I’m Spinning Around in Circles

Like a pendulum

I watched my sanity swing back and forth 

Hitting the four corners of these hypnotic white walls.

With each thud and each bang,

I heard it echo through the crevices and dark alleys of my mind

Passing whispers and taunts

Egging me to take one step closer to the dark.

I felt the last strings that held bits of me together, 

break off and snap, as easily as I pictured my own neck would

on the nights when I saw my 10-year-old self

holding a doll in the corner, humming a tune I was no longer familiar with.

I wish I could hold on and stay for a little while longer

I wish cradling the past didn’t become a habit

I wish you were there for me. 

Yours truly,

Painted Shadow

Big girls don’t cry.

Falling in love with you was like skinny dipping in winter

Falling in love with you was like

Benjamin Franklin

standing in the pouring rain

holding the key high enough

hoping to feel some sort of spark

some sort of electricity.

It was reckless

It was a suicide attempt.

Falling in love with you

was the only thing I felt good at.

 

– excerpts from a book I’ll never write.

 

Yours truly,

Painted Shadow

 

Ballerina

I’ll call her my very own ballerina 

as she pirouettes in and out of my mind;

her feet barely touching the ground

passionate, yet seemingly detached

as if they weren’t real limbs at all.

I’ll call her my very own ballerina

as she turns and points and scurries through my thoughts

poised and graceful;

dancing her own performance in hypnotic circles

in the theater of my mind.

She finishes in a grande jeté,

She leaps forward from my hidden corners

and bows in front of me,

arms outstretched

white knuckles clenching a beating heart

She was my muse,

and I, her biggest balletomane.

Yours truly,

Painted Shadow

Hurricane

Chapter 389

I was lying face flat on the bed

sweat dripping along the curves of my body

Your fingers  scratching away the memories from last night,

desperately trying to forget.

Chapter 349

You greeted me as you pushed me against the wall of the elevator,

while planting the softest kiss

on my hungry lips.

My heart churned awake

Thunderstorms and hurricanes brewed in the pit of my belly.

Chapter 370

You floated along,

careful to be with everyone

but me.

I replaced the desire of wanting  you

with the bitter taste of vodka.

Chapter 355

You laughed and tossed from side to side

messing our neatly arranged bed.

That afternoon, I found Orion the hunter on your back

Chapter 362

Your perfume lingered on my neck

and I found myself inhaling the memories of you

I was way too comfortable

I was in trouble.

Chapter 381

I’m sorry I didn’t seek comfort

from the warmth of your skin

I wish I was different, sometimes.

Chapter 1

You had me at Hello.

– – – Extracts from a book I’ll never write – – –

Yours Truly,

Painted Shadow

T for Trouble

Your name rolled off my tongue
smoother than a bottle of 35 merlot
You were all smiles and charm,
Smart words and longing looks.
Your arms; all built and mesmerizing
Vowed to hold me up like a tower
That was never meant to stand on its own
Like a tower that could easily collapse.
Your glazed glistening eyes
Would torment my moving lips
That desperately tried to form words in to clever sentences,
But ended up being strings of broken cobwebs in the wind
And stronger than the force of that wind,
I was blown over when our hands touched for the briefest moment.
I was the teenager with a rebellious streak
And you were trouble with a capital T
Holding a board with my name.  In bold. Underlined twice.

Yours truly,

Painted Shadow

I’ll keep wondering.

I often wondered why I couldn’t write about you.

I often day dreamed about your warm breath against my neck,

or the sound of my name (or versions of it) rolling off your tongue,

But I could never quite figure out why I couldn’t write about you.

I couldn’t turn you in to metaphors and exaggeration.

I couldn’t even rhyme your name.

Heck, I couldn’t even figure out the rhythm of your beating heart!

You’d think that after six months I’d have figured it out,

But here I am, still wondering.

Maybe, just maybe;

You are worth more than a clever metaphor and rhyme.

Maybe, just maybe;

You mean more to me than just a poem.

Maybe, just maybe;

I can’t turn you in to poetry, because you’re not a figment of my over active imagination.

Maybe, just maybe,

You’re real.

 

 

Yours truly,

Painted Shadow

Pour Toi.

Seeking Inspiration : 
From the smooth curve of your finger tips along the wall of my spine
From the slight giggle that escaped your parted lips and landed on mine
From the warmth of your beating heart nestling in the edges of my smile
From a single Hello or two, and no Goodbye
From your sun kissed skin and blazing eyes
From You.

Yours truly,

Painted Shadow.

Simple Things

I haven’t taken drugs before;
But I swear I got addicted to the colour in your eyes
Before you said Hello.

I haven’t taken drugs before;
But I hallucinated and daydreamed
after you said my name.

I haven’t taken drugs before,
But I knew what withdrawal felt like
when you said Good-bye.

 

Yours truly,

Painted Shadow

Imagine it was us.

I tried to fit you in to pretty rhymes and clever metaphors, but the thought of your lips on her perfectly sculptured thighs stopped me dead in my tracks. I wasn’t sure what exactly I was jealous of. Was it her legs along with her black stilettos wrapped around your neck or was it the way you sucked the red lipstick off her bottom lip?

I tried to fit you in to the spaces of my overactive thoughts and missing puzzle pieces of my scattered heart, but I couldn’t get the idea of you fitting your parts in her void.

I tried to understand the corners of your odd smile and the carved lines on your forehead when you frowned, but instead you were too busy drawing a map on her neck with your tongue and hearts along her back.

I’m running out of words to say and love’s floating away.

Yours truly,

Painted Shadow

Shotgun and Tongue Kisses

To say I believed in love at first sight the moment I saw the light from your eyes melt down the walls around my heart would be a lie.

I didn’t believe in love at first sight.

But,

The moment I saw you, you reached your hand in to the belly of my chest and wrapped those beautiful warm hands around my pounding heart and plucked it as if it was the reddest apple in the orchard.

The moment I saw you, my heart lurched out of its rib cage prison as if a 1000 volt defibrillator was held to it, and before I could reach out and keep it under lock and key, it had already found a place to call home in your beautiful warm hands.

The moment I saw you, my heart felt like a shooting star that shot out of my body, abandoning the one place it was familiar with, only to be pulled by some magnetic force on to the palm of your beautiful warm hands.

I wasn’t sure I believed in love at first sight till I realized my heart had made more of a home in the rough calloused palms of your hands than the high tower of rib bones and other various parts I kept it in.

I wasn’t sure I believed in love at first sight till I saw your eyes.

 

Yours truly,

Painted Shadow