Syeeda

Deary Gypsy Queen
is it now that I must pay for my sins?
I trusted you and I loved you
and yet you still make be who I've been.
You run around screaming for change,
but you can't see yourself any clearer.
I promised this time it would be different,
and yet I still see you in the mirror.
I should have known how this felt
because you always make me late to feel
but I can never lie to him
you lie and wreck.
you suck the nectar from all flowers
and breathe kisses sweet
but loving a man my darling
will still be your biggest feat.

SITB

Change

I don't know how we got here
But I remember the journey
your velvet hand of crimson
I never wished to be your lover
and now your ghost's smile
in the middle of winter
in the middle of june
I wonder do you ever see my face
when you look up at the moon?
But that was long ago,
and I used to cry for what I had
Now I don't even miss it,
not even a bit.

SITB

I asked him once what he'd done with her
the girl in the looking glass
the one the sandstorms thundered over
but all he told me was gibberish and said
and said, one day I'd understand
I watched her closely, trying to watch her magic
trying to pick up on her mistakes, so that they'd
never be used against man again.
And then another came along and there was my chance
I put everything into a tin box and burried it under his bed
and when everything smelled like roses
it poured fire, and that box came back to me
broken.
Before I could fix it I tried to give it to another,
so fragmented no one could grasp it
and sin just leads to more sin
and when everything was said and done I sat there with my box
but wasn't sure if it belonged to me
anymore.

SITB

Yours

You define the colors for which sunrise is so infamous.

Your curls are the helix’ of my genes,

Wrapping your way around my being.

Your eyes are the jewels I look at in windows,

Wondering if one day I’ll be lucky enough

To hold them as my own.

Those fingers, unlaced from mine,

Hold the answers to ancient mysteries,

Untying the knots of wrongdoing and regret.

Your laugh is too rare,

Unexpected on the breeze of a pastime,

Sprouting aromas of cinnamon and cut grass.

Yet, I am wary in my metaphors,

For in my description of you,

There is only a translucent reflection.

You do not belong to this world,

But instead sing to me

Of your capture of its perils,

Glossing my existence

With your surety of purpose,

And your hesitance to shine

In the spotlight of my adoration.

But I promise to light you with all the hues

I’ve gleamed from your smile,

Wow you with the melodies

I caught off your sighs,

And show you the reason

For my gapes and my stares.

Forgive me my gapes and stares,

But please listen to my testimony.

This is your poem.

CLR

Pizza

Sweetheart don't you know I'd go back to then?
A heartbeat away, a drunken kiss, warm covers.
I'd walk out the Charleston just to bring you home.
To bring me back to you, I'd re-write your broken smiles
If only it were for a while, I'd be everything you need.
To say I'm sorry is not enough, but my pockets have long been
full of sand, and my eyelids wet with your dry talk.
How can you turn Flash into The Thing?
We are irrational beings, and so are our feelings?
The Fantastic Four elements, they cannot bring us time...
I'm sorry,
I'm not finished,
I'm not broken,
I'm just a baby,
just fragile.

SITB

You might not see it...

But if I could only dance for you.

If I could dance,
I’d changement your low expectations,
Arabesque them right through the glass ceiling
Of who do you think you are?
And
What’s so different about you?

I’d plier so deep,
Even the bottom of your disbelief
Would follow the grace of my knees,
Tracing the curvature of my neck,
Enveloped in the fire I’m spreading.

They always told me I was a jumper,
Pushing heights with my jeters,
Whisking tradition off my dance floor,
With each change of the ankle.

I could teach you how to walk,
Heel, Ball, Change. Heel, Ball, Change.
I could teach you how to walk,
Hip, Hip, Hip, Hip.
I could teach you how to walk,
Brush, Brush, Quiet!

I can teach you how to dance.

I can’t teach you how to spot,
Because I never learned to keep my focus on a single point.
I can’t teach you a split,
Because I never wanted to stay on the ground.

I can teach you how to feel.

I know how to fly.
To beat to the rhythm of eights,
With big hands pressing harder
On my already aching arches,
To spin with no fear
That I’d end up,
On the other side of the mirror,
Still looking myself in the eyes,
Seeing everything,
From the flames on my back,
To my sweat on the floor,
And my body unleashed,
For the catharsis
Of desire.



CLR

The Stand

She stood there
in the bad light
in the good light
waiting
and he stood watching her,
but not she
and the whole time I wished he were
watching me.
When Dawn broke, and
she said no
he waited for
her, his eyes aglow
he touched her face
the answer was another no
and then came the day when last and
certainly least,
he turned and smiled at me.

SITB

Once Upon a Stranger

Once upon a Stranger stole my heart.
And when it mirrored the very beginning,
He spoke to me about the very end.
I watch him carry it away, perspective,
making things smaller and harder to see,
until the very reflection of the mirror,
was taken away from me.
And every now and then I see a glimmer,
of him walking around, letting my heart shimmer.
I wait for the day for it once again to be mine,
and for the day it for him, no longer shines.

SITB

Dreamless (Inspired by SITB's "The Fear")

The want to want
Is the most American indeed.
The Dream, the Life,
Isn’t really what you end with,
But want you want along the way,
And how hard you can want it.

But what are we left with,
If young people woke up,
To the realization
That they’re too scared
To Dream a Life,
Let alone, live the Dream.

How would our arrogance fare,
If our kids, accidentally, learned
That not knowing, not Dreaming,
Valued equal with (God-sent) work,
And the world stills turns.

But the want to Dream,
Is that a Right, or a load?
What does a child possibly want,
Who has no dream of The American Life?

The Fear

The Fear

They tell me to run
they tell me to hide
they tell me to bottle up
everything inside.
But maybe that's too easy.

They tell me she's a kidnapper,
they tell me he's a crazed rapist,
the tell me they are the enemy.
But again, maybe that's too easy.

They tell me they hide in the shadows
They tell me they pray our souls
they tell me beware of the Black Man,
and Hispanic man,
or any man, for they are as dark as crows.

They tell me to fear Him
They tell me society is at war
They tell me condoms make girls into whores.
Really? But they say, buying makes this all go away.

They tell me that boys are dirty
They tell me the City lies
The tell me that we should be afraid of those,
of whom we call Queer.

These are moans and cries, of people suffocating from the fear.

SITB

What a Sap is My Dear Sweet Moon!

But where does the moon go on her day off?
What daydreams keep her shining?
Does she travel to places far and foreign?
Or sit with a sick Grandmother, congested with Novas?
Maybe she has a fling,
With that Sweetheart from Jupiter,
What was her name?
Maybe she takes off her uniform,
And falls fast into sleep.
Or maybe she’s at a friend’s funeral,
Weeping in silence, in the darkness she’s left.
Maybe she took a day to clean the Atmosphere,
Or to putt a few meteors in empty space.
Maybe she had to have dinner with the family,
Sitting in a circle that tightens as the girths expand.
Maybe she writes poetry about the places she visits,
And the quiet that falls when she’s up at night.
Or maybe, just maybe,
She sings a lullaby to a saddened child,
And rocks them to sleep with her sweet obscured smile.
And goes back to work the next day,
After very little sleep, smiling just the same.

My Special Girl

She heard a name,
it belonged to her,
or did it belong to me?
We'd become intertwined now, sitting on this hill, where the grass glows green.
I'm filled with her,
or is she filled with me?
We both share my mind, heart, and body. I am not done with her.
She called out,
Or did I?
Her voice was strangely but invitingly familiar.
My heart fluttered,
or was it hers?

The sun is low now, and she is almost done, a birth of the ages,
I sit here now, as she fills my pages.

SITB

Andrew

And then I remembered it all
after all these years,
your pompous snarl
the cries that escaped my tears.

Your eyes so bright and black
almost like water,
how I yearned to be yours
and hold the key to the golden daughter.

Your hands cream white
across the sands of time,
I remember your truth
wanting it to be mine.

I remember the pain you gave
too scared and scarred to see what you did
behind your eyes you hide,
behind me you hid.

The lies you held,
as I gave them life for you to tame,
you held them tight
the closest thing to me you held claim.

I remembered the betrayal
that both could see,
but now I understand,
it came from me.

I remember the things,
you begged me not to do,
I'll forget him,
but I'll always remember you.

SITB

Originality

I want to do something new.

I want to be different, but I’m just the same.

There are only so many words,

And I have nothing new.

So I will write what everyone else has written

In hopes that someone will read it,

Who hasn’t read anything else yet,

And I will be their First.

And they will want to do what I do.

And that will be the closest thing to new

I can ever do.



clr

X2

And then I left you there
cold and wounded
silent and sad
jilted and betrayed.
I said all those things that would make you cry
and you said all the things to make me think.
I was too stubborn to listen,
too smart to heed
and in the end
I know you loved me.
That was long ago
skies bloom grey
and I still wait for day that you will make me pay.
But I guess a broken heart at thy own hand is enough?
She sang our song and I wrote the poems and together,
we made magic
a blanket that healed and made me wiser
ready to try to again.
But this time I know,
it will be me who is
cold and wounded
silent and sad,
jilted and betrayed,
bound and broken.
Oh sweet joy.

SITB

Madam

Fourteen stones danced across his carpet
and fell at his feet
when she asked what they were for
he didn't hear her.
But said, "you can have any one you wish,"
and pointed at the diamond,
instead she asked for a kiss.
Three silk robed flew into the room
and fell at his feet
the gifts of his Mommy and Daddy.
He said, "you can have any one you wish,"
and she asked to sleep next to him,
to feel his laughter
and listen to his warmth.
Insulted he called her a whore, and ran into the night,
after a woman with a yellow lining.
She burned the stones and the robes, and went into the night to find a real knight.
One she could feel and not hear.
And when she caught a glimpse she ran, and she knew she made the right choice.

And I want this to be the last thing I ever waste on/write about you.

SITB

It was Sam, not Charlie

I wore my best dress.
My shoulders quickly went numb with anticipation.
When he entered, dressed like a gentleman,
I introduced myself.
I said,
I know we haven’t met,
But I recognized your gait,
And the way you look left when you walk.
He was startled, but said,
Nice to meet you,
Then, suavely,
I think we’re in for a long friendship.
I didn’t want friendship,
But the man before me,
Even from several meters away,
Looked charming.
So I danced that afternoon with him,
For hours and hours,
Until he drove me home
In his white carriage, with fur lining.
As I threw my dress on the floor,
And climbed into bed,
The only reassuring thought I had,
Was that Guilt was a man,
And not my great-aunt Helen.


clr

Chicken Scratch

It's sad now, but my heart is a drunken mess.
My mind is a drunken mess, with your picture swirled all around.
I wanna scream: this is stupid, this is ridiculous,
but, he won't let me.
I stumble here and I stumble there, waiting for the time
when I can finally gather my thoughts that are no longer mine.
They've lifted in air, hovering above, taunting and teasing
because they know I find this feeling almost displeasing.
It's strange, this twisted pleasure
all because I a smile that I do treasure,
has made me a drunken mess,
a head and heart full of sweet stress,
and so I wait for the time,
when I can gather the thoughts that are no longer mine.
And when I hold them close,
they will tell me the secret of love's chicken scratch.

SITB

Untitled.

I am not the captain of industry.
I am not the girl next door.

I do not dream of going to outer space.
I do not want to help the masses.

I can not rise above all my peers.
I can not charm the pants off of everyone.

I will not break the glass ceiling.
I will not play in the big leagues.

I refuse to do what I should.
I refuse to be whom I admire.

I have no hope for world peace.
I have no balls of steel.

I get no true joy from hard work.
I get no chances of a lifetime.

I own no true name.
I own no family money.

I feel no rhythm in my feet.
I feel no calling to a higher purpose.

I won’t respect my elders.
I won’t play nice with the other kids.

I am not who I want to be when I grow up.
I am not just a woman.



clr

the worst illness

Her sight is failing, it’s obvious.
Less and less is she able to see imagination,
Whether it stands on the horizon
Or stoops only inches in front of her face.
Her feet can’t hold her weight much longer.
No longer nimble,
Foregone prancing on moonbeams, soaring over puddles.
Her own gravity sags her smile
Like she belongs to the world,
Not the other way around.
She grasps anything she can
To help her keep her path.
She’s sick of flying, ready to land and settle her stomach.
She is a foreigner to this place,
And can't often recognize my face anymore.
She collided with a nasty cloud of worry,
And it has fogged her brain,
Obscuring her, fading her potential,
So she rests here to die.
Drifted from the flock, she comes to find peace.


CLR

Stupid Now

Stupid Now
I've gone stupid now.
I hate that poem I wrote for you
because it contains everything I once had---for you.
All the love I had---for you
and all the pain I suffered---for you.
And I hate that I can't even put it with the rest.
I leave it lonesome, as lonely as you made me feel.
I read it almost every week and feel it all.
I miss you, no,
I miss the love.
I miss those dark eyes that kissed my body to decode the braille.
I miss staring into them and seeing myself, seeing you.
I miss you, yes, but,
I miss the love.

SITB

Stupid Now

I've gone stupid now.
I hate that poem I wrote for you
because it contains everything I once had---for you.
All the love I had---for you
and all the pain I suffered---for you.
And I hate that I can't even put it with the rest.
I leave it lonesome, as lonely as you made me feel.
I read it almost every week and feel it all.
I miss you, no,
I miss the love.
I miss those dark eyes that kissed my body to decode the braille.
I miss staring into them and seeing myself, seeing you.
I miss you, yes, but,
I miss the love.

Peter

And one day,
when the snow falls just so,
I am going to say I love you.
I am going to want to hold you close.
I am going to want to kiss you and breathe
in everything you are.
And one day,
when the snow falls just so,
you are going to, I don't know.

SITB

Mad Illusionist

Why is it always her?
Her silence beckons when it should warn me off.
That fake smile makes me yearn,
Stronger than my own awkwardness.
When she yells, I read it as no need for formality.
When she’s not there, I don’t quite know
What to do with my shoulders.
After I see her, I turn up my music
To drown the shaming thoughts of
I shouldn’t. I can’t. I’m awful.
Then I think,
But I don’t. And I won’t.
And she doesn’t know.
In an hour I’ll feel like a stalker again,
Checking my inbox
On all six email accounts.
Even checking the spam,
(Though I’ve saved her addresses. All three.)
Hoping for a
I thought about you…
Or a
I forgot to mention!
And Mr. Hyde resurfaces.
Despite efforts to center my soul,
I look at her telephone number.
She’s far from here.
Not too far that I have an excuse to forget,
But just enough that it’s weird.
I imagine her day,
And how orbital I am,
Always hovering around her life,
But never actually entering it,
Or making a crater.
(Not for want of trying)
It seems too long for me to pine
Self-loathing spawning
With each day,
Month,
Years now.
How sad, they all must say.
Those who know, that is.
Which is more than you might think.
I push myself to seek solace,
Onto boys and girls that seem removed,
That seem figureheads.
Distractions, from what I’d rather do.
And that’s dream about her.
About you.
Yes, you.
It’s been about you for some time.
And I hate you for that.
I’ll always love the dream of you,
But right now,
Today,
When I blast the music from speakers
Twice the size,
I am Jekyll,
And I wonder where this time has gone,
What I’ve done,
And what I’ve created,
Inside my own, damn, mind.



CLR

Remind Me

A brittle conch reminds me of an ancient world,
One reflected in Novas billions of light-years away,
While the present is momentarily lost.
The salt in my lungs and under my eyelids
Keeps the soul dry and plump.
The drum of the ocean,
Like child’s splashes in a giant bathtub,
Toddler giggles soothing anyone to surrender,
Sometimes cranky, sometimes calm.
Puppy footprints that swerve to and fro
Remind me of loyalty
Remind me of togetherness,
And the infinity of the shore.



CLR

Don't Worry.

And then we ran,
Ran like snow drifts,
Tumbling and stumbling
Laughing at the moon!

But that’s not how the story goes.
It looks like this:

You smile, and leave.
I say nothing.
I leave, too,
Left with no choice
But to come back tomorrow
And do it again.

It’s not like smoke, or a dream, or anything.

It’s just that sometimes. Sometimes,

I want to say I love you.
But I won’t. Don’t worry.




CLR

Horseshoemeatonastick.

For that matter, I don't understand you more than
horseshoemeatonastick.
I don't understand why you expose and hide.
Why you kill and revive.
Why you cry and laugh,
and why you whisper and scream.

You dance everyday only to fall,
and cut your roots away.
You tug on flowers until the wilt and then
come back when they are alive again
I don't understand you more than horseshoemeatonastick.

SITB

YoYo

We go up and down like waterfalls and salmon.
bears ripping through us.
and no one cares if you make it or not.
seriously, no one cares.

Outrages.

So outrageous
that you cry outrage
I cry stupid
and now your the only one in your cage.
I cannot deal with shit anymore
you scream whatever, and call everyone a whore.
But I'm not the one selling my emotions for a price,
I'm not the one who strips when the clock strikes thrice.
I am a solid stone who knows where she stands.
And in her life she needs a real friend, a real man.

SITB

Trigger

Its contagious and stupid
and yet I fall for it every time.
So intoxicating and putrid,
you make me want you to be mine.
But at the end of the day,
I cannot match your price
and so I go and listen to his words,
sipping on wine made of rice.

SITB

We Will

Thrown from the ocean,
stones and grit in our teeth,
scraped stomachs,
and sand in our suits,
we will hurl ourselves
into the combative waves once more,
until we,
too,
become thoughtless,
fearless,
water droplets,
identical and indistinguishable
from the entire ocean.

Sadness

I can draw happiness.
I know how passion manifests for me.
Hope has a specific color.
Anger is a forte in my work.
Lust is ever present in my brush and pencil.

But I don’t know how to paint sadness.
I try and try and try, but there is no image
For such a devastating feeling.
I brainstorm form and color for raw humanity
But nothing looks like that being.
How do you draw, paint, sculpt, print, color, etch, photograph sadness?

I’d really like to know.
If I could create sadness, it would become something outside of me,
Not twisting and clawing to out,
But asking for acceptance and recognition from the anonymous.
Sadness would not be mine, but ours, there in the world,
Not just my perceptions.
And I could say, so THAT’S what it looks like,
Feeling somehow complete by my ability to define this creature.

Suddenly, when I feel its looming blindness setting in,
I can remind myself of its physique, its smile, its posture,
And it will be like visiting an old friend.
We will converse, and part ways,
And I will not be haunted by name of him,
Just on the tip of my tongue,
Always out of reach.



CLR

Who's my mama?

Who’s my mama?

Who’s your mama!

My mama wears all black.

My mama walks with her kind
In a straight line.

My mama has a small office.

My mama gossips about the people she works with.

Who’s your mama?

‘Cuz my mama reads for fun.

And my mama teaches kids like me,
To teach kids like you.

My mama writes curricula in her small office.

And my mama? My mama wears a powder blue hood and three stripes on her black robe.

My mama’s a professor, educator, teacher, helper, savior, Giver of knowledge.

Who’s your mama?



CLR

La Suerte (Luck)

Dreams sway amongst the fold of cloth around her waist.
Her shoes clack, beating a shiver down every watcher’s breast.
As jazz breathes life into her straining calves,
Her smile aches of a tale still burdened to silence.
A dragonfly hairclip struts one missing sapphire,
On hair that fears surrender to passion and fuddlement.
Whiskey-fumed kerchiefs are empty promises to her dry tears,
As she humors the manner her mascara has run from sweat,
Chuckling with the boys that fancy her a hoot,
And remind her of virginity.
They serve distraction from the liquefaction of her nerves,
And the disappointment rooted in her forceful, self-moralizing heels.


CLR

Misconceptions

Not all monsters are terrifying.
Some lay low, cowering in corners, waiting for the shadows to disappear.
Some just sleep, too discontented to reason their way out of solitude.
Others are mean, manipulative, but love their sisters.
Many gossip, sharing rumors of balding and tooth decay.
Each wanders, untrusting, to her own scene of fright,
Remembering Grandmother tales of monsters as romantics,
Wondering what made them emigrate in the first place.



CLR

Ode to "La Prodigiosa Tarde de Baltazar"

I saw my best friend walk a fence.
She hurtled up onto the first post,
Stumbling but laughing with each baby-step.
She grew more steady,
But the fence
Rotted a little more everyday.

Yesterday, I saw her fall.
She fell off that wood fence
By a push that came.
I don’t know from where.
No outer bruises on her skin,
But I may have felt a broken rib
Somewhere just below the heart.

I felt my rib to see the difference,
Only to find that
My rib was broken too,
But I never realized I was climbing
That rickety old fence,
Staggering along, too.



CLR

Potion

Back here again
to this place with no voice
and yet my heart makes the same choice
where I see you
You see me
we are running in different light
and so it's hard to see
that love for you is growing inside of me.
I'll write this here
because to you it means nothing
to me it means everything.
To different lights two different speeds,
but I want you to know, I could be anything you need.
And the day you see it, I hope it's not too late.
Because I'll go back to that place again,
with another clean slate.

SITB

Miss You

She's been lost lately,
she cannot find her ground.
Each tear falls,
without her whimpering a sound.
She thought it was one thing,
but finding it didn't fix it at all.
I miss you.
For the little girl who's feet used
to beat on your soft haven,
to where her blood spilled
when she no longer needed training wheels.
To the place that taught her everything.
I miss you.
A hole so large, yearning for the whole.
Where everything comes full circle.
She pants trying to remember what two years has taken from her.
Her heart,
I miss you.
And though not too far, far enough you are,
to the point where she feels silly.
For she no longer has a home there, but you will always be her home.
I miss you.

SITB

When-

When you’re breath mists in the rain
I know you think of romantic abroads.
When you smell the hot, splashed pavement
I know you dream of foreign cobblestone.

When snow dribbles in you headlights,
I know your thoughts gravitate on me.
When the Jersey wind barks its loudest,
I know my embrace consumes your attention.

But when the daffodils temp the dogs,
And the fields smell of new sod and mulch,
I know I’ve lost your focus to the breeze.

You can never be grounded, and that’s the allure,
So, this May, when you’re dreams wander to alleys afar,
I’ll, too, let my love soar on the crest of the Phoebe.



CLR

As My Paint Peels

By and by, I drift and sink with heavy bilge,
As I gulp, spitting waves that carry me,
But too many sweep me drunk.

As I drift, my wood rots like yours,
My grain gains character, soul,
And leaks through the same seams.

Our hulls made from the same
Wild, ancient, twisted tree,
Nourish the same pests within.

So, though I know you crashed and drowned
Upon the glistening rocks of my shore,
I too, compass that journey,
Scoping and loving and losing myself
In the skies and song that led to your end.


CLR

Croakus

Do flowers worry when they bloom or die?
Do they yearn and wish for brighter petals?
With children plucked, do grown blooms wail and cry?
With time to think, what ideas do they meddle?

Can roses be romantic like you or I?
Is their color like a finger’s mood ring?
Can they yearn for seasons not yet gone by?
Do they find ecstasy in the cool wind?

It’s people, who hurt and love and believe,
And it’s people who change and learn to fly
And it’s flowers that people love to pluck.

Like dirt and wind, it’s emotion we need,
To feed our queries of how, where, when, why,
And longing ours to bear alone, such luck…



CLR

Ringlets

Twisting me,
Bouncing me,
Spinning me,
Dancing, and entrancing me,
Whirling, and twirling my heart,
Captivating, and motivating my passion,
Caressing, and expressing my joy.
All in a bounce, a bob, a look this way.




CLR

Grasping Space and The Thousand Senses

I can still feel your touch.
Your smell envelopes me.
The back of my eyelids breathe your sight.
My lips still taste of you.
And yet, all these things I cannot feel.

SITB

Stream

I cannot remember anymore what is yours and what is mine.
I look down this stream, and it provides no answer.
Only the fish speak, and only then can I see,
What belongs to you, and what belongs to me.


SITB

Dream

I walked through the rain today
But that didn't matter
Your nameless taste
was washed away

I could see everything
so soft and bright
I cried deeply
Because joy and pain began to sing

The night you came
the night you left
all was similar
And somehow you made me face the pain

But in facing it I smiled wide
for I was healed
you made me realize
my ignorance had died

SITB

Upon Meeting My Match

I have no name for you.
I have no idea where you came from.
I have never seen a smile sparkle like yours.
I have no sense in loving you.

You have no words for me.
You have not seen me staring.
You have no recollection of our meeting.
You have no sense in acknowledging me.

We have not shared our smiles.
We have no more awkward moments left.
We have not stayed in the same world.
We have no sense in embracing the other.

They have not dreamed what we’ve dreamed.
They have no such charm as ours.
They have never seen our Wonder World.
They have no sense to think of us at all.

I am you.
And You may be me too.
We are nothing.
They don’t think about you or I being,

But we might have been.

Strawberry Shortcake

They labeled me Strawberry,
But I’m more of a Cherry.

My bouncing red waves,
Hid well my bitter aftertaste.

With pungent sweetness,
I rise to only the most vivid fruits.

The strawberry is smooth,
Seedy, sweet, but immemorable.

A cherry, now, is attitude.
When one eats a cherry,

they linger on the bittersweet

taste,


for days.



CLR

Lackluster

No one is suppose to meet
Just the hue of my crazy beat.
Ferile and dank, locked, you see
In a wood box, thrown to sea.

But washed ashore, faded gild,
My crazy gave you quite a spill.
Once you peep my common swill,
Will you run, or love me still?


CLR

Out.

Because I always go the wrong way
I will suppose this means nothing
But you're too bright for plain Jane
With a humor tooth
A smile too wide
a laugh too loud
and a heart too quiet.

SITB

Street Car

Drips on a nape
flinch of finger tips
burning of a throat
laziness of an eye.

SITB

Closed.

Hearts closed but still beating
my tongue's written words it keeps repeating
but you and I are not to be
unless we seek tragedy.

There was a small chance long ago to last
but that's been swallowed by the past
The only cure is to move on
and stop playing the same old song.

Dizzy with nonsense and another
The only way is to be my brother
and truth be told there will be another him
so its time to stop singing your hopes in a hymn.

SITB

Ode to an Old Friend

Silence is not empty or flat.
It’s Chatter that cools fear,
Bubbling it down, until there’s no chance of spillage.

We talked best
When we were silent.
They used to say they couldn’t understand,
That we must have a whole language in Silence.

But they got it wrong.
We didn’t talk in Silence,
No word by word choo-choo train.
We listened to the same nothing.
Relaxed, into the amazing
Reverberating echo of that nothing.

I said nothing.
You said nothing back.
We swallowed silence in gallons.
In oceans.
In big bangs.
In silence, we had power.


Silence, now,
I fear will dissolve my voice forever.

I think you talk too much, now, too.



CLR

My Daydream

A little prose...



I’m haunted by the flashes of a life unbeknownst. Stalked by its peremptory hold over me. It lurks behind each thought, every fear, all my smiles. It follows me in the path, through my classes, and curls up inside me each night in my bed. Lived, unlived. The experiences it’s had transcended upon me, like the Giver, stronger than my own, more dangerous. His smell lingers in empty space, forgotten details of a life remembered, usurping energy not his, leeching onto someone else’s nostalgia and fantasy, making them sicker and more delirious. I have become him. He has taken me, and my life is his. My only respite is his extraordinary ability to exhibit to me the most trivial, precious elements of my life, through a crystal ball, almost letting me feel, but catching me before I hit the water on my belly. He guards me now, and I am his.


CLR

(Untitled)

Love can hang like icicles
Dripping, growing
With every melting droplet
Of my fear.

Stacked in chaotic pattern
Beaming, golden
Calling joy to ring aloud
From each child.

Colors mimic melting rays
Warming, spinning
Around in a captured dance
To catch you.

Love grows like me, like children,
briskly, obscured,
Until it bumps your head as
You stand sure.


CLR

My Palma Chimes

Dulled, permissive,
Hanging
One, Two, Three

Layers of gilded tear,
Oblong clangs,
Falling silent

Against the still
Harsh
Calm.


CLR

The Song of the Moon

Wide awake, the restless moon
Shone and sang its bright white ring,
Casting shadows long and purple,
On every silent flapping wing,
On each tucked in, dreaming child.
Playing while the whole world sleeps.

Yet, one small child does not sleep
For he gazes up to the white lit ring.
Ghosts and rumors haunt this child
His only reprieve the song of the moon.
He rests safely under its wing,
Living his dreams in shadowed purple.

Sureness mounts ever in the purple
Haze of night, when strangers sleep.
Year by year, out spout wings,
As he dances, swaggers, in midnight’s ring,
Learning the luring song of the moon,
Creatures run wild, but no sleeping child.

‘Til one day, he’s no longer a child
And all he lives is the world of purple.
Child to the seductive moon,
He knows not the world of sleep.
Yet on he dances in his endless ring
Flapping forever with his useless wings.

He thinks, these are my wings!
I no longer need the dreams of a child!
So he dances his dance, in his last ring
And preys on his world, purple
With quiet, lonely with others’ sleep,
He glides from a lovely capture, His moon.

The song he learned from the moon
Now sprites from his silver wing.
Heaviness on him weighs from sleep,
His body shrinks, fragile as a child.
As he wakes, he sees no purple,
But the song in his ears still rings.


CLR

“Adulterous Sentiments”

By Syeeda Briddell

“Dance with me,” these were the first words you said
By my heart I let myself be led.
I should have known though, a dance is never just a dance
And from his arm I steal a glimpse at every chance

“Walk with me,” and you took my hand
I felt so small in your loving land
I should have known though, a walk is never just a walk
And so now when I look into his eyes, guilt burns my throat like swallowing chalk

“Run with me,” and you held me so I wouldn’t fall
A fool was I, for answering your call
For a run is never just a run
And so, my feelings for you couldn’t be undone


“Come with me,” to words spoke so softly I had to say no,
It would be wrong of me to be his, and let my true feelings show

Done. Finished. Terminated.

They all mean the same thing:
Done, Finished, Terminated.
Its too late to hold you.
Our time has drifted by,
and our lives hardly mingle.

Done, Finished, Terminated.
Still these words lie to my heart,
the same way I lie to you.

Wasted on the Youth

Back then I was silly,
a girl whose smile was too wide
I let their whispers hold tight of my pride
and so we never were.
Years later as I walk by your side,
a girl from the truth, she cannot hide
For years what I have known, on this page I will confide,
I love you.
Syeeda Briddell

Guttural Adolescence

Bones.
Saga.
Freckles pucker.
Seasonal pungency.
Aches connive blood flow.
Mashed impetulance crinkles.
Mozzarella-tugged resistance.
Bouncing naïveté.
Two sunflowers.
Twitch.
Estranged.


CLR