Tag: loss

The Blue Notes

Published on by Tosha Michelle34 Comments

Hey y’all This will be my last post for a couple of weeks. I have to turn my attention to writing a research proposal. I wanted to just buy it a ring and a box of chocolate, but guessing that is out. 😜 My lame sense of humor never goes out though. Seriously, it likes to hang around the house and perform standup in front of the mirror. 

But I digress, I’ve also got a couple of job interviews lined up. Wish me luck and I’m getting back into non profit work with survivors of human trafficking. It’s shocking how prevalent modern day slavery is.  There are so many atrocities in the world, I suppose it’s not that surprising. Love and action can make a difference.  We just have to break through the apathy.

On a lighter note, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Thanks for the likes. Gifts would be better. Yep, there’s that nerdy sense of humor again  Below you will find a poem and my musical attempt.  Hope you enjoy my mournful side. It constrast greatly with my silly side. All my sides wish you the best though xx

If I write it down
I can’t take it back.
When I’m gone, and
the wind of your world
is still scented with
my verse, what then?

Who will I be to you?
a bittersweet arrangement
of molecules only legible
under certain nostalgic light?

If your voice fails you
give them my words.
Tell them this is how
she adored me,
with syntax and lyrical sighs,
bleeding emotions.
The wingspan of her poetry.

I dressed you only
in the sun, too far gone
to halt our ending, but still
close enough for you to cling
to the last of light.

You’ll find me somewhere
lost between the pages of
your life. Sitting on a
porch swing singing
the blue notes, softly
as the intervals slowly fade.

Tosha Michelle

https://m.soundcloud.com/tosha-michelle2020/the-scientist-coldplay-cover

Shadows of Death

Published on by Tosha Michelle32 Comments

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The shadow of my dead
grandfather cast itself
in my dreams some
nights.

I see his silhouette
walking down a deserted road.
I follow him for hours. Every
time I quicken my pace to
catch up, he quicken his
faster

There’s always a
ending but never a beginning.
Time refuses to fold back
Translucence wanders endlessly.
Papa’s the light darting through
my eyes.

I wonder if the dead remember?
Maybe in my dream I’m
looking for a clue that they
haven’t forgotten us,
that’s there truly is a spiral staircase to a better place.

Papa keeps moving
The bones stay quiet.
The ash refuses to speak
The moon gives me the dead eye.
What a thing to be so close
but hear no words

The night dissolves.
A squawk of a crow wakes me
My sadness steals the sun.
For now my question
remains unanswered.

-Tosha Michelle

Granny

Published on by Tosha Michelle59 Comments

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I’m snapping green beans
I bought at the store today,
thinking they would remind me
of Granny and sitting
at the kitchen table,
listening to her “well,
when I was your age” stories.

Hoping that just for a moment
I could hug her again,
feel the sureness of her being,
her sweet familiarly.

Go back before dementia
stole her mind,
and cancer her body.
The days of sweet tea,
peppermints, and house dresses.

Granny could solve any problem
with a hickory stick or a stern look.

I miss her, even now years later,
I can’t help but compose
her in a poem- warm hands,
dark hair, sadness
that never left her eyes,
a lifetime of hardships

For a moment I’m ten again,
and Granny gives me her Irish grin.
Something soft but fierce about her.
Finding joy in an orderly
home and things done right.

How solid and healthy
she looks laboring away
over green beans.
Singing her favorite hymn
“In the sweet bye and bye”
Light shimmering through the room.
Real but unreal.

“We shall meet on that
beautiful shore”
Her notes gradually
becoming fainter.
The words descending,
echos from the past.
Love in every syllable.

I listen as evening opens
around me.
Sorrow changes its pitch.
Thee last of the sunlight
streams in the windows.
Swelling, even as it
disappears, even as it waves goodbye.

-Tosha Michelle

Reading the Dead

Published on by Tosha Michelle43 Comments

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I love my dead relatives

like I love the broken

spine of my favorite book

I love the bent back pages

and the sad dust cover

of ruin. I’ll never discard

it. I take it out often and

bookmark it in memories.

In the chapters, I want the

words to live again. No

matter how many times

I reread the text, there is

no next scene.

I hope it plays out in

another dimension.

I’d like to think some things

are like this.

The morning light casts a

glow upon the cover,

giving it an angelic gleam.

Who could not admire the

beauty of a well loved book?

Wreckage made by years of

reading favorite passages

over again, and who could

not mourn, the sudden shock

when the pages begin

to fade?

-Tosha Michelle

On The Clouds Eating His Shadow.

Published on by Tosha Michelle28 Comments

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The clouds drank in ravens

making the pines lucid.

His shadow fell beneath

the sky. If she listened

closely, she could hear

his melodic cadence

delivering soliloquies

adrift on the wind.

He as he was

She as she became

Awake. Aware.

Taking color and form.

Both somewhere between

what was there. What’s

not there. Someone you

remember and can’t

quite forget.

Lost mail on someone

else’s kitchen table.

The parenthesis enclosed.

Time takes away. Gone

in an instant particles

of the past.

She stays.
(She can’t stay)

Tired from this slow

burning off of yesterday.

That which was lost

will not become again.

She always thinks she

see gleams of him,

glimpsed and then gone.

The stem decimated but

drowning in rose petals.

No longer powerless

to the undertow.

His presence merely less,

but no longer wholly more.

His shadow falling,

falling into dust.

The only sound she

hears now is her

voice turning into

an early frost.

To every poem there is

a time and season.

Seasons that coagulate

into lost years.

In this one, she scourges

the past with lyrical ease

The wind no longer

contradicting itself.

Her pen drops ink

of flames, no longer

pointing to the sky.

Dr. Syntax gives her a

lollipop and a clean

bill of conscious.

-Tosha Michelle

Proustless

Published on by Tosha Michelle6 Comments

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‘The true paradises are the paradises we have lost” -Marcel Proust

We both liked Proust.
Your Proust was my
Proust. We both
thrilled to his words.
Perhaps, that is
where we should
start with Proust.

I want to believe
our hour has not
passed. That
your days could
be part of mine
once again,
even though our
clock stopped
ticking ages ago.
I long to bag up
our past hurts like
leaves, to burn
them, and not
choke on the
sour fumes.

I know our worlds
broke off in a
windstorm of
anger,
accusations,
and the
harshest of
words.

We’ve both been in
different woods for
years now. How
long must the
firs remain a bitter
green? The hours
and days too
numerous to
measure.

I thought I had
healed,
but lately when I
hear
the birds singing
it is a stricken sound,
one of regret
and nostalgia. I know
I’m better off not
attempting to cross
the ridge to your
forest.
I know I’m
mostly likely to be
met with cedar
falling on my head,
The sound of your
chainsaw sputtering
on the breeze. Dead
leaves and debris
everywhere.

I know the valley
between
us is deep. Yet, I
foolishly hope that
the
shadows could give
over to light.
A second chance,
where
the flowers turn
vibrant
in the spring. And
the pine
trees look toward the
horizon.
That we could take
the
fallen wood and
rebuild
the room of our
friendship,

Sit together and read
from Proust, thrill
to his words once
more. I know
it’s just a dream,
The light has sunk.
It died
where it ended,
with
the blood of the lamb,
a cross on the
back to bare.
Miscommunication,
Mixed signals and
metaphors.
There’s nothing left
to build upon,
just a sculptured
martyr
and the ghost of
Swann.

Your Proust is
my Proust, no more.

-Tosha Michelle

https://youtu.be/2MSwBM_CbyY

Hands Over Eyes.

Published on by Tosha Michelle4 Comments

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Abstract art by Yours Unruly

Hands Over Eyes

Stand behind me
Take your hands and
cover my eyes, so
I don’t see all
those doubts that
take flight in me,
so I have nothing new
to fear. No new
heartache to blindside me
Loss always coming
unannounced.

Whisper filthy things
in my ear, so it can
breathe deep your words,
drowning out the
voices in my head
screaming “be cautious”
Imploring me to not
be so reckless with
another one so
intoxicating.

Give me new skin
to touch
so I no longer feel
like a castaway
in dark harbor
full of scabs and scales

Let me feel your warmth,
as hope slips inside me.
Face to face now.
You teach me that
everything opens
with time- eyes. minds,
and even a heart damaged
by love undone.

-Tosha Michelle

Papa

Published on by Tosha Michelle13 Comments

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At eight years old.
I hold my Granny’s hand
The one that use to hold
my Papa’s hand
The one she
held for 32 years
The one she won’t
hold again.
I wonder how much
different mine must feel

We stand in a darkened room
Sharp with the taste
of ash and loss,
full of family and flowers
Tissues to cheek,
eyes red.
Grief pouring out,
like the holy spirit
at a Pentecostal revival

My Papa in his coffin.
dead. I struggle to
understand.
The adults talk of
angels wings, gossamer,
and light
Remarking how peaceful
he looks.
Granny lays her head
on mine and weeps

I place a rose
in Papa’s cold hand,
and kiss his cheek
Hoping he will
answer me
“Papa, I love you.
I’ll take care
of Granny
and hold her hand,
until she sees you again. “

In those few fragment moments
where consciousness
and grief collide.
I understand loss’ lexicon
That is comes off
like synthetic fabric
fused to a body
in a fire
taking skin with it

-Tosha Michelle

Watchmaker Analogy (Out of Sync)

Published on by Tosha Michelle8 Comments

fragmented

A toast to the last sip of sanity,
to a friendship, I thought would never end
Drink from the bitter flute of regret
as chaos and mistrust oxidize
the palate of life

Cheers to a relationship
swallowed whole by anarchy
The struggle of bosoms buddies
maderized on sea of lunacy
Kindred spirits no more

Raise your glass to a hint of
false truths, fair-weathered faith,
famished reason, futile declarations
Assumptions paired with judgment in excess-
verbal checkmate.

Here’s to “Judas’ daughter”
Dante’s stage prop, a sterile cross,
and a refermented simulacra Jesus.

-Tosha Michelle

 

 

Our Lost Spring.

Published on by Tosha Michelle6 Comments

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Do you recall our lost spring?
The time of never ending evenings
Long walks through the park
Hands that never parted
Love found amidst dandelion promises
and sweet grass memories

Do you recall our lost spring?
The time of moonshine and fireflies.
Our melody so loud, it drowned out the crowd.
No pretense. Only divine truths.
We didn’t need anyone’s approval.
All we saw was the potential in each other

Do you recall our lost spring?
The time of sweet wine and soul drenching passion,
endless kisses that melted into the night dew,
glistening on a bed we never wanted to leave,
where all I could taste was forever on your skin.
and we pulsated in time, with our own celestial rhythm.

Do you recall our lost spring?
I do. Memories sweep in when the days become short,
and Jack Frost’s icy breath shivers down my neck.
My soul frostbitten. My heart cold.
I close my eves for a brief moment
I can smell your fresh untainted scent.
I’m transport back to our warm sultry lost spring,
where hope dances in on zephyrs
Love beams off clouds of cotton
Spring becomes nectar in my veins,
and withe a faint smile. I savor what could have been.

-Tosha Michelle