Lay me down to sleep,
don’t wake me darling, this is all I need.
Familiar soul yet perfect stranger,
silky smooth and warmth entangle.
My heaven or my hell?
Through the raging storm impossible to tell.
This silent conversation is my only prayer,
this something in between wonder and terror.
Salty tears from hurricane eyes
flood us out with rising tides,
interrupt novel embrace,
our holy alter washed away.
Contrast is subtle
between falling and floating.
At last I can tell.
overwhelmed
in a void without an echo
sinking in the nothing
the lonely creeping closer
closed in by the empty
no exit to be found
finger nails mangle
repeating mantra
i don’t want to be here
anymore
Piles of half-written songs
hanging from my finger tips
can never find their endings
on my lips,
waiting for another voice
to help finish what i start;
fitting metaphor of me –
undone art.
Cold blue interrupted by soft white,
or perhaps the other way around?
Either way, the sky is not what it was
when we first gazed upon it.
A game for young eyes, we laid on grassy hillsides,
gravel roads, empty back stairways,
and named the shapes we saw in clouds,
however hard we had to squint to make them real.
And we were not at all that sad when
the winds whisked them away,
shifting their shapes to be brand new,
gifting us with more white against the blue.
How could we be sad when they were, after all,
projections of our hearts, beating on still?
We secretly welcomed those winds,
those breezes like long hugs,
which for us begat new shapes to name.
I miss them now, the clouds do too.
Nostalgia for a time when they were moved
into being by breaths stolen and returned,
and stolen again, like a song repeated
until voices worn and emotion depleted.
Now, the wind is still and they have
no shapes, no names, no enthusiastic eyes to gaze.
Soft white interrupted by cold blue,
or perhaps it always was the other way around?
Your smile
your real smile
(i can tell the difference)
lights up the room
every room
even ones you aren’t in.
Plucking off the dead flowers
might feel like giving up on them,
but they have had their time,
now are only blocking the sun
for the flowers that are yet to bloom.
Must clear the debris
for a stronger flower,
for the new, must make room.
Stranger’s eyes meet mine,
familiar essence to them.
Memory or wish?
Thought I saw you.
Like a house that’s shaped like home,
but the paint’s all wrong.
tried my whole life
to swim against the tide,
refusing to concede.
now, unlearning the struggle,
gentle with myself in
defeat.
tried my whole life
to breathe underwater,
atmospheres below.
now, unlearning the struggle,
teaching myself how
to float.
Terrah Holly Writes 