Love Is The Furthest Thing From “Simple”

To make it simple
(as if love were ever simple):
I’m a guy,
she’s a girl,
and like so many other attractions,
the guy fell for the girl.
And the guy couldn’t stop thinking about her
and the girl was always in his dreams.
And, like any other individual in love,
the guy pursued his interests.

But is love really that simple?
That little spiel does little
to explain the passion that I feel
the way she drives me wild with just a smile,
how she builds the fire
with a look from her beautiful blue eyes.
And it may say that I think about her all the time
and that she exists in my dreams
but it says nothing about how
she has a stranglehold on my daydreams and fantasies,
how my thoughts are wrapped around her fingertips
and how she’s locked away my heart only for her
and thrown away the key.

And I wanted her to love me just the same,
but that’s not my choice to make,
and I did everything I could
to try to push the issue,
to give myself a shot at the girl
that I’ve loved forever,
but you can’t always get what you want
and she told me that she didn’t think
she could love me.

But I don’t regret falling for such a perfect girl
and I won’t shortchange myself on these feelings,
because I never could have spent these last five years
any better.

Project 51: Day 36, #189                              05-31-07

Love, In Numbers

All I need is to just see you
and I’ll remember the last five years.
I’ll remember all 60 months,
all 1,826 days, all 43,824 hours
that you were in my thoughts
and in my dreams,
and in my heart,
and how I spent every waking moment
wishing you would love me,
wishing that, for one day, one hour, one minute,
we could share this fire
burning in my blood,
in my mind, in my soul,
everything that I built up from
all the times I heard your voice,
and saw the world you hide
from everyone else
in your eyes.
I’ll remember every last one
of the 2,629,440 minutes that
your name was written on
every level of my layered heart,
and how you held it together
like glue
when so many others
cracked and broke it.
All 157,766,400 seconds
will remain rooted to my heart,
and every number in ths poem
will forever continue to grow,
Just like this passion, this desire,
this love I have for you.
And true love knows no time, no numbers,
so even if you’re gone from my sight,
you’ll always have a piece of my heart.

Project 51: Day 35, #188                                                         05-30-07

A Lady In Red

She reminded me tonight
why I fell in love with her
five years ago.
All I needed to see
was her figure in that
stunning red dress,
and I lost myself in
another dream.

She was like my own
personal lady in red,
except she never danced with me.
She danced with her date,
and she danced with other guys,
but not with me.
I don’t blame her,
because I didn’t have the courage
to ask her to dance.
But wave after wave of jealousy
swept over me, when I saw her
dancing with him,
not because I couldn’t dance with her,
but because I could never be with her.

And she danced with her date
and I told myself how lucky he was,
and I felt sorry for myself, like I always do,
because her hands never seemed to be
free from his,
because I never got the chance
to feel so close to her
and yet so far away from my dream.

And that lady in red
reminded me why
it’s always so hard to say goodbye.

Project 51: Day 34, #187                                                                   05-29-07

One Kiss

It was only one little kiss,
not really passionate,
not really romantic,
not really meaning much.
At least, not to her.
But she didn’t know
how much it meant to me.
That kiss spun me into
a spiral of fiery passion,
into a fantasy filled only
with shades of red.
And, when her lips pressed against mine,
I was paralyzed.
I had no clue whether
I had been paralyzed
by fear,
or by lust,
or by both:
upon realization that one kiss could
drain the power out of my body,
I was afraid of the control she had over me,
afraid that she may take advantage,
afraid that she may pull away,
because, at the same time,
I lusted for more passion,
for more contact between her and I,
for more love to develop in this connection,
and I longed for a million more kisses to follow,
but there would be only one.
And as her lips parted with mine,
there was nothing left of her desires for me,
and, despite my heart screaming its desires for her,
she left me with nothing but a memory.

Project 51: Day 33, #186                                                05-28-07

I Have Nothing Today

I don’t have any inspiration today.
I can’t think of anything to write about
I have no imagination to recreate,
no daydreams to relate,
no buffer to fall back on.
But it’s okay, because
the bits and pieces of my thoughts
can make simple words
into an eloquent art form

Sure, I could write about
the best weekend ever,
but it’s basically a bunch of
“you had to be there” stories.

And I could write about
how I fell in love again,
but my heart doesn’t want
to live another hopeless lie
and a patchwork, one-sided romance
until it’s absolutely necessary

(…on second thought,
when is it ever necessary at this age?)

And I could write about
how long this summer is going to be,
and all the times I’m going to remember
about high school,
and all the times I’ll thankfully forget,
and all the things I don’t want to remember
and all the things I just can’t forget.

Sure, I could write about anything right now,
but the words won’t come to me,
and the lines won’t write themselves,
so you’ll just have to fill in the blanks yourself.

Project 51: Day 32, #185                                             05-27-07

11PM

I didn’t realize
that my interest in her
would multiply to such a degree
as it did today.
But, my God,
she looked so beautiful,
and I found that
I really couldn’t keep
my eyes off of her.

And in the wake of
a recent heartbreak
it seemed for a minute
that she was just a phase,
a replacement for a lost love,
but I could never treat it like that,
because I could never believe such a cruel lie.

And my heart flailed wildly,
fighting,
resisting,
pushing away this development
of feelings for her,
but her green eyes, like any other girl’s, get me every time,
and, finally, I let it consume me,
I let the feelings take over my heart,
I let her fill that hole left only for a love,
I let myself daydream about
her long brown hair flowing into my face
as she leans down to kiss me softly,
daydream about holding her in my arms,
loving her with what’s left of this shattered heart,
daydream even though it was 11PM.

Project 51: Day 31, #184                                                05-26-07

Day and Night

It’s simple. Almost too simple.
Written down in
black and white;
“I don’t love her anymore.”
So many times I’ve
resigned myself to the thought
of saying it, and writing it,
shouting it out to the world,
just to make myself believe
that it’s the truth.

But that’s so far from the truth
that my hand rattles violently
when I try to write it,
and my voice falls to a whisper
when I try to say it,
and even escapes me altogether
when I try to shout it.

The quandary of this broken love is that
She can’t decide whether
she wants to love another again,
when she’s been hurt so much
and she can’t love herself.
But I never loved myself either,
so maybe we’re perfect,
maybe we’re meant for each other.

But the daylight axioms are all
she understands—
she can’t find the meanings in
these midnight idioms that I’ve published.
So she could only love me when the sun shines,
while the nights are spent cold and lonely.
And I’d rather we split the difference
so that the nights felt a little less nightmarish.

But I’m not going to
just say that in plain Greek.
That oxymoron might make too much sense.
Maybe the eloquence of English
or maybe the finesse of a romance language
will confuse her, and she’ll believe me,
and I wouldn’t need
five million words
to mean the only four on my mind:
“I still love her.”

#183                                           05-26-07

Apathy Isn’t For Me

I don’t understand why I still feel this way
especially when she ripped my feelings from me twice
and left my heart for dead, bleeding on the sidewalk.
My mind still trips over thoughts of her
like cracks in the sidewalk, speedbumps in the road,
and I can’t find a way to extinguish
this fire that still rages in me.
I don’t want to love her,
I don’t want to hold on to false hopes,
I don’t want to relive these nightmares one after the next,
but there’s no one else to fill the hole
left only for a girl I would want to love.
So she still has her name carved into my heart
as if the knife threatened to kill every passion with one push,
but only stopped at small, patterned lines
that spell out the six letters of her name.
A name forever associated with hatred and tragedy
and memories of taking one step forward
only to take two steps backwards
and never making any progress.
I pleaded with Cupid to pull his arrows
and his love poison from me,
but, as mischievous little boys always do,
he just laughed and shot more arrows at me,
filled with more love for her.
I know this passion isn’t worth wasting more time on,
yet my time is wasted lamenting my poor decisions,
lamenting what she is, what she wants to be,
and what my mind wants to believe she is,
even though my mind could never accept the truth.

Project 51: Day 30, #182                                            05-25-07

Nobody Knows How Tired I Am

The alarm clock counts off the minutes
as I lay awake, praying to these sheets
and these pillows to let me go to sleep;
“I pray, let me fall into a lucid dream
and enjoy what little time is left in this night,
but don’t let me sleep for too long,
because I have things to do in the morning.”

Project PocketSize, 8, #181                                    05-25-07

Three AM

I stare at the ceiling
while the darkness surrounds me.
All I can hear is the fan blades
whirring, purring their sweet, sadistic melodies
into my ears. This realist nightmare
begins with your eyes popping in front of me
and one hand, clutching the handle of a dagger,
soon plunged into my heart to kill this love.

Project PocketSize, 7, #180                                              05-25-07

Questions Forever Left Unanswered

Where is my dream?
Where is the girl
that I’ll never be able
to get enough of?
Why is she so impossible to find?
And why do I always dream of her,
when I don’t know who she is?
Why do I find my mouth
salivating at the desire
for her lips to be pressed
against mine,
and why do I find my hands
longing to feel the warmth
of her soft skin?
Why do my arms aspire
to hold her forever,
and why do my eyes
search relentlessly for
the world in hers?
Why can I feel her hand in mine
when I don’t know if she’ll love me?
Why can I feel a connection to
a heart that doesn’t beat for mine?
How can I love someone
that could never love me?
Why does this love persist in my heart
when I don’t want to feel it?
Why do I still love her,
when she doesn’t know how to love?

Project 51: Day 29, #179                                                        05-24-07

Literal Reflections

When you look in the mirror,
do you ever wonder
if you are actually the reflection,
the wordless, mindless soul
staring through the glass
into the real world?

Project PocketSize, 6, #178                                                   05-24-07