Lullabies

by Lang Leav

  What is the cause of such great heartache? She asked. They heard the keen anticipation in her voice and were sorry for her.

  The greatest heartache comes from loving another soul, they said, beyond reason, beyond doubt, with no hope of salvation.

  It was on her sixteenth birthday that she first fell in love. With a boy who brought her red roses and white lies. When he broke her heart, she cried for days.

  Then hopeful, she sat with a pen in her hand, poised over the blank white sheet, but it refused to draw blood.

  Many birthdays came and went.

  One by one, she loved them and just as easily, they were lost to her. Somewhere amidst the carnations and forget-me-nots, between the lilacs and mistletoe—she slowly learned about love. Little by little, her heart bloomed into a bouquet of hope and ecstasy, of tenderness and betrayal.

  Then she met you, and you brought her dandelions each day, so she would never want for wishes. She looked deep into your eyes and saw the very best of herself reflected back.

  And she loved you, beyond reason, beyond doubt, and with no hope of salvation.

  When she felt your love slipping away from her, she knelt at the altar, before all the great poets—and she begged. She no longer cared for poetry or immortality, she only wanted you.

  But all the dead poets could do was look on, helpless and resigned while everything she had ever wished for came true in the cruelest possible way.

  She learned too late that poets are among the damned, cursed to commiserate over their loss, to reach with outstretched hands—hands that will never know the weight of what they seek.

  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.

  Broken Hearts

  I know you’ve lost someone and it hurts. You may have lost them suddenly, unexpectedly. Or perhaps you began losing pieces of them until one day, there was nothing left. You may have known them all your life or you may have barely known them at all. Either way, it is irrelevant—you cannot control the depth of a wound another inflicts upon you.

  Which is why I am not here to tell you tomorrow will be a new day. That the sun will go on shining. Or there are plenty of fish in the sea. What I will tell you is this; it’s okay to be hurting as much as you are. What you are feeling is not only completely valid but necessary—because it makes you so much more human. And though I can’t promise it will get better any time soon, I can tell you that it will—eventually. For now, all you can do is take your time. Take all the time you need.

  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.

  Despondency

  There was a girl named Despondency, who loved a boy named Altruistic, and he loved her in return.

  She adored books and he could not read, so they spent most of their time wandering through worlds together and in doing so, lived many lives.

  One day, they read the last book there was and decided they would write their own. It was a beautiful tale set against a harsh desert with a prince named Mirage as the hero. From their wild imaginings, an intricate plot of adventure and tragedy unfolded.

  Altruistic awoke one night to find Despondency sitting at her desk, furiously scribbling away in their book. It caught him by surprise for until now, she had not written a single word without him.

  Despondency turned to face him, her eyes cast downward. She told him while writing their story, she had fallen desperately in love with Prince Mirage and wanted to wander the desert in search of him.

  Altruistic was heartbroken but knew it was in Despondency’s nature to long for what she couldn’t have, just like it was in his not to stand in her way. Crying, she begged him to burn the tale of Prince Mirage, but he could not bring himself to do it.

  They said their good-byes and she asked him if he would carry their book with him always. He promised he would and with one final look, she was swallowed by the swirling desert sands. He knew he would never see her again.

  Epilogue

  The girl was standing in the graveyard by her father’s tombstone when a tall stranger approached. Handing her a worn, leather-bound book, he said, “Your father wanted you to have this.” She knew at once it was the book he had carried in his breast pocket, close to his heart for all his life. Her father’s inability to read was also something she had inherited, and while tracing her fingers over the cover of the book, she asked, “Can you please tell me what the title is?”

  “Grief.” the stranger replied.

  For You

  Here are the things I want for you.

  I want you to be happy. I want someone else to know the warmth of your smile, to feel the way I did when I was in your presence.

  I want you to know how happy you once made me and though you really did hurt me, in the end, I was better for it. I don’t know if what we had was love, but if it wasn’t, I hope never to fall in love. Because of you, I know I am too fragile to bear it.

  I want you to remember my lips beneath your fingers and how you told me things you never told another soul. I want you to know that I have kept sacred, everything you had entrusted in me and I always will.

  Finally, I want you to know how sorry I am for pushing you away when I had only meant to bring you closer. And if I ever felt like home to you, it was because you were safe with me. I want you to know that most of all.

  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.

  Love’s Inception

  I did not know

  that it was love

  until I knew.

  There was never

  another to compare

  with you.

  But since you left,

  each boy I meet,

  will always have you

  to compete.

  Karma

  Sorrow tells stories,

  I relay them to wisdom;

  I play them like records

  to those who will listen.

  I know to be thankful,

  I was given my time;

  to those who have loved him—

  your heartache is mine.

  To the one who will keep him,

  and the hearts he has kept

  your love, when it leaves him—

  his greatest regret.

  Fairy Tales

  When she was a little girl, she went to the school library asking for books about princesses.

  You’ve read every book we have about princesses.

  In the whole library?

  Yes.

  Years later, she fell in love. She wrote his name on the inside of her pencil case. Hoping he might ask to borrow a pen so she could be found out.

  In the yard of a house where she lived, there was a large oak tree carved with the initials of each boy she had ever kissed. She put a cross next to the letters F.P. and noticed with a quiet wonder that he shared the same initials as The Frog Prince.

  She loved only him.

  Like Rapunzel, she grew her hair longer than anyone she kne
w and for nearly a whole summer, she slept and slept and slept. She stayed inside until her skin turned a powder white against her blood red lips. Each day was spent living and breathing and longing for twisted paths and murderous wolves.

  You’re living in a fantasy, her mother said.

  You need to wake up, her boyfriend told her.

  But all she could think about was the boy who was now just an inscription inside a pencil case and two crooked letters carved into an old oak tree.

  And the fairy tale his lips once left on the ashen surface of her skin.

  A Letter

  It was beautifully worded

  and painfully read;

  the things that were written,

  were those never said.

  His lies were my comfort,

  but the truth I was owed—

  I so wanted to know it,

  now I wish not to know.

  Unrequited

  The sun above;

  a stringless kite,

  her tendril fingers

  reach toward.

  Her eyes, like flowers,

  close at night,

  and the moon is sad

  to be ignored.

  Concentric Circles

  Aging is a euphemism for dying, and the age of a tree can only be counted by its rings, once felled.

  Sometimes I feel there are so many rings inside me—and if anyone were to look, they would see I have lived and died many times over, each time shedding my leaves bare with the hope of renewal—the desire to be reborn.

  Like concentric circles that spill outwards across the water—I wish I could wear my rings on the surface and feel less ashamed of them. Or better yet, to be completely stripped and baptized—my lines vanishing like a newly pressed garment, a still pond.

  Edgar’s Gift

  Anything and everything,

  the two almost the same—

  everything says, have it all;

  anything, one to claim.

  If I say, I’d give you everything,

  we know it can never be,

  but I will give you anything—

  I just hope that thing is me.

  Pretext

  Our love—a dead star

  to the world it burns brightly—

  But it died long ago.

  Living a Lie

  Thoughts that she

  cannot unthink;

  a life that she

  cannot unlive.

  Skipping stones

  to watch them sink;

  she envies how

  they easily.

  Sorrow wraps her

  like a scarf;

  waiting for a

  small reprieve—

  falling in and out

  of love.

  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.

  A Winter Song

  She was the song,

  in a chorus—unheard.

  You were the summer

  in her winter of verse.

  Yours was the melody

  she wanted to learn;

  it clung to her lips,

  in silence it yearned.

  It seems as though now,

  you forgot every word;

  in a field full of flowers,

  she was the first.

  There once was a song

  you reminded her of—

  she no longer longs,

  yet she still loves.

  Two Fishermen

  A girl came upon a fisherman at the water’s edge and watched as he cast his net into the wide, open sea. On closer inspection, she noticed how all the knots that usually held a net together were unknotted.

  “Why do you throw a knotless net into the water?” she asked.

  “I want to catch all fish in the ocean,” he replied. “But there are none I wish to keep.”

  She walked on a little further and came across another fisherman, holding a simple line. She studied him quietly as he reeled his catch in, before returning it to the water. After he repeated this several times, the girl asked him, “Why do you catch them just to throw them back?”

  “There is only one fish I want to catch and so, no other holds my interest.”

  Shipwrecks

  The wild seas for

  which she longed,

  lay far beyond

  the shore.

  The shipwreck that

  her lips had sung,

  meant she never

  left at all.

  It wasn’t ’til

  the tide had won,

  that she learned

  it could not hurt her.

  It was the furthest

  she had gone—

  and she never went

  much further.

  An Artist in Love

  I drew him in my world;

  I write him in my lines,

  I want to be his girl,

  he was never meant as mine.

  I drew him in my world;

  He is always on my mind;

  I draw his every line.

  It hurts when he’s unkind.

  I drew him in my world;

  I draw him all the time,

  but I don’t know where

  to draw the line.

  False Hope

  I don’t know if I want you, he says. But I do know I don’t want anyone else to have you.

  It wasn’t good enough, I knew that. Honestly I did. In my mind it was crystal clear. My heart however, was having a serious case of selective hearing. All it heard was, I don’t want anyone else to have you. And within that—was a glimmer of hope, a spark of optimism.

  A Cautionary Tale

  There is a girl who never returns her library books. Don’t give her your heart—it is unlikely you will ever see it again.

  Afterthought

  Thoughts I think of presently,

  will come and go with ease—

  while thoughts of you, from long before,

  have yet to make their leave.

  The memory of you and I,

  still finds me here and now;

  tomorrow has arrived and gone—

  yet your voice to me, resounds.

  For if my present were an echo of,

  a past I can’t forget—

  Then these thoughts are just

  an afterthought—

  and I am always in its debt.

  Grounded

  The little birds

  who dream of flight;

  who gaze into

  the starry night.

  Their tired wings

  fold down and up;

  they try their best

  but it is not enough.

  The Very Thing

  I often wonder why we want so much, to give others the very thing that we were denied. The mother working tirelessly to provide her child with an education; the little boy who was bullied in school and is now a Nobel Prize-winning advocate for peace. The author who writes happy endings for the characters in her book.

&nb
sp; Forewarned

  If a boy ever says, you remind me of someone—don’t fall in love with him. You will never be anything more than second best.

  Mixed Messages

  The questions you had never asked

  were things you were afraid to know;

  everything that has come to pass,

  you’ve made them all up on your own.

  There are many words you never said,

  that others dreamed you someday would;

  each of us for all our days—

  will live our lives misunderstood.

  Masquerade

  As a writer, there is an inclination to step inside someone else’s shoes, to get under their skin and see the world through their eyes. In many such scenarios, I have slipped into these roles with the greatest of ease—then out again with the same dexterity.

  That was until I found myself in character, playing the girl who falls in love with you. It was then the line between fantasy and reality were so blurred that I no longer knew who I was.

  Yet, there was clearly a point when my role was well and truly over. When I had gone above and beyond the required word count. Where I had exhausted every new angle or approach there was to writing our story.