Tag: original poetry

  • Tell Me

    I have run out of ways
    to save myself.

    That is the truth of it.

    I have prayed.
    I have worked.
    I have swallowed the fear
    and called it a day.

    And tomorrow,
    I will get up
    and do it all again.

    But tonight,
    God,
    if You are listening,

    I have nothing left
    to make this sound
    like faith.

    I am just a woman
    standing here
    with her hands out,

    and I cannot remember
    the last time
    anything
    fell into them.

  • Blue Bicycle

    I want to live on a mountain
    where the mornings smell like wet stone
    pine split open by rain
    and cold earth.

    Where the windows stay open
    and the curtains move
    even when no one is touching them.

    No phone beside the bed.
    No little red numbers
    telling me who needs me.

    Just a blue bicycle
    leaning against the house
    its frame cold with morning
    one tire resting in the grass.

    I would leave before the sun
    came all the way over the ridge.

    The road would still be damp.

    My tires would press
    dark half-moons into it.

    There would be fog
    caught low between the trees
    and birds somewhere above me
    I could hear
    but not see.

    I would ride past wildflowers
    past fences silver with dew
    past places with no names.

    The air would taste green.

    It would sting my face
    and fill my lungs
    until there was no room left
    for anything else.

    No voices.

    No unfinished conversations.

    No one asking
    where I am.

    Only the small metallic click
    of the bicycle chain
    the soft crush of gravel
    my breath
    going in and out.

    I would have a small house
    higher up the mountain.

    A wooden table.
    A white cup.
    A bed beside an open window.

    At night
    the sheets would smell like wind.

    Sometimes rain
    would begin in the dark
    and I would wake
    to water tapping the roof
    and the whole mountain breathing
    outside my window.

    I think I would sleep differently there.

    Deep enough
    to forget myself.

    And every evening
    I would ride home
    while the light disappeared
    from the road.

    The trees would turn black first.

    Then the mountain.

    Then my hands
    on the handlebars.

    And for a few minutes
    there would be nothing in the world
    but the blue bicycle beneath me
    the smell of rain coming
    and one small light
    burning in the window ahead.

    Mine.

    I think
    I could be happy there.