Burning Paper Houses
Slowly creeping out of winter
Would it ever be the same
If I showed up at your door
Out of breath, out of line
With a million excuses behind my manic behavior?
A video diary full of verbal hints to find through camera fractures
Indirect messages, cold and desperate
Slowly creeping out of winter
The aching wrinkles of my hands tell me it was nothing short of brutal
I said we'd do it this year,
You sighed and said “I hope so”
I said there's nothing left of me to share
You shrugged and said “I wouldn't know”
And I can’t relate,
But you wouldn't dare to apprise me this was all a mistake
It didn't have to end this way,
Dying at the bottom of a hole in the earth
But they say all's well that ends well
But how could sutured lips expatiate a destination
when the future remains a secret only time would tell?
The rotted mask on your face, I can’t see through
But I can hear your regretful recitation running through the landline poles
Its now the only part of you there is for me to know
A disposition, once torrid and comforting
Slowly creeping out of winter
Falling snowflakes no longer graze my skin,
They stick as sharpened, chilling splinters
It’s a fine line between becoming less sensitive and not being accommodated for
It’s a page-turner of violent folklore;
A forest of trees growing to appease the planter
Every grain of hope in an hourglass,
falling longer and lonelier
I marched to the beat of everyone else’s drum before screaming through a once melodic encore
Is it really a happy ending if I'm still emotionally scarred?
You’re no better than my morality that’s left me stranded
But did I really get what I wanted if I’m still emotionally lost?
Was the conviction overruled if I was never really caught?
Was I left uninformed at yours or my expense?
Or was I just too young to know?
Awaken, adapt, recover
I thought I saw you throwing your patience out a hotel window
You were just too young to know!
Covert frowns going unnoticed until the kin conform to growing old
5 'o'clock shadows turn to greybeards
Graduation caps and income tax will show
why you were just too young to know
I couldn’t contain you in real life
Just as much as I can’t contain you in my head
You’re a self-reading book that never ends
And every lie folds the pages so the sentences never make sense
I’ve always been the one chasing a firefly with broken wings,
marking the way to darkness
Awaken, adapt, recover, I digress!
Holding hope over her head like a ing parachute
Its criminal
And it feels like I won, but I’m the one who got so personal
This is a dream I'm chasing off of cliffs, without a parachute
Defying gravity and never taking a stand on anything
You're the bystander effect with a cigarette and a suit
Knitting heart strings together like the web of a spider
But just because it's weaved harmonious and intricate
Doesn't mean it isn't a trap
I'm biting entire nails off
Waiting to catch a crimson glance from you
So my insides can start a fire more organically
While you're rejoicing in the silenced parallel play,
This is one indignation away
From you being my savior of organ failure, though halfheartedly
But the flame of the blame is not lit under me
Its lit under your voices of accountability
When they start getting cold feet
It didn't have to end this way
But all's well that ends well?
and how could sutured lips expatiate a culmination
when the future remains a secret, only time will tell?
It didn’t have to end this way
And tell me that you feel this wasn’t a mistake
Grains of sand in the hourglass of our time together
Falling lonelier and progressively somber
I carved the rhythms of your affection into my tongue
before screaming through a once melodic encore
It’s just what you wanted,
I’m cascaded in blankets, consoled by the fire
While you’re staring at the sky, waiting for the gray to retire,
Slowly creeping out of winter
Copyright © Matthew Bailey | Year Posted 2024
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