Lullabies (5 page)

Broken Hearts

I know you’ve lost someone and it hurts. You may have lost them suddenly, unexpectedly. Or perhaps you began losing pieces of them until one day, there was nothing left. You may have known them all your life or you may have barely known them at all. Either way, it is irrelevant
—
you cannot control the depth of a wound another inflicts upon you.

Which is why I am not here to tell you tomorrow will be a new day. That the sun will go on shining. Or there are plenty of fish in the sea. What I will tell you is this; it’s okay to be hurting as much as you are. What you are feeling is not only completely valid but necessary
—
because it makes you so much more human. And though I can’t promise it will get better any time soon, I can tell you that it will
—
eventually. For now, all you can do is take your time. Take all the time you need.

Wounded

A bruise is tender

but does not last,

it leaves me as

I always was.

But a wound I take

much more to heart,

for a scar will always

leave its mark.

And if you should ask

which one you are,

my answer is
—

you are a scar.

Despondency

There was a girl named Despondency, who loved a boy named Altruistic, and he loved her in return.

She adored books and he could not read, so they spent most of their time wandering through worlds together and in doing so, lived many lives.

One day, they read the last book there was and decided they would write their own. It was a beautiful tale set against a harsh desert with a prince named Mirage as the hero. From their wild imaginings, an intricate plot of adventure and tragedy unfolded.

Altruistic awoke one night to find Despondency sitting at her desk, furiously scribbling away in their book. It caught him by surprise for until now, she had not written a single word without him.

Despondency turned to face him, her eyes cast downward. She told him while writing their story, she had fallen desperately in love with Prince Mirage and wanted to wander the desert in search of him.

Altruistic was heartbroken but knew it was in Despondency’s nature to long for what she couldn’t have, just like it was in his not to stand in her way. Crying, she begged him to burn the tale of Prince Mirage, but he could not bring himself to do it.

They said their good-byes and she asked him if he would carry their book with him always. He promised he would and with one final look, she was swallowed by the swirling desert sands. He knew he would never see her again.

Epilogue

The girl was standing in the graveyard by her father’s tombstone when a tall stranger approached. Handing her a worn, leather-bound book, he said, “Your father wanted you to have this.” She knew at once it was the book he had carried in his breast pocket, close to his heart for all his life. Her father’s inability to read was also something she had inherited, and while tracing her fingers over the cover of the book, she asked, “Can you please tell me what the title is?”

“Grief.” the stranger replied.

For You

Here are the things I want for you.

I want you to be happy. I want someone else to know the warmth of your smile, to feel the way I did when I was in your presence.

I want you to know how happy you once made me and though you really did hurt me, in the end, I was better for it. I don’t know if what we had was love, but if it wasn’t, I hope never to fall in love. Because of you, I know I am too fragile to bear it.

I want you to remember my lips beneath your fingers and how you told me things you never told another soul. I want you to know that I have kept sacred, everything you had entrusted in me and I always will.

Finally, I want you to know how sorry I am for pushing you away when I had only meant to bring you closer. And if I ever felt like home to you, it was because you were safe with me. I want you to know that most of all.

Always with Me

Your love I once surrendered,

has never left my mind.

My heart is just as tender,

as the day I called you mine.

I did not take you with me,

but you were never left behind.

Love’s Inception

I did not know

that it was love

until I knew.

There was never

another to compare

with you.

But since you left,

each boy I meet,

will always have you

to compete.

Karma

Sorrow tells stories,

I relay them to wisdom;

I play them like records

to those who will listen.

I know to be thankful,

I was given my time;

to those who have loved him
—

your heartache is mine.

To the one who will keep him,

and the hearts he has kept

your love, when it leaves him
—

his greatest regret.

Fairy Tales

When she was a little girl, she went to the school library asking for books about princesses.

You’ve read every book we have about princesses.

In the whole library?

Yes.

Years later, she fell in love. She wrote his name on the inside of her pencil case. Hoping he might ask to borrow a pen so she could be found out.

In the yard of a house where she lived, there was a large oak tree carved with the initials of each boy she had ever kissed. She put a cross next to the letters F.P. and noticed with a quiet wonder that he shared the same initials as The Frog Prince.

She loved only him.

Like Rapunzel, she grew her hair longer than anyone she knew and for nearly a whole summer, she slept and slept and slept. She stayed inside until her skin turned a powder white against her blood red lips. Each day was spent living and breathing and longing for twisted paths and murderous wolves.

You’re living in a fantasy
, her mother said.

You need to wake up
, her boyfriend told her.

But all she could think about was the boy who was now just an inscription inside a pencil case and two crooked letters carved into an old oak tree.

And the fairy tale his lips once left on the ashen surface of her skin.

A Letter

It was beautifully worded

and painfully read;

the things that were written,

were those never said.

His lies were my comfort,

but the truth I was owed
—

I so wanted to know it,

now I wish not to know.

Unrequited

The sun above;

a stringless kite,

her tendril fingers

reach toward.

Her eyes, like flowers,

close at night,

and the moon is sad

to be ignored.

Concentric Circles

Aging is a euphemism for dying, and the age of a tree can only be counted by its rings, once felled.

Sometimes I feel there are so many rings inside me
—
and if anyone were to look, they would see I have lived and died many times over, each time shedding my leaves bare with the hope of renewal
—
the desire to be reborn.

Like concentric circles that spill outwards across the water
—
I wish I could wear my rings on the surface and feel less ashamed of them. Or better yet, to be completely stripped and baptized
—
my lines vanishing like a newly pressed garment, a still pond.

Edgar’s Gift

Anything and everything,

the two almost the same
—

everything says, have it all;

anything, one to claim.

If I say, I’d give you everything,

we know it can never be,

but I will give you anything
—

I just hope that thing is me.

Pretext

Our love
—
a dead star

to the world it burns brightly
—

But it died long ago.

Living a Lie

Thoughts that she

cannot unthink;

a life that she

cannot unlive.

Skipping stones

to watch them sink;

she envies how

they easily.

Sorrow wraps her

like a scarf;

waiting for a

small reprieve
—

falling in and out

of love.

Soundtracks

He once told me about his love for lyrics. How the words spoke to him like poetry.

I would often wonder about his playlist and the ghosts who lived there. The faces he saw and the voices he heard. The soundtrack to a thousand tragic endings, real or imagined.

The first time I saw him, I noticed how haunted his eyes were. And I was drawn to him, in the way a melody draws a crowd to the dance floor. Pulled by invisible strings.

Now I wonder if I am one of those ghosts
—
if I am somewhere, drifting between those notes. I hope I am. I hope whenever my song plays, I am there, whispering in his ear.

A Winter Song

She was the song,

in a chorus
—
unheard.

You were the summer

in her winter of verse.

Yours was the melody

she wanted to learn;

it clung to her lips,

in silence it yearned.