A poem...

Yesterday, I saw a photo on Humans of New York's Facebook page of this couple lying on a meadow - I think in Central Park - reading to each other. Just then I thought, wouldn't it be wonderful to read to one's significant other? This outrageously romantic gesture is so rarely done nowadays. So I proposed to my boyfriend that we should read some poems to each other this weekend. After the proposal, I thought what would be better than a poem that I personally wrote about him, about us. So, voila. A poem of love.

Love is…

Love is your scent on the pillow long after you left the bed

Love is your fingers playing with my hair

Love is my heart beating when you kiss me or cry

Love is the spooning after the fight

Love is the stars and the salted sand on my eyelashes after the third piña colada

Love is when I slip my fingers through yours in the cool air and they just fit

Love is the silky touch, the murmurs and dimples as we dream

Love is the warmth of freshly stripped clothes scattering the floor

Love is a look, a song, a senseless comment in the middle of somberness

Love is the charge in the air that tastes like clean flesh, which makes me drunk

Love is the future in endless lists on our phones

Love is me and love is you

Love is you love me and I love you.

Happy summer! (Or spring, where I am...)

xx

Vanessa :] 

the Age of Miracles (poem inspired by The Fault in Our Stars)

**SPOILER ALERT** anyone (cough cough, Sara) who wishes to read the book the Fault in Our Stars unspoiled is strongly advised not to read the poem below.

That said, the daring ones out there, here ya go.

The Age of Miracles

I knew that it wouldn’t last

A star       burning too bright from the start

A father’s staccato sobs    poising in the     dark

                 

               Breathing seems so easy to do

                                       Until it’s not anymore

No. Oxygen.

                   The holes in my lungs, 

            I know you hear them, too.

                               So why do we      try?

              Confetti drizzled    from           the sky

    The water lapped,     choirs sang

           Together we poured and tasted       the stars

Love.

Is it a shout into the void?

                                        Maybe. 

       Infinities piled upon infinities

           You smiled.

                                                     Even the brightest light couldn’t save your

                                        Vanishing act 

The end.

         I dropped a popsicle stick      on the    ground one day

And watched it    buried

                   By   kingdoms   of ants

                                  In the   Literal   Heart   of Jesus

                                                          We are just as small.    As    weak.

      There is nothing like a    firework    show

         When you’re sick

                         And ice cream is the  only    kind   thing 

In the whole world.

…

  I love you.          (present tense)

My life is a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend.

*** I intend to write this into a song someday :]

To Lacey, From Gabriel

9:05 PM

Dear Lacey,

Tonight, the moon is        so shy

       Concealing you                    from the light.

10:39 PM

But              I don’t   need       my        sight

10:42 PM

To see you

                                               Your portrait   crystalline       on my mind.

11:31 PM

Your teeth          are little white squares

                                                  Dainty, dewdrops laughing like bells

                                                                                             Silver

          Hmm…and I will never forget

11:32 PM

                                                      The way your fingers touch     mine

                                             Tender,        strong

(Like the     bounces      of guitar   strings!)

            Intertwined.

12:50 AM

       You always wear those

                                      Oxfords with white bows, complaining to me that

                 They’re one size too small

  Strands of brown hair fell out of your braid

1:17 AM

                                                          Remember the squeaky sound

       the swing set on the playground  used to        make?

1:25 AM

   I miss your white legs 

                           Dangling from that bright yellow 

                                                                          Plastic seat

And your teeth. They were little white squares, I swear. 

They were.

2:48 AM

         Hide and seek,

But never found…

2:56 AM

Lacey, I think the typewriter is making too much noise.

It’s the most beautiful

                              Birthday present I have ever gotten

But I’m afraid it’ll wake my parents.

3:20 AM

Lacey,                        life sucks right now, 

And I miss you.

4:11 AM

If I knew that was the last time you climbed the    lighthouse

                              To watch   stars    with me

I would have never shifted my eyes

                                          They would’ve stayed

                                                                              On you, my eyes

                                                                              On you

4:46 AM

When the            streetlight     finally went            out

                  My   room is 

                                       hazy, my    fingers   are made of             fog

For a second I thought I heard

                              Your footsteps,           your too-small oxford shoes

             Your white knuckles        knocking on the door.

Ghost of my head.

5:25 AM

I’m losing sleep

The way you lose hair―by the fistfuls!

5:29 AM

                       So I trace the orbit of the moon,

And catch your eyelashes on my skin.

5:32 AM

Hey Lacey, what happened?

5:33 AM

Did you cry before you did it?

Did it hurt?

5:34 AM

Did you think about me, for a wisp of a 

Second?

5:38 AM

Is it nice up there?

5:41 AM

And Lacey, will you come visit me some day?

6:22 AM

               I can’t take this anymore, it’s all bullshit.

                                                                   Please come back. 

I’m sorry.

6:33 AM

                                    Lacey, do you believe we will meet again?

    Because I do.

Love,

Gabriel

I do.

*******

So this is a poem I wrote. 

my friend's poem

So I'm taking this creative writing poetry class at school right now, and we were workshopping today. My friend was reading her poem, and this one line just really got me. I thought I'd share with you guys:

"Sometimes I think my life is a blur of 'have a nice day' shopping bags and those Godawful, blue 'we are happy to serve you' coffee cups."

The line just really hit me, because I feel like sometimes we ought to pay more attention to life. A lot of us are too focused on the paper that's due tomorrow, the grocery run we gotta make, or the package we gotta get to the post office. Such trivia eventually distracts us from the realness of life, and we are too often lost in our busy routines. When we're looking back, all we see is a stream of Unnecessary, and Doesn't Matter.

Point is: go out there and live. Really experience things. Talk to people. Read books. Learn things. Don't make your life a blur of "have a 'have a nice day' shopping bags and those Godawful, blue 'we are happy to serve you' coffee cups."