Poetry + Prose by Hayden Winston
lights
this is your story
love
no matter how hard you tried
couldn’t get enough
all wrapped up in
pain/pity
plated in glory
a crash, a bang
how IT all began
and nearly ended
spinning
glass flying through the air
out onto road
now you’re here
alive
all wrapped up in
love
beside the ocean tucked away
a quiet, lonesome, blooming place
life and death wrapped up together
blossoms, one in all forever
can’t see straight,
too many li(n)es to make anything into solid shapes,
eyes wide, head no longer filled with ache,
heart dancing, mind awake,
every nerve unsettled, watching every wall break,
when sleep finally calls
take me and let it
all
fall
away.
Tea cooling next to love letters on the window sill,
dreams real yet surreal, almost tangible.
Sea and mountains in your lungs,
memories, monuments to beloved moments past.
Lessons sewn into your very marrow,
tangled up with the movements of your unconscious mind.
Breathing in every millisecond,
each precious opportunity for growth and death.
Growth and death, an endless cycle,
swirling in your teacup, like leaves
in the autumn breeze.
bathed in salt, anointed with three names,
panic soaked to bone and ligament,
surrounded by generations
of sweat, hope, courage,
all choking on the future
in the pews.
years passed, bones hardened,
wilderness spread throughout your heart,
soul spoke to soil, sun kissing skin,
eyes watering,
witness your fear, don’t fight it,
just witness and release.
It all dissolves like ice cubes at the bottom of a scotch,
Moments, people, places wash from memory with enough time,
The sad and painful past you can’t quite understand –
What drives someone to lose their humanity,
Is it in us all, or is it some sick anomaly?
You’ll never really know, nor is it necessary that you do.
Through agony shines in a blaring light,
The past feeds the present,
And at present you are strong and whole.
Forgive where you can and go on,
Brave as you flow along, steady in the path you chose.
love like the sea,
holding steady under storm clouds,
washing out to dance with the horizon.
shores enveloped
in the holy scripture
of the tide’s kiss.
I see how you see me,
Waves of passion crashing into titan steel,
Yet dancing, laughing, spilling some quick witted remark –
Perilous, adventurous, hypocritical, mythical,
Saturated in naïveté.
I see how you see me,
And I am and have been all of those things,
But always changing, growing at the same time.
