the curse that accompanies the artist
“Don’t paint your soulmate. Don’t finish
the portrait if you want them to stay.”
— Anonymous artist’s warning
I don’t know who you are
yet, my future love, but I already know
I must stop writing about you.
I know I might want to tell the world
everything I could about you. Perhaps
your gleeful laugh might bless the page,
in the same way I cherish the sound of it.
I might write about your eyes, which shine
like the fireflies that dance at dusk.
Or how the glow of your smile
could easily mimic the moon’s.
If I were a painter, I might
make a portrait of you for every day
you breathe. My wondrous darling, my words
could not do justice to describe
the love I wish to inscribe.
I could love you for an eternity,
but never on a page. Never that much.
So allow me not to scribble
your name and likeness on any paper,
of any poem I may create. If I scrawl
such a gift here, I will lose you to the rift
my written word may bring.
Our love might be an ode
to perfection, a sonnet of our
true passion. But putting you in a poem
would sever what we might have.
You won’t love me like you once did,
and that is the curse of an artist
and their love. My medium may capture
what we could be, but I would never trust myself
enough to pen your name.
Don’t make me love you
enough to write about you.
Hanahaki*
I never meant for it to get this bad
It wasn’t my intention to be so infatuated
Thoughts of you till I turn mad
Labored breathing with breath so bated
Within, the roots pricked with no remorse
Each cough revealed a bloodstained petal
A sickness your ignorance does indeed enforce
One only your returned love could settle
As I kneel with my hands cradling my throat
Lungs full of encroaching blossoms and blooms
My slow suffocation kept stubbornly afloat
Every new flower became my favorite perfume
I now wake with petals on my pillow
The roots digging through to wind around my ribs
Months and months of devotion I still owe
But these days, loving you is what I should forbid
I could have the threatening flowers removed
Just a little to ease my restless mind
Maybe then I wouldn’t be quite so bruised
By the avoidant eyes of yours that are so blind
Only thing is, I would forget you
The surgery would purge my memories and love
My lungs and heart would be free from the mildew
The true peace I could only dream of
But if I save myself from this garden torture
I do not wish to think I would forget
About your smile, your eyes, your future
I’ll allow the roots to stay rooted like cement
Even if I die from your prolonged ignorance
I see a better fate than removing the seeds you planted
I shall let my ego echo Icarus’s hubris
My deathbed of flowers that you have commanded
Yet as the vines climb toward my final breath,
I'll smile through lips painted crimson, no plea, no sound
For in this garden grave, your face is etched,
And even death can't pull your image down.
*Hanahaki, or Hanahaki Disease; a fictional disease where someone experiencing unrequited love will begin having flowers grow in their lungs and throat, which causes symptoms like coughing up bloodstained flowers and petals. Only able to be treated by the feelings becoming reciprocated, or by a removal surgery that very often eradicates any previous attraction, and/or memories of the person they were in love with, if gone untreated, the person will die.
memories from before we broke up: A Cento
Where are you now?
Must we say farewell tonight?
In the hiding hour of autophagy
ghosts hang out all day and talk to us.
I wish I had hiked the frozen hill tonight for
reception, called to tell you I had a good time
I arrive at a space that no longer needs autumn or
spring, this forest of telling each other the truth.
Knowing what the frame around the portrait knows.
The medicine hurts, too.
The vibrational halo of the string figures passing from flower to
flower—night-moths of measureless size, circling among the young.
Tell me again what your home looks like: wet grapefruit pulp,
pomegranate juices running over fingers as the fruit is split.
The morning sunlight dancing off shards of glass,
knocking perfume bottles and photographs.
You’re so nice to come home to:
Make believe. Tea for two.
From that moment on,
I only had eyes for you.
The silenced poet screaming within: A fifty-word microfiction
In the measured patience of waking and dreaming, an essence of something melancholy slips from within. Our thoughts, such powerful creations, yet dangerous in the world of lucid interpretation. Modeled molds of enslaved, tampered creativity. Sorrow fills up the empty space, doesn’t it? Or is that just the creator’s opinion?