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

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You Walked Away

Published on by Tosha Michelle82 Comments

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You walked away. I remember the first time you walked toward me. We sat at what would become our table. You with your beer. Me, with my sweet tea. Two people sharing stories. Connected by our fondness
of music and difficult things

Afterwards, you walked me home. Maybe if I hadn’t invited you in. Maybe if you hadn’t leaned in and kissed me, we might have just stayed friends, but I had to kiss you back. That’s when things really began the undressing, tongue to flesh, a bite to the lobe, hands everywhere. A hasty love, a good idea at the time

That was before promises were broken, before you became a liar. Before I knew I’d never be able to quell
your wanderlust spirit. Before I understood you only find peace in leaving things behind

God, we were stupid. We should have just stayed friends. We sat at our table, you held both my hands at arms length and told me some bullshit how I’m better off with someone else, someone who knows how to stay, how to build. Someone who knows my nurturing is not something to just put up with.

I watched as you got up from our table one last time,
You started to turn toward me but got distracted by
the street noise and the call of distant continents.
You walked away.
I remember the first time you walked toward me.

-Tosha Michelle

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

Baggage

Published on by Tosha Michelle23 Comments

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Tell me about you, about
your life, your romances,
your regrets. I’m sick of
talking about me. I’m
tired of dragging my
losses around like a
little girl clinging to
her favorite blanket
I’m sending her to bed.

Tonight, I want to dance,
with you, and get drunk
on tomorrow’s promises.
Right now though, I’m
going to sit here and
listen. Tell me about
your fears, the boy
inside of you. How
the little demon
keeps you up at night,
how he taunts you
with your regrets,
you failures, your lost
loves. How sometimes
you just want to smother
him with his stupid
blanket, so your mind
can get some rest, so
your heart can know
peace.

Hold me close as we
talk. I like the way my
head feels on your
shoulder, how our
hands fit together.
Let’s fool ourselves
and pretend that our
little demon children
aren’t banging on the
door, that they aren’t
peeping through the
window.

Should we risk a kiss?
Do we dare?
Hurry, before they get
in. Their giggles are
closer now. It won’t
be long until all we feel
is the tugging of our
coattails, and the only
sound left is their
shrieks of delight.

Left

Published on by Tosha Michelle3 Comments

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You get up as usual
Head for the shower.
You run into the door
on the way, your new
nemesis and marvel
that you’re the one
coming unhinged,
no matter how
many time you
try to pour
yourself in a
bottle of Valium.

You reflect on life
and wonder where
sex went. When did
did poetry turn into
a slasher film? Beauty
being chased by horror.
Stanzas hanging out
with metaphors, and
alliteration, munching
on popcorn, giving
you a sympathetic stare

Keats always makes
you cry and seeing
the sweater he left
behind. You can still
smell his cologne.
It’s fragrant in this
lonely sky of isolation.

You reflect on a litany
of things lost, a canon
of regret. The past, an
inheritance or curse to
be claimed. You think
grief is blue, reflecting
on Goethe and his
Theory of Colors.

You try and put
together a new
ceiling fan, the one
he was suppose to
assemble, before he
finally stopped
oscillating and left
you behind. He was
always a sucker for
your silly humor.

You scream in
frustration, and
throw the wrench
across the room.
The newlyweds
next door have
been hammering
for hours.

-Tosha Michelle

Blown Away

Published on by Tosha Michelle1 Comment

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Today you called me
to tell me the mistake
wasn’t what we had,
but what you tossed
away.

The winds here are
strong. The storm
rages heavy with
grief and regret.
All the windows
in the house
shatter.

My blood is cold.
My heart tied to
a madwoman’s
fears, while the
heart gains
strength from
the head to
to bolt the
reminding
door. My
fingertips
scarred, I
hang up
the phone.

The love we had
buried under stone
All the cracks and
corners filled.

You introduced me
to the death of love
and now it is your
disaster to owe.

-Tosha Michelle