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