The Write Way to Cope

A very sporadically expanding collection of works I've written

[inconsistentwritingblog]

He always loved puzzles,

Mind games,

Complex ideas and concepts,

In their physical forms.

His hands would coax the Rubik’s cubes

Into formation.

They could lure the sweetest music

From any instrument.

He loved a challenge,

The allure of what awaited.

He lived for the pursuit,

Constantly chasing an ever-farther finish line.

Clever and persistent,

He solved every puzzle eventually,

And placed it on the shelf with the other deciphered objects,

Yet another testament to his acuity.

Never did I imagine myself the ultimate mystery,

Nor that once he had coaxed me into formation,

And lured the sweetest music from within me,

That I would end up among the rest of the solved puzzles.

A trophy, an accolade.

Gathering dust—

Never to be touched again.

[inconsistentwritingblog]

Being the muse,

The image,

The ideal

I fear gave life to someone unreal.

Being the paragon

Of your thoughts,

Your dreams,

Twisted who you thought I was, it seems.

You painted me

So perfect,

So flawless,

Me, but with a fundamental twist.

You wrote about

The old me—

Before I grew—

Someone that you thought you knew.

It’s been years.

I have changed,

So have you.

Why pretend our relationship hasn’t too?

If only you’d stopped

To see the real me,

Not who you wanted me to be,

You might not be here,

Confused and unsure,

Worried what had become of me

When you finally learned more.

[poems-and-word]

[inconsistentwritingblog]

He always loved puzzles,

Mind games,

Complex ideas and concepts,

In their physical forms.

His hands would coax the Rubik’s cubes

Into formation.

They could lure the sweetest music

From any instrument.

He loved a challenge,

The allure of what awaited.

He lived for the pursuit,

Constantly chasing an ever-farther finish line.

Clever and persistent,

He solved every puzzle eventually,

And placed it on the shelf with the other deciphered objects,

Yet another testament to his acuity.

Never did I imagine myself the ultimate mystery,

Nor that once he had coaxed me into formation,

And lured the sweetest music from within me,

That I would end up among the rest of the solved puzzles.

A trophy, an accolade.

Gathering dust—

Never to be touched again.

[inconsistentwritingblog]

A Melancholy Affair

After dinner, we meandered into the kitchen to clean our mess. 

We played rock-paper-scissors to determine who had to wash dishes while the other just straightened up and cleaned the surfaces. 

I—being terrible at all hand games—faced a devastating 2-0 loss in what was meant to be a best of 3 series, so I started to work on the dishes. Before I did though, I opened Spotify and turned on a favorite song of mine that had been stuck in my head. As I sang along, he asked “Is this Elton John? I haven’t heard much from him but what I have heard I’ve liked.” I giggled before I replied with “Nope! It’s Billy Joel, the Elton John on this side of the pond I guess.” I then proceeded to explain that both of my parents had been major Billy Joel fans, and I had been raised on his music. He looked me in the eyes and smiled as I talked, making my heart skip in a way that only he could. He was the only person that I had ever felt could look at me and truly see me, not just the person I projected to the world. 

“Okay, so put on your top ten Billy Joel songs so I can hear you sing them. I adore your singing voice.” He didn’t ask, he commanded. But I was more than happy to oblige. 

“Alright!” I answered with a blushing smile as he leaned down to plant a light kiss on my forehead and I reached to queue up those ten songs.

While I scrubbed a spatula and crooned the melody of “Just The Way You Are,” I noticed that he was actively listening to me, and probably looking at me, although I couldn’t tell from my vantage point. He disappeared from my peripheral, and moments later I felt two strong hands on either hip. He pressed himself against my back and held us together, swaying with the music as I continued to sing the bridge—“I need to know that you will always be, the same old someone that I knew. What will it take till you believe in me, the way that I believe in you?”—it was then that he reached up and took my hand to spin me around. He took each of my small, sudsy hands in his and intertwined our fingers, pulling me away from the sink and into the center of the kitchen. We stayed there, slowly moving to the music as I continued to sing the remainder of the song and stared into his eyes. I was usually nervous to sing in front of other people, but with him it was different, I wanted to be seen and heard—I wanted to be noticed, but only by him. 

He pulled my hands behind his head for me to clasp them together there and pull him closer. He tilted his head down from its towering height above me to whisper “I wish I had known there would be a reason this good to stay.” Burying his head in the space between my neck and shoulder, he inhaled deeply, and squeezed me in a tight embrace before loosening his grip just enough to kiss me sweetly and lightly first on the cheek and then on my lips. In my chest fluttered a strange mixture of emotions: joy at having found him, delight at having made him mine, and such deep regret that we would have only the next nine days together. I screwed my eyes shut to stop the tears, and continued to sway, content to stay that way for as long as the universe would allow. 

[inconsistentwritingblog]

Sunrise on Vero Beach

Peeking over the edge of the horizon,

The glowing orb around which my world rotates

Seemed better understood than ever before,

Bringing new life, new hope, new light with each day.

A new beginning seemed imminent,

A new adventure waiting to be had.

As my small world continued to turn,

All of the new possibilities drove me mad

Reflecting on the previous sunset—

The end of a three-year day—

I pondered what this new day might hold

With yesterday out of its way.

The waves pounded the shore, 

The sun kept rising,

And I knew that this wasn’t it,

That there would always be more.

[inconsistentwritingblog]

Oh look, another poem about eyes

I meant it when I said

That your brown eyes held me to the earth.

I searched them, bewildered,

Wondering how I had missed them all this time.

Irises not harsh

Or overwhelmingly dark,

Not even soft like chocolate.

But smoother, swirling,

Like caramel.

And deeper,

Tawny colored, more than just brown,

Tinged with his favorite color, orange,

Accentuated by the stark contrast

With black pupils

That dilated to reveal his true feelings,

Ever so slightly.

They say the eyes are the windows to the soul.

Never close them—

Let the world see your tawny colored,

Generous,

Blessed soul.

[inconsistentwritingblog]

Blue to Brown

Once, I was drawn to the blue

The glowing intensity

Of stark and breathtaking blue

Piercing, when he looked at me

But bright glows do fade slowly

Almost imperceptibly

Change does seem to come—only

When it builds oppressively

Brown came sweeter,

Like he’d been there forever

With such gentle demeanor

I had yet to discover

Held underneath blue water,

Brown reached down to pull me out

And I, green and unaware

Didn’t know that I had drowned

[inconsistentwritingblog]

Kissing In The Rain

We stood in my driveway outside my garage door, talking to one another in the moonlight—neither of us saying what we were really thinking. Sometimes you can talk for hours without saying much. This was like that. Except we weren't like this long before an infamous South Carolina unpredicted summer rainstorm descended upon us, scattering raindrops slowly at first, dropping softly onto the concrete and signaling that the time had come for him to depart.

But he didn't.

Instead, in an insanely cliche and almost story-like romantic gesture, he stuffed his hands into his pockets, looked at the ground to avoid eye contact, and took a small step forward, closing the two feet of distance between us with just one movement. A head taller than me, he had to look down at a steep angle to look into my eyes and say "you know," look up at the sky and sigh before continuing with "I've always wondered what it'd be like to kiss in the rain."