Poetry through the Seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
I am blinded by your memory.
The waters sailed now make me seasick.
Do you think I like you in my heart,
gnawing holes until it hangs in lacy strings?
Love is strangling me, like a madman in the night.
Like an arrow in my back, love attacks me.
You slam love in my face like a door
and I choose to believe it means you care.
I see you in blue, all soft around the edges.
In the end, we’re all soft around the edges.
I can be good if you need good.
I can drown in good if you can swim.
My life
is a series of memories –
of mom in the kitchen,
of dad’s disappearance.
But they’re not real,
my memories.
All lies.
I wash away
like a sand castle
as the tide comes in,
leaving broken shells
and scattered seaweed.
Every story I’ve ever told
a myth,
a cloud drifting by.
Not a girl
who was born
and grew up
and can now die
of sadness for never
really being alive.
Beauty’s legend persists,
skin glistening after a bath,
in sadness, lies its head against your breast.
Hidden in the shadows,
a beast awaits to impose a deadline
when beauty will be gone forever.
He’s gone.
Three seconds on the clock.
The red wire
or the green.
Will I cut the right one
or will I explode
in tears
or in grief
over his departure?
No.
I’m fine
actually.
I took down his pictures,
but not because I’m angry.
Well, I am angry,
but not like I don’t want
to see his face again.
I’d like to see his face again.
It’s a good face.
Guess it was coming for awhile.
Everyone saw it but me.
Things I should have said,
didn’t see.
A trail of destruction
spread out behind me.
Like a god
with his hammer,
I destroy.
He asked me for a reason to stay,
but I was too long in finding one.
If you have to look,
the reason isn’t good enough
anyway.
I’m fine
actually.
He wants to be her knight,
but she doesn’t need saving.
* * *
Boys before
kept her in tears,
kept her in chains.
Holes ripped
in the world
by their passion.
With you
she feels less
pain.
She feels
less.
The vampire princess asked him to join her
and he saw the light no more.
He was gentle once, before his soul was taken,
penning piles of pitiful sonnets filled with longing.
The dark girl found his gentleness charming,
but loved him even more when he was wicked.
So he was wicked.
Her perfect poet and provocateur
made powerful by blood and by love.
A century later, she abandoned him, and the heart
that ceased to beat the night she turned him
tore apart.
Only forbidden love began to mend
his heart’s tattered secrets. The Slayer.
A spirit so hot to the touch it burned him nightly.
She made him cry. She made him rage.
He was covered in her, consumed by her,
concerned for her.
He was in love and she wanted him dead.
He wanted to breathe her in, but he had no breath.
Here begins his journey to recover the soul
he lost so long ago. To give birth again to the poet within.
Cast out by false fathers
who profess love
but imprison creativity,
she finds herself in the company
of those she despises,
trying to hide her true face,
what’s bad inside her
legend told by fathers who seek
to keep their women weak.
The only weak woman
is the one
who doesn’t know herself.
Oh, tell me a story
of she who begins
unwanted and then is chosen.
Family.
Not those we are born to, but those who make us whole.
Not what tears us apart, but what ties us together.
A spark
they still call hatred,
but the scent of sweetness
hides underneath,
the perfect match of wit
and struggle.
He shoves.
She slaps.
He welcomes pain.
It feels like love.
Stinking, crazy,
hurtful love.
what if there was another me
who did it better
got it right the first time around
made the drunken parents proud
got accepted to all the best schools
on someone else’s dime
what if he exuded brilliance
stomped on mediocrity
what if everyone admired him
depended on him
he would be so handsome
with the cleanest hair
the darkest eyes
the cleverest of comebacks
wait, no one does clever comebacks
better than me
not even a better me