Destinations unknown

 

They say your memories play back

when your life is hanging by a thread,

mine dragged me on journeys.

Like a paperback

left open on the first page for all to read.

A quick shift of scene, dropped feet first

into a bus station universe, leading

to all the places I’ve been.

 

Surprisingly, only a handful

of buzzing vehicles, churning the air.

The rumble of their engines

not as deafening as others may hear.

For, in distance alone, or in

actual journeys taken,

the destinations are quite few.

But the stories.

 

Oh, the stories.

 

The stories are here

by the metric tonne.

Every passenger…

Me.

A different part of my story,

bustling through the station,

and the sound rushes me.

A chorus of emotions pushing to be heard.

 

One that walks with hair painted blue,

I smell the aftershave on his skin,

I see the smile in his eyes, but I see through

the laughter inside, through the mask he wears.

Still so young and carefree, he portrays,

but his heart is talking of solitude,

a statue covered in a paper bag,

and I weep at the memory.

Another moment crashes into me,

staggering through on unsteady feet,

escaping by hiding his face in a bottle,

I want to shake him, wake him to see

what will follow.

 

In the corner on the dirty ground

another memory is crying loud,

I want to put my arms around him

and say, “It will be okay, keep believing

in dreams, they do come true.

I’ve seen your dreams, and I’ve met them too.”

 

Another me dances by as if a flowers swaying

with no one there to witness his bloom.

And one that sits pen in hand watching.

Smile in his eyes. Scratching lines.

 

Then there are the destinations of love,

the beauty that has glowed so bright

The soaring flight of a heartbeat's rise.

The memories of eyes that held mine

as we passionately kissed, and the ones

where I blinked and missed. Now, that

bus has left but others sit awaiting a ticket.

 

Buses to other remembered hearts,

blare out reversing alarms, jolting me

back to earth with a crash.

Some of them broke my heart,

others shone a light in the dark,

but each story,

every destination,

every journey led me here.

 

With a world open for me,

if I just step into my destiny.

 

So, I jump on board any bus I can find,

for each journey is a unique part of my life

and I am here for the ride.

Painting the night

 

A bird in flight, wings

sweeping across my

awestruck eyes.

Yet I sit in a faraway gaze.

Letting the sight

glide so far away,

a poem for another day

for my dreams are cast

into visions of another's eyes.

 

And I know in my heart

this sky will turn

into a whole new

story of life,

and I will wait to

catch another glance

when her heart

swoops back around.

Time ticks in delicate beats

when you heart sings so loud.

 

As day turns to night

I watch the shooting stars

dancing with satellites.

Communicating

a beating heart into a cosmic high.

 

A ticking clock counting the hours down.

 

For I know that this sky will change

and I’ll still feel alive with

the same love in my veins.

 

Colours will blend,

as the morphing painting

bends between every breath

I brush, a swooning flourish

A glowing wish to the moon,

A whispered promise. A face

I wish upon

to soon see

the words of love

I’ve painted into the sky above me.

 

A moment of elation

A skipped breath. Palpitations

as the flicker of

glowing universal lanterns

sift across the darkness

in blinking flames.

Melting into every image

of which I can dream,

a million different views,

and they all morph back into

the same face I wish to see

smiling upon me. You.

Sinking/Rising

 

In the middle

of a great lake, maybe a sea.

Empty blue, all I can

see through

panic soaked eyes.

Water consuming

my dampened spirit. I linger.

Feet slashing the water

over the precipice

of the deepening abyss.

 

The sky slams down on me,

coffin lid clouds. Hammered down

in thunderstrike heartbeats.

 

Flailing, thrashing,

I sink fast. Pressure

from all sides. Crushed lungs

want to scream.

 

Help me.

Free me.

I am the image the dead see.

Lifeline failing.

But to open my mouth

would be to fill myself

in the Dead Sea.

 

So I clamp my jaw tighter.

Fear blinks silent cries.

 

Absent light churned

into darkening shadows

fill the liquid fear of my descent.

I am in stasis. A traveller

to a distant universe.

 

Save me.

Whispers in bubbles from my lips,

I watch them

rise, skipping starlight

specks in the murkiness.

 

My eyes drift as my limbs fall

still.

A stone in a glass jar.

Flatline.

Waiting for

the eternal tomorrow.

 

See me. I let out the last air,

and watch my eyelids

as I fall into the vacuum of fear.

 

Fingers interlocking,

shocking my heart.

Defibrillator love as I open my eyes.

 

The sight. Haloed beauty

holds me in her wings.

 

I've waited my whole life

to feel the feather-soft heart

that sits so perfectly aligned with mine.

 

As she pulls me closer

to her chest, we rise to the surface.

Lips pressed to mine,

breathing hope into my raising lifeline.