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liam1000
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liam1000 in Poetry & Free Verse

Memories Come Late at Night

Memories come late at night.

My brother’s sixth birthday

and his crying sounds more like a prayer.

My father is

just back from the pub

and he’s staring in the bathroom mirror

but not looking at his eyes.

He turns the sink on and then off and then on

and I watch his hands shake under the water,

which turns red, like pomegranates, with blood.

I’m done, goddammit,

he says to my brother, I’m done.

Memories come late at night.

It is Christmas and it is raining

but we are pretending that it’s snow.

My grandfather’s hand is scarred and blistered and cut

and it is pulling me in to the cemetery

where, one day, he will go.

These are my parents, he smiles and then

lays blue flowers on his mother’s stone,

and, because the rain is pouring down,

the flowers begin to wilt, just like his eyes.

I haven’t been here in so long,

he says, so very long.

Memories come late at night.

Summertime

and the air is filled with sun-kissed skies

and dandelion weeds and butterflies

and gentle things that float

in the warm honey breeze.

Your lips are soft and I’m kissing you

where the stars fall and hold the nighttime sea,

where the sky pours out, across our backs,

and lingers along the surface of the bubbling water.

I’ll never forget this,

I whisper to the moon, never.

Memories come late at night.

June, years and years later,

and I cannot sleep.

Cover image for post Sinking, by liam1000
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liam1000 in Poetry & Free Verse

Sinking

I am drunk,

And I hate this,

And there is no point

In being mad at the sun,

But I hate that it still rises

In the same way that it

Has always risen

Even though the

Best thing in the universe

Is gone.

And I think this is why

Sunsets always remind me

Of the doctor’s eyes

When he told us that you died,

And I think this is why

I hate the rain

But I loathe the sun,

Because it keeps shining

And I am here sinking

And you are just gone.

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liam1000 in Poetry & Free Verse

Daze

1.

This is the regret that tastes

Like sunsets in cities too far from home,

That aches like not being where you should

And like loving who you shouldn’t.

This is the longing in your lungs

When you breathe in the wind of the ocean,

The burning in your throat

When the shower stings like rain.

This is the blue-sky-with-pink-clouds regret

That gives you nostalgia for what never was,

The bitter but beautiful regret

That smells like vanilla but tastes like it too.

It is the way love makes you smile,

And the way life makes you stop.

It is the regret of memories ended

And of memories never made.

2.

This is the regret that stings

Like oceans on your cheeks,

That burns like salt on cut hands

And tastes like blood on scraped lips.

This is the heaviness in your chest

When that old song comes on,

The hollowness in your heart

When you drink to not think about drinking.

This is the red-eyed-in-the-snow regret

When you see your parents in the mirror,

The cold but melting regret

Of wilted roses that still need water.

It is the way your sister runs

And the way your brother doesn’t.

It is the regret of too much trusting,

The regret of dreaming and of almost loving.

3.

This is the regret that feels like nothing,

Like white walls and static noise,

That hurts like numb legs dancing

And spins like dizzy moons, lost in space.

This is the lukewarm water from the sink

That you swallow without tasting,

The ringing in your ears

And the lawn mower outside your window.

This is the that’s it regret

That has no ending or moving on,

The paralyzing regret

Of a slip of fate that can never be undone.

It is the crushing weight of silence

And the weakness of your shoulders.

It is the regret of suns rising,

Of stars shining and of people dying.

Cover image for post St. Mark's, by liam1000
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liam1000 in Poetry & Free Verse

St. Mark’s

When the last of the violins

Slowed and then silenced,

Their songs still lingered in the summer air.

The moon lit the square

And the sky kissed the sea

And then you were gone, lost to Venice.

I think I believed that

The songs would play forever,

That the sun would never rise and that you would never leave.

And I think I believed that

Love was right there, in St. Mark’s Square,

Dancing between lips of wine and eyes of green.

But the violins stopped

And the dusk became dawn,

And you disappeared, in to Venice.

Cover image for post The Past Is What We Leave, by liam1000
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liam1000 in Poetry & Free Verse

The Past Is What We Leave

The only thing that I can feel

is the silence on your tongue

as you try to find oceans in faucets

and excuses in dust-filled lungs.

And I hate the way the stars look

when I know you’re looking too,

the stars that I have always thought

felt closer to home than you.

And I hate the way the rain sounds,

and I know you hate it too.

And I hate the way I can’t forget

how much I hate hating you.

But you do not have to say you’re sorry,

though I know you think you do,

because the past is what we grieve and hate,

but it is what we leave too.

Cover image for post Remember, by liam1000
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liam1000 in Poetry & Free Verse

Remember

Remember

the one

you orbit.

We always count

the distant stars

but forget our own

orange sun.

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liam1000

Bliss

A whiskey too many and suddenly I am lost in a moment where my grandfather is still singing to the bees as he gardens and my grandmother is still reading on the porch as the daylight fades and my sister is still laughing at the way the birds dance in the wind and my dog is still sleeping in the shadow of the peach-pink sunset, and my life now still seems many lives away.

My grandparents never did say that they loved me

But, once, on a full-mooned night in June, I drunkenly destroyed their kitchen and all of their hand-painted plates that they had collected over the years, and when my grandpa saw the mess, he said, “thank god you are finally home.”

I wish I could drift through these memories forever.

It’s strange the way the past always visits through whiskey, like an old friend that I never want to see. For once, though, I decide to catch up.

Cover image for post Dents, by liam1000
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liam1000 in Poetry & Free Verse

Dents

These dents

are old childhood memories,

slams from my head,

punches from my fist,

and stains of every time

I hated the world

preserved on a single wall

covered in dents and paint chips:

all that remains untouched

in the room where I grew up,

which feels so far away now

that I can’t remember if this

specific dent is from my own hand,

filled with rage,

or if it’s from the hammer

in the hand of the workman

as he built this very wall

one hundred and twenty-two years before,

when this house was in a town

untouched by the wars,

and all of the troubles

had yet to be troubled,

when every dent, in every wall

in every moment of my childhood

was just a flat wall,

and the head and the fists that made them

were the grandson of my grandfather’s

grandfather’s father

and his lovely-eyed wife

and their own dented walls.

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liam1000 in Poetry & Free Verse

life

I could see

the borrowed past

in your eyes

    one last memory

    before we pretend

    to be too old

    without ever feeling

    like we’ve aged

Cover image for post Tired Sun, by liam1000
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liam1000 in Micropoetry

Tired Sun

My favorite moment is the one

just before the sun sets, when

a sleepy golden light crawls

through the windows and across the wall

and rests on a poster of Billie Holiday

screaming, “Life is beautiful”