Never Let Me Go by Nicole Barth [12/11/11]

The seaweed of my morning hair lay splayed out in your direction.

Buried under layers of wool and tattered cotton,

polished skin dreamt of your embrace.

Your muffled breathing kept the responsibility of the day at arm’s length.

The static from your arms coursed through me.

It was humming in my veins as I breathed you in.

I was born in a city of flashing lights and discord.

I screamed out love songs from the ends of my fingertips.

And you can call this what you want…

Your song is never ending.

Time cannot lessen the calm in your voice,

the confessions in your lips or the child hiding in your laughter.

I cannot be returned.
So I’ll keep listening to the pulse of this Sunday afternoon.

The heart is hard to translate.  

I’m going to lose my mind between the pages of a journal.

Every gesture recorded in a trail of fascination. 

All These Days by Nicole Barth [12/6/11]

The etchings on the golden floor have no effect on me.

Stale expressions follow you as I pass the stain glass windows.

I am the letter that will never be read.

Clenched jaw and ratty hair.

Hunched over a lopsided desk with only midnight musings for company.

My bleeding pen is the odometer for my silent lips. 

So tell me that you want to dance.

Give me the stare you saved for cold December nights.

 Tonight I am the penny too short at the register,  

the spelling error in your dissertation

and the sigh I won’t expel.

A snarl that plays in your chest.

The sound of your nails tapping against the marble countertop:

it ricochets off telephone lines.

You can’t hide the crease in your brow.

I’m not afraid of anything—even time. 

The Looking Glass by Nicole Barth [11/30/11]

Say my name and every color illuminates.

Your voice is the liquid lullaby that pulled me from my sleep.

Keeping time with the cadence of your breaths,

I reflected mirror images back at you.

Palm to palm,

 I traced the sound of laughter

across the ridges of your hand.

The quiet sighs and unspoken syllables.

I would write them all down if I only knew how.

Thousands of words and I couldn’t seem to command them.

You whisper

 through quivering fingertips and lavender caresses.

 I’ve been scrawling your poetry.

I’ve seen it in the lightning. I’ve seen it in you. 

Only If For A Night by Nicole Barth [11/21/11]

You’ve caught me with eyes wide open.

Technicolor daydreams spill out the memory of you. 

Hazel to azure. 6’3 to 5’6.

The silk of your hair.

And these city lights don’t compare

to the beams that shine through the floral curtains of your room.

You keep me between the waters of your heart.

I don’t need the fame or the night.

 I don’t want the crowds. They never seem to stay.

I’ve lost the anchor around my waist.

Don’t need the taxis blaring in the background for guidance.

My fingertips know the contours of your face...

the pause in your words.

And I heard your voice as clear as day. It was so surreal.

I will leave my body.

I’m smoking out the harmony that sleeps in you. 

Fish Eyes by Nicole Barth [11/11/11]

The ethereal voice caresses my veins.

Steady drumming fuels
every teenage melodrama
echoing in my mind.

I’m so heavy, heavy in your arms.
The rhythm's frantic laughter pulls me in.
I was a heavy heart to carry, but you never let me down.

Freeze me in a shuttered moment of a camera’s lens.
Breathe unmistakable silence into me.
Lace your fingers with mine and
steady the mind that paces in abandoned corridors.

Painted eyes look for the seawater crashing within you.
Wash away the glass shards and layers of coal
that knot my stomach.

This will be my last confession.
I whisper but it’s no secret.
I was a heavy heart to carry, but you never let me down.

Soundtrack of My Summer by Nicole Barth [10/1/11]

I can show you the beauty of open silence.

Run your hesitant fingers over the grooves in the Mahogany tree’s bark.
Breathe me in.

For you are the breathless hummingbird,
the henna tattoo that curves through my skin
and the midnight traveler
wandering through the galleries of my mind.

Let your chest rise in time to the swaying stop lights
as you paint me with your fluid philosophy.

Your eyes are the backdrop of my daydream.

Bring Me Down by Nicole Barth [9/4/11]

Five stanzas, seven aspirations later and my hands are mute.
Hundreds of miles away and I feel you breathing down my neck.

Your shadow eyes hunt for the cracks in the surface.
The trees won’t glisten today,
the rosemary scent is weak within the varnish of my hair
and the Esmeralda you know has vanished.

This mental stutter...

Only sawdust boots and unmade bed sheets.

The dynamics of water figures shifting across a dance floor.
No semblance of home.

Can you feel this pulsating mind?
The owl fixates on you.