Tag: original series

The Sixth Year

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You’re smearing empty words all over the newspapers,

Making me curse loud enough to wake the neighbors.

I haven’t seen your face in six years but I know

You still bring the darkness wherever you go.

And once I was foolish enough to follow the trail,

Despising guardian angels for letting me fail.

Now I see you in a car purchased with blood money,

Bought by selling my hopes out, and ain’t that funny?

Blood’s only thicker than water for the lucky ones,

The roots you laid down in me won’t ever see the sun.

And the faux promises you spilled have evaporated,

They’re sleeping in the shadows, dangerously sedated.

It’s alright though, my rage can escape all your abysses,

But you can’t escape the truth or live without your fixes.

So just pray to the gilded gods that you can make it,

Just pretend one more day that if I can fake it,

You can also fake it.

-JW

Heart For Dinner

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The tires of your car ruin the perfect peace and radio silence

As you approach with crocodile tears glued to your lids like diamonds.

There’s toxic spite in your back pocket, the antidote’s in my bag.

Your stare can only hurt me that far

With its raging red flags.

Birds are not chirping tonight, no, they’re flying for their lives.

But I always stayed, through all your nosebleeds and nosedives.

Now you thank me one last time by handing me the trigger,

Hoping I have what it takes to resist

Eating your heart for dinner.

The trees lean in and wait for me to make the final decision.

I do not rush, I let my fury pierce the air with marksman’s precision.

My words slide through your stiff chest like some lost shrapnel

As I leave you there imagining

That we never happened.

-JW

The Forest Is My Church

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Velvet winds soothe my battle scars in the navy blue moonlight,

My feet are enchanted, they keep moving out of wicked spite.

I kneel, letting my bare skin touch a softly frozen heap of snow.

The forest becomes my church, and I’m seated in the very first row.

Curious creatures peak through the branches to catch a glimpse,

Caterpillars and butterfly wings mix with sharp teeth and fins.

And the ground beneath me shakes with a long awaited relief,

Hugging my wounded parts and covering them gently, leaf upon leaf.

Foxgloves ring their bells thrice, the forest echoes their sound.

They search for my soul in all the boxes marked “lost and found”.

One night they will discover it and I will be pushed into the light

But for now the morning wearily calls us as my sanctuary

Vanishes from sight.

-JW

Losing You

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The trees take me in their arms and let my eyes wash away the sins.

The soft humming of the wind gives a shelter to this poor heart of tin.

And the forest comforts me but not like you, it doesn’t hold me tight,

It hears my curses and heals my aches but it’s not enough

To get me through the night.

The fog raises over the treetops, it covers all the mystical creatures,

The white mist lands on me in pity, sighs quietly like a preacher.

And I still feel a thousand times heavier with each step that I take.

My vain existence was a miniscule droplet but you –

You turned it into a lake.

The path right in front of me melts into shadows and silent alarms.

The pines surround me, they make me surrender the stolen arms.

And I resist to hand over my sharpest knives but they persist

By telling me how my own head’s a poison

And I’ll be missed.

The words are difficult to swallow so I burst into fiery laughter.

“The irony of it all, the one who ends it was also the starter.”

And I run for the edge but then stop just to fall on my knees.

A vision of your face pulls me back to ground

And for a second I feel peace.

-JW

Stopping The Time Machine

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And one day I won’t be this bitter,

My tongue won’t need a babysitter.

And one day I’ll learn to take a “no” –

Perhaps tomorrow,

Not today though.

One year the revenge will even out,

My hands won’t shake, lips won’t pout.

Maybe even this week I’ll be fine –

But not right now

While I’m still vile.

I promise – one morning it’ll stop.

There won’t be any tears to mop.

And one morning I’ll just let it go –

The time will finally

Take it slow.

-JW

Manipulus

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The gasoline is leaking out of your bad shoulder.

It’s been hurting since you put a hole in the wall

Because she didn’t let you hold her.

Now her face is just an apparition, fading so fast,

And your head is a long lost ghost ship

Fleeing all the safe shores half-mast.

The thoughts intrude and bite down with their incisors

As you recall promising her a sure grave.

Yet – her spite knew you’re none the wiser.

Now her body is cold but you barely touched her.

You merely gave her a foolish idea…

Maybe she was pushed by a bluster?

The flies are eagerly circling your puny defences

But you have all the good explanations –

Only you can’t say it to their faces.

The road ahead spirals like your fetid self-pity

And you know you’re forever haunted,

Even if you leave her bones in this city.

-JW

Capitulare

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She’s at the piano, playing her fingertips numb and soul sore.

Tinsel in her hair, glitter on the wrists, her childish mind at war.

The party around her roars like gunfire, she almost disappears,

Blends into the background hiding behind her faceless peers.

She’s on her tenth cigarette even though she quit a long time ago.

Whisky in her system, fuel in her one-track mind ready to blow.

No sadness, no regret, just a ton of anger in a short linen dress –

But don’t lose a finger comforting her, she’ll never confess.

She’s rearranging the thoughts but coming to the same conclusion.

The shivers slide down her spine, hurting like a contusion.

“What’s promised, must be fulfilled,” she silently whimpers

And tries to ignore her own violently shaking fingers.

She’s on the balcony unamused, not even slightly entertained.

The man by the bar represents all her guilt doused in heated shame.

The bottles stacked on expensive tables shatter at her sight.

Her lungs collapse under the relief of crashing into the dolomite.

(The people sigh as he winces:

“She wasn’t in her right mind.”)

-JW

Ultimatus

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Every portrait on the wall has wandering eyes,

Every time I look at the phone you have me paranoid

But I don’t take my own advice.

There’s no privacy in love and no respect in control.

I might act like you’re fooling me greatly

But your lies are barely staying afloat.

So I confess to you all my deadliest urges

And you say you hope I would just get it over with,

Not taming the darkness that emerges.

You keep pushing me further, calling me distasteful.

“If you ever leave, I’ll know I was right,

You were never faithful.”

Words can build character, they can burn down cities,

And after months of hearing you on the loop

My anger turns into pity.

Every photo on the wall has my lifeless eyes,

Every time I look at you, the poison sinks in more

Until all self-preservation is paralyzed.

-JW

Three Churches

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The empty city echoes every step I take on the uphill street.

Not a person in sight, only my breath and the lantern heat.

The houses I’m passing are certainly begging for repairs

But saying I love these darker corners of my city any less

Wouldn’t be fair.

I pass three churches during my 6AM run each morning.

(The fourth I don’t count because it looks too boring.)

The first one has two huge towers and a devoted staff,

The third one sells dead flowers and tombstones

With pre-written epitaphs.

The second one hides shyly behind the trees in the park,

It’s so old that the silhouette alone scares me in the dark.

There’s a single light at the entrance, it violently flickers.

Each time I’m spooked by its presence, I swear –

Someone slightly snickers.

But nothing compares to the graveyard fostering ghostly candles.

Most wouldn’t feel at ease passing, even call me a vandal.

Yet I stare at it in the moonlight, I forget about the pain.

It’s only me and the unknown pleasures

Of losing the gathered blame.

The others keep rejecting these gloomy city corners as the paragon.

“Aren’t you afraid, isn’t it scary for you to carry on?”

However, the church bells keep ringing, vestiges call for me.

I’d sell my soul and yours, too,

For another morning of clarity.

-JW

Concrete Gods

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When nobody’s around, I sneak out to the forest to dance.

I greet every critter, I hold it in my trembling hands.

The moonlight pours its salvaging light over my arms,

It tingles my spine, releases all the pressure and harm.

So I waltz to the never-ending music of this greenery,

My bare thumbs touching every inch of the scenery.

The lines in my palms blossom like rare spring flowers

But they fade when the sky releases the sunlight showers.

I return to my shelter, re-entering my life more than sleepless,

Pretending to blend in with those walking around heatless.

When there are people around, I hide my muddy feet,

I secretly cross my fingers when admitting complete defeat.

Each afternoon we all bow to the same concrete gods,

Then go home and unwrap our faces from the phony gauze.

When they all go to sleep, I sneak into the forest to scream.

The soundwaves escaping my lips scorch the chartreuse leaves.

-JW