Solace on Scrap Paper

When I'm confused I turn to words. It doesn't help the confusion but it feels good to write them. May you be inspired. Reblogs, questions, and prompts appreciated. I don't have all the answers and that's the beauty of it isn't it?

[solace-on-scrap-paper]

Reflections on New York

Illuminated by the neon light

A “sleeping” city in the night

What visions came that ended in the skylines I see here today

One thousand buildings in the storm

I’ve never felt this way before

A love for nature made by human lust

Through the window of the building, I looked up

They went on and on and on and on and on

and on to the skies

When we accepted our lack of wings

We looked up

And still wanted the touch the clouds

And so we built you

Skyscraper

A love for nature that humans stole

[solace-on-scrap-paper]

Approximating My Emotions Using Words

You lay beside me

and for that second I want you to be a part of me

something I will always have

but never be able to let go of

Your name on my lips tastes like water in the desert

Your lips on my lips taste like the ice cream with extra sprinkles we just shared

The skin of your cheeks and forehead taste like heaven

I’d describe it better but I’m at a loss for words

There’s a glint in your eyes

I can see it shining through your hair

No matter how many times you say they’re brown and dull

I disagree: they’re brown and lovely

If this sounds poetic

That’s because I can’t describe you without poetry

If this sounds overstated

It’s not

If anything it pales in comparison to her

[solace-on-scrap-paper]

Balance

Asymmetry on your face

And yet you have more balance than anyone else I know

Something about the way the little strands of hair fall

Complementing each other

[solace-on-scrap-paper]

Cafe Conversation

You asked me: “Sweetheart

that’s a wonderful poem you have written

Is it about me?”

I answer:

“Sweetheart

I doubt I wrote this poem about you

but every time I speak it

I speak it for you”

Apparently you liked that

in a cafe full of people

you hugged me like we were alone

[solace-on-scrap-paper]

pretend it’s complete and I’ll pretend it’s enough

you can’t look me in the eyes because we’re both afraid we’ll just plain lose our minds and kiss until we’re wrenched apart so I just gaze at your hair and the way it falls upon your cheek instead.

it’s the color of love. I was never a fan of using such strange and abstract things as colors yet here I am, confronted with your kaleidoscope, lost for words. I call it the color of love because I’m not intelligent enough to know a word that describes it adequately.

the way you whisper I love you like it’s your last breath makes me want to whisper it back except it’s not enough. I want to say something more something more grand than I love you but I don’t know what.

given time I would write until all the ink in this pen dried up.

this poem is only incomplete because I can’t find the words.

[solace-on-scrap-paper]

poem about losing 4G connection in the middle of text conversation with your girlfriend

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA “*bashes phone keyboard*

[solace-on-scrap-paper]

Love and Books

((So I took a bit of a break. I maybe kinda sorta asked out the girl of my dreams. I love her to pieces, so brace yourselves for a ton of love poems.))

1

Going through this bookstore

My favorite section is the part with Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Because it’s your favorite

and the way your face lights up when you read it

beats anything the Bard wrote and

feels better than anything in the poetry section

2

We sit down to read

There’s only one chair left so I let you sit

I sit on the floor content with

Cory Doctrow in one hand

you in the other

I lean back my head onto the arm of your chair

and read to you

I point to the parts that remind me of you

I like those parts best

3

In this bookstore

there’s postmodern art all along the walls 

old Stevie Wonder vinyls in the corner

and some of history’s greatest novels in the shelves

But my favorite piece of art

is your face

[solace-on-scrap-paper]

Angel Behind The Veil

You have such a kind and sad heart

One moment imagining a forest

The next seeing it burn

One eye closed to daydream

And you face the world with the other half of your face

This poem is for the angel behind the veil

behind the wall

beyond which

no poem can explain you

[solace-on-scrap-paper]

Define Poetry

Age 6

too young to know the word poetry

young enough to see it and feel every little bit

Age 8

Trying to read Shakespeare

Too young to understand

And discarding the thought that it could be worthwhile

Age 10

Copying from a dictionary

“Poetry is a form of writing in which rhyme, meter, and word choice are integral...

realizing halfway through that it was a liar

and shouldn’t have been trusted

Age 14

Staring down the teacher

Saying that poetry is not bound by her definition

Ready to defend my claim

“Poetry is art with words”

Age 15

“Poetry is art with words”

Arguing in my head

One half of me challenging the other

“Doesn’t that make every word, every sentence, every letter poetry?”

My response:

“Why not?”

[solace-on-scrap-paper]

When I’m Lonely My Mouth Is Poison (Gutter Mouth)

((Inspired by the poetryriot prompt “Gutter Mouth”))

When I don’t have anybody to love

My feet are a hellbent subway driver

  That only know how to go straight to their destination

  No pit stops no smelling the roses

My eyes are greedy rulers

  Trying to take all they can

  Seeing the beauty in everything and making it a bad thing

My hands are ghosts

  That try to reach out

  And never get to feel the other person

But worst of all

I have a gutter mouth

It flows as if defying me

A machine cranking out broken afterthoughts

When I do say something I regret it

When I don’t say anything I regret that too

and now it flows so erratically

that I have to shut down the poison on my lips

or harm everybody I talk to

[solace-on-scrap-paper]

Shatter

I need somebody to break me

and redefine how I feel about

love about life about myself

So somebody make me fall in love

and break me apart

like a promise

pick me up

and let me smile as you shatter me

so I can say it was worth it in the end

((Feelings.))

[solace-on-scrap-paper]

if a poet loved me

1

I hope if you write about me

that you’re so confused so intrigued

that your rhymes fall short

and the words fall out of meter

just to make it sound like it was about me

2

if you write about me

don’t color me in

show whoever listens

my smile as well as my teeth clenched

my soft gaze as well as my glare

because if you don’t love me then

then I don’t know what you’ll do

so if you write about me

make sure your meter’s cut short and your

sentences chopped in pieces

not because I appreciate my chaos

but because I need to make sure you know

what I am

[solace-on-scrap-paper]

Love vs. Time

We only live so long

We only can say so much

We only have so many hours

We only so many sunrises, sunsets

We only have so many I love yous, which

is a shame because right now I’m looking for

someone to waste them on

and if we only have so long

I’m running out of I love yous

And even if I live for eighty more years

I need someone who I can say I love you to

Like it’s my last breath

Because that’s who I am

[solace-on-scrap-paper]

Voyage

I wish I could take a pilgrimage

to your soul

stay there a while

learn all I could

just be inside your mind

until finally I return home

to miss my voyage

more

[solace-on-scrap-paper]

Chess

Sometimes when I play chess

I make the horrible mistake

of pretending the pieces are real people

White pawn, d4. The vanguard. The first to experience the field.

Black pawn, d5. A standoff. Both unable to leave their trenches.

White bishop. f4. The preacher leaves its king’s side. Is it practicing what it preaches? Is it going to spread hypocrisy? We might never know.

Black pawn, e5.

You can almost see the kings smiling smugly. Ready to sacrifice their armies to gain a position to sacrifice more armies. Why? To protect himself. Willing to sacrifice his queen to take revenge. I can’t take it.

White king, resign.

It’s best not to think too deeply. Kasparov and Polgar weren’t butchers, weren’t villains. They’re just humans who never made the mistake I made.

[solace-on-scrap-paper]

Origins of a Poem

((I hit 28 followers. 28 is a perfect number, which is a geeky thing to know, so here’s a geekier poem. If you couldn’t tell from the last few sentences I kinda need some inspiration. Anyway, enjoy!))

Look at this

God puts a singularity into motion

(Or maybe she doesn’t)

through an interstellar chain of events

and just like that

a cascade of rolling dice

Particles randomly bump into each other

and before the universe can get its head together

there’s a star a planet and an ecosystem

and instants later humans to walk it

to breathe it own it destroy it cherish it

Before natural selection can react we

put our collective foot in the door and start

discovering it from the beginning

Copernicus sees it, Kepler explains it, God lets it unfold

and centuries later we sit here

realizing

the universe is too big for us not to think about it

every particle came together so you could read this now

How can you not stand back and think about it?

[solace-on-scrap-paper]

Scrap Paper Stories

((I made this one for thatrandomprompt’s weekly writing prompt. The task was to use my url in a poem, and it was very inspiring. Enjoy!))

Looking through my old papers

My solace on scrap paper

It’s a journey through my soul

Doodles of cats

Make way for math

Make way for songs

Make way for poetry

I’ve never kept a diary

but it’s easy to tell what I was feeling

when I wrote each page

The days when the page looks like spilled ink

The days where calculus coexists alongside love songs

Doodles on the back of history quizzes,

Unfinished stanzas murdered by a pencil breaking

The reminiscing is good

And now I remember why I call my scrap paper

my solace

Because when I write on here

It’s for nobody’s eyes but mine

And there’s a peace in that