the Fall.

I wrote a love song
to cicadas once
on the wings of an airplane
let the clouds take my wishes
and swallowed my breath
kept it hidden
in ink covered sheets
letting them drown
in serenity.

In the quiet down, I recovered
the leftover footprints
blown across continents
sand trapped glassware
carrying imprints
in William Sonoma shells
I can hear the echoes
of our tell tale hearts

“I love you. I miss you.
I will never forget you.
Forever.
Forever.”
Forever.
A promise — the kind that blows
gently rustling leaves, scraping fall
over rooftops, into gutters

Pacific wind that holds
mirages of our images
hand in hand, building sandcastles
with white picket fences. A little boy
and girl, whispering,
secrets hidden in
the Morse code of cicada wings
as they serenade Summer into fall,
fall into Winter. Wind blown sheets,
pillow forts and pillow talks

Future scented nostalgia.
Honey suckle candles,
Lavender kisses
and front porch swings.
Our brownstone conversations
step-swaying to cicada hums
under darkening skies
in shades of romance, blossoming,
the fall leaves.

Every love song sounds the same
when dulled by the roar of the airplane.
The endless clouds, the blanket silence
bridging past to future
future to infinity. Endless right nows
collecting
in the infinite skies
that stretched serenity
can feel inconsequential.

Love & Other Metaphors

I have started journals with
“I met someone”, decorated in tears,
ersatz heartbreak the colour of blue
painted his eyes in Van Gogh starry nights
and chased highs to forget the blows.

I have tasted champagne on his lips,
strawberry tart and regret bitter,
strange emptiness that spreads
through all the crevices he touched
and all the un-nameable places
where Sadness has parked.

I have started poems with “I think I’m in love”,
spelt with flowery language and rhyming couplets,
pantomiming at relationships, flourished
and embellished by checklists, one, two, three,
fall.

fall, fall, fallen. Before I really knew
Love was more than just a consolation,
more than the sum total of selfish desires,
before I realized that touches didn’t need
to translate into poetry.

I have never said, “I met myself”, but this time,
in the rain, in the heat of summer,
in the height of reckless abandonment,
I did. I met myself
and I am glorious.

---

This piece first appeared on Medium, written & published 092517. If you enjoyed this, please head on over there & hit the “claps” button.

You can also check out / follow @CharlleyThen for more of my poetry / prose. 

Nature v. Nurture

an open poem

When I was 16, and so young
I said my favourite colour was blue
because I did not know that there were
other types of girls, and that it was OK
to be different.

On a school trip then, we hiked
several mountains up, too close to the skies
and I tasted the stars, shimmery and sweet,
against your neck, your still-boy-almost-man stubble
burning, burning, burnt

Whiskey sweet, devouring
every inch of my being, I felt the wait
of a million worlds, constellations that crissed-
crossed, always crossed,
star lovers.

Now, at 25, a quarter of a century
older, I say, I’m sorry I never loved you better.
I did not know, then, that there were
other types of loves,
and that it was OK

that the stubble-burn you left
on my burgeoning skin never quite satisfied,
never quite tasted right. I wanted
the burning death of sun-kissed cheeks
and velvet skin, smooth and warm

in ways I didn’t know how to articulate,
and it’s taken me years, of burning,
of almost dying, of imploding
of spinning without knowing, to know
that my childhood books lied.

Now, I know
exactly where we are
in the universe, and it is full
of stray thoughts and
loose ends.

But I do not know, yet
how to express
myself. How to do this, because it is not Math,
it is not a constellation,
it’s a fucking rainbow

and I know now, that blue
is a warmer colour. I know now
that it is OK, but OK is not quantifiable,
not justifiable
for who I, simply, am not.

---

This piece first appeared on Medium, published by Poets Unlimited.

Thanks for reading the first new piece I’ve written in a while.

Love & Other Short Stories

It’s not that I can’t love you anymore,
it’s that I don’t want to.

The days trickled into years,
unravelling the tapestry of our limbs

Casual snippets snipping
— snapping —
the last threads of us.

The future looms, as it does, as it always will.

Your tender eyes were a dropped stitch
weaving tales of fantasy and love.

I guess you wanted a Princess,
or some form of Juliet
to lie prone in your arms

but my warrior heart blanketed yours

and you learnt that
not all Beauty is created fragile

and I learned that
not all monsters are men.

Some are sweet little boys
with charming smiles, eager 
to ride off on white stallions.

---

This piece first appeared on Medium published by Poet’s Unlimited. For more of my prose and poetry, check out @CharlleyThen

Entitled

An abecedarian poem.

source

All my life, I’ve
Battled with the
Consequences of being an only
Daughter. Taught to stay silent,
Eclipsed by emotions
For a son, constantly belittled.
Going through the motions, I ran,
Heart pounding, head hurting,
Intentionally sidelined, constantly
Just shunted and told to
Keep it all in.
Let it all go, like
My emotions don’t matter.
Nobody tells you it doesn’t get easier.
Over the years, I’ve struggled.
Pondering the differences,
Quintessentially different, in
Relation to my relations,
Stirred the pot, was the rebel.
“Thoughtless, headstrong, independent”, all said
Under condescension,
Veneers of self-importance,
Waxing prose of familial intent,
Xenophobia expunged: too little, too late.
You begin to believe what the
Zealots espouse — you’re never good enough.

---

Thank you Tamyka Bell for introducing me to yet another cool poetic form. ❤

---

C. Duhnne for Poetry in Form.

Winded

Damp coldness
blows by
with the scent of wildflowers
dragging up pieces
of past
with that single scent
i remember
blueberries, tossed high
into the air, falling
gracefully
into open mouths,
caught.

The feeling is stuck
inside my chest where
the helplessness lies
and my breath catches
hard swallows won’t dislodge
that panicked loneliness:
swells
and I am blown away
by the scents
bowled over
by the hay-fever inducements.

it rises
like a phoenix
every so often,
the dying embers of
winter heat
breathe deep
— inhale the promises
from yesterdays, pass —
It creeps
through sluggish veins,
memory keeps
hurting most

when the dreams come,
it is all I can do
to not run. Trapped
quicksand feet
encased in cement,
the lessons learnt
through hard work and
hard headedness
to think happy thoughts,
but you can’t run.
In dreams, when you fall
you Never-land.

The scents come
in the rain
sleek wind blowing
coldness settling;
the last cold
before spring flowers
and I know, I know
about April rains. I know,
I know, I know, I know
of seasons passing
and time changing
and planes leaving.

I have tracked
the migration of birds
and tracked sand
from cities to suburbs,
and I have turned
tables and flipped books
and written sonnets.
I have never been so fine,
as I am right now,
but the phoenix calls
and I fall.
Caught.

Blueberry taste
bitter in the back
of throat
with cigarettes
and the out of season blues
melting
in the almost-spring
I spring away
like a phoenix, rising
I know that we can die
a million deaths and burn

firework bright, flares
and still be OK
in the end.
In the end, all that mattered
were the memories…
buried in the heat
with beers that cooled
from the inside out.
Molson stained laughter,
damp sand in my shoes,
caught.

Caught up in
a memory moment
flashes past. I crumple
from the views
of wildflowers, springing
forth and bringing
new light.
Pain; embraced
fairy-light memories,
touching arms, hooked,
so assured that
the rains will dry. Still,
Winded by
the scents.

---

This piece first appeared on Medium, published by Poets Unlimited. If you’d like to read more of my poetry or prose, you can find them @CharlleyThen.

“I have to let go because it will allow space for all that’s for me to show up.”

What perfect, beautiful sentiments. When Life carries you beyond your imagination and expectations, sometimes, you do have to let go of your preconceived notions, of your definitions of who you are. The stories will be there. The memories exist. That magic happened. But it is not the end. It was a middle. Let’s keep going.

I keep having this image show up in my head – a young boy, backpack on, opening up these big white doors and on the other side is the rest of the world. There’s a mixture of emotions right now. A part of me is incredibly excited to head back out on my adventure again.…

via The Doors I Am Opening — The Better Man Project

Day to Day Variables

loneliness descends
like a moth
fluttering in the hollows
where light breathes
and devours
all shards of self
esteem is a treacherous slope
sliding backwards
hands grasping
only emptiness
fingers tighten
desperation
fluttering against the torrent
of cresting emotions
varying daily
the subtlety of trying
the audacity of caring
the implicitness
of simply being
i tied my shoelaces
sat up
drinking in
sunlight that streamed
through open windows
catching dust
flying
and my thoughts escalated
i drifted
back into the hollows
existing

---

This poem first appeared on Medium, published by Poets Unlimited. For more of my poetry or prose, check me out @CharlleyThen

Again

A cinquain chain

it came
out of nowhere
a dying need to be
that flared for a second before
fading

fading
exhaustion drips
from souls: wearied, pushing
for some semblance of normalcy
retained

retained
like the feel of
memory words dripping
venomous tears, passionate pain,
some form.

some form
of love and art
disguised as a price for
consolations of the soul, burnt,
burning

burning
bright lights that flared
for a second before
the eclipse that ended it to
begin.

---

This piece first appeared on Medium, published by Poetry-in-Form. If you’d like to read more of my poetry and prose, you can find them here

Wholeness.

I wanted to miss you
with words
but my body rebelled.

Your ghost fingers triggered
murmurs and mirages
heated flesh and goosebumps
that belied truth.

You sank your teeth
into the hollows where my neck
flowed into collarbones and
quick tongue darting
soothed the pain.

I wish heartbreak came
with a manual,
easily overcome like
quicksilver that flowed, molten
through veins; lava thick

in distinct memory of sticky fingers
and closed thighs, pressed
shut for friction
never enough.

The hollow burned
through layers of guilt, rapt
in leaving and being
left behind.

You called me at night,
out of the blue, breathless at two
and I, I had no choice
but to answer you
and that voice
that continued to heat

burn, burn, burning want
negating logic, igniting
deep trusting and flashes of yearning
incoherent, translating
into some semblance of poetry
or maybe hate…

They say love is a passionate crime.

When was the love lost,
I remember only being
hole-some.

---

This piece first appeared on Medium, published by Poets Unlimited. You can read more of my words, poetry and prose @CharlleyThen