Love’s Confusing Ways

Poetry by Simone Wimbush.

Sometimes your true love just needs a sign.

A sign that I am there for you and you can tell me anything.

A sign thats says I know you love me and I love you.

A sign that explains I am ready for you if you are—but sometimes we start to lose that great connection.

Like a fading away life, slowly dying like a starving man.

Sometimes we feel like our true love is love pushing us away but the real question is… Am I pushing the true love away?

Love is not real.

When is it real?

Who can I trust?

When can I love?

Who should we trust?

Who am I?

Who are you?

I am who?  

Love can distract you from succeeding in life or either guide you in the right direction.

Love can break your heart and fix it again.

If you allow someone to come into your life, make sure that he/she is truly the one you want to give your whole heart to.

Who is really true?

Who tells the truth all the time?

Who can help you find who you are?

Why does love act the way it do?  

Simone Wimbush is an 11th grade student at Friendship Collegiate Academy.

Forever Gone

Forever Gone: A Response to John Edgar Wideman’s Short Story, "Lost and Found"

She knows he’s watching her. With those sea-green eyes that watched her so long ago. Or so it feels. She wonders if he knows that she’s seeing him see her, through this window like the ancient one that enclosed their many secrets, their many nights. Like the many nights she knew he was watching her in bed, accidently awakened by his dreams, unaware of her ability to feel him without actually feeling him, as he listened to her closely as she flipped through magazines. She knew the day would come eventually, so she kept herself busy. She kept herself awake and conscious of fate. Nothing she really believed in until the day she met him, on the train that rode over the East River to Brooklyn, and saw for the first time what it meant to be struck by lightning, to feel cupid strike her with loving someone else who perfectly fit her imperfections perfectly.

She yearned for this desirable feeling of him to consume her for the rest of her life, the rest of her days with him since that moment. But the day came when it just wasn’t there anymore. There was no longer a part of her making him, and him in her, ferociously growing into this fast-paced cycle of nothing, certainly nothing strong enough to keep her wanting him. There was nothing special to her anymore, nothing worth waking up to every morning and being joyful about or maybe even angry just to make-up eventually, into some happy fairytale that really doesn’t make sense until the ending comes along, unintentional and surprising, this ending that is often desired but never realistic enough to cross her mind, never really realistic to him enough to stay with like he said he would, not verbally but with the way he looked at her like everything was alright, touched her like it was the first time, and yet she knew from those actions that those feelings were no longer for her. But there was nothing, nothing in her could make her second guess how wrong it was to be with him. Nothing left for her to love. And yet she did. She loved him more in ways she could fathom. She loved him in ways that didn’t consist of love, but of undefined things, like the clustered stars surrounding uneven planets, the very things that people know exists, but fail to grasp why or how they’re there.

Those nights she stayed up waiting to feel the emptiness scream within her walls. She resisted smelling the sweet, sour smell of cheap perfume on the sheets that she didn’t own herself. She resisted the thought of cheap lipstick staining work clothes of the man she loved, the man she once knew. She let those thoughts get the best of her. Once, just to feel him near her made her feel comfortable, as he dreamed silently through the night, and she listened to the heart that would one day stop beating for her. It stopped. She could no longer hear the magic beneath his chest, but could somehow hear his beat after he left when it was miles away, while she was underneath the new scent of a man not hers. And she still insists on keeping busy to keep her mind off of the emptiness until the old him comes once again, staring at her, imagining what could have been. She feels him watching her four stories below. Just like old times and everything’s alright. But she can’t love him again, for fear of getting lost in the absence she felt the day he left. The day he left to follow that cheap fragrance and those lip stains that were never hers, could never be hers. She could not go back to those nights, those days she could not sleep scared that he would one day dream of someone else.

Spoken Word, a poem

It's that silence spoken so tenderly in the room,

where the pews are full of problems.

Each seat perfectly worn from bottoms,

too selfish to stand for righteousness.

The very ones holding the black book

as evidence of their holiness, torn from many years

of studying without realizing that God exists

beyond its limited pages.

Eloquently the choir sings a tune

that breaks the walls and the painted glass windows,

sending cracks down it's spine, and splitting mine

where it hurts.

That pain where all your imperfections are smacked

in your face, and you just see how ungrateful you are.

To breathe this air 6ft above ground, seems like nothing

until a face you once loved stares wide-eyed as if you aren't there.

These hymns, the same ones my grandma used to sing

when she felt evil creep along the sides of her skin,

peeling her sins until she couldn't feel ‘em anymore,

are the same ones I sing when I feel like I don't have skin

anymore.

And I dance in my bare bones, forgetting.

That I'd be too busy to bow down and remember,

where I came from. That'd I'd be too busy

to see my friends silently turn their backs,

because the devil told them to. That'd I'd be too busy

to say I love you before it's my turn to hand out flowers

for the breathless. But He reminds me who's king.

Those silent nights was created for His voice

to bring life to my soul, the same girl

that keeps running back to old sin like it’s gonna’ change.

And even then, I get a wakeup call

that puts me in position. Knees bowed, hands raised

like I'm even worthy of forgiveness. Tears of blood shed

for believing that human nature would never rape me.

Torn heart for believing love on earth

could even measure to God's.

Ears pried open, listening, for Him to speak holiness,

words that could never be said

by anyone else.

Mind Haven

Frustration creeps up and eats my brain. Thinking

becomes a pain. It's a constant fail

to have a thought that doesn't work.

A constant struggle to make a thought,

function properly.

Somehow that thought of homework becomes

what you ate for dinner last night or what you didn't eat.

How you ran in slow motion from death in a dream,

and how you swear its real.

So you insist on running to catch up with that dream,

as reality trails behind you. In a sense, you are a dream.

A made-up thing that seems real. The way you act in front of me,

isn’t how you act in front of your mom or girlfriend. So who are you?

I swear I saw you in a box labeled made in china, or maybe it was america

‘cause being authentic is too taboo here.

But then, I remember it's just a thought that I woke up to.

It's hard to fall asleep again, when you don't think where you are is real.

And yet, I fall asleep,

wanting the fantasies that change me.

Somehow being fake brings sinful happiness.

A false smile that can sustain any lie and it's what you have to do to get by.

Sleep, dream and work your way to the bottom. My closed eyes

try to erase the person I try to be in a world,

full of bar codes tattoed on peoples foreheads.

Lost in the Park, a poem

She knows this place. How the trees sway

with the wind, so intimately. It whispers

silently with her heart, beating to a rhythm

that sings with the birds. She knows this is it.

Where love is made, where it hides, hanging

from branches too far to reach.

The sweet smell of oak collides

with the breath of the ocean,

peace.

And he is there. To fill the emptiness.

She cannot explain how he fills the void within wind,

between breaths, between fingers.

The silence in the air is beautiful and incomplete.

The sun shines reflecting her skin to the sky, gold-ish brown

contrasting his rich, dark skin.

Smile radiant, and God-like, and purer

than how her smile masks itself in hard times. T

he wind pushes hair back, eyelids closed, hands open

to catch the grass. Green with purity

and dripping the cloud’s tears.

She counts how slowly time ticks in this place,

and his heart ticks along with it, catching

the beat of joy. So perfect.

And she looks on into the water, losing herself in the tide,

seeing words form, poems swim,

she drowns in the peace. Not hearing

the joggers running with no sense of direction,

timeless ticking of legs against pavement.

Not seeing children running for freedom, catching

innocence in dandelions, and smelling

rain fall from the leaves. She knows this place.

The water kisses the sky, eternal embrace.

The paradise he wanted to escape to and leave her there,

with memories, with sounds, with thoughts, with laughter of him.

Of them. She knew she would lose him in those waters,

so she buried a part of herself beneath a broken rose along the shore,

where he no longer visits.

She is afraid to go back herself.

To smell the rain, hear the wind, feel the sun, and knowing

there is loneliness in the place she once knew.

An emptiness as she walks in a place that was never hers,

never theirs. To find a rose blackened

by her tears, she drowns

trying to find him in the water.

Limit

Diamond

Is there a limit on existence?

Don’t

Think

So

So why should there be one on me?

Am I too much for you?

What?

You can't handle what’s given?

Or what I have?

*Sigh*

Is it that hard to make up your mind inside that so called cerebral cortex of yours’?

Go ahead and reply with a confused "No" and not a firm "Yes"

*Shaking My Head*

Ok I'll give you the condensed version of me

Are you listening....?

I'm the thoughts that escape your mind

....Not like you have that many up there anyway

The feelings you wish you understood

....Never seemed to care about mine

And the emotions that can never be controlled

....Got so sick and tired of bobbing and weaving.....at times ducking

I just remain on the floor

Maybe one day you'll stop swinging

Maybe one day you'll realize I'm the seed you produced and not your punching bag

Can you put a limit on that??