How do you hold a rose?

How do you hold a rose?
A precious and beautiful treasure
When it's pressed into fingers, gently it clings there
Thorns quietly pricking into the skin

How do you tear apart your heart?
Such a valuable, vulnerable thing?
And offer it to others besides fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers?
In their tight grips, your heart will rend.

And what will you do when she takes off?
And wanders away with the thing?
Her vice-like clamp tugging each time that you see
She's thrown your red offerings down to the gutters

How do you hold a rose?
Do you cut into fingers so it may not dislodge,
Slice into flesh when you pull it from your palms
Study it, say "Nay, this rose I cannot keep.
It's no rose of mine; it's another's joy."
But despite all of this, offer it your heart
Though you know it will prick, you just cannot stop
For a treasure this precious just cannot be left
Though this flower rose to root in some other's chest
Leaving nothing in you but thorns where beauty grew
Memories of happiness... "Once upon a time, not so long ago..."
So when ever you reach in to remember sweet love
Your hand returns bleeding from what once was a home

How do you hold a rose?
A precious and beautiful treasure
When it's pressed into your heart, then tears you apart
Once it's left you to bloom somewhere else

Luna

Is it awfully hot up there on stage, my dear?
After all, you've got the brightest lamp of all
Trained upon your face at all times
Illuminating those wonderful dimples of your's

Does it make you nervous, my dear?
To know that we all might be looking
Even though most of the audience isn't
They just sit back and poke and prod one another
Too concerned with their own goings-ons
To enjoy the show right above their noses.

And how many of those stare, my dear?
See you turn away, then back again; your graceful movements
Flowing through misty veils, dancing amongst a thousand splendid specks of light
As you smile down upon us, in the brilliance of your visage
Even the clouds find it hard not to glow in your presence.
How many of those actually see what you do?

I just wanted to let you know that I do stare, my dear.
And I hope that you do not find it rude.
But you've had me enraptured since the beginning of the show
And have me rushing out to your every appearance
In the dead cold of winter, or the temperance of a summer's night
In the fade in of a blue wash illuminating the whole of your stage
Or the darkest black where you take your soliloquy
I'll be there to see it all, you wonderful performer, you.
Seeing you, and smiling.

Wanderlust

I can't help but feel I have somewhere to go
As though my body's pulling me to see the sights
It's a feeling right I have in my gut
I just can't shake this sweet afternoon

To set out walking and never look back
Cross mountain streams and desert flats
With the wind wandering through my tracks
And my eyes always staring forward

Casting gazes on scenes sublime
Canyons and hills covered in pine
Or thrown over great plains, mine
Gaze would gladly go.

My body willing, it hungrily would step
Through all great wonders, as some have crept
Down the blazed trail that many have kept
Or into new places that none have seen

And I'd sit there and breath wonderfully
Taking in beauty some choose not to see
For this is what wanderlust does to me.
And I'd not have it any other way.

Love

Love:
The word gets thrown around so much that it has
Picked up a few bruises
Lost it's beauty, it's fire
Our love... My love
The "love" of a foolish youths
Awkwardly flashing their status as a pair with their
Fingers
Interlaced
Between
Hands
As they walk amongst witnesses to a spectacle
Proudly proclaiming statuses for one another on Facebook profiles
As though love was some trophy for a game in which we all compete
That a lover is something we "have"
A statement which carries weight with peers.
Something displayed on the shelf next to your youth soccor medallions
An A+ essay on the fridge

Yeah, this was my love.
Something done to fulfill some sort of social need
That women can't just be people for me
They must be measured and weighed
Studied and compared
Like some sort of commodity or luxury
To be set on the glass table at home and admired
Alien ideals: "What do I look for in a girl?"

What ever happened to people loving people?
Loving them because their hearts were improvising songs
And couldn't stand to lose the beat of the other?
Why are relationships expected,
Distributed amongst a population?
A "one in three and you should be the one for me" thing?
When did we begin to quantify love instead of qualify it?
When did it become a drop-down box
On a crowded page of irrelevant information "About Me?"

I think I get it.
I've been the fool.
And somehow, I knew
Knew enough to write this.
I was not ready for love
If it was something I should have instead of something I needed
An expectation instead of a desire
A commodity to be hunted instead of a wonder to be discovered
So when the word rolled off my tongue,
it was just as deformed as my visions of it.
And my heart knew it.

Fuck society's "love."
Fuck all your "That's great for you two!" and "Oh! Where are you taking her?"
Because quite frankly, my dears,
Love is selfish.
Love means that you don't give a damn what anyone else thinks
That this person means so much to you,
You'll brave the ire of any hardship for them
The fact that "she is my girlfriend"
Shouldn't mean a thing to anyone
But her and you.
It's your love, and no one else's
And while you may feel the need to tell somebody, tell anybody
Tell everybody
Don't wear love on your sleeve like some gaudy adornment
Because if it is love, you don't need to tell it
It shows itself.
Because if it is love, you don't need to confirm it,
You've already agreed.
Because if it is love, you don't need to share it
The one who needs to know already does.

Wasted a Whole Day

The sickly sweetest taste
Of your lips pressed to mine
Sent wave upon wave of hormones
Flowing through our blood lines.
On that night of swaying
With hips positioned on hips
We had made a secret pact
With our two pairs of lips

And on the journey back
Those promises were made anew
Somehow both of us were convinced
That we had found love true
So we stumbled into a relationship
And made each other whine
So intoxicating with our actions
You though they were divine.

But quietly my mind complained.
Said that I had wasted a whole day.
And the promises, once so sweet
On my soul, they began to weigh.

Back into the yard we flew
And pressed our signatures in
Each of our warm bodies
With the edges of our grins.
Our hands explored places
They had never been before
And contortions seized our bodies
Each time, we pushed for more.

But day after day, unrelenting
The hidden affirmations made
In warm, but lonely places
Yes, on my soul they weighed.

So finally my voice proclaimed
That we had wasted a whole day
With our quiet confirmations of lust
We quickly pushed love away.
Leaving a shadow of its meaning
Behind formless words at play
Yes, while our bodies twisted
We quickly pushed love away.

Periapsis

"Hey! She's closer to you tonight than she will be in 20 years!"
So I had heard.

I ran to clasp the door
And pull open the only barrier separating

Her
from
Me.

Little did I know how far my eyes were,
How cold the night air could be,
With the sky between her and me.
The curtains of condensation quitely flowing thorugh

What a sad night it is, no?
Cruel coinsidence, not irony
Behind those clouds you wouldn't flee
No, not this "inconsistent" soul

Because too many nights I've spent
Looking downwards, ignoring, lost
And you've shone down smiling, tossed
Your light my way so I could see
Where I've been, where I'm going,
And you did so without a thought
Stuck through my growth and my rot,
Through rain and dark you have shined
Even when you could not see me.

When I finally do look up
I see what you have done for me.

Believe me when I say that I'd
Tear open the sky for you, just
To see whatever face you have
Be it turned away from me
Or brightly smiling.

And would gladly shine my light
So you too can see a path through.
Whatever path you may take,
Whatever light I have,
I'd toss whatever I have to you.

I haven't exactly been seeing you,
No, not enough.
But sometimes it takes darkness
To truly see how much light you have.

I'll try to look up more often.

But truly, this periapsis...
It's no shame to me. No sadness.
Though the clounds make your image infinitely far,
We're still closer than two usually are.