NPM: Taking Hold, Etc. (Part 2)

Here is the promised post with more poems, to make up for the extreme lack of them. I thought I would only need 7 to compensate, but I'll need 8. Because it's a new day, which means a new poem.

But don't worry. I've got plenty to spare. Although, watch out for the last one. There's a "swear" in there. So if you read these to children... um, don't. That's weird.

1. Little Red Boat - July 9, 2014

In this story there’s a girl
sleeping in a little red boat.
I could get her into the boat
but not into the water.
I got her into the water
but couldn't make her cross.
She has strong arms
but a tired heart
and she asks me
which is better.
Sleep, or row?
Sleep, row, sleep, row.
So when she closed her eyes
I pushed her into the lake
and the little red boat
drifted away from me.
I got her through the night,
I got her here to the morning,
but I still can’t make her
reach the other side.


2, Fearless v. 4 - July 26, 2014

I will fold and refold
my paper lantern heart,
I will gather a string of lights
around me like a cape,
dancing to the edges
of our shadows,
I will shine in the places
we have made dark
with words of ash.
I will fold
and refold
and mend
and remend
until there is nothing left
but a spark.


3. Fearless v. 10 - August 22, 2014 [edited April 27, 2015]

There is no shame in the truth.
I knew it in the morning, but
didn't feel it until the afternoon
sitting in that somehow desolate office
which smelled of black coffee.
There were droplets of rain
making my bespectacled vision
bleary and more sordid
than could possibly be appropriate.
I did the right thing for everyone,
because it’s what I always do.
There is no shame in the truth
and so I gave it away.
It’s still true
even if I don’t hold it.


4. Fearless v. 11 - August 30, 2014

Post-proclamation, I estimate that
it would be efficient to embrace
facing this. But before I even speak
I've started to lie, because it’s improper
to claim I am even minutely able
to face this. Already my body
clenches, anxiety blossoms
like a fanged flower, its petals
fierce and beautiful and scarlet
like flushed skin. I am petrified.
As the leaves of the white birch
turn upward and wait for rain
so my sight ascends to prepare
to face this, as if I could
possibly know what’s coming.


5. The Choice - September 5, 2014

She said yes, all those many years ago.
She said it, not in so many words,
but enough to know she’d chosen.
But in the middle. There, that spot,
blackened and bruised from
careless words, thoughtlessness.
That’s the one held up in the mirror,
that’s the question echoing back.
If she had somehow known then
what she’d be looking at now
would she have chosen differently?


6. Paper - December 9, 2014 [This is one of my favorite poems ever!!!]

There are no sequins.
There is no splendor.
No lace, no ribbons,
just our sense of wonder.
This was the year
it was supposed to be all right.
We wouldn't suffer or struggle,
or give up the good fight.
We would find sparkle
in shadows and dust,
doing what’s pleasing
and not what we must.
But nothing glimmers
or outshines the heartache
of old pain in a place
we thought couldn't break.
There is nothing gold
to give worth to our blunder
except for this space
where we find ourselves tender.
Here we will make glitter
in the darkness and night.
We’ll take a year made of paper
and burn it for light.


7. Settled - April 18, 2015

There is a truth, settled into,
founded by the precedents
our life has handed over.
We believe it like a memory,
like a debt to be repaid
or a curse we wait to feel
unless we're lucky–
then it’s a dream we hope to know.
Like fools we believe and hold
the promises or evidence
until the world shifts around us;
every wall ascends or crumbles,
the ground disturbed and broken,
And in the tumult we must decide
to alter our perception,
to force our feet into new paths,
to stumble along new halls,
to adapt to a new truth
or close our eyes
and just go on believing.


8. Best - April 27, 2015

The blackest heart loves best
because it can't forget a thing,
because it holds, because it holds,
because it holds on and never lets go.
And that isn't charcoal
or an unrepentant life
or a curse, or a curse,
or a curse that cannot be cured.
Those are the colors of memories,
of regretting what's been lost,
of loving too, of loving too,
of loving too damn much.
And if you paint a pure heart
with a color for every breath
you'll have a heart, you'll have a heart,
you'll have a heart that's black that loves best.