Imprinted Read online



  Imprinted

  by Andrea Michelle

  ~~~

  Copyright © 2015 by Andrea Michelle

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Published in the United States of America

  First Published, 2015

  Andrea Michelle

  www.andreamichelleofficial.com

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  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Get a second book of poetry for free!

  Imprinted

  If I could,

  I would bottle your laugh

  and drink it

  so that the feeling you give me

  would forever live inside.

  Of all the people I've lost,

  I miss the most,

  the gentle spirit I used to be.

  We are still the same in body,

  but your heart and mine live apart.

  You see,

  I only miss you when my anger sparks,

  igniting off an insult meant to light fire.

  You would have been calm,

  I know this,

  and it makes me miss you.

  I only miss you when I judge,

  for you loved people for their frailty,

  and I live behind a wall of pride,

  blind to the story behind the faults.

  I only miss you when I fail you.

  When I act like we never met.

  I only miss you when I lose you,

  for it is when you are gone

  that I am lost.

  This world is divided

  between feelers and thinkers.

  Spirits and minds.

  Have you ever seen a storm roll in?

  That's the way she loved.

  A drop or two to start.

  Then the flood.

  I'm so tired of your games

  and yet

  it's that devilish grin that keeps me awake at night.

  You needn't consume every opinion

  placed before you.

  If the fruit is rotten,

  do you eat it?

  The world is broken

  there's no doubt of that.

  But she saw the art of each

  uniquely shaped shard

  and that made all the difference.

  Stay away.

  Do not paint me in shades of love

  and claim me your masterpiece.

  I am not one to be hung on a wall,

  chained and imprisoned

  by affection and adoration.

  You believe me a rose

  but you are mistaken.

  I am the wind

  and I will steal away your beauty

  as the wind often does of dandelions.

  And when I am done you will feel as a weed.

  With a final kiss I will travel on.

  My love,

  I do not want to strip you bare.

  They say

  I color outside the lines,

  I think outside the box,

  I challenge the status quo.

  But I disagree.

  You see,

  one can only push the limits

  if one is faced with them.

  Lines and cages and norms.

  To many, are obstacles.

  To me, are but words.

  I live as free flowing color,

  a dripping of paint,

  destined to stain the soul of the earth.

  Place a hand over your chest.

  Feel that?

  That's called purpose.

  She had a very cross look about her.

  So, I asked what was wrong.

  “Everything. Everything's wrong.

  And it's the fairy tales to blame.

  Good beats evil.

  Happily ever after.

  The world so desperately claims to be

  a princess, a knight, a hero.

  A good guy.

  But I've seen inside myself

  and I'm none of these things.

  But I look at the villains.

  The villains who made mistakes

  then hated themselves for it.

  The villains who know what it's like

  to lose themselves.

  The villains who are angry and bitter and desperate,

  the results of fractured dreams and slaughtered hopes.

  No one bothers with the 'why?'

  They think, 'They must have been born evil.'

  But they weren't.

  And I know.

  Because I wasn't either.”

  She breathed.

  And we sat there.

  Two villains holding hands.

  I am the hero.

  I am the monster.

  You are not safe as long as I live.

  You will never be saved if ever I die.

  So, what is better?

  To live with the pain of my demons?

  Or to live with the pain of my absence?

  And was it the Dragon or the Savior

  who pulled you into this live?

  And though we plead

  for a love that will leave us whole,

  we secretly ache for someone

  to destroy us so deeply

  we cannot help but shine.

  We live to be broken,

  to unearth the jewels buried inside.

  What is art?

  Art is a form of communication,

  a language, you see.

  It is a physical, visual representation of

  a word, a story, a feeling.

  To those who babble on,

  “That's not art!”

  Are those who do not speak the language of the artist.

  If I spoke to you in Latin,

  you may not understand,

  and yet,

  a language it remains.

  You see, the only qualifier of art is that

  at least one other

  must understand its intention.

  Even when I wasn't

  I chose to be.

  And thus, my life I molded.

  She was so intense,

  a veil that covered my vision,

  demanding attention,

  blurring the world like an eruption of steam

  after fire and ice brush fingertips.

  Indeed,

  she was fire and she was ice.

  An untameable mass of energy that

  burned its name in my flesh.

  Yet,

  a northern wind that stilled my st
orms,

  encased me in ice,

  beautiful how she arose every pore on my being.

  She was fire.

  She was ice.

  And I.

  I was ready to burn, either way.

  She said,

  “When I was young, they asked me

  what I wanted to be when I grew up.”

  He said,

  “And what did you say?”

  “Some days a doctor, some days a teacher.”

  Then silence filled the gap between their lips.

  The kind of silence that whispered memories,

  smelled of change,

  a passing from one self to another.

  “Wand now? What do you want to be now?”

  He questioned.

  “Kind. And good. And happy.

  I don't really think anything else matters.”

  Don't listen to those who name you

  “unrealistic”

  in efforts to stunt you from your dreams.

  Reality is created within the mind

  and thus different for each.

  That word,

  “unrealistic”,

  quivering on their lips,

  is but a declaration of their own fear.

  Perhaps your reality is greater than theirs.

  Perhaps, they should've dreamed harder.

  In that fleeting moment before slumber overpowers,

  I know a world that is both reality and dream.

  Where my mind plays fantastical games

  and my heart recognizes their oddities.

  Where worry and doubt are but words in a book.

  Where, perhaps, this wonderland could be touched.

  It is in that moment

  where hope is conceived,

  created instantly as the unrestrained mind makes love to the sensible heart.

  It is in that moment where I live.

  Neither asleep nor awake,

  entirely romantic yet

  utterly realistic.

  All those with magic in their fingertips

  have always been cast into flame.

  Maybe the world isn't burning.

  Maybe the world is just fine.

  Maybe it's the people who walk around,

  delicate as paper,

  holding matches and destroying their own selves.

  And in our pile of ash we scoff at all

  the burning bodies,

  as if our flame is less destructive than theirs.

  We make love to our demons

  and wonder why the world gives birth to shadow.

  She much preferred the world within her skull

  to the one before her feet.

  She lived beneath the pages of a story,

  between the heartbeats of a song.

  Her eyes were globes amid a galaxy held together

  by fantastical chaos.

  Wherever she was, it wasn't here.

  Humanity saw her as stone.

  She saw humanity as a collection of letters

  scattered upon a page,

  nonsensical and quite boring indeed.

  My favorite place to be was close to her.

  Close enough that I could

  count the freckles on her nose,

  a gentle sprinkle of stars upon her

  milky complexion.

  And I've never