Lullabies

  I know it’s over, I really do. I know it has been for quite some time. It’s over, yet my heart still feels you. You are a memory to me now, but my mind still thinks of you. What we had was finished long ago—yet the words will not stop flowing.

  Change of Heart

  You were faultless

  I was flawed,

  I was lesser

  yet you

  gave more.

  Now with time,

  I find you

  on my mind—

  Perhaps I loved you,

  after all.

  Reasons

  I wish I knew why he left. What his reasons were. Why he changed his mind.

  For all these years, I have turned it over in my head—all the possibilities—yet none of them make any sense.

  And then I think, perhaps it was because he never loved me. But that makes the least sense of all.

  All There Was

  My greatest lesson learnt,

  you were mine until you weren’t.

  It was you who taught me so,

  the grace in letting go.

  The time we had was all—

  there was not a moment more.

  Pen Portrait

  She doesn’t keep time,

  so she stopped wearing watches.

  Her promise won’t bind,

  so no one holds her to them.

  She lives in the past,

  so her present never catches—

  Her thoughts do not last,

  so her pen must tattoo them.

  Musical Chairs

  When the music stood still, I was standing at an empty chair.

  I could feel you smiling behind me. (We sense these things while dreaming.)

  Your hands were on my shoulders, your kisses against my neck.

  Then from somewhere, the music of a piano as she sings to Mozart, no one will ever know me the way you do.

  Tell Me

  Tell me if you ever cared,

  if a single thought

  for me was spared.

  Tell me when you lie in bed,

  do you think of something

  I once said.

  Tell me if you hurt at all,

  when someone says

  my name with yours.

  It may have been so long ago,

  but I would give

  the world to know.

  Beach Ball

  Do you know that feeling? When it’s like you’ve lost something but can’t remember what it was. It’s as though you’re trying so desperately to think of a word but it won’t come to you. You’ve said it a thousand times before and it was always there—right where you left it. But now you can’t recall it. You try and try to make it appear and it almost does, but it never does.

  There are times when I think it could surface—when I sense it at the tip of my tongue. When I feel it struggling to burst from my chest like a beach ball that can only be held beneath the water for so long.

  I can feel it stirring each time someone hurts me. When I smile at a stranger and they don’t smile back. When I trust someone with a secret and they betray me. When someone I admire tells me I am not good enough.

  I don’t know what it is or what I have lost. But I know it was important, I know it once made me happy.

  Amends

  I wonder if there will be a morning when you’ll wake up missing me. That some incident in your life would have finally taught you the value of my worth. And you will feel a surge of longing, when you remember how I was good to you.

  When this day comes I hope you will look for me. I hope you will look with the kind of conviction I’d always hoped for, but never had from you. Because I want to be found. And I hope it will be you—who finds me.

  The Most

  You may not know

  the reason why,

  for a time

  I wasn’t I.

  There was a man

  who came and went,

  on him every breath

  was spent.

  I’m sorry I forgot

  all else—

  it was the most

  I ever felt.

  History

  In the beginning, I wrote to you and you wrote back. For the first time, I had something worth writing about.

  Then somewhere during our correspondence, I deviated—and instead of writing to you, I began writing for you. There was so much to say, things I couldn’t tell you and I sensed it was important to put them down somewhere. For inherently, mankind is compelled to record their greatest moments in history and you were mine.

  I don’t write to you anymore. Nor do I write for you. But I do write—and every word still aches for you.

  The Dream

  I saw a dream

  long lost to me,

  in search of

  another’s waking.

  It found a shoreline

  far away

  as the day—

  as my heart,

  was breaking.

  And I sighed and wept

  for what could not be—

  and for all that could

  have been,

  For every hope

  and every prayer

  long drowned

  beneath the sea.

  I fell to sleep

  alone that night,

  to the sound

  of a distant call.

  The faintest whisper

  of good-bye—

  and the dream

  was mine, no more.

  Wishing Stars

  I still search

  for you in crowds,

  in empty fields

  and soaring clouds.

  In city lights

  and passing cars,

  on winding roads

  and wishing stars.

  I wonder where

  you could be now,

  for years I’ve not said

  your name out loud.

  And longer since

  I called you mine—

  time has passed

  for you and I.

  Yet I have learned

  to live without,

  I do not mind—

  I still love you anyhow.

  Forever for Now

  Stretching out from here to then,

  days before us,

  came and went.

  Someday we will meet again,

  for now the end—

  of days on end.

  Nostalgia for Today

  Do you remember what you once said to me?

  One day you will be nostalgic for today.

  At the time, I couldn’t begin to conceive a future without you—I believed with all my heart we were destined for each other. And in the back of my mind, I always knew I’d feel nostalgic for a moment we shared or a memory we created—but not once, not even for a second—did I imagine it was you I would be nostalgic for.

  Poker Face

  There was a time I would tell you,

  of all that ached inside;

  the things I held so sacred,

  to all the world I’d hide.

  But they became your weapons,

  and slowly I have learnt,

  the less that is said, the better—

  the lesser I’ll be hurt.

  Of all you’ve used against me,

  the worst has been my words.

  There are things I’ll never tell you,

  and it is sad to think it so;

  the more you come to know me—

  the less of me you’ll know.

  Crosswords
r />   I write to bring you closer. To imagine your fingers trailing the curve of my spine. To recall how the span of your hands were exactly the width of my hips. And how our bodies would fall into each other like words on a crossword puzzle. I write for the raw ache in my bones when the ink seeps into paper—for the bittersweet sorrow that comes from bringing you back.

  Forget Me Not

  The choice was once

  your choosing,

  before losing

  became my loss.

  I was there in

  your forgetting—

  until I was forgot.

  Melancholy Skies

  Three summers passed

  of sun-drenched dreams,

  of snow white clouds

  and you and me.

  The warmth of love,

  all summer long,

  through winter’s chill

  we’d carry on.

  Each season’s end

  began anew,

  until the last—

  I shared with you.

  They gave us years,

  though many ago;

  the spring cries tears—

  the winter, snow.

  The Poet

  Why do you write? he asked.

  So I can take my love for you and give it to the world, I reply.

  Because you won’t take it from me.

  Almost

  Do you see

  how I love him true—

  it could have been you.

  As for you

  and your love for she—

  it could have been me.

  But we were a maybe,

  and never a must—

  when it should have been us.

  He’s Forgotten

  Time is to wound

  like wound is to suture,

  when she was his past

  and he is her future.

  Perfect

  He said to me “You’re perfect,

  and I want you to be mine.”

  But I felt I wasn’t worthy

  and to be perfect, I’ll need time.

  I knew it would be worth it,

  I could be better if I tried,

  then he got tired of waiting—

  and I watched my chance go by.

  Minefield

  If you know a boy with eyes of quiet wonderment, who smiles often and speaks rarely—someone who pays the same respect to words as he would a minefield—who thinks deeply and is endearingly sad—please do not give your heart to him. Even when he gently pleads with you—or clutches your hand with grave earnest—no matter how he tries to convince you, please turn him away. You don’t know him like I know him. You can’t love him like I do.

  A Sad Farewell

  For all the time I’ve known you,

  to the present—now our past;

  I know never to forget you;

  though regret still pains my heart.

  Had I known, I would not have left you,

  alone beneath those stars,

  on the night when I last saw you,

  not knowing it was the last.

  Regrets

  Timing is irrelevant when two people are meant for each other. It’s what I once believed.

  But we met during a time when I was such a mess, when I still had so much to figure out. How could I have known how crucial every word, every action was or how losing you would be something I would always regret?

  If only you could have met me now, how different it would be. How much I have changed. How I have grown. I learned so much from all the mistakes I made with you. I just wish I had made them with someone else.

  Ode to Sorrow

  Her eyes, a closed book,

  her heart, a locked door;

  she writes melancholy

  like she’s lived it before.

  She once loved in a way,

  you could not understand;

  he left her in pieces

  and a pen in her hand.

  The ode to her sorrow

  in the life she has led—

  her scratches on paper,

  the words they have bled.

  Remembering You

  The day you left, I went through all my old journals, frantically looking for the first mention of you. Searching for any details I can no longer recall—any morsel of information that may have been lost to my subconscious. The memory of you is fading, a little at a time, and I can feel myself forgetting. I don’t want to forget.

  Love’s Paradox

  There is a tide that rolls away,

  I want to make it stay.

  A borrowed book sits on my shelf,

  I want it for myself.

  There are two old hands

  that move this clock,

  I want to make them stop.

  There is a love you sold to me,

  I keep it under lock—

  and yet you hold the key.

  A Ghost

  His voice in this room,

  like shadows on walls;

  I imagine him on

  the other side of the door.

  His voice, his hands, his touch,

  at the start, the end,

  and in the middle.

  Strange how it mattered so much,

  when now it matters

  so little.

  Losing You

  I used to think I couldn’t go a day without your smile. Without telling you things and hearing your voice back.

  Then, that day arrived and it was so damn hard but the next was harder. I knew with a sinking feeling it was going to get worse, and I wasn’t going to be okay for a very long time.

  Because losing someone isn’t an occasion or an event. It doesn’t just happen once. It happens over and over again. I lose you every time I pick up your favorite coffee mug; whenever that one

  song plays on the radio, or when I discover your old t-shirt at the bottom of my laundry pile.

  I lose you every time I think of kissing you, holding you, or wanting you. I go to bed at night and lose you, when I wish I could tell you about my day. And in the morning, when I wake and reach for the empty space across the sheets, I begin to lose you all over again.

  The End

  “I don’t know what to say,” he said.

  “It’s okay,” she replied, “I know what we are—

  and I know what we’re not.”

  Encore

  Excerpts from

  Love & Misadventure

  Also by Lang Leav

  Available where all

  good books are sold

  Angels

  It happens like this. One day you meet someone and for some inexplicable reason, you feel more connected to this stranger than anyone else—closer to them than your closest family. Perhaps because this person carries an angel within them—one sent to you for some higher purpose, to teach you an important lesson or to keep you safe during a perilous time. What you must do is trust in them—even if they come hand in hand with pain or suffering—the reason for their presence will become clear in due time.

  Though here is a word of warning—you may grow to love this person but remember they are not yours to keep. Their purpose isn’t to save you but to show you how to save yourself. And once this is fulfilled, the halo lifts and the angel leaves their body as the person exits your life. They will be a stranger to you once more.

  ..................................

  It’s so dark right now, I can’t see any light around me.

  That’s because the light is coming from you. You can’t see it but everyone else can.

  Souls

  When two souls fall in love, there is n
othing else but the yearning to be close to the other. The presence that is felt through a hand held, a voice heard, or a smile seen.

  Souls do not have calendars or clocks, nor do they understand the notion of time or distance. They only know it feels right to be with one another.

  This is the reason why you miss someone so much when they are not there—even if they are only in the very next room. Your soul only feels their absence—it doesn’t realize the separation is temporary.

  ..................................

  Can I ask you something?

  Anything.

  Why is it every time we say good night, it feels like good-bye?

  A Dream

  As the Earth began spinning faster and faster, we floated upwards, hands locked tightly together, eyes sad and bewildered. We watched as our faces grew younger and realized the Earth was spinning in reverse, moving us backwards in time.