Homesick hopes

 

Homesick hopes

live along

my winding roads.

I'm somewhere

I'm not sure I should be,

where I fear I'm alone

sitting in a pool 

of stagnant memory,

thinking

it's a clear river

of possibility.

 

I don't fit in.

I'm an outsider

in my own story.

Just peering

through a window,

watching

the condensation

dripping

to the pool

at my feet.

 

I should be happy,

at the least.

I should be able

to see a future

in my belief,

I should see hope

in my streetside views,

not this rearview mirror

of ghosts that

keep passing through,

a masquerade of a future

so transparent and untrue.

 

But I feel so lost.

I've wandered

so many highways,

seen too many lay-bys

drifting behind me,

so many hopes dashed

in a drive by of my own making.

That maybe the mistake,

is believing that I'm worth saving.

Voices in my heart

 

Sometimes I hear voices

in my heart, verses

screaming to get out,

bursting wildly

to be heard across the grind.

But to blurt them loud

wouldn't be right,

they need to be spoken gently

to the stars at night,

for these are whispers

of love that never need

to shout.

 

I try to grip the words

before they rip a hole

through my heart.

 

Sometimes they

echo within, like a face

screaming

into a chamber

of mirrors,

glassy memories

reverberating in unison

across every part

of this cavernous being.

Cracks forming over my tongue,

as the shattering chorus rumbles on.

 

I try to catch the sounds

before they leave my lips.

 

Sometimes they fizzle

against the back of the throat,

dancing like raindrops

falling on a soft lake.

Sherbet fountains

spouting memories of a dream,

 

other times, they sink

to the depths of my stomach.

A stone of crushed hope,

leaving me bloated

on their ever-expanding growth.

The rippling waves of grief

crashing as the stone

lands with a splash.

 

I try to hold back the waves

before they saturate my inner land.

 

Sometimes they sit

heavy in the pit of my soul

like anchors dragged

across the silt and sand.

Sometimes they bubble up,

frothy eruptions of hope.

Seismic ruptures

of seawater and salt. The bitter tang

that I taste upon my tongue,

gagging at the way it

makes me feel

 

sad.

 

I try to hold

onto the words

so that I can

write them down

and set them free,

feathered wings beating

some sense into me.

More to love than us

 

I remember

the moment it dawned

that there was more to life than this.

More to love than us. More to give.

More to feel in this hallow heart.

 

More sunlight if I open my eyes.

More insight if I tune out your lies.

 

There is a world of us apart.

Yet together is just a dead-end street.

For together only ever dampened

this heart and filled it with hurt,

when joy should be flowing like the sea

I wish to be. Sharing deep insightful

conversations beside glorious tides.

 

You never let me love me,

or even be me, and if we

couldn’t believe in us, and you

couldn’t see the me that

was fading into dust,

if we couldn’t sit

in the silence of a heartbeat.

 

Then how could we ever

give ourselves freely?

 

How could it be love If you only wanted

a different person to be sat opposite?

 

I stumbled on eggshells

that tore at my feet,

I pulled open doors

that I should have

pushed shut. To be who I was not.

To be the mirror image of you.

 

Even that wasn’t enough

as you never loved the

reflection of you.