A Love Affair, From A to Z: “Z” – Zenith

Posted on April 30, 2017July 17, 2017 by Jade A. Waters

Zenith, their zenith
Is over and done.
Time has passed and healed her, somewhat
Though the hollow of her belly still
Fights, protests
Wanting their glory restored.
The truth is that theirs was the most beautiful love,
A precious, wonderful thing
That painted her existence in vibrant ways
She’d never imagined before.
Their love filled her soul with joy,
Just as it touched his face with the smiles and laughs he’d lost—
But this vision, their future
Is gone, its tragic ending something they have yet to fully comprehend;
It’s the story they both played into,
Loving as richly and fully as they could.
For now, they will need to find other means,
Some solace in the wreckage they’ve left behind.
And so she stares quietly over their desolate landscape,
Hearing echoes of a melody that once blared throughout a blooming world
As she clutches the tiniest morsel of hope
In her hand. For what, she isn’t sure yet,
But she knows he is out there, their love lingering forever in her heavy heart,
A crystalline memory she will hold
As long as she can.
She takes a breath, lifts her head
And, keeping her fingers wrapped tight around hope,
She sets out across this dusty expanse,
One foot, then the other
Once more.

A Love Affair, From A to Z: “B” – Beautiful

Posted on April 3, 2017July 16, 2017 by Jade A. Waters

Beautiful is how she sees it
How she's known this, him
The silent love they've shared
Is the perfect bar crawl
On the longest evening
Repeated, over and over again.
The laugh that echoes between them
Is the song for all they have yet to say,
So when they begin to crash together
To melt, colliding
Into this love like they'd always known they would,
His lips on hers are honey
His breath in her ear like a rainstorm
Prickling her skin, teasing her lashes
Wrapping her up in the sanctity of what they will be.
His palms slip along the flesh of her back
Her neck, her hips, her thighs
And she is naked now, finally, for him.

In This Bar

Posted on April 4, 2016July 20, 2017 by Jade A. Waters

I sit in this bar wondering
Waiting
Hoping
Will it be you
Will it be us
Is the answer as simple as you and me
Me and you
And the lifetime of lust between us
I keep asking
You keep answering
It's a miracle we've gotten anywhere
Nowhere
Why do I love you like this
Knowing you are you
And I am me
And we could never ever be
But I guess that's life, really
You do you
I do me
Something that was meant to be
Never ever was
I don't know the answer
And so I drink one more drink
And tipsy I watch you
Handsome
Knowing me
And that's about it.

*

Fucking Love Poems

Posted on February 23, 2016July 20, 2017 by Jade A. Waters

I was thinking of how much I love you,
How I always want you near,
How something inside me tingles,
Every time that you are here.
It shouldn't be this way, I know.
This electricity, this spark,
The way I feel a little flutter
As if you control my heart.
It's troublesome how well you know me,
How you can smile when you say my name,
But we will pass it off in this frustration
Of our never-ending game.
I'm not supposed to be writing love poems—
I'm a serious poet, you know,
But I'd be lying if I pretended
You aren't a part of the words that flow.
So again, I will shelve my feelings
And exclaim, "I'm locking away my heart"—
But the truth is that I love you so,
I can't imagine being apart.

*

Not a Love Poem

Posted on December 21, 2015July 24, 2017 by Jade A. Waters

I could write love poems about us for a lifetime
How it could have been
Would have been
If only it had played out differently,
How we’ve pretended all this time,
It isn't there between us.
We are too busy smiling,
Laughing
Playing games like two old pals
Who dance around that past, that night
That choice
Even if we both know it was the right one.

The problem is, right isn't always easy
That's why it’s here sometimes—
A fount of heat, a life of love
The secret burning in your eyes
Even though you know, I know,
We know
Not to play that part.
That love is gone, forsaken
A distant memory of a long ago past
The answer to a question
We cannot ask
Again.

So, here we are, playing a new game
Turning around the right answer
The good answer
The one that lets us pretend
We are blind to this
For yet another day
That we were never meant to be
A love poem—
Just the ghost of words left on the page
For a lifetime
Of love poems past.

*

Butterfly

Posted on October 13, 2015July 24, 2017 by Jade A. Waters

Just because I smile
Doesn’t mean I’m not broken
Doesn’t mean
I’m not soft on the inside
Not a butterfly in a vicious wind
Fluttering, struggling, but keeping afloat,
Flashing my colors
Setting my course
Not a victim in this crime.

But all the same—
Just because I am a victim
Doesn’t mean I am weak
Doesn’t mean I’m not a voice
Doesn’t mean that I will cave,
That I will be silenced
Or stand here
In this tornado
As a soft, malleable thing
Shaken by your wind.

I will fight

I have fought

I am the voiceless
And the vocal one
The lost, and
The found
I have felt pain
I have felt hurt
I’ve been broken into pieces
So tiny
I didn’t even realize I was me,
And I will not stand for it
Ever again.
I will be your butterfly—
Smiling
Proud,
My wings swaying in this torrid wind,
But I will not be deterred
I will not be caught
I will not fold

I am free.

Sunset

Posted on September 21, 2015July 24, 2017 by Jade A. Waters

He puts his hand on my thigh
And I feel my heart
Stop
He shouldn’t do this to me
Smooth palm, warm skin
Fingers making the slightest caress
And those eyes
Staring into me, reaching my soul.
“What do you think?” he asks.
I don’t know anymore
What the answer is
What he’s saying,
Are we talking about the sunset
Or the touch of his skin on mine?
It’s ridiculous how I
Lose myself with him,
How the sunset we’re watching
Pales
In comparison to those eyes
That hand, that mouth
Leaning into my ear.
“Well?” he whispers.
It’s not my heart that stops now
It’s my breathing.
I’m not breathing
I am holding here
Watching fingers curve over my thigh.
The rush of his breath on my cheek
Is sweeter than the golden glow
Of the horizon,
And I know I want all of him
His touch, his kiss
Basking with me here in this sunset.
So I raise my head,
Take a breath
Take this chance.
“It’s perfect,” I say,
And I lean in for the kiss
Radiating, golden and glorious
Beneath our sunset.

*

Shouldn’t

Posted on August 26, 2015July 24, 2017 by Jade A. Waters

Aurora

Posted on August 4, 2015July 24, 2017 by Jade A. Waters

I wonder how long I'll write about you
It's not that I love you anymore
But you've seeped in somehow
Made yourself part of my being for a lifetime.
We were this thing
This magic
Like the thicket that grew round Aurora's palace
Thorny vines weaving their spell
Around a complicated love
Filled with discovery and lust
But tortured all the same.
I wouldn't do it differently
And yet I feel sometimes
This residual spark inside
Too hot to the touch
Too good
Too dangerous
And filled with the memory
Of how I almost lost myself with you,
Could have forgotten who I really was
Because it was so easy
When I was with you.

Don't worry
I'm not pining.
I'm more into
Knowing I won’t be lost
Inside a love that was so good
But filled with jagged edges, too
I'm sure that if I ever ran into you again
And you laid it on like you do—
That voice of yours
Those eyes that stared right into me
Those hands that touched like
They knew every pore and wanted
To live as part of me forever—
Yes, I know I'd smile and walk away
Because I have to
No matter how long I might pause to consider you, that,
Us
Addiction is addiction
You were my addiction
And as much as I long and burn
For what that felt like
I can't lose myself again.

So I guess that's why,
Sometimes,
I write about you
I write about us
I write about those feelings that
Woke parts of me so long sleeping
High up in that palace.
It's because that
Was a story made for reading
So many times over,
But fairy tales aren't meant
For real life,
They aren't meant to continue.
They're meant to be savored, cherished,
Remembered,
But inevitably
They're meant to be closed, shelved,
And thought of on occasion
Putting a smile on the lips
And a patter in the heart
Before real life continues on
Without them.

*

What You See

Posted on July 3, 2015July 24, 2017 by Jade A. Waters

There is a girl
Beautiful, broken, bruised, smiling
She is all of these things
She’s got a history
You can never fathom
Though you try.
She’s moved mountains
Swum oceans
Run miles
Through thorns and rocky terrain
That
From the looks of her
You’d never imagine she could have faced.
What you see
When you look at her
Is the beautiful
And the smiling;
You don’t see the black and blue
That’s forever imprinted on her soul
You don’t see the scars
On her heart
Or all the battles she’s won.
You only see the beauty, the afterglow
The radiance she’s worked so hard to keep
Despite the scratches running the length
Of each of her veins
Marring her for an eternity.
She doesn’t flash them often—
She doesn’t need to, doesn’t want to
Because she’s earned these smiles
She’s stolen back this beautiful heart
She’s claimed a lifetime of looking forward
After what was.
But sometimes, when you look at her,
You tell her what you see
Like it’s all there is
And anything she could share with you
Is trivial and mundane,
Petty figments of her imagination
That couldn’t possibly be
Because how could a girl
Who looks like this
Have experienced that?

I hear you
I really do
It’s hard to believe something that ugly
So many things that ugly
Could have happened to one single soul,
But the truth of the matter is
They have.
So
Before you tell me it can’t be that bad
Tell me I’m lovely and happy
I’m lucky
And so it could never have happened
That way
For me,
I want you to look at me
Really look at me,
See the beauty, sure, but see the bruises
And the marks deep inside, too
Please.
I ask of you.
I’ve earned them
I’ve fought through them
They are who I am, part of me, always me
My right to feel and have
Not whatever it is you keep telling me
That you see.
That?
She’s a different girl
Who isn’t
And never was
Me.

*

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