Lights. Smoke. Bubbles.

You’re silhouetted against the

Reddish sky

As the lights from the stage

Play over your skin.

The cigarette between

Your lips smokes softly,

The fumes curling upwards

And away.

Your eyes are half-closed

Lashes dazzling under the

Strobe lighting as you

Breathe in the atmosphere.

The first fragments of

Sound break over you, soft

Words that break your heart.

 

The tears are spilling over

Your mud-splattered cheeks

By the time the bubbles appear.

They spin, glowing orbs, that

Capture and warp

Burst. A dragonfly falls as

Your eyes open, its wings stiff.

It turns, giddy in its deadness, on

A breeze visible only

In the whorls of your smoke.

I watch, with my hands grasping

My arms, holding together all

The pieces of my fractured soul.

Or maybe just keeping me warm.

 

I emit no smoke

From pale chapped lips, which

Form the words that send

Us spinning. Instead I stand apart

And lace our littered thoughts

Into chains, like daisies.

 

At the last moment, just before the rain

You turn to me, a question behind your

Yellowing teeth. I decipher your smoke

And reply.

But my words are lost, in the water

Which turns to mud.

 

 

And once the sky clears,

I’ll be gone.

Reviews

[EMP]

my god, you're brilliant. bethan said it all basically, the imagery in this is amazing, it's so vivid. you feel like you're there in the poem. and you have a brilliantly, natural way of making the words flow easily. arghhh i love this.

[Beatrice Mars]

i'm speechless. again. well actually i'm going to ramble.

That was beautiful and amazing. The images you create are just wonderful. Those last two lines just hit you, because although the rest was sort of...bitter, it was beautiful as well, but then the last lines just hit you and...wow. love it.