First snow

The fog hugged the sky like a heavy blanket. Outside, the habitual blaring of the Brooklyn Boulevard - the sirens, the hurtling tires and impatient horns - was suddenly muffled, as if the day had finally covered its ears to the world. The lazy lovers laid in bed expectantly, their hearts soft, their eager bodies palpitating to the rhythm of a fresh romance. Each whimpering waft, every rustling leaf indicated its advent, like the hump of an ocean wave making its way from the distance. They held each other in silence, each second suspended in the anticipation of an important arrival. She drew the curtain aside, and just like that, as calm and angelic as the lullaby of a new mother, came the snow once again. 

-LBCH

Retrograde

Let’s say I was to believe that we are somehow connected,
that my heart is as swollen as the moon,
with a love so full it hurts;
that it knows of unbearable Beauty, 
protects it from above, 
with a night that glimmers golden,
smooth, 
like a newly paved highway. 
Let’s say I was to believe that we are somehow connected, 
that at its heaviest, inflated with light, 
a beam of passion and compassion, 
it can bear the most pain, inflicting it in return,
silently suffering, watching a world that comes and goes 
like an ocean tide,
and yet can do nothing but shine among a field of blanketed darkness, 
impenetrable,
and thick as oil, 
again and again, even when we expect her to fail,
that it is possible to be desired, 
even adored,
and still feel 
oppressively lonely.

-LBCH

They stared at each other, digging for answers in gazes, like flipping through the pages of a history book. 
They stared, searching for clues, patterns, signs unheeded that might have led them to this moment. 
They stared at each other for what could have been eternity, a moment existing outside of time, cold blue crashing into bark -their eyes, drops of water, like a full moon melting into the reflection of a river. 
And having found nothing, no recipe or guarantee, no particular design, they understood love, like one knows not to question the vitality of nature. 
And not knowing what to do next, they simply kept loving.

-LBCH

She sat next to the windowsill watching the rain come down. She remembered the time they had disagreed on the sound of raindrops. “Pitter patter,” said the one. “Tap tap,” said the other, their voices hushed beneath the sheets, their arms interlaced, as if they were meant to hold each other forever. The rain kept coming down calm, performing its duty, and she could no longer remember what side she had been on during that rainy day. It didn’t matter now anyway, except that she wished it did. Some realizations came a little too late, she knew, and with it the unbearable echo of helpless memories. She closed her eyes, took a breath of acceptance, and listened to the rain continue to beat itself slippery onto the window. 

-LBCH

The Drive

Out on the road she felt as if nothing could touch her. The sky, blue ebbing into grey, flowing softly into pastel pink or evening tangerine, stretched along with each mile, loyal and safely constant. As continuous as the ocean, both sky and road could offer her a feeling of shelter she had long forgotten. The one carried her, whether she knew where or not, without closing doors, providing possibilities every which way; the other was the reassurance of an existing world, a life ahead at every edge and endpoint. And so she drove, and drove, and drove until her eyes blurred, until she lost identity and self-awareness, until she was at last one with the rhythm of intuition, each curve and hill part of a physical current, free of thought. Having discovered the void of disillusion, the anguish of heartache, she had fled in search of a space where promises were kept, a flight on wheels.

-LBCH

Break up

I loved you the way the sun loves

Spreading itself in the morning, 

Like kneaded dough,
A languorous morning lover, loving
Without question,
Burning warmer with the seconds,
High and blazed with the hopes of a future
Together, cozy

Like the smell of homemade bread
And wooden cabins. 

    Remember those dreams?
I loved you the way the sun loves, 

Consistently, sometimes
With fury, like a winter
Fire vexed with the responsibility of heat, 

Sometimes
A tired flame. 

I loved you like the sun is
Always there,
During the cool of night when we don't see it,
It ignites the moon.
I loved you 

I loved you 

I loved you 

I love you

Like the sun loves
Too much, sometimes
Unpleasant, sometimes

Unhealthy.
Always there 

-LBCH

Now An Anthem to a Different Generation

I have a habit of flicking my ashes obsessively
when I smoke.

“Ashes to ashes and dust to dust”
goes the phrase.
“We’d hate to beat you but we must, we must!”
my mother would follow with a joyful chant
when we were little.

We city smokers know of a sadness
that burns deadlier than the tip
of this cigarette,
sucking itself to non-existence on
this fire
     escape,
sizzling softly, quick,
almost unnoticed,
like a drying ocean.

Out my window
the cars rush down Eastern Parkway,
and young folks laugh
drunk, defiant
on this one more Saturday night.

We’ve all become
survivors.

“Play The Dead!” they said,
not play
dead.

I flick with anxiety,
beat my dust against the wind,
where answers tend to blow
if you’re a dreamer.

And the still summer
air whispers to me:
“we’d hate to beat you,
but we must,
       we must.”

Healing Is

Plunging 

Into cold water,

Shocking and electric
   At first

The confusion 

Of a world
In transition
The body
Recognizing
The mind
Recognizing
Space
Finding
Harmony. 

Healing is
A flower feeling
Sun
Extending
Wings
Trusting
Growth.

Healing is
Patient,
The first crack
Of an eggshell,
The slight slit
Of a cocoon, 

Wiggling of toes
   In the morning. 

Healing is
Natural
Salt water
To the wound, 

Breeze braiding hair,
Shells buried
In sand unburied
By small hands. 

Healing is

Gentle, 

A shaft of splintered
Sunlight
Out my kitchen window. 

Is
Lovely

Like her kisses
Before bed. 

gypsywrites

Do not tell me to smile

I will not take to it kindly, 
for I will have already been feeling kind, 
and deeply inclined to greet you with smiles
if you had wanted to talk. 

You see, I react organically, 
And will most likely never take kindly to 
entitled demands.
I like to smile willingly, and more so 
unconsciously, 
But I'll never take kindly when asked on command

Do not tell me to smile. 
It is not my fault you only see with two eyes, 
only see faces as features, 
and don't know how to recognize
when a woman smiles from within.
(Some can sense it from miles)

Do not tell me to smile
before you've thought of asking me
how my day has been, 
if it's almost over, or if it'll begin 
just now. 

Do not tell me to smile 
because sometimes I will not have smiles 
to give you.
Sometimes I'll only have one reserved
for when my love walks through the door.
(Sometimes I don't have one for her either) 

You see,
I do not smile as a chore, 
and I have just started to refrain 
from smiling at that person that tells me to smile, 
yet does not know my name. 

gypsywrites

Theres no grass outside for shoe boxes

The storm, assertive and insistent, 
will have covered all tracks made 
for their arrival, 
and I will have worked ten hours, 
getting home too late 
to celebrate. 

And will they know, 
as they drag and trudge, slow
against the burning wind, 
the blades of snow, 
past the pines and abandoned garlands, 
now homeless and laying outside in surrender,
like intrusive guests, 
that I still remember 
with a joyous heart that still rings
in my chest,
to leave water our for the camels? 

gypsywrites

First Snow

Not all things are storms. The first snow comes in soft, like a first kiss, and with it the bliss of a lonely morning, the nostalgic evening. Premature snowflakes tremble unhurriedly, settling on windowsills like a tired cat. Before the slosh, the slips, the shovel, there is the resolute dignity of silence, and the habitual sigh of acceptance, as the city stares out the window, that there is Beauty in beginnings. 

gypsywrites

She had the world on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't spell it out; she didn't try enough. And so life merely tasted her, like the sea licks the shore, but always retreats. 

(To live passionately is important)

gypsywrites

Trying to understand her was like trying to understand Mother Nature, with all of her Beauty, her kindness, and her ability to destroy. Science had only raised theories; tracking her moves led to unreliable predictions at most. But he had to love her, he thought, and he had to protect her, because she was sensitive, and could hurt deep. And when she hurt, he hurt deeper, like the punctured wound of a thousand battles. He had to care for her, because despite of her violence, her irrationality, she gave him life. 

gypsywrites