Moonlit Poetry

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[moonlitpoetry]

My heart aches for names lost

Deeply etched in stone

For even rock fades with age

Deep grooves mere whispers

The wind's brushing kiss

A reminder and forgetting

I carve my memories in ink

In stone

In bytes

In blood

All corroding

All ephemeral

The gentlest of kisses

The weight of an eyelash

The strength of my heart

My soul

Barely disturb the river

Time's surface unrippled

I drop my pebbles in the path

And remember

In the universe, I am a speck

A blip within a blip

I will one day be forgotten

My heart aches for lives lost

Etched in stone

In hands

In lips

I kiss the hands

The heart

The lips

And etch love where I can

For with time, everything fades

And I don't need to matter then

Only now

[moonlitpoetry]

Old Ashes, New Wounds

Those who grow up in burning homes

Struggle finding new ways to keep warm.

Planting hot coals in the beds of lovers,

Wiping ashes from their brows;

Dark fingerprints, staining white linen,

Fumbling for peace of mind.

Homeostasis misaligned,

With chaos as default.

Undoing crisscrossed patterns of dysfunction

Intrusive and invasive threads binding.

Suffocated by the air of routine

Wake up, break, repair, repeat.

[moonlitpoetry]

Love is Lightning

Love is lightning

Splitting a tree and shaking the ground,

A blinding flash,

Disorienting and offsetting.

Love is the silent accumulation of snow;

Gentle flakes

Delicately melting on outstretched fingers,

Full of footprints and memories.

Love is a forest fire,

Heat and carnage,

Crackling branches and frantic movement,

A breathless ache in one's chest.

Love is a single flower,

Sprouting between cracks in the sidewalk,

Reaching for a drop of rain,

A blade of light to tickle its petals.

Love is a torrential downpour

Drowning out the noise of our thoughts,

Quieting the rhythm of our hearts,

Slowing the rise of our chests.

Love is shadows intertwined across time

Spilling into the valleys in our hearts,

Filling wounds with golden filigree,

A patch job for the rest of time.

[moonlitpoetry]

Dead of Winter

And at the end of love

It's not the crunching of leaves

Or the spiderweb cracks

Across the lake

But fresh snow

Covering the tracks we've made together

And the sun hiding its face

As we search and search

For what light and warmth and hope remains.

[moonlitpoetry]

Construction Zone

I pulled his words out like nails,

Circular holes in my skin

Leaking self-respect.

Discarded metal

Piercing the feet of laughing children

Dancing with bare toes,

Snow white and scarlet

Splotches on old carpet.

Wine stains

Like panes of glass

In the church we grew up in,

Shattered reminders

Of who we've become.

Poor reflections

Refracted through the window

Dazzling light in a clouded room.

I reached for my own hand,

Grasping for connection,

And drive a sentence through my palm.

I hear clapping from above

And tilt my head back

Blinded by my attempt to see further,

To live more than my parents did.

[moonlitpoetry]

He painted the counter orange

When I said I needed oranges

One is longer lasting

But not sustaining

"It's a metaphor," he says

The way we're aways reaching

For the back that's against us

Turned away

Preoccupied with something more important

Four eyes looking forward

Just past the interconnected lines

Disconnected minds

Grounded in something more

Reaching for that counter

Absent of any fruit

"I could really go for some oranges"

As I grab the keys

I drive under the stars

Then, blinded by fluorescence

I pick between the dried husks

Gleaming

I take my prizes home

Tear past the bitter skin

Peel away the refuse

Sink my teeth in

"It's a metaphor," I say

As juice runs down my chin

Little drops pooling

On the freshly painted counter

[moonlitpoetry]

A Heart, A Vacancy Filled

Her skin is marked with color and script

Pages earmarked and highlighted

Life written within the margins

Words heavily crossed out in pen

Ink stained through with loss

Her sheets torn out early on

Notes of grief charted across

In crimson, teal, and gray

As fingers now trace the raised scars,

Pain in braille,

No words are needed.

Silence slowly grows into laughter

And new colors dye hues unseen

Rosy reds and verdant vines intertwine

A double looped promise

"You are enough"

Barely faded ink, redesigned

In the skin,

No.

In the heart:

Where whethered souls may rest

And find their twin flame

Asleep at last

Nestled in.

[moonlitpoetry]

Eight Minutes

We could be eight minutes from death,

Right now.

The sun could explode,

Expand,

Or simply vanish

And we wouldn't know.

There'd be time to listen to a song

Or two

Or three

To fry up crisps or chips

To hold our families

Or pop down to the local pub.

The light would not fade

Until it was too late

The shockwave slower than our realization

Flung into the void

At the speed the light is taken

Our grip tightened in the moment

Clenched fists protesting

Eight minutes is not enough

When we cannot know

Cannot prepare

Cannot even see

As the Sun sets on our solar system

[moonlitpoetry]

Mother's Day

I wish I had a mother

Instead of someone who used

My pain for her image

Each act of kindness

A game of scrimmage

Give this woman an Oscar

A public performance

Bound by nothing but blood

And I'm the one bleeding

A name, in her mouth like mud

I'm dripping

A mess from every lie she's twisted

Every promise

I've missed it

Her heart

Too small to catch

Even a thimble of compassion

Now I'm asking

Who do I look to?

My father?

The man who never stood up

But bowed like a martyr

A saint

Hands so rough from all the wrong work

Building his up his legacy

But leaving his family

In shambles

So how do I show up

Deconstruct the history

Pull apart the actions

And ask them

What even is a family

Because it sure isn't what you've been

And it isn't what we are now

So this is a regular Sunday

But someday

A part of me still hopes

We can be whole

We can be home.

[moonlitpoetry]

Intimacy

When I am with you

Sex is not about power, but presence:

Being together, fully in the moment

Putting the in in intimacy.

A time to see not a reflection

Of desires or fantasy,

But the reality of someone

Someone willing to be with you

In time.

Sex is not about performance;

When the curtain falls,

It is not about the actors themselves

But the experience.

Do we feel closer?

Do we feel fuller?

Of life,

Of love?

Sex is not about ego

We come together for each other

In vulnerability

Where honesty opens doors

And enriches time well spent.

Lips sealed

Are lips not properly engaged.

When I am with you,

Sex is not a chore,

But a gift that I never tire of unwrapping

Paper strewn everywhere with excitement

Giddiness to express my pleasure,

My privilege, of being yours.

For now, for always, for forever.

[moonlitpoetry]

Even Cicadas Break Free

Trust me, it's never too late.

You may have spent your childhood underfoot

Trampled, covered in bruises

Eating roots and all else discarded by life

Another's refuse, your sustenance.

You may have lived in the dark,

No hope to speak of

Just the familiar echoes of silence

And the crushing pressure of suffocation.

You may have seen others climb

Feeling you'd never see the sun

To feel the warmth of connection

Or the depths of intimacy.

But even cicadas rise.

Even cicadas find their voices,

Breaking out of cold silence

Screaming out for life...

And so will you.

Even as death's fingers tickle your throat,

They'll choke on their words,

Saying you'd never be enough

Or amount to anything.

You'll climb over their empty shells

And find your way into the sky.

You'll breath air they will never touch.

It may take 17 years, but you'll be free.

Trust me, it's never too late.

[moonlitpoetry]

A Response Weighed

My phone weighs heavy on my heart,

Words unspoken and sublime.

Cracks in both feel so brittle;

Can you feel life between the lines?

My phone weighs heavy on my soul,

An anchor dragging as it falls.

Can you see the ripples fading,

As it carries me in tow?

My phone weighs heavy in my mind,

See the blood begin to drain.

All is gray now in my sight,

As the warmth fades to rain.

My phone weighs heavy in my hand,

Maybe metal, maybe stone.

I grasp it tightly for reprieve,

But it only helps to grieve.

[moonlitpoetry]

Banshee's Foe

In my early years I heard a tale

Of woe and death and ache;

The high pitched screams

That made our houses quake.

All down the streets,

Parents awake

Grab their ears

And in silence shake;

Praying to old gods

And new for a break.

For piercing shrieks

These beasts would make,

Tearing through stone

Through roads and lake,

Till none knew escape

Though all ran for their sake.

The recorder, a foul curse

Whose song could slay a drake,

Played by that awful devil,

A 5-year-old named Jake.

[moonlitpoetry]

Chamomile & Honey

Breathless joy,

And echoing laughter in the night.

A soul lifted,

Brightened and polished by your presence.

A day,

Made bearable by your words.

Vulnerability,

Un-shielded in your arms.

Mere echoes,

These shouts into ink that reach for you.

Speechless,

My tongue tripping over all the things I love

About you.

[moonlitpoetry]

Burnout

My thoughts are wriggling,

Thrashing in my overcooked brain.

Waves of heat radiate through my body

As tendrils crawl into my chest.

I am suffocating on my own experiences,

Choking on each second

Acutely aware of each breath

I know I cannot take.

A sharp metallic tang fills my nose,

Like metal grinding against bone--

Fracturing foundations like fingerprints

Pressed relentlessly into my skull.

I am falling asleep,

Yawning until I cannot see.

Exhaustion is all I can taste,

A slick oily sheen coated with sweetness.

I wake up a shell,

Memories intact.

Still tired.

So tired.

I combust and collapse.

Naught but ashes left

Of a well-worn soul.

[moonlitpoetry]

One day you'll find love with a real boy,

Now they're all just puppets

To their wooden hearts

[moonlitpoetry]

They wrote their memories

Their souls in black

On the flesh of trees

Bound in string