Tag: fiction

A Single Rose

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Whimsical headlines of breaking news pop up on my screen.

I don’t see them – it’s another evening where the world seems so mean.

I hate everyone I’ve ever known again as they simply don’t listen,

They just sit there and watch me burn, pretending I glisten.

Nobody knows me but they act as they do – the effort’s all mine,

I made sure to write down their habits, old crushes and zodiac sign.

There’s these paragraphs floating and building a story in my mind

Of each person that I know – their life stories, and what they left behind.

I could write a book about every human I’ve ever cared about at the slightest

But I don’t think it ever worked both ways, their ideas of me remained lightless.

Out of vices most difficult for me to carry, egoism is the one to crush my shoulders –

When I’ve told you three times and you insist on not caring, it’s my mental state that smolders.

But if it’s not the case, and out of nothing I’m feeling this rage…

What do you know about me, then? My second name, hometown or age?

What’s the book I read on the train when I was 15 that was missing a page?

What foods do I hate and why do I avoid bars at all costs?

What’s the color of my bag that I once so stupidly lost?

Do you know these answers, do you know the most?

Or are you just another ghost

Stumbling up on the pieces of someone you once called close

To put down a single rose?

-JW

playing jesus

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Three days ago I was head over heels for you. I was craving

Passion so disloyal it had a hit on my moral savings.

The fire exits were blocked and Missio was playing –

I couldn’t make sense of myself, but the reviews were raving.

Two days ago I had envisioned our first crash together,

Like two junkies, and you giving me a jacket in cold weather.

Or did you hate the plan from my very first dream, altogether?

Was it just me thinking of two cigarette buds as of birds of a feather?

Yesterday you had to enter the room twice before I noticed –

Out of the low hanging fruits, you reached for the lowest.

It must’ve really stung when you saw yourself falling out of focus

But don’t call yourself the victim when your alibis are bogus.

Today you shot your warnings and ended up gravely heedless.

It’s funny to think – I don’t know a person that I could need less.

Despise that the warmth of your neck still leaves me speechless.

Must’ve been a nightmare if I decided to fall for another one

In a desperate need to be jesus.

-JW

Frosty Paws

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To all the people in silver armors, high end saddles and low end taste

I bow so deeply it cracks my bones. They’re the meanest dragons that I’ve faced.

Too faced – everyone lacks one perspective as they see all the plot holes

And all the ways to get the deal through. Chasing money like stumbling foals.

Frosty paws get stuck on unsafe paths in places where stopping is a sentence

Of life spent is rotating fields of nothing – so you better run from that fake vengeance.

But how come we trust the system after it fools us twice before the alarm starts?

Did we simply nod when they said – you’re the target, circumstance is the darts?

There are 500 ways to write yourself out of the simulation this very second –

How could it be there’s only one narrow line you decided to reckon?

Furthermore, is it pure luck we’re born starving but manage to keep it at bay each morning?

I don’t know a lot about mourning.

But I trust that every fool in shiny helmet who chases money is doomed

As great ideas seldom come to minds very well groomed.

I know a thing or two about getting my frosty paws trapped in grounds

Where you never want to be seen by larger crowds.

It’s cold out there for us who don’t believe in glitz of serving

The ultimate purpose of always earning.

How much are you learning?

-JW

What Would Have Been

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Would it be so wrong if I grabbed your hand?

And if I did, where on my body would your arm land?

Would it make someone cry if you touched my lips

with your gaze for one more second?

I don’t mind at all if in your life I always come in as second.

Would I take it too far if I never looked away?

Your eyes were stuck on mine, and I wish that they could stay.

Would you still make me laugh if we weren’t just friends?

Would you like me without jewelry and playful pretends?

With every moment you’re bringing me up from the underwater.

I can’t wait to take the first breath, to not feel stuck.

Please pull me out. And do it faster.

Reach for me and take me out of the rut.

The space I’ve kept has been there for too long.

Please, squeeze my fingers three times, like in that song…

***

Would it be so wrong?

Or did you fake it all along

And is it not me that you long

To pull close? Could be, I suppose.

But would that be so wrong?

-JW

Faux Grieving

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When the light has left for the day – and so has reason,

I patch up the cuts in my stomach, clean ichor from last season

Of the witch,

Where I was the last one standing up to them, soaking wet,

With filth under my fingernails. Yet they didn’t see me as a threat.

They read into my words but they misconstrued the meanings.

Dictionaries are useless when it comes to faux grievings

And holding onto to things so tight they pinch your carotid

Until there’s not a single vessel left that’s solid, unrotted.

“Choose your fights carefully,” they say, guns blazing.

The ironies this world can teach deserve a proper razing –

Unless, of course, all things corrupt are also built from good intentions,

Spoiled by too much trust and lack of attention.

Aiming a revolver in the sky is not a choice many get to make

Although we’re told that going our own way is a piece of cake –

Wedding cake, probably, as there isn’t a faker symbol in the business

Of selling out souls for pennies at time, just to end up with a grimace

Full of ghouls and a grimness.

-JW

Airplanes and Neon Lights

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I look outside my window each night and see airplanes landing over your house,

Their lights blending with the night sky. I am standing by the frame like a loyal spouse –

Protecting your gravities, stopping engines from failing at my own expense.

This sunken faith of mine has never touched the deep end. It is losing oxygen and common sense.

However, it hurts stunningly. The view is too precious to go into it blind –

And the neon lights across the street remind me of your gleeful eyes meeting mine.

Sometimes I stargaze a bit too far – so I fall, forgetting that you are out of reach.

How easy it is to overlook the distance when your instincts are soaked in bleach.

I know it is hard for you to maintain the illusion that your blinds are shut on these nights

But it is not my imagination making up the fact that you have not slept as you are picking fights

With the only good thing you had in your life. But is it my fault? Not shutting the curtains

When you so desperately needed the spark? Do not lie if you are uncertain.

You need me to be by the window, and you do not want to wait for it anymore.

I guess the first time that I touched you, it was clear – you do not mind some glory or gore

If it means holding my palm in your hitched hand for a bit longer.

At moments like this I wish I could be a complete loner.

But I cannot be – so I throw my pride against the foggy glass

Hoping it breaks your chains, at last.

-JW

If I Would Have Fallen

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Photo by Lisa Fotios

Another day spent in rose tinted blackout glasses, not seeing the stars.

Raspberry and lime kisses land on my neck, too bad no one’s noticing the scars.

My palms are trembling as neon sky lands over the city, so sweet and so sticky.

The marks on my shoulders are pulsating at sunset. They’re bruises, not hickeys.

Every breath I take rubs you up the wrong way – and you won’t stay neutral.

I’m slowly turning into you though, but I guess the experience is not mutual…

People I knew continue to talk like they enjoy sticking in my craw. Such amateurs.

When new dawn arrives, my conscience is on its knees. The rest is a blur. Or a slur.

With every word you speak I learn one new reason to step away from the car crash

But suddenly your grip feels too fond so I hold on, tie a bow around it and add to the stash

Of things that I should’ve burned to completion when I noticed the tenseness.

Yet – here I am, standing by your window at 3am, without any control, defenseless.

I wish it was different. That kisses didn’t hurt

And words didn’t line up to sound this absurd.

I wish I was angrier. That my bites were sharper,

So abrupt you’d never try me. You’d scarper.

-JW

The Violet Lotus

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It is another Sunday morning where you sleep in while I watch the news –

Our apartment building is quiet, yet it bubbles as if it never gets the blues.

At 9am you have made my side of bed into your dream sanctuary. I do not notice.

My daydreams are getting harder to bury. The throb in my chest does not let me focus.

It is one more Sunday morning – you sleep in while I am dyeing my hair.

The neighbors have left for the weekend so that is one more glare I can spare.

Before 10am you are building a fort out of pillows. You do not notice.

The nightmare will hit once you open your eyes. They will jump to a note and a violet lotus.

It is the same Sunday morning – you cannot sleep but you stay in bed, silent.

Four white walls you own and nothing else. Blindsided. But never violent.

After 11am Monday morning you enter the office. They do not notice.

Insomnia has taken you under her covers. She lets you be restless while the world feels hopeless. Bogus.

You remember the note by the lotus.

***

“If I ever stop loving you, please don’t wake me up.

It’s been 8 hours since I walked away

And it feels like a cover up.

If you ever stop caring, please don’t let me know.

It’s been 8 minutes since I wanted to return

But time is a one-way flow.

If they ever learn how I broke you, let them eat me alive.

It’s been 8 seconds since I’ve closed that chapter –

And they’ll let you know that I survive only when I connive.

Let them contrive.”

-JW

The Three Half-Truths

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Photo by Juhasz Imre

Anger is never a loud clamor covered in a cast iron case–

It’s a lot of dissonance trapped in a narrow space.

An Olympic arena filled with control freaks

Or people who followed because they could not sleep.

It’s always been about how you tell a story, not about how you live it.

Three sour half-truths make poisonous decoy a gimmick.

Give or take, the fog is raising and building a cruel circus –

You know too much when I’ve barely scratched the surface.

***

We know each other through shiny shower heads and hotel parking lots,

And we know that neither of us is the breadwinner type when coming up with devious plots.

My bloodline branded you as one that has a wondering eye, no Lasik,

And your wife would agree when you touch my thighs, so pervasive.

I’m too weary to concentrate on those calling me a schemer or escort,

Too tired of senseless forgiveness about taking it one step too short.

All I want is your hand in mine but what I get is risible ire,

An irritating need to keep you as my wonderful, wonderful desire

Whilst the world goes more haywire.

-JW