[x]

The RunawayMy muse left a note
in the frost on my window,
saying:
"Call me when your ink runs out."

I imagined her vaulting from the sill
into the freshly falling snow
cocking her hat just so
as she stepped into the East
before it iced over.

She leaves no prints for me to follow,
no re-imagined trail for me to trod,
and I could spend years
tumbling after her shadow,
only to find her
gone.

The Caged Bird ScreamsIt depends on the day.
Like the weather, it changes
and in my brain, a little man stands
before a green-screen and tells me
the average of highs and lows.

"And today we're looking at
your daily morning low,
followed by forced optimism at noon,
quite possibly plunging into
a long shower later today,
where things might look better
and now back to you, Jim."

Simple as that,
with my feet rubbing on the carpet
and my hands clutching the bed like
it's all that's keeping me tethered.
I open the blinds and know
there's more than this.

I'm just caught in a cold-snap,
and I'm not really myself,
I'm just in there somewhere,
yelling myself hoarse,
'c

I. VoiceI haven't told him,
but his name sits on my lips
as a psalm,
and if I say it too quickly,
I've taken it in vain.

And I find solace in his voice,
earthy murmurs,
the cradle of a canyon.
I close my eyes and am
willfully lost.
I have no desire to return,
for this is home.

Seven O'Clock on a Sunday NightIt's a pinwheel moment;
everything spins too fast around
This.
One.
Point.
I'm staring down Orion's Belt
and it's twenty-eight degrees,
but I can ignore
the lights,
the cold,
the neighbors,
because the present
is melting in my mouth
and I can't bring myself
to swallow it down.
For now,
I feel all the world
like an empty field on a dark night,
so I close my eyes
and spit my pith at the stars,
because it's too quiet
to scream out everything I feel
when I shut off my sight.
TAKE ME OUT!
I want to call,
but it's a whimper
in the scheme of the universe,
and I don't think I really mean it,
anyhow.
And coal as dark as mine
turns into diamon

MetempsychosisLift your spirit to your lips
and kiss it.
That's how words are born.
They fly into this world
messy and covered in
the dust of forgotten wisdom.
They are yours.
They move with you,
so gladly step
in the syllables of
every thought you've owned.
Treat them well.
For when your voice
turns to rust,
and your bones clatter cold,
when your name is buried
with the last man you knew,
hanging in the wind
are your words.
In some old dog-eared book
are your words.
And when its pages stir
in younger hands,
they will
lift your spirit to their lips
and kiss it,
re-birthing you in
words their own.

Stranger than FictionAll my mind speaks of fruitless unions,
separations.
I am left with needing you but
embracing solitude instead;
staring at the wall
as if I could summon you there...
but you won't come.
I am terrified that we will vanish into
ink and yellowed pages,
become characters who never meet but
brush gazes and swear by everything they have
that it will never be enough.
I could ask you for promises you don't have,
times and dates you can't find,
anything to bring peace to my trembling heart
because sometimes I drown in the space you leave,
choking on your absence.

Month FourYou were standing in the kitchen,
washing dishes that your brother should've
and you talked in funny voices
meant to make me smile,
and the pride in your eyes when they did
was unmistakable.
You're special.
And I don't mean the
I-say-that-because-I-don't
wanna-call-you-weird-special,
because we both are,
outwardly.
We do strange math,
figuring out the caloric equivalent
of a Girl Scout cookie overdose,
wondering how people who
are geographically closer in love
have lasted half as long and
why you don't like omelettes
(but you should!)
And if that isn't love,
don't tell me what is because
things are great how they are.

Between the CreasesFolded in the bathroom
is a note in the shape of a bird.
I’m convinced you’d miss me better
if I up and sailed away;
my body a paper crane.

Hanging from a string
In the bedroom.
Little wings dangling.

Cut me down.

Kitchen HeartI am the center of your home,
so much traffic through me,
and your
words words words
fill me up.

Toss your flour in the air,
it hangs and lingers in the sun.
Pretend it's remnants of some
fairy dust or
ancient ashes in your lungs.

Stir me up,
catch my drippings in your pan
the silent thoughts that never
fell all the way into my mouth.

And clean my inner ovens,
with all the fire you've got--
'cause I work best when my brain is clean,
and better when running hot.

III. LaughTumble out!
This feels like dancing,
a fast-paced,
grab-my-hand, spin-me-close
two step.
Through this,
you weave a tapestry,
you paint it gold as your grin
broadens into sound.

Footprints in the SnowThey're meant for melting,
and someday all this ground will hold
is memories of walking together,
and walking away.

We will not forget.
Time will do that for us.

Post-ApocalypticHe
looked out
over the waste,
wondering at
what the haphazard winter had left him.

He
whistled,
soft thoughts idly
passing through his
memory, sharp as January winds.

Eyes
closed he
remembered
the way her scarf
seemed to catch, crimson, on the crescent moon.

But
that was
before things
crumbled to dust;
now the world was a wasteland he wandered.

She
had choked
many nights
prior to this,
unable to breathe through the senselessness.

He
had found
her cold there,
and he never
understood what had happened before dawn;

he
just knew
that he was
alone for now,
and he could cry as loud as he wanted.

He
had loved
her, and much
like the former
w

The DreamingDraw me into a five year kiss,
we are dreaming.
As reality crawls by the digital clock,
you are barely tangible--
though barely is better than nothing at all.
I am content in the six o'clock light
until you vanish behind my irises.
My eyes dilate in the dark,
and you are gone.

Wide-eyed MonsterDon't look over your shoulder.
You run the water in the bathroom
so they can't hear you panting
and you don't know why
you're checking in the mirror.

So you breathe like they told you
and you sit on your bed
with your spine against the wall
so nothing grabs you by the neck.

Knees to chest
chin to knees
hands to head
you uncurl
and you pace
on the rug.
(There's safety in rhythm
if it distracts you from
the shadow on your back.)

You try unwinding
but your heart's coiled tight
in a small steel ball
you can't untangle by yourself.

Call your love,
'cuz he knows,
and he worries like clockwork.
You feel bad that you can't
pull together for his

Burnt EdgesCrumple like the letter
you threw into the fire.
Curl up at the edges,
you feel the ash inside your chest.
You ache to ember
and glow into an open flame,
but your chimney is too dirty
to give your smoke away.

So you burn her out of the picture
but the memory is a phoenix
and it roosts inside your hatred
of everything she represents.
You curse every broken matchstick
that left her gazing from the frame.

And did it always look so grey
Before the fall?

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GhostsI put my regrets in the
same box that holds
what love we had for each other.
You didn't break my heart with
words sharpened into poisoned barbs,
but with as gentle a goodbye as
a kiss on the forehead.
We were not meant to break grace.
But oh, does it hurt when
my thoughts turn to you,
and if I am left in a room by myself
I can see the ghosts of
kisses past, hear our whispers
long since uttered.
You seemed so steadfast,
I wonder how this is for you.

I stopped dreaming about you last night,
and it felt like a fever had broken.
I didn't miss the ache, but I do miss you,
but only in these dull, invasive waves that
simult

After the FightTurn my mind into water,
it'll flow out my eyes,
and if I drowned,
all the better.
Wash my body in my sorrow;
Let it clean me out.

'Cause it's a staggering show when I'm
crying my soul out,
it's like watching a house burn down.
Such gorgeous desolation,
all the passion of a train-wreck,
and the ashes are no grayer
than the minute you destroyed me.

If This Ain't PMS Then We're In TroubleIt's pointless to say you don't care
because that irrational explanation does nothing
but make me sound bitter as a lemon rind.
It still sounds better than
"he's just busy" because
that's the excuse you hear lovers mumble
when they suspect infidelity, and
I'd like to think that we have more chemistry
than your Chemistry.

Something feels unstable
like a table with a cracked leg,
and there's already enough pressure
bearing down as it is, I don't know if I can
support this by myself and I
need your help but I
can't find the right way to ask you for it
and I won't be able to show this to you because
I'll get the same re

Where The Heart IsThe air was as cold as
the premature dawn,
and I stretched like a cat,
humming soft morning songs
while I stumbled out of my
warm cocoon of midnight blankets.

It is good to be home after
three months away from
the hearth I like to ponder by
and the armchair throne
where I lounge,
a Saturday morning goddess.

But it is the kitchen I miss most,
where I shuffle between countertops
and practice the art of
six AM cooking, with the biscuits
browning in the oven and the
eggs as golden as the December horizon.

My dogs snuffle wet-nosed,
paws dancing on the hardwood,
happy that I'm half-awake and
ready to mumble to them while I

Wake Me Up When September EndsI asked you what happened
to the soldier in the music video
and you said
"Nothing, he returns home
to his family."

It was what you wanted
to believe because
you had seen this all before
and knew bad endings better
than you should.

All of a sudden
those were friends with their backs
pressed against the building cracked
with the gunfire dust catching
the coat of sweat ont their faces,
and I knew by the way your
breath caught in your chest
that they had the empty gazes of
the dead men you once knew.

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The Uninspired

by *callerofcrows, Feb 1, 2013, 7:23:20 AM
Literature / Poetry / Romantic / General / Free Verse

They are clockwork.
Such asinine machines,
you could pity them
so long as you pity them softly.

Our sighs catch on the ear,
and their empty eyes glint with loathing;
for all the world they'd
short themselves out
just to eat the spark we posses.

We, the possessed!
Our power lies in entities that
shake our minds when we
stumble on the worlds in our head,
left breathless and dumb with our brilliance.
We translate it to the world,
we are our own prophets.

They had the same gifts
wrenched, robbed, or broken from them.
And without the humming in their chests
their very bones turned to lead,
their minds turned to pistons,
and their spirits
left.

It is not by chance we
inspire one another,
we provide the energy that
fuels each other and somewhere along the way
they walked out.

We tried reaching,
pulling them back
only to be snapped in half by
hands too harsh to create.

They are the unfairly abandoned,
and we bear their hopeless hate.

The Uninspiredby *callerofcrows

Literature / Poetry / Romantic / General / Free Verse

What if we lost, or willingly gave up, our creativity? I imagine we'd become more like machines.

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*livinlovindude Mar 6, 2013

I really love this! ^^

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*callerofcrows Mar 13, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Thank you!

Reply

~TheVibeke Feb 1, 2013 Hobbyist Artist

This lovely deviation has been featured here: [link]

Have an amazing day!

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*callerofcrows Mar 6, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Thank you so much!!!

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Mood: Love

~WalkinginDreamlight Feb 1, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

Very visual imagery...

Reading this piece, I can see in my mind the image of a robot with pen in hand, staring hypnotically at a blank piece of paper, a tear of oil running from an eye...

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*callerofcrows Mar 6, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Oooh, nice! You should write a poem or story with that imagery, you already have a great start!

Reply

~WalkinginDreamlight Mar 7, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

Thank you kindly

I may well do that, I quite like the imagery too.

Reply

*archelyxs Feb 1, 2013

Have you read The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe?
If not, you should.

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*callerofcrows Mar 6, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

I have not, but I definitely will now!

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