adieu

I closed my eyes and thought hard about what you didn’t say
Or what it is I thought I wanted to hear
Until I realized I had heard it all before
There were no words left to speak
The conclusion was evident in my mind and abundantly clear in my heart
I contemplated opening up for the sake of opening up
Rehashing the past for a moment or for 3 more years
Until I remembered who I was and where my loyatly lied
lied being the operative word for so long
but my loyalty now was with me
and my heart was on my sleeve
both where they belonged
Always now, with me
Adieu

subtle reminders

sometimes i have to remind myself who you are
when my eyes are shut and in your embrace
when i'm lost in thought and i hear your voice
startled to know delusion creates mystery in my own head
in my own thoughts
sometimes i have to remind myself who you are
when our lips are close and our bodies are intertwined
just in case i forgot

i listen to your words and recount my own memories
you feel things most dont
and make sense of time and pour your feelings on paper
and your view into a tiny box of light
when you smile your eyes light up
and when you whisper to me in a crowded room
everything makes sense regardless of whether I've heard you or not

life before death

life before death
so different than this indeed
you were here and I was someone else
but we all existed
where you are now I can only imagine
and who I've become I finally understand

poetry

my hands draw words that pour from my heart into space to reveal my minds wishes and wonders.. my soul is aligned within a realm only i understand..often i contemplate how and if i move you

i am where i belong

I doze in thoughts of you and wake to the sound of your voice. I visualize a world i have never seen, never known.. perhaps never to.. I wonder how it will be.. words like hope and faith keep me in the clouds only until reality pulls me to the ground and stomps on my head. In the distance I see a bright familiarity but it fades in and out. When i shut my eyes i see mountains and green trees.. i see two chairs rocking and sounds of wind.. i hear voices of small things .. little things.. children i presume and their laughter resonates in my space.. i shudder and wonder.. i wait in space .. my space and i am alone in thoughts and dreams and in angst at times, peace at others.. i repeat my mantra.. i am where i belong.. my destiny will come to be when the time is right.. or perhaps this is it.. this is where i will die and those around me with say 'this was her destiny' to be alone in dreams.. in space.. in her time.. in the meantime, i wait and i hope and i dream for the beginning and for the end and for everything in between

darkness transforms

In lightness I am blind with fear
In darkness I see hope
clearer than the cleanest glass
Dreamlike and silent
Intertwinded, I am spellbound
Remove the devil from within my skin and bring flames to my flesh
shed my tears until the ocean is all I hear and the sky is covered in blue and stars become my eyes
drive the devil to his death, rid my soul of his hold
cure my pain
In lightness I am blind with fear
In darkness I see hope
Dreamlike and quiet you uninhibit me
Far beyond these walls I see shadows of light
create images of hope and the ocean is all i hear
the sky is covered in blue
my soul is free and i move with you in symetry

liars and thieves

Remember when we first met?
Nothing could tear us apart
but soon, i learned I didnt know how to be myself around you
and you weren't yourself around me
I lied and you stole and you tensed when I spoke
and when i cried you retreated
when i laughed you mocked me
Remember when we first met?
Nothing could tear us apart
Keep the drive alive you sang over and over
I picked out our linens
You introduced me to all your friends
But when I tensed you retreated
and when I lied you stole
and I cried and you mocked
and for a long time we lived in silence
until that day I left
I still remember the day we met
My gut told me to run
but stayed and eventually I made you cry

what is enough

For the moment all I have to give are words. Do they resonate your being and keep your faith alive or will they fall to the floor like drops of tears streaming from my cheeks. Who started the war between our hearts and virtue. Who broke the barrier between being and survival of separation. Who dared awaken the dragon and released him from his cage.

I am in the den of a lion. I tread in waters too deep to stand. For the moment all I have to give are words. Will my love fall short on deaf ears. You are surrounded by desire. Miles and miles away I ponder and pray they will leave you be. I silently beg for you to wait. In my kitchen of noise, my breath fails me, too deep in thought to understand my fear. Take me back, I scream inside, to the beginning or banish me from my fate. Amidst my longing and my pain I see my three little wishes and yet I can not stop my quest. To be or not to be. Who will get what they need and who will suffer at my hand. Still, I beg, please don't go . Stay and wait.. I have so much to give

I am scathed and I am bruised and the fight has only just begun. For the moment all I have to give are words. Will you hear them or will you let them disappear into the wind. Don't lose my gaze. I have so much to give. If only it was yesterday before I gathered up my three little wishes but, for now they will never leave me and it is me who can not leave them. For the moment all I have to give are words. Do they resonate your being and keep your faith alive or will they fall to the floor like drops of tears streaming from my cheeks.

Cycle of Broken Dreams

Lifes got a weird way of going on when all you want it to do is stop for a moment so you can gather your thoughts.. To remember what it was like when things weren’t the way they are now. The way you expected them to be.. the way you wanted them to be but didn’t realize it until they weren’t any longer. When everything fit together like a puzzle and breathing was easy..But times do change and people leave.. involuntary.. sometimes of their own free will.. disappear into the world of the unknown.. or just disappear.. things change..simple as that.. and life goes on and we reflect.. but reflection causes pain and not thinking causes nothing.. nothing equals empty.. but what’s wrong with being empty anyway.. what’s wrong with nothing.. who says we have to have ties? Why? Why hold on to things that change.. what happens now won’t change what happened then.. and then is just a memory.. And we remember and we cry and we hope for peace in our souls. A cycle of broken dreams..

Back to what it was

I watched it close, the flower that is. Little by little the drops of water from the rain disappeared into its core. And the once blooming bud slowly shut. The lightness which had become its center was swallowed up by its shell.. seemingly never to return. That’s what it looked like anyway. The deep redness we saw to be its color as a bud took shape once again, but this time the red was darker and wilted at its edges. brown and shriveled.. looking sad and alone.. I tried to imagine how it felt. To have become something so wildly beautiful, to have blossomed, to have taken a new, more mature shape. Hopeful and imaginative, seeing its future in a whole new light. This metamorphosis into adulthood and then, just like that, to digress back to what it was before, lost and small. But was I wrong? Had it happened overnight or is that how it felt.. was the transition to and from equal in time. Could it have been? What did it matter, it was over.. it was back to what it was.. I wondered how long its memory would hold its last state or if it would quickly trick itself back to before it knew grandeur and happiness, when it was full. I couldn’t imagine this happening to me. I didn’t want to imagine it but sadly the more I thought about it and the more I did the math, the more I realized I was there myself. I had blossomed. I had taken a glorious shape. I was part of it all and then just like that I was gone.. back to where I was before. The worst part of it all was that you were gone too. The dream of you, that was gone. And the answers to my questions were drops of rain on this page. I wiped my tears on my sleeve and I tried to listen closely to the background noise but I couldn’t hear a thing. The music was gone. You were gone, we were gone, I was gone. All that was left was the color red like a letter. So I did what I knew best, I sat alone in my place and I wrote this song.. waiting for the memories to fade

soul mate

I imagined it would happen in this way. A crowded room full of friends and strangers alike. Mingling words, unobservant of their meaning. Entranced by my thoughts, my chimerical mind recounting moments that sped my heart to its limits. Harmoniously unaware of worlds colliding around me tonight, I stare blankly at the creaking lacquered floors beneath my leather bound soles. Wonderously, I foreshadow my next dream. My presense here only in body. The physical distance between us substantiated this reality quite often. However, now I am awakened by a cold breeze against my shoulder. I shudder but feel warm. As if my broekn soul is on the mend. I look up and for a second am blinded. My dream before me. Our eyes meet and my heart stops. The lights above flicker. A smile covers my face. I walk towards you. Your embrace I feel next. Together now, was if we've never been apart.

The way it was

My clarity as to how it began is a bit uncertain. Too absorbed by the emotion to clearly understand its intensity. How friendship became intrigue and intrigue flipped a switch creating an open road of honesty and hope or how hope stole love and left us desperately in need of each other. How fluidity began a melody so serene and charismatic that obsession and temptation ate an entire orchard of budding apples leaving only our core. A rawness of discovery so deep and natural that to back away from it now would be punishably just in the world of eroticism. In a fervor similar to a needle penetrating ink deep beneath our skin in a color of the deepest black and blue and red causing damage immeasurable beyond repair.

I wait for you to find me again and again. The story continues over and over and I hope and pray it never ends. The repetition of words does not sour. They do not stray. Words do not fall short at their ends or disappear. They become stronger and brighter and more beautiful. They flow, they walk, they run to me, to you. Through the air and in the sky, clouds breathe this matter across ponds and tunnels and space. My words flow on this page and I cannot stop. I am illuminated and overbearing in my own thoughts. I am frightened by the power over me. You hear me, I know. You see me, I know... You and i are one, I know..

Long After The Separation

Do you think we'll forget, long after the separation that our hearts no longer belong to us. Long after you've returned to where it is you came from, do you think you'll remember that my heart still lives inside you and yours in mine. When either skips a beat, think we'll understand it is the shortness of breath across a world of someone silently losing life. Silently dying of a broken heart. Do you think we'll forget what love feels like, that an expression can be magnified by trust and understanding. Do you think we'll forget the pleasure we once created through embrace, through shed skin. How your core enticed me, your words illuminated me, your mind captured me and your eyes released me into our world, our freedom, ourselves to a place where we moved in ryhthm of my water and your air and fire didn't stand a chance. Think we'll forget that distance didn't severe us, circumstance did. do you think we'll forget that we can never love this way again before all hope is devoured or that we can never be free without each other, shackled by time, jaded by decisions. Do you think we'll forget each other one day..long after the separation.

the abandoners

The abandoners

What happened to us isn’t right
The way we just disappeared
One so soon after the other
It isn’t fair that a family of five can be three just like that
Or that I’m supposed to erase the emergency contact from my passport
The instruction was to use pencil
Now I know why
So I crossed out his number and I wrote ocean and next to that I wrote go fish
He is in the ocean after all
I use the words involuntary abandonment when I describe myself to myself at my weakest moments
They didn’t ask to leave me
They just did
It wasn’t their will to die
But they died
Their joint tombstone should read ‘abandoners’
Of daughter, of sister, mother, brother and friend
Do my words sound harsh
They ought to
This is me encased in self pity
Why should I suffer?
I suppose my tombstone should read ‘unwilling to believe in death'
Couldn’t accept the fact that they left her to she drowned herself in her own self pity
Sometimes I feel better than you
Because my pain is bigger than yours
I mock you in these moments and I feel special
But I know I am not special
The world is death
It is life and it is death
And all the world dies
In rage and in anger it falls aways
Sometimes in peace and hope
But new blood always blooms
When my self pity disappears I feel lucky
For peace was your ending
But still, in my world, no one dies
In my bubble of dreams we are all safe from the sky
I wish you hadn’t popped my bubble
Remind me not to thank you… Ever
Even after I remove the forks from my eyes and return to a state of understanding , I will still have no regard for you at all because what happened to us, isn’t right
The way we just disappeared
Because in my world, no one dies, in my bubble of dreams we are all safe from the sky and this, this is all just one big, fat lie.

Subway Ride

My memories are few
And they are far between..
But they are vivid and they are strong
And they’re mostly you

Like that subway ride
You’re in a navy pinstripe suit
You always looked so handsome, so confident
Around your neck, the playful Hermes tie I bought you for your 35th
I was always so proud to be by your side

And in this moment, you’re on the phone
Chatting away to someone on the other end
Closing a deal I gather

My funny faces finally get your attention
You smile, I giggle
Check.. I’ve made my brother laugh
And when you’re done we talk

About life and love and all things good
That’s the way we always were
Short and sweet and to the point
The depth was understood

And in this ride we discuss Michael, our brother and his upcoming nuptiuals
Michaels getting married first, we both laugh
Can you believe it ‘I say’
Who would have thought…

For the rest of the ride we’re silent
In our own aquarium thoughts
And I feel safe and im happy
Im with my big brother

This is a typical subway ride for this sister and her brother
Had I known it would be our last, I’d had ridden in that subway car forever

the scorpian

into your eyes
i look
my words form
i speak
soulful
real
you hear me
you understand
hold my gaze
breathe
the intensity sparks my thoughts
words flow
you entrance my mind
i feel
no fear
everything i say is true
everything i say i believe
i'm me
I know you
from somewhere else
in someone else
stranger
but closer
come inside
my head
my self
be here
for now
peace

Namaste

aware and present
the theme of today
your friends were there
in class
a nice surprise
i thought of you
the time we shared a practice
you were good
i see it so clearly
you were good at everything

change

aware and present
the theme of today
i acknowledge you are no longer with us
i lose my pose
i see your face
your eyes
your smile

change

aware and present
the theme of today
i try and run
i am stuck in tree
how can i feel this pain
dont make me feel this pain
aware yes, but not of you
present yes, but not in here
my mouth opens
out with my breath

change

aware and present
the theme of today
no one likes a quitter
come back
breathe out the pain
let in the hope
breathe out the tears
let in the love

change

I begin again
I am present
I am aware
I am with you

Namaste

under the stars in new york city

a room with black floors
flickers of light
i move to the corner
close enough now to hear you breathe
in an embrace you speak
your vunerability you say, i can not feed it
i have nothing for you but this
for me, I say with a question
I have not asked for a thing
but your honesty is accepted
expected
come closer
uninhibit me
take me out of me
for now
I am in now
be here with me
lost in this moment
higher
stronger
faster
rest
close to me a stranger lies
you have nothing to give me
i have nothing to hide
stripped of vunerability
I have never felt more at home

untitled - this poem came about after reading Deanna's status update.. the first paragraph is hers as is every other till the last line. hers as well

I will write over the lines you speak and speak over the lines you write and change the meaning of your silence and blank pages

For silence is full of words and blank pages scream in color. Your words have been erased from my page. The silence sits stagnant by my ear. In my head, all the nothing comes together. Thoughts blind my eyes

No longer able to see a trace of your pen upon my paper skin, I forget that you once designed my being and defined my everything

I find solace in the unknown road before me. The lines that are my skin will be my guide. Behind me, the path becomes unfamiliar as i fade forward. Ahead I see hope

Hope is all i need to disappear slowly and begin again

Written by Katie Chatzopoulos and Deanna Culbreth