Tag / relationships

by Carol J Forrester

Ripples

The ripples are gone when I look,

searching the water for a slip of silver

twisting back on itself

leaping skyward in panic

or ecstasy perhaps.

I think about you and I,

or at least the phantom of us

that clings to my lungs on slow days,

crawls onto my shoulders

to press my face down, down, down,

down where I deserve to be

when my own body twisted back on itself,

my mouth searching for a way

to swallow the words I’d spoken,

to return them to the saftey of unspoken

rather than the spotlight

of my glowing red cheeks

as I fumbled to dress myself

in what I thought was maturity.

I can feel nails along my spine,

when I think of how much

I wanted to be loved.

by Carol J Forrester

Silver Street

The cobbles run uneven here,
sloped and sinking, like a old man
finally easing into an armchair.
Rain rolls in without warning
darkens the street to pitch,
turns each stone into an island
swells rivers that shimmer with stars
as the street lights lean closer
and watch you skim across the water
too quick
for me to save the picture.

dverselogo

by Carol J Forrester

Tempest Temper

You doled out temper tantrums like hard gums,

sugar flecked jellies

that locked my jaw

kept me mute

while you spun words into waterfalls and rapids

that broke over me

like I was nothing more than rock

carved out to test your anger upon.

Daily Post: Froth

I’ve been writing longer poems for NaPoWriMo this month so I went with a simple quardille for today’s daily post prompt.

by Carol J Forrester

Snowdrops

There are snowdrops growing on the hill beneath your house.

I don’t think they’ve grown there before

or I would have seen them.

Felt their green stems bend beneath my back

as we tumbled one over the other

down the slopes free from winter covers at last,

bathed in the chill of spring days

which looked warmer than they were

when the curtains first peeled back those mornings

and our breath misted on the window panes.

 

You would have plucked them singularly

with the same precision you gave to cakes

on birthday celebrations,

determined everyone should receive the same.

My hands always tremble,

when asked to thread the eye of a needle

but yours would have slipped each stem

between the brambles of my hair

to build a crown of tiny buds,

pockets of white inside the calamity

that I would soon shake free.

 

When they ask me why I left

the roof of my mouth becomes fly paper.

The words stick and clot

until my jaw aches from the press

of things I don’t know how to say.

I’m sorry is somewhere among them,

and so are the excuses

that turn over each night beside me,

convinced they can make me believe

that they were something more

than simply fear.

 

 

 

 

by Carol J Forrester

Toxic

Despite the warning signs

I pressed myself against your skin,

let the acid burn away my fingerprints

until only teeth were left

to identify the body by.

 

You were poison and venom,

though it’s unclear how

the first dose was administered.

If you closed your mouth

around my throat

or if I sank my fangs into you.

 

What doesn’t kill you

can make you stronger.

Or shift the basis of your DNA

until the mutations

become the building block

of something new and half done.

 

When I recognized us

for the first time

I didn’t know my own face.

Something that toxic

could never be real.

Daily Prompt: Toxic