because you had never seen me mad.

Anyway, happy birthday lovely, I hope you are doing well.

I miss you.

Magic and Madness

I watched the water in your veins turn to nitroglycerin when they pushed you in the mud and tore your perfect little dress. Darling, I know. I watched your blood turn to lava as you began to burn from the inside out when they said you couldn't do anything with your life.  I watched you pull the knife from your pocket and whisper your apologies. Sweetheart, I know how you feel. But there's no reason to feel that way when there are friends close by, looking after you.

Angels.

Dreamers.

Lovers.

Strangers.

Us, you, them, me. 

For the endless Days

I'm sorry your day was nothing special love.
At least when you get home you have a surprise waiting. 

Sweet and Sour Sauce Shampoo

"I need to take a shower
before doing anything else,"
I inform my mother as she unlocks
the door to our tiny, temporary
studio apartment of a home.

"That's what you teenagers get
for trying to wash your hair
with Chinese food," she laughed.

As I slipped into the bathroom
and out of my clothes I answered,
"That's not how it happened!"
I tried to brush my hair clumped together
with sweat and sweet and sour sauce
from last night's left over dinner on the road.

The brush couldn't get through
the mess so I let the water
have its way with my brunette locks
until finally the suds and conditioner
were able to work it out for me.

As the soap made its way
down my porcelain skin I ponder
why teenagers have to be so bold

and what I've gotten myself into
this time. When the sound of bottles
crashing from the shelf pulls me
from my thoughts I turn the water off
and pull on my Joe Boxer shorts and
the XXL T-shirt swallows my frail frame;
she asks if I still smell like fried rice.

"I hope not," I giggle and crawl into bed,
when we turn off the light the room
is filled with two words said by both of us
in unison and dreams of being a
mother myself someday fill my head.

~ ~ ~

Good night.

There is no Going Away Party

Darling I need you to do me one last favor, I am going away for a while so I am going to say a word that both of us hate. I am going to say it over and over again, but I hope that the first time the noise manages to escape my lips your reaction is to hug me tighter than you've ever hugged me before. I will ask that you ignore the tears rushing down my face as they slip down your neck as well. these damn shards of sorrow couldn't get any more painful as they try to escape me, could they? Oh, and Darling, please do not cry, for I will be back again someday...

"Goodbye."

Sooner and Sooner

 

I would ask you to join me for a cup of coffee in a coffee shop I've never heard of before and I would sit at the table across from you reading poetry I wrote you while you were at work. I would try your tea for a sip of my holiday mocha. I would do so many simple little things for a chance to make you smile, for a moment of normality among this chaos if only you were a little bit closer today.

Baby Steps

I am glad you are okay

even though you are 

no where close 

to being alright.

Another rough Draft

There are words I want to say to you, sounds that just won't come out right, thoughts I know you want no part of. But someday this pen and I are going to get them on a page that ends up on your desk. Bold and sweet, yet innocent enough to capture your attention before you sit down to work on nothingness you treat as everything. 

Patterns of Big Cities

Everyone knows that you pass "them" on the street every single morning, rain or shine, because to you "they" are the most beautiful person alive. Don't worry, you aren't the only one. 

Grandfather's Brown Leather Coat

Sit on the shore and ask yourself where there is any kind of equivalent beauty. Listen to the rain and tell me if you've ever heard a better melody. smell the mac and cheese on the stove and tell me all about your childhood. Darling, you know as well as I do that there is no other way to get through the rough times so smoothly. 

Welcome Home

Oh Hun, I've gone back to playing all your songs
and watching the shadows dance across floorboards -
revitalized by such memorable motions. 

Apathy moved out and Sorrow bought the house 
next door, so she and Joy could fool everyone 
into believing that they are a happy couple 
now that he's gone two months without cheating.

Hun, the walls won't tell me which songs 
you sang to me when I was sleeping, but 
they do ask me where you've gone this time. 

I know my soul is accosted by the memories
but she has never been more beautifully so.
Oh Hun, everything reminds us of you and 
everyone else misses you so much more 
than you will ever know. 

- - - 

And if you have found this
I still love you in ways 
you will never understand.

A Growing Collection of Rings

There's a new silver band wrapped around my finger the way I was once wrapped around yours. My favorite color brings words sweeter than honeysuckle to life in a way I never knew possible before. You are a stunning soul for taking so many things of meaning and value to me and combining them into something so simple and precious that it will remain forever in my heart as well as on my delicately bony finger. There's a new silver band wrapped around my finger the way I was once wrapped around yours and I don't believe I said thank you before, so I hope you find this soon,

Thank you.


P.S. I will miss you so much more than you will ever know. 

Missed my Exit Again

I like to think that someday you will understand that it's not that I don't want you to be happy and its not that I don't like you, but really it's just that I fucking hate the fact you pushed me away again and this time it didn't even faze you. I hate that she's emptying her syringes into your perfect little arm and that you don't even know what it means to be healthy anymore. and I know you won't ever find this the way i want you to, but I can still dream, can't I?

Put it Down

I  know you.

You are so much
stronger than this. 

Moving Forward

Darling, how can you fail anything when everyone you know believes in you wholeheartedly? 

Made it to the Milkyway

Someday I am going to ask you to dance. Beneath the stars never as bright as you. In the moonlight eternal as our souls. Someday I am going to ask you to dance. I can only hope that you'll say yes. 

Swamp Cooler Crocogarot Alidile Interwebs

If you have friends without inside jokes, you don't have any friends. 

A Local Tradition

I am thankful I met you. Even if it didn't end up how I was hoping.

I am thankful for the loving souls who surround me so much of the time.

I am thankful about the hope that is shared with me every day.

I am thankful I have someone new. someone so much better than you. 

Uses of the Used

Dip me in your most vivid pigments. Pull me across your whitest canvass. Let me tell my story this time. And then, next time, I think you should create me. Define me with subtle textures and brilliant strokes. Bring me to life because you're the only one in this world who cam really do me any justice at all.

Sending Love

Darling, I love you so much more than words can ever say. I don't think you understand that art is part of a persons' heart and that there are no colors or shapes that can do that any justice. You just don't get that the lyrics I mouth are telling you exactly how I feel when I actually sing to you, you just laugh at me and shrug it off even though they are the closest answer you will ever get as to how I am doing or what is bothering me today.

Darling, I love you so much more than you are prepared for. 

As the Tempest Believes

Oh angel, I hate this sensual pen I always catch it loving illumination the way pressed flowers love to sail in the wind. Never wishing itself beauty because it's never broken, bled, or cried a day in it's whole life. Oh angel, I hate this sensual pen for never drawing back it's silence or saying a for damn thing worth the light of day.

The Skittle Fairy

Friends who truly know you are the best kind of all. 

Best Friends' Fallout

" Can you tell that I have been crying?" I asked you with a fake smile beginning to form.

"Yes, but you're still more beautiful than anyone else out there." You smiled as you wrapped your safe arms around me.

"Thank you," I whispered staying as close to you as I could.

"You're welcome. your world may fall down, I may yell at you, they may not like you at school or work, you may hate yourself, but I will always know that you deserve more than any of that. So I will always love you with everything I have. I hope someone better can come along and treat you like the royalty you should be," you whispered almost silently as I began to fall asleep. 

Drunken Darling Goes Roar

Softly whispered dreams dance along milky pages as you drag your darkest pains across the faint lines echoing stories you never thought you would tell anyone. Tears on the sleeve of an unrecruited dreamer recording mix tapes for someone too young to understand. Dreaming becomes poetry and friendships solidify to love. I'll listen to you until time takes my hearing. I'll believe in you until Death himself dies. I'll be your number one fan forever and always. 

Paint Only Comes in Crimson

She is a painter and a lover but her story has a twist because you see a match is the brush and the canvass is her wrist. Believe in me like I believe in you so you never have to know how it feels to be alone. You are the painter, not the brush. Never back down and never give up. 

Just Not the One

I know. It was because you loved me too much to stick around and see me in such pain. You figured it would be better to come back and help clean up afterwards. But your plan didn't really work because your absence killed me so much that I gave up on the rest. I know. You felt like a monster and couldn't bring yourself to face me again after the fact. It was because you loved me too much. I know. I understand.

You need to know.  I forgive you.

You need to know.

You should understand. 

The Note I Should Have Left

Dear you,

I borrowed your jacket while you were asleep in my bed, I  found the keys to your bike in the pocket. So I went for a drive. I just needed a night out with the stars a shot of change spiked with hope. I had no idea that fresh air would be more addicting than your kiss or the way your voice sounds at 4 am. honestly, I thought I'd be back my morning and I'm so sorry I wasn't.

Love,
*****

P.S. I'll bring you the keys and your bike but I'm keeping the leather.
For now.

So Much More

I know, I know you don't want to hear this, but I am going to say it anyway:

you just don't understand.

Sincerely,

your whore.

What you Should Have Said

My darling little whore, who are you lying to tonight?

At Sea Level

"You think this is bad?" he asks you as kindly as he can manage.

Simply you nod then shake your head "no" hoping you haven't given yourself away.

"Man, this ain't nothing yet," he laughs as he walks away shaking his head up at the sky.

You can always go lower, especially from here. The good news about that is that you don't ever have to be alone again. 

In a Blinded House

You are an imperfect dream loved by a dreamer. For that you will go down in history.

With Love, Chernobyl

If you knew how you make me feel you would probably move closer when i only want you to go away. Darling, loving me is a suicide mission unlike any other.