julie leonard

this is about You

[julieleonard]

Poet's Note:

Devoted to the girl I fell in love with at thirteen, and whom I’ve never told. Ever since we met, all those years ago, I’ve never gotten you out of my system. After each year, including those filled with silence that decommissioned my heart, I only found myself thinking of you more often than not. Reminders of you are everywhere- they torment me every day that I don’t tell you how I really feel- how much I feel for you. Maybe we weren’t at the right place back then, but maybe we are now; would you give us a try? Every day without you breaks my heart and I just can’t let you know how much I would give for one chance. Let each word I say fill your heart with something good, something that could be real between us. Anytime I think I’ve found the right words, I realize that there are no words in any language that I could use to describe how infatuated I am with you. Never a day goes by that you are not on my mind, and I swear I would do so much to travel back to thirteen and crawl back to you. I convince myself every day to not ruin our friendship- I lie awake begging to the rising moon that somehow you’ll find this, and find me silently hoping that you’d want to ruin our friendship. Even after all of this time, I still love you.

[julieleonard]

April skin soaked

In meadows of the beloved

Meeting your temple 

Gracing the ground beneath us

I learn the shape of your cupid bow

When it grazed the back of my knee

Do you see me reflected 

Where the sky meets ceiling

In time you question

How I know it is you the flowers whisper

Pollen in your eyes

They told me, I will yawn

Speaking a language of only devotion

Earnest light fawned across petals

It is you whom I call for

When the dawn reaches the East

Pleasantries spoken for

At last, you let love spill

Hanging from the vision of us

Warming ankles in grasses

More love than held innermost

[julieleonard]

Eclipsed by our darkest days

Those spent years away

Thrown down harbors of english

Crossed by melancholy grasp 

Heaven is the proof of your living

Older than my own weight

Devoted to the air of your lungs 

[julieleonard]

Evenings I dream long fantasies of you

Ones that keep the nights hungry

Overcome by you until time to rest again

Suddenly the sun is the moment I fall

As the moment I reach you

The day has risen

When I look up at the morning brush

You glow in vision

Of a kismet dawn

[julieleonard]

Hang the louvre as a ballad to our desire

Marigolds that grow in between the valleys

Warmest with a morning fog

Jade that connects our necks together

You’re heaven in a golden room

[julieleonard]

It is stormy in Seattle

Do you know that?

Although it is not a dream

There are no children outside my window

No pigeons above my head

How clever it is to know such a place

Where the sun never sets

But the moon follows you home

Would you like to visit Seattle one day?

I’ve never stepped a foot

Maybe it would be a place where trees sing

And neighbors dance in daylight

I would love to see Seattle

But I would rather crawl home

[julieleonard]

You are a layer in my vision

Singular frame behind my hands

Slip with your ways

Into steam of tea

And onto my midday dreams

Too intimate for the darkest minutes

Frank’s cliches

But it truly had to be

Even when it is too warm for chamomile

Too stormy for the afternoon

It had to be you

[julieleonard]

I never feel more alive than when I'm floating on the notes of your guitar. How trendy– to be enchanted by each recording you post. Not often, and I might be jealous that the world gets to know you, but not as often as I’d like. If I could ask you, I’d ask for every second to be surrounded by your art. Suffocated by the strings of your guitar and my lungs filled with each strum of your fingers. I love you. I love when you play guitar. 

[julieleonard]

Four miles I pace every day

Always one more than I plan

The last has become a ritual of reflection

It is this time when I think of you without pause

The most heavenly piano 

Where the lake meets the setting sun

Though I always dream that instead

Your soft guitar would be lulling

The bridge of your nose no longer a memory

But something I could trace with my index finger

For as long as I please

Eyes always closed as I cross the street

Too lost in the affection of your song

[julieleonard]

There are inquisitions that I cannot bring myself to birth

If mind, soul, and heart are to be separate

Without the inclusion of one’s own desires

Would it be so wrong

To unknowingly

Without process of proper engagement

To ask, if I may

For you to fix yourself onto me

For just a second longer

To devote your shadow to memory

And to accept it as my own wanting

[julieleonard]

Questions to the Universe about You

What key is your guitar in

How do you take your coffee

When was the last time you cut your curls

Has the sun risen yet

How worn down is your coat

What time is it

Do you think about me

When do you eat breakfast

Are you happy

What was the last movie you watched

When do you miss home the most

[julieleonard]

I think about your college admissions essay more than often

When gazing into the moon

I wish you would read it to be some day

Maybe this day

When there is no light in the sky

Only the whisper of your body

That I can gaze

Shifting your lips to fit

I would love to read your admissions essay

A kiss first

[julieleonard]

Not as Friendly as We Were

Familiar arms that stretch across the mahogany

Your bronze frames slide off the hook of your nose

I catch them before you lose them to the future

Ponder over each second spent with you

An old friend

Now

Once so new that even the tap of your footsteps

In the daylight, sounded like a trend

They got lost in the rhythm of your laugh

Our friendship got mistaken for sisterhood

Sixteen miles separate our brains

Four thousand separate our hearts

The silver glasses that I swore to savor

And with the gold of the sun

You were gone

[julieleonard]

I write soft poetry for the purpose of rearranging my mind to offer you a physical place to stay

[julieleonard]

The space between our hearts

As I allow myself to dream

The bridge between restless and reality

I will remain sleepless

As you will yourself to lay across my body

Entangled just as conjoined

Floating in the orbit across this realm

Vessels fade into a hold

A gentle suffocation

As we become one

[julieleonard]

All trails in greater heaven trace back to the cement where we stood as one. If I were a fool, as all persons who look up into the sky and see the stars are, I would believe that the foundation of heaven was built for the purpose of supporting your weight.

[julieleonard]

I miss you. I miss you so much that I, truly, do not believe that the sun will rise without you. Since the moment I’ve met you I’ve been so drunk in love. With you, I never want to feel the pain of sober. My early grey dove will sing a ballad that was once orchestrated to each beat of your laugh. Your dirty shoes run tracks across the marble of my mind and the wool of my heart. Yes, I can suffer a moment without you in my immediate thought, but never could I not breathe as your hands lift my heart into the open sky. Have I ever carried the weight of the burden of life for you? Even in your dreams? In the case that you might be reading this, just know that I want to hear you play guitar again. This is about you.