Some Poems to Share

So, I fell off the Slice of Life Train, and thought I would get back into gear with National Poetry Month.  Last year, I completed the Slice of Life Challenge in March AND NaPoWriMo in April.  Consistency has not been my strength, in terms of writing, this year.  But sincerity has.  I am worrying less about response and more about speaking my truth.  So, even though I have not written a poem every day this month, I do have a few to share.

List
It would take a list
to tell you what I love
a list of names
of landmarks
of lost and found
It would take a list
to tell you what i love about
moments that melted time
like when your hand and mine
rested on a common countertop
and we laughed at an inside joke
and just for that half-second I saw
your eyes stop and and soften
and i knew that you
had a list, too.

Annotation
Sometimes I want to mark you
like a book,
drag my hot pink highlighter
right across your mouth
and in your margins,
scrawl a world like
"remember" or ask
"why?"
I would underline your eyes,
comment on your fingers
and before I was done,
I would certainly circle
your heart over and over
until my pen wore away
your skin (just a bit)
and the scar might make
you remember me.

My Faults

It's all my fault

The leaves falling fast

The moon's final phase

The way the days

Never seem to last

It's all my fault

Because I believed you

Thought I had to

If you were mine

If you and I

Were tied like twine

Knotted into one mess

That would always hold

But you never were

Mine or even yours

Earthquakes have no warning

Fault lines are pretend

Until they part ways

So I blame myself

Name myself the creator

Of the day’s end

The fall into forever

Crack in the earth

Birth of our demise

Before we were we

I am the red line

Thin on the map

Miles wide across landscape

I swallowed your lies

The fault is mine. 

When I Am Supposed to be Listening to You Speak

I think about your hands,

what they hold :

the remote control,

cold bottle of beer,

the doorknob for a moment too long,

the steering wheel when all you want to do

is drive,

the ballpoint pen when all you want to do

is write. 

I think about your hands,

what they hold:

a family together

you back

up your promises

down a job

everything in your fist

but not too tight

you let it breathe until it lights 

from your palm

free, but without 

the home of you, I think.

About your hands, 

They hold. 

Word Lover

I love the language

like you

the language you lean on

to let me know something I

shouldn't, the language you

let me lick from the space between us

I love the language you leave

inside your mouth

for as long as you can

until it becomes too much

for your tongue

and the only relief is writing it down

whispering it into text, tiny letters

that tell me tell me tell me,

"I love the language. Like you."