by Lang Leav
as the sun was setting;
the pale of his hands in mine,
and the blue of his smile.
I remember our sorrows in shades,
like the gray of the shadows,
which loomed that day,
and the white in his lie
when he promised to stay.
Letting Him Go
There is a particular kind of suffering to be experienced when you love something greater than yourself. A tender sacrifice.
Like the pained silence felt in the lost song of a mermaid; or the bent and broken feet of a dancing ballerina. It is in every considered step I am taking in the opposite direction of you.
Forget Me Not
The choice was once
your choosing,
before losing
became my loss.
I was there in
your forgetting—
until I was forgot.
The Poet
Why do you write? he asked.
So I can take my love for you and give it to the world, I reply.
Because you won’t take it from me.
Always
You were you,
and I was I;
we were two
before our time.
I was yours
before I knew,
and you have always
been mine too.
A Bad Day
When thoughts of all but one,
are those I am keeping.
When sore though there is none,
for whom I am weeping.
A curtain drawn before the sun,
and I wish to go on sleeping.
Reasons
I wish I knew why he left. What his reasons were. Why he changed his mind.
For all these years, I have turned it over in my head—all the possibilities—yet none of them make any sense.
And then I think, perhaps it was because he never loved me. But that makes the least sense of all.
Thoughts
Dawn turns to day,
as stars are dispersed;
wherever I lay,
I think of you first.
The sun has arisen,
the sky, a sad blue.
I quietly listen—
the wind sings of you.
The thoughts we each keep,
that are closest to heart,
we think as we sleep—
and you’re always my last.
Jealousy
It was the way
you spoke about her.
With animosity, regret, disdain
and underneath it all—
just a hint of pride.
Sad Songs
Once there was a boy who couldn’t speak but owned a music box that held every song in all the world. One day he met a girl who had never heard a single melody in her entire life and so he played her his favorite song. He watched while her face lit up with wonder as the music filled the sky and the poetry of lyrics moved her in a way she had never felt before.
He would play his songs for her day after day and she would sit by him quietly—never seeming to mind that he could only speak to her through song. She loved everything he played for her, but of them all—she loved the sad songs best. So he began to play them more and more until eventually, sad songs were all she would hear.
One day, he noticed it had been a very long time since her last smile. When he asked her why, she took both his hands in hers and kissed them warmly. She thanked him for his gift of music and poetry but above all else—for showing her sadness because she had known neither of these things before him. But it was now time for her to go away—to find someone who could show her what happiness was.
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Do you remember the song that was playing the night we met?
No, but I remember every song I have heard since you left.
Acceptance
There are things I miss
that I shouldn’t,
and those I don’t
that I should.
Sometimes we want
what we couldn’t—
sometimes we love
who we could.
Wallflower
Shrinking in a corner,
pressed into the wall;
do they know I’m present,
am I here at all?
Is there a written rule book,
that tells you how to be—
all the right things to talk about—
that everyone has but me?
Slowly I am withering—
a flower deprived of sun;
longing to belong to—
somewhere or someone.
A Timeline
You and I
against a rule,
set for us by time.
A marker drawn
to show our end,
etched into its line.
The briefest moment
shared with you—
the longest
on my mind.
Angels
It happens like this. One day you meet someone and for some inexplicable reason, you feel more connected to this stranger than anyone else—closer to them than your closest family. Perhaps because this person carries an angel within them—one sent to you for some higher purpose, to teach you an important lesson or to keep you safe during a perilous time. What you must do is trust in them—even if they come hand in hand with pain or suffering—the reason for their presence will become clear in due
time.
Though here is a word of warning—you may grow to love this person but remember they are not yours to keep. Their purpose isn’t to save you but to show you how to save yourself. And once this is fulfilled, the halo lifts and the angel leaves their body as the person exits your life. They will be a stranger to you once more.
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It’s so dark right now, I can’t see any light around me.
That’s because the light is coming from you. You can’t see it but everyone else can.
He and I
When words run dry,
he does not try,
nor do I.
We are on par.
He just is,
I just am,
and we just are.
Losing You
I used to think I couldn’t go a day without your smile. Without telling you things and hearing your voice back.
Then, that day arrived and it was so damn hard but the next was harder. I knew with a sinking feeling it was going to get worse, and I wasn’t going to be okay for a very long time.
Because losing someone isn’t an occasion or an event. It doesn’t just happen once. It happens over and over again. I lose you every time I pick up your favorite coffee mug; whenever that one song plays on the radio, or when I discover your old t-shirt at the bottom of my laundry pile.
I lose you every time I think of kissing you, holding you, or wanting you. I go to bed at night and lose you, when I wish I could tell you about my day. And in the morning, when I wake and reach for the empty space across the sheets, I begin to lose you all over again.
The Things We Hide
And so,
I have put away
the photographs,
every trace of you
I know.
The things that seem
to matter less,
are the ones
we put on show.
Tsunamis
Be careful about giving your heart too quickly, I was told.
Boys only have one thing on their minds, they cautioned.
>
I don’t know if he truly loves me—how can I be sure? I can’t say with any conviction that he won’t break my heart—but how could I have stopped him from taking what was already his?
He swept in like a tsunami, wave after wave, and I didn’t stand a chance. All those warnings, all the things they tried to prepare me for—lost in an instant—to the enormity of what I felt.
Always with Me
Your love I once surrendered,
has never left my mind.
My heart is just as tender,
as the day I called you mine.
I did not take you with me,
but you were never left behind.
More than Love
Love was cruel,
as I stood proud;
he showed me you
and I was bowed.
He deftly dealt
his swiftest blow—
I fell further than,
I was meant to go.
And he ashamed,
of what he’d caused,
knew from then,
that I was yours.
That he, an echo
and you, the sound—
I loved you more
than love allowed.
First Love
Before I fell
in love with words,
with setting skies
and singing birds—
it was you I fell
in love with first.
That Night
It was one of those nights that you are not altogether sure really did happen. There are no photographs, no receipts, no scrawled journal entries.
Just the memory sitting in my mind, like a half-blown dandelion, waiting to be fractured, dismembered. Waiting to disintegrate into nothing.
As I close my eyes, the pictures play like a blurry montage. I can see us driving for hours, until the street signs grew less familiar—the flickering lamplights giving away to stars. Then sitting across from you in that quiet, little Italian place. Your hands pushing the plates aside, reaching across for mine.
The conversations we had about everything and nothing. And kissing you. How I remember that.
It was one of those nights that my mind still can’t be sure of. That wonders if I was ever there at all. Yet in my heart, it is as though I’ve never left.
Déjà Vu
I saw it once,
I have no doubt;
but now can’t place
its whereabouts.
I try to think it,
time and time;
but what it is,
won’t come to mind.
A word, a scent—
a feeling, past.
It will not show,
though much I’ve asked.
And when it comes,
I soon forget—
this is how it felt,
when we first met.
A Stranger
There is a love I reminisce,
like a seed
I’ve never sown.
Of lips that I am yet to kiss,
and eyes
not met my own.
Hands that wrap around my wrists,
and arms
that feel like home.
I wonder how it is I miss,
these things
I’ve never known.
Signposts
What if certain people were signposts in your life? Representations of good or bad. Like an old friend you see across a crowded street, one you wave hello to, before hurrying on. The last time you saw them, things took a turn for the worse and, as sad as it may seem, they have unwittingly become an omen—a precursor of bad luck.
Or that one person whom you rarely speak with, who can always be found right where you left them. You carry their smile with you like a talisman—for whatever reason, their presence in your life will always bring the promise of better days.
Then there is the boy you can never stop thinking about. Whenever you see his name, it trips you up. Even if it’s one that belongs to many others, even if he belongs to someone else.
You know he is a symbol of your weakness, your Kryptonite. How he rushes in like wildfire and burns through everything you worked so hard to build since he last left you in ashes.
So you do the only thing you know how—you put as many miles as you can between him. As many roadblocks and traffic lights as you can gather. Then you build a bold red stop sign right on your doorstep, knowing all the stop signs in the world could never hold him—they can only ask him to stay awhile.
Clocks
Here in time,
you are mine;
my heart has not
sung louder.
I do not know
why I love you so—
the clock knows not
its hour.
Yet it is clear,
to all that’s here,
that time is told
by seeing.
Even though
clocks do not know,
it is the reason
for their being.
No Other
There is someone I keep in my heart—I love him and no one else. It is a love that will only die with me.
You may ask, death could be some time away—what if from now to then, you love someone new?
Well I can tell you, there is only one love. If any person claims to have loved twice in all their life—they have not loved at all.
Wishful Thinking
You say that you are over me,
my heart—
it skips,
it sinks.
I see you now with someone new,
I stare,
I stare,
I blink.
Someday I’ll be over you,
I know,
I know—
I think.
Soundtracks
He once told me about his love for lyrics. How the words spoke to him like poetry.
I would often wonder about his playlist and the ghosts who lived there. The faces he saw and the voices he heard. The soundtrack to a thousand tragic endings, real or imagined.
The first time I saw him, I noticed how haunted his eyes were. And I was drawn to him, in the way a melody draws a crowd to the dance floor. Pulled by invisible strings.
Now I wonder if I am one of those ghosts—if I am somewhere, drifting between those notes. I hope I am. I hope whenever my song plays, I am there, whispering in his ear.
The End
“I don’t know what to say,” he said.
“It’s okay,” she replied, “I know what we are—
and I know what we’re not.”
Beach Ball
Do you know that feeling? When it’s like you’ve lost something but can’t remember what it was. It’s as though you’re trying so desperately to think of a word but it won’t come to you. You’ve said it a thousand times before and it was always there—right where you left it. But now you can’t recall it. You try and try to make it appear and it almost does, but it never does.
There are times when I think it could surface—when I sense it at the tip of my tongue. When I feel it struggling to burst from my chest like a beach ball that can only be held beneath the water for so long.
I can feel it stirring each time someone hurts me. When I smile at a stranger and they don’t smile back. When I trust someone with a secret and they betray me. When someone I admire tells me I am not good enough.
I don’t know what it is or what I have lost. But I know it was important, I know it once made me happy.
Afraid to Love
I turn away
and close my hea
rt—
to the promise of love
that is luring.
For the past has taught
to not be caught,
in what is not
worth pursuing—
To never do
the things I’ve done
that once had led
to my undoing.
Time
You were the one
I wanted most
to stay.
But time could not
be kept at bay.
The more it goes,
the more it’s gone—
the more it takes away.
Wounded
A bruise is tender
but does not last,
it leaves me as
I always was.
But a wound I take
much more to heart,
for a scar will always
leave its mark.
And if you should ask
which one you are,
my answer is—
you are a scar.
Lost Things
Do you know when you’ve lost something—like your favorite t-shirt or a set of keys—and while looking for it, you come across something else you once missed but have long since forgotten? Well whatever it was, there was a point where you decided to stop searching, maybe because it was no longer required or a new replacement was found. It is almost as if it never existed in the first place—until that moment of rediscovery, a flash of recognition.
Everyone has one—an inventory of lost things waiting to be found. Yearning to be acknowledged for the worth they once held in your life.
I think this is where I belong—among all your other lost things. A crumpled note at the bottom of a drawer or an old photograph pressed between the pages of a book. I hope someday you will find me and remember what I once meant to you.