next time
I see a train coming fast enough
I will not
fail
it doesn’t really matter
that one day in the winter
you were mesmerized watching her
lick tiny transparent bubbly flakes of snow
that fell upon her tongue
but ever since, whenever your skin is closest to me,
your eyes turn away from mine.
you can’t bring yourself to look into my soul and see yours,
can you? our love is something you must convince yourself
to be true. you have been through many things like this
even your kisses have worn out. you have no desire of me
except for the madness of my words – encouraged by your
apparent existence in the world and within
my own. you are the worst pretender i have ever met
and the most sincere soul of misery i have
ever loved. i’m sorry for the pain you have brought
upon yourself because you long for pure love, true love,
and you can’t afford to break my heart the way
someone else broke yours. so you stay, so you smile,
so you do what you think will make my sadness a bit
easier. you think so, you do. you didn’t think i would
be able to hear the silent sigh you left
on the side of my neck as I held on
to your arms during the loneliness of a
cold winter night
this song is for you and me as we walk hand in hand
away from it all
knowing we will from now on go forever
into the breadth of our longest winter
that spreads itself over the course
of a slow white death
I love the contrast of our skins against each other.
Can we just lie like this for a little longer
Just stay there;
it isn’t over when it’s over.
Stay,
it will come back.
Believe me,
true love never truly leaves.
I tie your love all around my wrist
so you won’t go.
I can’t let you go.
Freedom is only granted
in the most secure prison:
my suicidal innocence.
Think you know me? Think again.
We both knew one day there’d be pain.
Think you know love? Why, it’s sad.
If this weren’t love I would have already left.
But you, my love, don’t you see?
You’ve never really loved me.
Enough with our tragic romance
What can we do to let each other go?
I no longer know how to
Do you?
Give me a sky full of stars,
give me you,
then I shall have nothing to lose.
Walk me through the woods
of your true sanity.
Let me take you on our own trail.
You could tell
from the sounds of broken leaves,
dried branches, and sparkling stars,
no one else has ever gone this far
to find love.
Hands in each other’s coat pocket,
we walk toward the
empty center of our hearts,
listen to our favorite music,
the soundtrack of the night
while the stars are dancing to the notes of our voices,
laughters, and the warmth of our fingers
upon each other’s smiles.
Take me home with your eyes,
leave our field of stars behind.
It will be there if we come back.
Even if we never will.
You wrap me in the crumbled foil and
burn me, breathe me in
slowly, and I rise,my soul
in each blow of smoke
into the air, as you keep some of it
to yourself. I keep wondering
how long I truly last,
every time you put me on fire.
Maybe you do not remember.
You have long forgotten
what it means
to be addicted to me.
I am something you just do
out of a habit you have had
and it no longer means anything to be gotten rid of
so you keep me here, and whenever you wrap me
in aluminum,
I would slowly vanish into the air,
fill up your soul, and
deepen your emptiness.
why don’t you sit down with me
and watch the day go by?
I never did it before they
sent me to this place.
it is not as scary
as you think.
in fact, it is so quiet
even its ghosts are leaving.
the youngest ones at least.
the oldest are too tired to dream
of a better place, and thus
have decided to stay,
and every night
we talk about the past,
of how things used to be.
they tell great stories
for they stop telling lies
after their lives, long lives.
so many memories,
it would take more than eternity
to revisit each and every of them
try to understand what it means
and forget all of the what-if’s.
if letting go is so difficult for the dead,
imagine how it is like for the living.
and so I have learned to forgive
myself, and those around me –
loved ones or strangers.
though I wish I could tell them
to take it easy, love life,
love love, appreciate,
do all the things that make them happy.
they will have all the time in the world
to ponder sadness, to be resentful,
to weep, to scream
afterwards.
so, young one, in your busy life,
once in a while,
give yourself a little time
to feel the angle of the winds,
know the depth of your living sky,
catch the color of the raindrops,
learn that every tree is different from one another
and you could recognize each of them
like the faces you have known.
and every once in a while,
close your eyes,
and open up your soul
to feel the grand stillness of time
that lasts forever in a single kiss,
to be caressed
by the fragile tenderness
of love.
these are some of the things
I have learned from the living
and from the dead.
you shall listen
to both, or either,
but not those who are dead
while they are still breathing.
they do not know where to go,
and thus, cannot give you directions.
if they try, you will either be hurt with a lie,
or a desperate attempt they make to feel alive
through you.
thank you for visiting.
if you ever come back,
bring me some stories
about the sea, for all of us here
long to go there, but we can only
recall and imagine it.
I long to feel the water
all around me.
its depth and vastness
are the dream we have
about a place where we can
completely
let go.
What if we are just characters
in someone else’s dream?
What happens when he wakes up?
Will he remember us?
Will I remember you?
Somebody once told me,
in our tender embrace,
“Love is all there is.”
I told him to take it day by day,
to live and love in the very moment.
For I would probably leave him the next.
He took my advice
and stayed in love with me
every single moment he existed.
I only exist in fragments of time,
and so is my love.
You had me whole
in a night of tenderness.
I knew kindness and bliss
enough to turn you into a sweet memory.
“Why can’t it happen again?
Why do you have to turn me into a memory
the moment you walk out of that room?”
You said I lived and loved
as a story teller.
Quite a story you were.
I cannot keep killing you,
but you are not able to let me go.
Perhaps I am not either.
Thus I wonder how to write a wonderful story
without having it falling in love with me
or myself falling in love with it.
Poetry of the ones who are lonely
are not the same as poetry the ones who are lonely
without someone.
I have always known,
once I let you into this room called my heart,
it will never feel the same when you leave.
And yet I do, I do again and over,
you are my every lover, my any lover,
I have never stopped loving you.
You are the life of my words.
My readers do not know you, but they too,
have known how any love could hurt.
Poetry hurts because poetry is love
and because poetry is you.
Without you I would never have found inside myself a poet.
The world could do with one less lover. One less poet.
But I could not have become me without you and my poetry.
And the meaning of my life is just as simple as that.
______________________
Lily Thanh 