When a drawer closes

maybe it was my subconscious, but i never put his picture in my locket and he kept his hands in his pocket the last time we talked it was not a real conversation, but an obligatory exchange with silence so strange that i could taste the change. now that naked locket sits in a drawer and my mind wanders back to times of before when hands weren’t in pockets but reaching for more and my heart was open instead of sore. but though things didn’t turn out how i supposed a little bit sore is still better than closed, and when this heart heals it’ll be strong, locket resting against it, inside a picture that belongs.

just a draft

What is there to write about besides love or the lack of, it seems every song that’s ever been sung is about one or the other, rhyming sob stories of the quest for a lover resonating through the airwaves so strongly that we feel them; these feelings make us go reeling til floor becomes ceiling and we melt til we’re kneeling; wait calmly for the healing to carry us away from the place that we don’t want to go. And so it goes til what’s left is A Lack of Love Poem echoing the words she won’t show him, cause now she doesn’t know him. But a poem’s just a draft unable to capture how they once laughed, a fainted outline where once was a painted skyline of a city only they knew of, where they roamed the streets and home was where their bodies could meet, and all fleeting moments were immortalized in smiling eyes that did not look at, but truly saw the splendor in the flaws, in the city that was all theirs. Where they could saunter about or shout and yell four letter words that start with L, cause they knew how to live, and their Love Poem was the city’s only law. The train to take them there only runs after midnight behind closed eyelids, but at least the ticket is free.

bad days

thinking about it still makes me quietly hyperventilate and honestly a little nauseous even, and i wonder why the fuck i still care at all. it's the little tiny things that set it off; usually it's just one word that really hits me. it's realizing that this epic story i built up in my head was over years ago, and no one reads it anymore, except for me.

another poem she won't show him

Your voice, just stay quiet
your choice to lie it
caused a riot
in my mind it
turned my breath into a sigh it
makes me ask why it
should be your words still ring in my ear
like birds that always reappear
just when I heard the coast was clear
I use my voice to drown out yours
my muse, it silently stirs
while I choose my next verse
until your voice in my head is no longer a curse

compatibility

tell me your story and I just might tell you mine
not the watered down version, either
("I wasn't myself, but now everything's fine!")
I could talk, I could listen, or neither
but I have secrets on the tip of my tongue
and your eyes tell me you do as well
there are stories in me that want to be sung
when you look in my eyes, could you tell?
see, I twist my rings too much
am afraid to be touched
and can live on a latte and a prayer
my thoughts are reckless and free
but they're locked with no key
except your curiosity, if only you'd care
so let's sit for awhile til our words form a pile
right between us, perfectly round
our stories no longer separate, all our lost thoughts now found

We are Calendars

I will be Saturday
you will Sunday
count down the days til the weekend

But today I am Tuesday
not a me-and-you day
I had too much to say,
so our weekend blew away

but tomorrow I'm a new day

For Wednesday is a cleansed day
breathe in, hold it, let it out slow
and Thursday? such a blursday
time travels when I let myself flow
if Friday is a cry day
use it, write it, dance it out
cause the week's end is when the weak mend,
only then will Saturday and Sunday come about

one nine

Forget-me-nots
Regret the knots
But no matter what’s said
We’ll share a twin bed
Cause laughing, dancing, just being with you
More than fills the spaces in my head
Too much ahava for one bunkbed to handle
So we’ll separate like flame and candle
A thin wall apart
We knock 3 times
(Good night, other part!)
Our rituals are rhymes
Right brain, left brain
Different but the same
I’m just a verse to your refrain
But we’ll always harmonize to the same song
First sentences to first duet, connected all along
The root of the root of sixteen is two
The two of us are shades of purple, not blue-
The most human color is that of the ocean
Where we float, summertime, despite all commotion
Lyss and Elle went up the hill to fly a pretty kite
Lyss fell down, but wouldn’t frown
For they had a witty night
Full of slams, photos, and whole wheat crust
The moon shined down as they shook some dust
And that’s why yin and yang are always a must
Because you never know what life might thrust
So after 19 years of having blood thicker than water
We still balance out like a teeter-totter
When I’m up in the air, you’ll never stand
But if you did, and I fell, all I’d need is your hand

Alphabetically speaking,

Always a Bit of a Confession
Depending on Evolution of Feelings
Guarantees Her Intensity
not through Jealousy, but Kindness
Love, and Mind is
Not Openly his
(it's all hers)
check your Pulse
Quietly a Rhythm Stirs
Together in Unison
Veins pump, a heart Whirs
X marks the spot
Why are their no cures?
Zip up the memories til all fades, except blurs

On hearing voices

Have your voice taken away and oh, you'll learn to use it
Don't let your choice be taken away, yet don't abuse it
Listen to the words inside your head,
but don't let them call it bipolar
Play the game, take your meds
Like any good rock n' roller
know: the only cool system is solar.

Some ideas creep into a dream, you leap outta bed
Wispy thoughts may seem: pink, purple, or red
An exposed moonbeam
can reveal thoughts once thought to be dead
What others may deem
holds nothing to what your mother has said.

Slam me out of my sleep
I won't ask twice
Show me a phrase to forever keep
It would be more than nice
This girl knows how to leap
so follow this here advice.

Without passion ethos, pathos, & logos are nothing
Passionless souls rely solely on bluffing
Harness your energy, focus, and wit
If you ever lose your voice, go out and find it.

On being awake

Vividly vivacious moments aflutter
within me, let loose through flustered stutter
All around me rain echos within the gutter
Resonating mummer, the spout's spider listens
Spring became summer, the dewey grass glistens
In several hours, that's where the kids will be kissin'
Aged 14 and 16, they cling to what the world's missin'
But what happens in between? What does time take?
A dark world becomes clean, ripples surge through the lake
A grey world becomes green, an earth's tremor will quake
There's time to learn what things mean, lying laying awake

Mud Pies

The dust has only just begun to fall.

Shake it up. Don't let it settle.
One small hiccup and gold turns to metal
A glitch of a fuck up and steam streams from the kettle
Do you need a cookie? Or maybe a medal?
"Don't look for proof that everything's okay"
"Don't be a goof, you'll be sorry one day"
"Don't act aloof, the earth is real- not just clay"
So ground yourself. In the earth you should play
You once made mud pies from it
You swam in its valleys
You sculpt castles from mere sand and water
Anything you say can affect someone's daughter
Stand up firmly in the clay and realize
that your eyes see what they want to
Don't try to finalize one decision
just when everyone thinks you're about to
Don't let anyone make an incision
just when the past was behind you
Don't let evaporate your vision
Just cause a friend is blinded blue
There's such thing as fusion and fission
But that don't mean you should wait your cue

The best cues are often those unscripted.

Passion Poem

Everything is going to the beat, and everything is going
So bring me to my willing feet, and everything is glowing
My senses sting confined to a seat, my limbs yearn for showing
and telling -not yelling.
I'll sing you something sweet, a song that is all-knowing
Lyrics cling to what is fleet, yet the words keep flowing
And will ring through the ears they meet, who knows where these words are going.
But words will wing one off his feet, as lyrics seem to be sewing
invisible wounds (made by mere buffoons)
Like a king accomplishing a feat, the beat is powerful and knowing
Everything is going to the beat, and everything is going.

(Inspired by Passion Pit)

Kitchen Table Ramblings (pt. 1)

Well well well.
College can be heaven/hell.
It's all about your attitude, keep a rad mood
focus on those books but look outside those binds
cause real learning comes from the funky wiring of your mind
Well well well.
My college was social and academic heaven- IS heaven-
but I have to say "was" because I decided to take the semester off.
Jersey girls always know when to come home and where they're needed.
Don't freak, don't spaz, just understand that this 18 year old (almost 19) knows knows knows all too well well well exactly how to turn a situation right here? into the opposite of hell. How am I doing? Well.
Well well well.

Power of Parenthesis

A thought that may always reoccur:
The difference between me and her?
When it came to him, I never settled.
(Maybe settling is the smarter way
just never give your heart away
those three words- don't start to say
cause you'll cast yourself a part to play
when truth is, you'll grow apart one day.
So the heart I wear is still on a chain
some try to grasp it, but always in vain
cause my mind's always on the next train
concocting a satisfying verse or refrain
that can temporarily ease my clouded brain)
Thoughts like that always yield ones unspoken
too revealing, too raw, and too broken
doomed to parenthesis in some poem
containing words that she'll never show (him)

Porch Ramblings Pt. 1

Past the crux of a relentless thunderstorm, yet still the rain beats down. (It's up to you if that's the current forecast or a deeper metaphor). But water's just water, harmless unless you're about to drown. Cue brilliant lightning flash and thunder boom, making me almost race to the door. But these words won't hover anymore, so I hover over the screen and sit in place. I dare myself not to cave. Sit in place, be brave. Water's just water. It's a cycle including rain, sunshine that evaporates said rain back into their clouds, until the pressure builds up and up until gravity lets the rain free of the puffy atmospheric islands. So sitting (somewhat) safely in my Muhlenberg hoodie under the corner of a wrap-around porch, I contemplate what it is I'm actually thinking about. My thoughts are my world. Rain and loud hideous noises that make my body tense are not my world, so by the transitive property my thoughts must be a little deeper than mere weather. People talk about the weather when they don't want to talk about truth...
("Keep it locked up inside don't talk about it, talk about the weather" -Dave Matthews; "Sometimes I wish I were the weather. You'd bring me up in conversation forever. And when it rained, I'd be the talk of the day" -John Mayer) What the hell is really on my mind. In a month and a day, I'll be off to a place where no one will ever, ever, ever even mistakenly call me 'Danielle.' And on that day when Danielle Smith/Johnson/Leibowitz sits in back of me in Child Psych 101, and the teacher looks seemingly at me and says "Danielle?" I'll intuitively and politely respond, as I've been accustomed to doing so. No, that's not my name, but it's certainly part of my identity. There goes the thunder again. I've always despised loud noises to the point that as a toddler I was clinically confused by my love of the colors and shapes of fireworks, but horrified by the intense boom accompanied by something so pretty. On more than one occasion, people/places/things/insert nouns here have had similar effects. Confusing me by attracting me, investing my emotions, only to eventually hurt me. But I've learned so much, matured so much, discovered oh so very fucking much along the way. So with a month and a day before the rest of my life beckons, I know that I'll always be (somewhat) safely sitting. Leaping. Dancing. Writing. Risking. Because the morals and lessons that ground me have taught me that not everything in my life has to rhyme.

birth marks

I discovered constellations spelled out in freckles on my arms
as past frustration quelled gave way to silent alarms
Tracing these marks that mirror the sky, realizing how simply complex is this whole design, and how boldly I'll always be crossing some line. And this world? A sliver of it is mine.
So I quit always looking for some grandose sign and instead found what's been here the whole damn time.

rings on fingers, laughter in lungs

There's a joke you used to tell
but I don't remember it too well
it's on the tip of my tongue
-like so many other things-
the faint laughter in my lungs
and casual twisting of my favorite rings
fade into nothingness
I ain't bluffing this
but one sliver of happiness
still lingers
like fingers
trailing down my shirt
except now, your phantom touch hurts
dislocated from the present
but I don't resent it
And even when I'm not wearing my rings,
I absentmindedly twist the metal that isn't there
like an old joke lingering in the surrounding air

Terms of Use

A heart was the bait
without much debate
the fisherwoman would wait
though fish could not calculate
the condition and state of such bait.
A heart was the bait
cause too little often means its too late
to put any trust in fate
hence all will start to hate
the condition and state of such bait.

small comforts

She checks Postsecret every Sunday
Record player breaks every other day
and never stands still unless she's balanced in posse
Moccasins too old, jeans too frayed
and slightly faded, she's comfortably jaded
Makes lists in her head for comfort
like an oversized sweatshirt,
it's there if you ever need it
She's been taking a different route home
to avoid the relentlessly bumpy road that led to his-
Some things hit too close to home
She never drives without a co-pilot
but takes the curves too fast
She likes the color violet
because it makes everything seem more vast
One glance at the red string on her wrist and you can tell what she believes
These days she wears a heart on a necklace instead of on her sleeve

How to be in a good place

I've said your name until it became just a word
I've looked at your face until it became just a blur
I can sing, dance, smile my way through
as I continue getting farther away from you,
to a place which is sure to be a good place
And I've mastered just the right pace.
Lounging in bed, planning to wed-
Doesn't mean much when the feeling is dead
So I'm bounding off into what's next
Thanks for this overdue, positive effect.

Being in a good place isn't always the most comfortable,
but it's better than being comfortable in a bad one.