A New Love Poem (poem)

How many love poems have I written by now?
Years of fleeting affections committed to paper
countless scattered about, painted
by the fractured memories of lost days

Does a new love renew my right to write about love?
Does it invalidate all that came before?
Or is it the same tired story in a new font?
I want to believe in the magic of it –
to see the words as anything but generic.

But is love itself generic?
Millennium spent with it painting our breath,
time and time and time again,
in every language we've ever made.
Could I construct a phrase that is only ours?
And even if I could... should I?
Maybe love is a shared experience,
interlacing hearts through time and space –
and that is to be celebrated and embraced,
given breath with every heartfelt syllable,
not fled from with malformed ideas of uniqueness.

 -Zero

Delete Account? Yes/No (poem)

I see deleted accounts in my messages
of poets who once filled my feed
with a constant churning of content
in a modern day hustle for glory
or maybe just an ambitious attempt to be heard.

Regardless, they are gone now
with every word rendered unspoken:
both poem and poet enveloped by distance
when once you could reach out and feel them.
Now, only absence remains.

I hope they have found new meaning,
a purpose which does not drive them to madness
chasing numbers in exchange for their fractured heart,
a life in which a mirror is all the recognition they need –
peace from the endless noise of the internet.

-Zero

falling for you one last time (poem)

When the time is right,
meet me in the autumn-stained woods
where a rushing stream cuts through the hills
and the rocky slope below is obscured by leaves.
We will sit and talk until the mood is right,
when the warm glow of sunset ignites the forest
and sensible people escape its grasp
before darkness awakes and ensnares all.

Then we will stand and share a kiss:
one hand resting lightly on your waist
as you gently press yours against my chest,
our final kiss just like the first.
Then I will pull away as you push,
falling and crashing upon every rock below
and add my own crimson leaves to the display
until the stream finally entombs me.

-Zero

no one heard them scream, now they whisper (poem)

The house stood broken and decayed,
illuminated by paltry rays of moonlight
that seemed afraid to enter the dark windows
with old boards dangling from rusty nails
left behind from the days before it was forgotten

The cold October air cut through it
and had already ripped every leaf off of every tree
leaving nothing but spindly fingers in the sky above
all reaching out towards the moon for salvation –
they would crack and fall before it would arrive.

On nights like that, whispers can be heard
through the creaking and groaning of the house
while the forest lay still with knowing unease
no words can ever be made out
yet they tell a story of tragedy – and murder.

In the red-stained darkness of the house
their belongings were left to rot and decay:
a stuffed bear now a centipede nest
the kitchen a chittering cockroach haven
the noose collapsed under the rafters.

-Zero