DEATH WILL BE A WELCOME VISITOR
By Hayley Sales
Death will be a welcome visitor
When he chance to come
I’ll open up the door, I will
Invite him into my home
I’ll spread a feast of dreams and things
Collected here and there
Seat him at the table’s head
With wine and bread to share
We’ll chat of all the memories
I’ve lived and he has watched
Together we will drink to sleep
The tiered and winded clock
I’ll ponder how I’ve loved and lost
And sometimes how I’d won
And as the night crawls further in
My mind will loose her tongue
A point will come when the silence
Has engulfed me in its womb
Old death will wink, and I will smile
I know my time is soon
I’ll look around my perfect house
And love the life I’ve lived
I’ve lived enough to know that life
Is better with an end
Goodnight to light, to breath, to song
I know we’ll meet again
For death is not the finish-line
But the means by which we mend
ROMANTIC NOTIONS
By Hayley Sales
In between where you are and where I was
You will find me
Huddled in a wasteland of pamphlets and boons
A cathedral of grounded words.
Here I wait, wading through syllables of lines
Caught between my lips and tongue.
Oh yes, my love. We were the dirty joke of fate.
The knot between the moon’s lungs and the galaxy’s heart -
Throbbing to the beat of a lifetime, of lifetimes
Ruled only by measure and text.
Sometimes I wonder,
When my feet and hands ache with fear
Paralyzed by the homage of our age,
Whether I might tag missions to the stars
To tack choices to the tail ends of clouds
I imagine
If only the streets, no longer charred by heat and rust
Became river-like, billowing softly
A distant melody of a lonely sax.
If we could swim through them
No cloth slicked to our bodies
The air tasting of wine and molasses
With the freshness of a lover’s lips
I live in a swamp of romantic notions
But love with brass knuckles and broken glass
I sit by the fire
I watch my fingers wrinkle, crisp, croon
and ache with the yearnings
found between the lips of frost
I feel them curl
Each nail pressing deeply into the withered lines
Rhythmically pulsing
In the beds of my hands
They scratch the skin
Exposing the remains, the hieroglyphs
Of warm water, salt and pain
Each muscle tensing and teasing
Into the forms of fists
I know, I can feel
How they long to thrust themselves
Into the diaphragm of that untouchable fortress
Through the abs of those unsinkable eyes
I know, I want, but I wait
And as I wait, the flames from the fire
Somehow tame my boiling blood
Tying me down
Into the soles of my shoes
I sit by the fire
And though I breath in hate
At least I know I can truly love
I grasp for the cloud
Yet she passes me by
The dew drips down
From her succulent curves
Falling into the canyons
Beneath my eyes
I watch as she foxtrots
Up there amongst the stars
She favors the quiet one
And his lips gently part
He places his hand
Around the arch of her back
She pulls down the moon
And their bedroom goes black
I smile as I lay there
So close we could touch
And yet for the moment
The dream is enough
I kept the doors and windows closed
For chills would sneak between my clothes
Chills of lies and broken hearts
Chills of dates that fell apart
I kept them out as well I could
I’d locked myself away for good
Or so I thought until I found
The guy who knocked then stuck around
And even when I didn’t come
He waited till I felt less numb
As all the chills began to melt
A different breeze I’d never felt
Rushed through the doors and kissed my neck
It warmed me like I can’t forget
And so I chose to find the key
And open up a bit to see
If maybe this would be the one
That could bring back the hiding sun
You make me want to go outside
To show the world my tears have dried
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you dear
From now on let me keep you near