That is a horrific
amount of time
to keep someone’s heart
as the perfect centerpiece of your mantle.
You commandeered it, then,
dark in the rogue night
She’ll never forget you,
stalking stealthily through the door
one, step, two, step, three, step, four
whispering sweet nothings….truly…
as you carefully unscrewed her heaving chest
to remove aortas and ventricles that
certainly didn’t belong to you…
and you have since refused to return it…

‘I’m sorry to inform you, Sir
But all things, must end.’

Four years
Seven months
Thirteen days
Five hours
Thirty two minutes

The breath across the phone line
kept them both
sane and illogical
satyrical and manic
for a week or two, until he shattered it,
with a battered crutch…
That sick grin smeared
like stolen chocolate across
his face…
He watched the pulsing muscle
fall from the mantle and roll
[thud thud thud]
onto the dusty
hardwood floor below.
She heard his laugh from 1200 miles away
and knew….

The next time,
That Five year mark.
Everything would deaden.
Something finally clicked.
She can’t waste time
with fickle provocative
instigators that never know
when to throw in the towel…
Instead he awaits
The night a cat burglar
Makes her way through a breezy
summer window….
Sniffing for blood,
tears and a pulse…

Upon the Mantle in the Living Room
(that doesn’t see much living)
was her prize.
She moved with the skill of a ninja;
the art of a leopard
cunning and methodical,
step over the one that squeaks
skip the one that sounds the alarm
One swipe in the flash of an eye
screwdriver in hand,
with one motion she unscrewed her chest
grabbed the goods; relocated it to the safest place

Deep within the rib cage confines….
that never whispers secrets….

© G.V. 11

She’s licking gaping raw wounds
open and bloody, dripping red and black
from tell tale lies, spoken through
empty tin can phone lines…
With a Cheshire cat smile
smearing her lips,
curling her knowing expression,
into something of
disappointment and predictable understanding.

“Hyde is dead. I chained him up,
dead, in the basement.
Never to be let out again”

“…No you didn’t.
….No he’s not.”
He’s shackled, breathing toxic poison, beneath your bed.
Waiting for the kill shot.
He stays to breed chaos, doubt and insecurity
festering and multiplying within your weak vulnerable mind.

Hyde told me today, that “timing is everything.”
And with only 24 hours to go, this time wasn’t it.
Years ago, We thought that time was it as well.
Hyde told me no. He must be free,
and someday, it will be time.

I thought about the time I killed Hyde.
I stabbed him 37 times…perhaps…
I wrote of it before…perhaps…
this time, I shall smash that
“timing is everything” clock
while I watch him drown from the dock.

….She’s curled up next to the crackling fire,
licking familiar lacerations and punctures
from late night idiosyncrasies, tangled
with early morning misunderstandings.
Salt and a sandpaper tongue
to revisit the complications
until they heal enough to fight once more,
wondering when the timing
will finally be
right…

© G.V. 11

I saw this happen to a friend,
I wasn’t exactly, there,
but they’re still together…
Years after that day,
that they just, knew.
And you make me wonder,
search,
explore…
Everything that I am,
just to assure, this is right.
None of them ever came through,
not in years,
and maybe if they just call us crazy,
it will all begin to make sense.

The inquiry.
The rendezvous.
The intense mental;
physical;
psychological;
emotional…
Connection.
I know you feel it,
I feel it in my veins.
Throughout my blood.
Behind my eyes.
Gripping my chest cavity,
putting my body into shock.
Confirming, without a doubt,
you’re the most amazing drug I’ve found.

© G.V. 2010

People laugh, funny part is, you believe me.

You believed in me, even when you

couldn’t admit it.

If I came there and begged for you

To let me forgive you

Of sins of a past I can never forget

That made me who I am today….

If I showed up to show you what it’s worth

Would you take it…?

Could you learn to live for you…?

Or would you turn away,

Affording me a lavish win in lieu of your predictability?

If I continued to pour my heart into a bottomless

Pit of a goblet…that fed off my soul, my heart that beats,

If only for the purpose of loving…

To be ripped from the womb

Forgotten and discarded, left for better than what could be offered.

If, hypothetically, I gave you the words to fight your battles,

Would you see what is really offered,

From a Queen, to her King…

Today and for now, there is a divine order to how this

Play will puppeteer itself through the lines

Rehearsing for a show with no date or time.

But a show not to be missed.

With tales of loves lost, misguided choices;

Detrimental consequences coupled with endings

We have yet to write.

Faery tales have always a way of working themselves out.

Happy endings…are the only real fable.

© G.V. 2010

I suspiciously  opened myself
To you and all we believed
Unknowingly we mimicked
Narcissus and his quest for
Beauty and adoration
Only to find ourselves drowning
In our own blind ambition

And under consequential yet necessary situations
We destroyed one another
Back and forth in a haphazard game
Of psychological tug of war
A battle for the rights of Gods
Never placing righteousness where it was due

I found forgiveness is something
That comes in time
And coincides with knowing
More than the Sphinx
I forgot what it was like
To truly smile
Reacting to the simplistic impulses
Of purity
That Atlanta knew nothing of

I’m unable to think past a moment of insanity
That Bacchus would cringe at
While you’re rocking my existence
Completely off it’s axis
Forcing philosophies unlearned
To unleash while discovering

Years of mythological wonder…

I prayed and prayed for years
Before
For you to leave me be….
But you drew me in like Orpheus’ lyre
As I banished cupid and his arrow
For failing to send me someone else to love…
The curse of Psyche used viciously
To forge a future of exile

Instead I followed the myth
And received you wholly
Thrown at me like a blessing and a curse
As to be soulfully intertwined to Pyramus
Wrapped systematically

Sap, bark, root, leaf
Bruised, bloodied, and shattered
-The fate of Thisbe

Meek and romantic
I took you
Without second thought
Cradling you in my arms
Whispering truths that only women like myself
Can speak of

I promised you stars of your own
If you would stay stronger than Hercules
I swore you could possess
The heavens and stars held by Zeus
Conquer

The fire in your soul from Prometheus
And tame

The ravenous unmerciful tides of Neptune…
If only you’d see your true potential.

But a Goddess is only as strong as her God.
And I can’t do this without you.

© G.V. 2010

the more I remembered;

the more I wanted to do anything

to make more memories.

I read the journals

I wrote about you….

page after page after page…

of how much I loved you.

Of how I felt I didn’t have

enough time or the means

or the heart or the sanity

to love you like you deserve.

So we sit on different planes

of consciousness

wishing into boxes for dreams

that may never come true…

We live off our memories

and late night conversations

that comfort and scar

each and every time.

The more I hear you

The more I have to see you

And the more I read how I felt

in the beginning

the more I fall right back

in love with you

all over again….

© G.V. 2010

i starting fearing my fear around those years…

and i just swallowed it whole.

a breakfast face, made from green eggs

and ham, silvah’ dollah’ pancakes and coffee ma’am

just to wash the anguish deep deep down…

this time, i feel just like i’m gonna drown…

drown into you

deep deep down

until i starve from lack of fear.

© G.V. 2010

It’s hard trying to clarify how I love you
But you don’t love me back.
How we’re soul mates yet we’re not together.
And never were.

It’s humorous how majorities of my writings are of you.
Probably about seventy-five percent or so.
I try to focus on other things.
Like sex and trees.
It never works.

I absently drift back to you.
Sometimes mid-sentence.
“Interesting.” Some would say.
I think it’s getting annoying.

What will they think, when they read my collections of prose?
Mostly written of you.
What will you think?
When the day comes to a close.
And you’ve read until your eyes sting with pain.

That you let it all go.
Because you feared yourself.
And you feared the love we share.
“Sad.” Some would claim.
Actually I think it’s quite pathetic.

Just another poem.
A crumpled piece of paper.
That floats in the wind, passing my bruised face.
That is kissing the pavement you walk upon.

© G.V. 2010

This may just reveal
Too much
Too soon
I know I’m comfortable
But for the sake of us
Please
Don’t fall so quickly.
I can’t seem to
Keep
Up
Or catch
Up
When you leave
I’m so confined to my own
Habitat
Wandering
Around my dreams
Unable to understand what happened
Give me something to go on
Just don’t give me your life
I’m not that responsible 27
I can handle some of you
Yet the entire package
Is a tad intimidating
Refrain
If not for yourself
Then for the simple constitutions we abide
I’m too jaded to jump
To ecstatic to stay
Leave me something
You’d
Forget
I might not remember tomorrow…

© G.V. 2010

I compose volumes of prose,
Dedicated exclusively to heartache.

I don’t know if I ruin my relationships
Because I don’t believe I deserve them;
Or
If I just miss writing of them.

© G.V. 2010