SARAH MITCHELL
ARCANE LOVER
I’d break myself
Into a multitude of pieces
If that meant that I even be just a grain of sand resting on you
My arcane lover
THE BLACK MIRROR
There was a wind storm last night
That wrestled the past out of the trees
Of our shadows snuggled under the stars.
When the radio played “Fix You”by Coldplay
I felt threads in my chest close up to mend me under the Milky Way.
We swam in a black mirror
And hell squirmed
From the indelible beauty
Our souls swallowed.
We were that much further from the underworld.
THE TOOL KING WITH THE AMBER AMULETS
My head on your chest
Cemented
And your fingertips tangled in my hair
I taught you to waltz
In a tool shed
With incredibly sweaty palms
And amber glowing in your eyes
PUPILS
I knew it
when your eyes gaped open
and swalowed me whole.
...
when we are tree roots intertwined
I'm oblivious
to just how excruciating it is
to exist
without you to hold onto
STRANGER
Do you look for me in the stars?
Can you hear my prayers
Descending in the fog
Under the context of cicadas smiling in long grass
And birds cooing above your shadow cast by new moonlight
I have pleaded
With the Gods
To send you a map of my face
So that when you see me
You’ll recognize me
But I doubt you’ll know when you see my face
It’ll be in the moments that I capture your time
Like a child catches fireflies in a jar
I’ll stare intently into your bright eyes
And you’ll see me like no one else has before
Your laugh, although I’ve never heard it
Will be a butterfly’s echo running above the water through the deep canyons of my soul
I’ll wait for you
And carve new caves
Into myself
To fill fresh camper’s fires in the future
I hope your travels have been full of weeds and wildflowers, but mostly wildflowers
And I expect you’ll know
Most definitely know
When you find a wildflower like me
My love will not die
When I am finally gathered in your arms
SPACESHIPS
We took a spaceship to the sun
when we got out to explore
I kissed you there
and we
melted into each other
until we were atoms never to be separated
ANGELS
You sent angels to me
Ahead of the demons who whistled heartbreak
in my ears
BICYCLES BY THE BEACH
Do you want to ride bicycles by the beach
Forget their locks
And touch the reef?
Do you want to ride bicycles by the beach
Where lovers kiss and bird’s wings speak?
Feel the wind slow
And watch my hair go
See boats row
And sailors on the bow
There’s a place called Naples
And it’d be Christmas if you came with me there
Even in the middle of the summer air
So I ask you,
Do you wanna ride bicycles by the beach?
Over the bridges and crossing the streets?
THAT FENCE WILL ALWAYS BE BROKEN
Remember that broken fence my dear
The one that marks day one
It’s still broken in my heart
The sides are far apart
And even though they have cosmetically and surgically mended it
We know the splinters of our past
The ones that became tinder
To a fire that simply did not last
I think about that hill quite a bit
And I think about what has happened since
We have parted lips
And we have parted ways
But we have never forgot
Our favorite spot
Where sad songs follow
And laughter grows at each visit
JELLYFISH
tell me
something that makes you into a jellyfish
so clear
we could see a rainbow through you
share what makes you sting
and what makes you float to the sun
and don't make things up
because the more I sit beside you
the more I want to know
why you are
GOODMORNING
I'm jealous
because our hours are arranged
like jagged, misshapen, and abandoned
beer bottles
before target practice
on a peeling rusty fence
They are so far from each other...
I can't ever hang a goodmorning
on a clothesline
and slide it
into the frame of a window
for you to see
without waking you up prematurely
or breathing heavy brunch goodmornings
under my floating island's covers
oblivious to your day's noon
but, here's my attempt
sending a silent messenger to arrive
moments before
voices wiggle muffled enchantments
through
golden painted
breakfast chambers
sooner than footprints
infect your new purple snow
ahead of your vision
that will settle
on your perfect frame
in the mirror
I hope your eyes,
first thing
see goodmorning's beautiful curves
not as a robber of dreams
but as the chauffeur
of a day flooded with beauty, opportunity, good, and endless possibility
DIFFERENT
The way you look at me soon
Will be like a passing stream
That will never flow
As gently as the pond it was before
Because the way you look at me now
Is like the ground beneath your feet
It holds you steady
But you do not think that can be extravagant
And the reason I’m on the ground now
Is because I used to be that sunset view
High above the mountains
Peaceful piercing in the present
Changing colors with cloudy kisses
Why do I always fall
So quickly
And why do they always see me
Run so fast
LOVE POEMS
GOLDEN POWERLINES
I live for golden power lines
Somedays I want to
Take what looks like floss from far away
Tie it from my lazy palm to your
pine tree's slumber
Like kids tie string between tin cans
in the summer
and send radio wave whispers to your coast
Melted conversations
Soft waves crawling from my shore
to yours
The edges of your lips lie on
paradise mountains
Reflecting in palm tree puddles on pavements
your eyes in subterranean green seas
and Foggy waterfall outlines
I'll closely clutch my imaginations
t'il I ride a shark back
Hopefully he doesn't bite me
Before I get there, but I'll mumble
in his gills
and ask him to take me safely from my sea to your tree.
KOALA HUGS
Your nose fits into the dimple of my smile
the way that a shell fits into sand
creases smothered
immovable
playing hide and seek with tourists
Your Smile
underneath my lips
hugs like a koala bear
clinging on a eucalyptus tree
and when I open my eyes
your ocean blues
distract me from the real sea
beneath our sandy feet
it is peaceful
to have my genuine silence swallowed in your whispers
you make everything else around,
irrelevant
IN THREES
fear comes in threes
and in this case,
there are three words
that stutter
and stumble
out
of a heart
and across lips
like air over a bottle
seeking sound
to envelop
round walls
whisper them into chaotic music
journal them in dreams
let them cascade back and forth
like a computer's clip art
bouncing corner to corner
they stick
and survive
apocalypses
until they are heaved onto skin
with breath
and crushed into
the kinds of crystals
that make eyes shine
LOST
They say poets
Understand love better than anyone
Better than doctors, than psychologists, better than cardiologists
When I was falling for you
My fingertips became prose
My breathing became lyrics
Our kisses an artistic collaboration
The kind that makes it into an art museum
Where there are both abstract works
And classical and traditional sculptures
Of intertwined figures
Who’s only goal is exploration
I took a voyage to the encyclopedias found in the vast libraries scattered across the oceans and the mountains and the icebergs
A few weeks ago you got on a flight back home
And instead of taking me with you
You left me backpacking through wildflowers
And kayaking through estuaries
And I got lost
Those works of art
The words that used to flow into my world like blood in my veins
Stopped cold
And my body began to numb faster than the effects of novocaine
One last hug left me plastic
Left me brittle
And that one way airplane ticket you held up
The kind that signals the ending of a journey
Broke me.
They say poets know about love
And I certainly do
But most of all
This poet knows the heartbreak that accompanies
The effort of giving all of one’s soul
And having that used and torn soul returned back to them
Like a wet towel
Given to a dripping wet individual
I don’t hate that you decided to go home and let me explore the world a little bit more
I have an adventurous spirit
And you thought it would be healing
And I like that about you
But it can be hard to search for new meanings
For new loves
When all you are finding is temporary
One day
I can only hope to find
Someone that will travel every shrub filled and ivy webbed path with no question in their mind
That we would never be separated
Loving you,
was a deployed airbag in an abandoned vehicle next to graffiti alley ways that decided to float in warm summer wind and ended up strangling itself in twisted tornadoes of humidity
THE SERMON
Your hand
is what I reach for
when I've lost myself
and I need a reminder
of what home feels like
Calluses like a sermon
that rub raw
Vulnerabilities
and expand my deflated soul
One touch of your hand
bring a tased tantalizing gaze
No straining air escaping
but Straining atoms nudging Thin Walls
silence heaves frayed tension
and doughy dappled pupils
spread ink into the whites of my eyes
forming a deep dark hole
for a pesky ice skater of the eyeball to sink into and drown
But your hand,
your hand is what wriggles
and reaches
and soothes
Breaching that enchanted seclusion
that simple coma of a lover
disconnected or afraid
and pulls me close to your lips
curled like waves from a sea breeze
offering revision
and redemption
and la vie
NO WORDS NECESSARY
You don't have to write poetry
with words for me to know
the inner workings of your heart
I can read it in the
condensation
dew drops
that your breath
leaves on my nose in the morning.
It feels like fallen leaves.
I'm cool and crisp
and warm all at once.
I can see it in the silences
between your eyelashes
that brush against
my flushed cheek.
I can hear it
in the middle of the night
when a soft rainstorm comes
and my ideas
swirl under my skin
and sparkle
with morning's newest light.
I can smell it
from the moment I step inside you
and you hold me
like endings do not
will not
not ever
exist.
I can taste it
when words
happy from your influence
cascade off my tongue
and speak honesties
and speak secrets
and speak solemnities of
Love's archaic pasts.
In reality, you don't need to write a word
because there are so many
conglomerates
that fall from my fingers
onto a page
and draw the lines
you outline with your
precious silence.
DRIPPING EVERGREEN
your first kiss in the rain outside
was intimate enough to suggest we hide
I"m not sure why the girls before me
didn't find the beauty of your lips under a dripping evergreen tree
a fleeting moment of lasting memory
in ebony nights when my brain is empty
your dewy lips on mine are what I see
there is time since our clothes have dried
but there is still shivering joy that I have locked inside
a smile here and there
and deep thoughts with you I try to share
your heartbeat under my ear
is similar to raindrops that one might hear
beside the spark of a sky's lightning asunder
and at the beginning of a waking storm's thunder
DON'T STAY IN MY SUBCONSCIOUS
I can't help but wonder
when dreams of you will pass away
It has been eternity in my waking life
But my subconscious locks you in to stay
You're always with another
but the other is never the same
I look inside my heart
for the perfect characteristic to blame
This time I saw you married
your girl was dressed in white
but you only talked to me
you never left my sight
But despite my wish to spite
the rejection of your love to me
I realize you have never left my dream's sight
and I have more internal battles to fight
I wish my dreams were empty
like the pictures of you both
but you'll always be there haunting, flaunting, taunting
that I still love you the most
FIRST THOUGHT
Sunday mornings you were my first thought
but you never knew that
until later in our lives
I saw your face in my first light's mirror
I saw your laugh as pulp in my orange juice
and I felt you in breaths I needed to survive
your words were kind and sweet
and you too cared and you still do
but I'm no longer in love with you
like exploding butterflies in the spring
It's more like soft sunshine rays
you were my first
and I'm grateful to the God above
for you and your timeless tender friendship and love
4,3,2...
I could feel time choking
with my hand in my lap
and yours on the wheel
and I wanted to sever it
but all I could do was reach for the middle ground
and watch you fumble for my fingers
while I grabbed your glasses from the console
and put them on like a dork in the night
you said you counted 4,3,2...
and then you saw me lift my hand
and you knew that was your chance
and like two strangers reaching into a bag of party chips
your fingertips met my knuckles
we twisted
that uncomfortable sound of a chip bag
screeching to softly whimpered nose snickers
we held hands
It wasn't the first time
but it was the sloppiest.
You cringe when you think of the awkwardness
But what you don't know
is that for me it is a memory now marinated in bliss
and that tension we felt
stretches the strings of our memory violin In my empty junctures
where we are apart
and I think
I'll never find another pure and gentle heart
that wants to trade veins
and mix heartbeats inside palms
and even if I do
The music will never quite match yours
THIEF
It's crazy to think
that someone
could steal away
all your bad memories
and send them
to hell
with just one kiss
LILIKOI LOSSES
She suffered the loss of him before he was hidden from her
The loss inflicted by timing
That feeling like the aftertaste of Lilikoi
sweet but sharp in different ways
Lost in a world so far away from each other
found because there are many beside her to hold onto on this healing ground
You didn't turn me away nor I you
I still taste passion fruit
when I see your rhythms across my veins
and feel your vibrations in the webs of my empty fingers
I could never tell you because
I know that time has
stopped
for me
but I have no idea
the speed of time on your continent
YOU WISH THIS WAS ABOUT YOU
I'm not an artist
but I'll paint pictures on your skin in swirls
brighter than Picasso's wind.
I'm not a musician but I'll sing melodies
that describe what it's like to be a floating fuzzy seed
surrendering to sunlight to fall for you.
I'm not a carver but I'll etch my love for you
deep in the crevices of your heart
and if you dare to leave
you'll be like prey in a spider's web,
so entangled in me
it'll kill you to walk away
and it'll kill you to stay.
INCREDULITY
I've prayed for so long
not to be numb
and now that I've melted the ice cube
it's like I'm on the edge of a mountain
stuck in that split second
between free falling and repelling
you've become the gravity pushing me
to the point that pressure steadies
but I'm still afraid
of the uncontrollable human emotions
that come at the beginning of a stoic man's demise
and a lovely woman's incredulity