Midnight Poems

LOST
You could say I’m lost
Arms stretched forward
In the darkness of your absence
Feeling for my way
In such a cold empty space

You could say I’m thriving
Though the inside fluctuates
Such frail beings among mistakes
Quivering to bring us down
Stretched out and blue.

Like my arms
Searching for you.

You could call me callous
Because some days I’m just blank
Nothing enters deeply
Nothing penetrates.
All of us so soft
Among bitter edges
and broken resolve.

You could call me broken
Pieces of a person
Scattered, ashes now
So easily carried away
Less than slivers of a girl
Barely powder, hardly matter
Particles only visible
in those sneaky smoky rays

Don’t you dare call me strong
I have not the least amount of strength
I am crumbling under this weight
Time will not cure it
Only patronize me in its wake
Crushing me down
Making it harder to find my way.

My arms just as useless
As my prayers in this pain.

Kelly Curiel
January 9, 2009
3:48 a.m.


Vestigial

Oh in my stomach
The bleeding the twisting
The hunger, it burns
And sends me forward
Leaning on you, twisting more
Just enough to seep through
Not enough to kill me.

Bent over, wrapped in my own arms
The gnawing, the aching
The vestigial removing
The lining losing strength
Not enough to kill me
Just enough to ruin me

So you’ll never see me again.

Kelly Curiel
January 9, 2009
3:36 a.m.

Polar Contradictions
1st Draft
If I could tremble
Like your voice now
Searing into it
In a bed of singeing degrees
Only stories
Can make real
The daunting little romances
We have with these things.

Or if I could stay still
As your eyes are on mine
I’d lean toward you
Forever
While the chill
Swirls up from the shadows
Making grey the embers
Enduring.

Because heat only burns
And cold keeps us frozen
But the latter loses depth
When the daily drizzles
Make you wet
And the warmth
Though so fleeting
Keeps you buried
under it

If I could be in you
You could find me
Beneath blankets of burning
Wrapped in the scorching
Woven heat
We’d tangle each other
Let loose our lips
For the air
Just to be still.
Invite the furtive chill.
Into our cotton lovesick stare.

Kelly Curiel
January 9, 2009
2:59a.m.