fly: Selected Poems by Diana Petzl-Lanius

Copyright2015@DianaPetzlLanius

Part I Fragile

When he leaves
he goes
and stays
away,
my heart beats on
in disarray

The love that I'd hoped

would save me
left me with the shreds
of a ravaged heart.
And the thread that was used
to hold the pieces together
loved the scissors
that cut them apart.

Her beauty, outside

and his lies within
He bares his heart,
she shows her skin
He pens rhyme after rhyme
and she hides in each line
His writing, he knows, is a terrible curse
and she, forever, his unfinished verse
The idea of her lingers
on his ink-stained fingers
He is broken, she is lonely,
their love lives on paper only.
She'll be in his poems
and he in her dreams
because he left his words
right where it hurts.
He drew his letters, like art,
across her heart.

You were the wound

that never closed,
for years I'd bleed and suffer.
You were the heartbreak
that never unbroke
from which I still recover.
'Time heals wounds'
proved to be wrong
and I've come to discover
that I never really healed at all
and the pain was masked by placing
one band-aid over another.

To love a writer
is a thrill
Who says papercuts
can't kill?

I loved you once, I held you dear

and I still wish to have you here.
But there's no use in holding on
to someone who is gone
gone
gone.
7

Open your mouth, sweet boy

and close your eyes
and I will feed you
love-covered lies.

On Sunday mornings
it occurs to me
that this is the sweetest
my life may ever be.
I have tears in my eyes
and my heart expands
when I look at my boys,
and their perfect little fingers
curled up in my hands.
On these peaceful Sunday mornings
I know with certainty that
this is exactly where I belong
and that none of the choices
I have ever made were wrong.
Today, my heart is full and
my arms hold everyone I will ever need
and I woke up thankful that for once
things are exactly as they should be.

I have fought
and I
have bent for him,
I've cried
and begged
and caved.
I have broken
my own heart
for him
but
some souls
cannot be saved.

10

I was fearless
when it came to loving you,
my every step
was guided by your light
and I confess
that your verse
and your words alone
made it possible
for me to feel again.
So please believe me
when I say
my heart aches for you,
and only you,
it's where I end
and you begin.

11

I'm sorry
I've been
absent,
not here
not gone
not there.
I think
I've lost myself,
I'm looking
everywhere.

12

There is no beauty
in heartbreak,
no loveliness
in blood and tears.
Yet I've never felt
more glamorous
than I did
that day
he left me standing
in a perfect rainstorm,
with mascara running
down my cheeks
and his last kiss
bleeding from my lips.

13

I'll stay away my dear.

I've always been most fond of things
that were too far out of reach.

14

There is a whisper
of Goodbye
in my heart tonight.
A sad finality
that can't be denied.
Most certainly
these won't be
the last tears I cry
(for you),
however
this may be the
last line
I will ever write .
(Not true)

15

He was
voracious
starving
ravenous
and cold.
And I
-a warm little
bleeding thing-
lay before him,
so willing
to be
devoured
so ready
to be
eaten alive.

16

My soul unfurled
nearly unscarred
as his words curled
gently around my heart

17

He speaks
in verse
and love
to me;
with words
in rhyme
and poetry
He uses them
to carry me,
in place
of all
he cannot be.

18
"Intoxicating"
Such dangerous word to describe
a simple girl like me.

19

Men like him

don't happen twice.
and I will never know
a more tender, beautiful soul
in all of my life.

20

I lie awake and ponder

I sit and wonder
how someone
-how he-
looked closer
and fell
for me.

21

Another day
another night
of not having you
by my side
An empty hand
a lonely heart
two lost souls
too far apart.
Come lay with me
my sweets, my dear
in my dreams
I'll hold you near.

22
This man.
He turns
every thought
into a song
and every
word into a poem.
I can rest
in the palm
of his hand.
And I doubt
there will ever be
another soul
that will catch me
like he can.

23

My skin should be
in shreds,
cut up
from years
of scouring the ground
for love
on my knees,
on the shards
I left behind
in a path of destruction.
My heart should be
a purple mess,
squeezed dry
from years
of mistreatment
at the hands
of men who
who took
and demanded
and never gave back.

24
"I may leave marks."
And the best thing he said was
"Fuck, I hope you leave scars"

25

Haiku:
When I was young I
used to drive recklessly. Now
I just love that way.

26

I used to
struggle daily
for sentences,
for syllables
for rhymes
and things unheard.
But ever since
I met you,
you've been my
last word.

27

Haiku:
And why is it that
the love we crave the most is
the forbidden kind?

28

That is how quick he was

to love and walk away:
he never once took off his boots,
he wasn't one to stay.
30

Your words
keep me alive.
They have filled
every crevice and hole,
every void and need
inside my soul.
They creep
and have seeped
and walked
into every part
inside my heart.
They have
silenced screams
and recovered dreams.
They are words
unspoken
of promises
unbroken.

31

Sometimes
doubt invades my mind
and leaves me in utter silence.
There are nights
I reach out and feel
absolutely nothing.
But in the darkness
I can hear my hearts' whisper,
still trying to convince me:
"He loved you"
He loved you.
He loved you.
He did.

32
I said
"You are perfect
and I don't want to love you.
From now on, lie.
Tell me everything
I don't want to hear."
He didn't listen.
He smiled
and turned and said
"Goodnight, goodgirl,
sleep tight"

32

A letter to the pretty girls,

the ones mistreated,
ignored, or bruised.
A few words to
the beautiful souls,
broken to pieces and abused.
I have lived this life,
and I know, ...... I know.
I, too, have learned
to walk on eggshells
over a decade ago.

33

Never was I his

and neither was he mine.
Always the wrong reasons
Never the right time.

34

It wasn't like we
weren't meant to be together
or that we
couldn't find a way.
And it isn't that
 he didn't love me,
it's just that
I couldn't make him stay.

35

You give a winged creature

love - it flies
You lock a bird in a
cage - it dies.

36

I like the idea

of new beginnings,
starting over, starting fresh.
And I will skin myself
for the next man
who lays his fingers on me
so that he may touch
new, immaculate flesh.

37

I loved someone once and nobody knew and I lost him, and no one knows.
It wasn't like there weren't any tears. There were plenty. I just had no one to show
them to.
I still don't know if I'm happy. I just try to push that thought away, most days.
I have spent years looking for any kinds of traces of his love. If there are any, they
lay hidden before me, like secrets.
I still haven't allowed myself to forget him. Letting go of his memory would mean
losing that part of myself, forever.
To avoid showing my hurt to the world, this disappointment, this loss,
I have shut everybody out and pretty much stopped breathing for the past five
years.
(And even that has gone unnoticed.)
38

He says
it's not normal for
two people to want each other
this badly
this quickly
like we do.
I say
it's ok
don't worry,
it's no surprise
considering what
we've been through.

39

Some mornings
I stop breathing
before I even open my eyes.
I wake up
and I can feel the water
rising up
to my chest.
The waves get higher,
but I remain still.
I know my life boat won't come.
Not today,
or ever.

40

Marriage.
I now live vicariously
through our clothes in the dryer.
My lacy thongs and bra straps
tangled up inside his
blue jeans and button up shirts .
41

I understood fully
the consequences
his first touch would have
on me.
But it wasn't until
I cried in front of him
that very first time
and he called it "Beautiful",
that I knew
I was lost,
forever.

42

Happy anniversary.
I hope the ring on her finger
weighs her down
when she sees
that the ghost of you
remains married to me.

43

Haiku:
I feel so deprived.
You are all the things I thought
I could live without.

44

I still follow every thought

and I chase each one of your lines.
I trace your words
with my fingertips
the same way you
used to touch my spine.
You are still on my mind
 and I want to remain
on your every page,
and Baby, I am making sure
you
won't forget the way I taste.

45

Metaphorical Threesome:
I never sleep with just one man.
There's always the one that f•••s me
and another,
who's holding my hand.

46

He touched me in ways
that made me say
his name
in five syllables
instead of two.

47

And life
has always had
this ridiculously awful habit
of
giving us someone
when we least expected it
and then taking them
from us
when we needed them
the most.

48

I could have picked

 an axe,
a knife,
but I chose a pen
to end his life.

49

I keep my heart
locked away
like a dog in a cage
these days.
And it beats
beats
beats
while the dog barks
barks
barks,
needing to be let out,
not letting anyone near.

50

I don't need
to hear them,
spare me
your words
of sour love
and goodbyes.
All that will remain
now, Baby
is the bitter taste
of your sweet lies.

51

The day he left

I took a deep breath
to tell him of the loss
at my souls' expense.
But somehow the words
got stuck in my heart
and I haven't exhaled since.

52

I went on a mad tear

of hurdling words
and breaking wings,
dropping people and
stepping on things.
It was quite an unusual sight,
and somehow it felt sweet.
Even his heart
got crushed into pieces
underneath my careless feet.

53

And while her heart whispers

and hope quietly sings,
she remains in her cage
and breaks her own wings.

I was jealous.
The ring she wore was almost as big as her smile.
Her husband told me not to worry, they both were fake as shit.

You asked why I write.

Because somebody once loved me
and then he stopped.

54

What a memorable, blissful day

-something borrowed and blue-
in the middle of May.
And what a mesmerizing sight
to watch the groom adore his bride.
And she,
what a heartbreaking, beautiful mess
with silver teardrops adorning her dress.
And oh, how she threw her heart away
on that fateful day in May.

55

I believe
you've underestimated me
at my 5 ft. 3
What you didn't know was
that beneath
my 110 pounds
is a fierce heart that beats.
(And I have brought monsters and men
to their knees.)

56

There are tears

I will never cry.
They are the last reminder
of yours
that I hold on to,
and
feeling them
run down my face
would only mean
I'm losing yet
another part of you.

57

I couldn't find the glue.

I cut my hands open
on the broken shards of you.

58

Will I for the rest of my days

walk through life
with this look on my face?
Staring accusingly at strangers,
looking lost,
like somebody did me utterly wrong
or stole everything I held dear?
Will I suffer from these phantom pains
forever,
like an amputee who
-15 years later-
still feels an ache where her limb
used to be?
Because I can tell you
that's what it's been like since you left.
And I will say that
sometimes there's numbness
but most times there is pain
on the left side of my chest
where your part of me
used to be.

59

Seasick pirate
stay with me,
take your gazing eyes
off the stormy sea.
There's no mermaids' song,
no hidden treasure
that can bring you
any pleasure.
Don't let a dead man's map
take you on a quest,
for what you desire most
lies buried deep
inside my chest .

60

After all the raging is done

and all my faults have been named
come to me, my Baby,
you're not the first demon
I have tamed.
When you have exhausted yourself
and have played your part,
inflicting wounds upon my heart,
come lay your head down on my chest
because Baby I know
-I know-
that even the devil needs to rest.

62

You took off

one day
and never looked back.
Like a dog
running after something
who suddenly forgot
he had a home
and a name.

63

I remember
how he said my name
and the burn of his hungry gaze,
the way his fingers rushed through my soul
and set my heart ablaze
I know now by the way he
made love to my dead embers at night
that I should have killed him in the flames
before the fire could ignite.
 64

Worry not
my pretty girl,
for every wrinkle around your eyes
speaks of words that were etched
onto your heart.
Every gray hair
and each single cried tear
let's me know
who treated you badly
and who held you dear.
So worry not
my sweet girl,
I know exactly who you are
I know where you've been,
and I still see love
in every scar.

65

I can't remember the last thing you said to me.

Did you ask me to remember you
or tell me to forget?

My Little Bird

1)

I can't let this one go,

my grip on him is tight.
It feels too much like
"Goodbye"
each time he says
"Goodnight".

2)

Haiku
"I'll help", she'll tell you
and she will save your soul while
you're breaking her heart.

3)

Haiku
We were worlds apart,
and I loved you in silence
and it wasn't so hard.

4)

Haiku
"I just want a feel"
he said, then reached down my shirt
and tore out my heart .

5)

He sends me letters
from time to time,
and I keep
the envelopes sealed.
I know all the words inside.
He once wrote them on my heart.

6)

"I miss you sorely"

is all I say.
But the truth is:
Like a moonless night,
or a bird that drops, midflight.
That's what my life has been like.
7)

Like a thunderstorm
I anticipate your words,
raining down on me.

8)

Tell me why you thought

I never really knew you.
All I knew was you.

9)

He said he'd keep me.

What he did not know was how
to keep a promise.

10)

Haiku
He was my earthquake.
And the ones who followed him?
Merely aftershocks.

11)

You are like blood

that's running through my veins.
You went straight into my heart

12)

She was the one star

he had always wished upon
but could never reach
until she dropped from the sky
and fell straight into his arms.
13)

Haiku
You are putting me
back together, piece by piece.
For that, I love you.

14)

These violent storms

and the mention of your name
shake me to my core.
Thunder, and your absence have
left me shivering for days.

15)

Haiku
Falling to pieces
right next your your broken heart,
an ocean away.

16)

Window shopping

I'm short, yet stand tall

behind my glass wall.
I'm the item you admire,
you wish for and desire.
They all come in, touch my face
before they put me back in place.
There are scuff marks on me,
that I know you can see.
I have been burned
and I've been returned.
Remember me as my former self
when you put me back on the shelf.
But don't think I'm not watching you
as you pass
from my spot, behind the glass.

17)

His heart's always been

like a bird on a wire.
Never within reach.
My own heart, below.
Looking up at all the things
we will never be.

18)

They say a picture

says more than a thousand words.
Yours remained silent.
Quiet like our love itself,
for nobody else to hear.

19)

I believe
all our hearts
are big enough
to house and shelter
other human beings
when our lives
are too small
to keep
them all.

20)

After all the raging is done

and all my faults have been named
come to me, my Baby,
you're not the first demon
I have tamed.
When you have exhausted yourself
and have played your part,
inflicting wounds upon my heart,
come lay your head down on my chest
because Baby I know
-I know-
that even the devil needs to rest.

21)

I have kept your smile

in imaginary frames,
and only for me to see.
Do you wish me near sometimes
and when it rains,
do you still long for me?

22)

I know what love is.

I also know what it's not.

23)

I have dreamed of you

so many times,
even heaven knows
how to spell your name.

24)

Love is a dangerous thing.

It can bring you to your knees
it can tear your soul apart
It leaves you bleeding on the ground
Love can mend and break a heart.
Love will pull you by the hair
and it can leave you in despair
Love can last seasons
or only one spring
Love is a terribly fickle thing.

25)

You give a
winged creature love -
it flies.
You lock a
bird in a cage -
it dies.

26)

Dear xxxx
You have killed everything
inside of me.
Ps: I still believe in love.

27)

I will not compare him

to a tornado or hurricane.
I anticipate their arrival for days,
and his- was unforeseen.

28)

Let me tell you

about a man
who uses Love
as a weapon
any way he can.

And then
there is this story about
a girl who writes
"I love you",
but can never
say it out loud.
29)

I'd like to walk

because these knee-high boots
have stepped carefully
around you
for way too long
and I'm pabout
as jaded as
I'll ever feel
with you.
I'd like to leave
but the goodbye
won't leave my lips.
The memory
of your touch
remains
on my hips.

30)

Dear xxxx,
Every time I drive past
the place we used to meet,
I expect to see you there.
I half-expect to see myself.

31)

"Hope"
The act of remaining
stationary and waiting
for something
or someone.
A looking forward
to an event that may
lay in the future,
or the longing
for a person
you have yet to meet.
Usually incurable
and accompanied
with a fever
of unknown origin.

32)

I wish I could sink

into your arms
like the ocean
and breathe you in
like the first breeze
of spring.
I want to be beside you,
lay inside you
live in your heart
and tell you all my secrets,
where I've been,
the things I've seen.
I want you to hold me
gently like a child
and smooth down my hair.
Only you
can mend all the things
I believed to be beyond repair.

33)

When words left me

bruised
and battered,
he could heal me
with one look.
And when my own thoughts
drowned in silence,
he always understood.

34)
Haiku
I feel so deprived.
You have everything I thought
I could live without.

35)

Halloween
The treat
was to love you
The trick
is living without you.

36)

Many years ago

and seperated by miles
we would each walk outside
at night
to look at the moon
and think of each other,
waiting for a time
when we would be doing this
together.
You're still not here.
But here you are.

37)

Disasters don't scare me anymore.

When the hurricanes blow in,
I await them onshore.
I spent my summers at the beaches,
yearning to be the first thing
their fury reaches.

38)

I believe
you've underestimated me
at my 5 ft. 3
What you didn't know was
that beneath
my 110 pounds
is a fierce heart that beats.
(And I have brought monsters and men
to their knees.)

39)

Haiku
I am no doctor.
But put your heart in my hands,
I will revive you.

40)

There are tears

I will never cry.
They are the last memory
of yours
that I hold on to
and
feeling them
run down my face
would only mean
I'm losing yet
another part of you.

41)

Years have passed

and you're still here.
Like a scar on my body
I can show off
anytime
I want to remind myself
of something
that will hurt forever.

42)

I watched her dance

on the rooftop
and I hated her
for one second
because it was my dress
she had on.
But worse than that,
she had stolen
my wings.

43)

"And sew on"

The love that I'd hoped

would mend me
left me with shreds
of a ravaged heart.

And the thread that was used

to hold the pieces together
loved the scissors
that cut them apart.

44)

We had talks so far into the night,

conversations so deep,
that I told him
I believed
if I were to never speak
to another soul again
and he was the only
human being
I would be talking to
for the rest of my life,
I would be okay.

45)

I had finally found

the sentence
to render him
speechless,
this man of
a thousand words.
Left him needing,
wanting,
wild,
and in complete
and utter
silence.

46)

Why then
had I been so determined
in staying,
in trying to save him
when all he could offer me
in return
was a malignant soul
and an abandoned,
bitter heart?

47)

Haiku
Tears shed in my car
may be the most honest ones
I will ever cry.

48)

Once, I know he loved me

but only so much and not more.
Why did he keep me floating
without letting me reach his shore?

He was never within my reach

but he was always much too close
Why did this love drown me,
when it should have saved us both?

49)

How selfish of you

to ask for my heart.
There's nothing
to steal from the poor.

50)

Love:
It will only last
a heartbeat or two
and it will only
hurt forever.

51)

I want to be remembered
and have my words
mean something to you.
Now you know why
every goodbye I write
reads like a suicide note.

52)

You're tall - I melt

You're small- I smile.

53)
You made me see dreams
I never knew I had
and made my
world less dull.
Now you're gone
and I miss my blindness
to all things sweet and beautiful.

54)

"Possum"
Like an animal
that's fighting for its life:
if I shut my eyes,
lie still and pretend I'm dead,
maybe I'll survive.

Empty Cage

You love could not keep her,

she was a girl of Goodbyes,
composing farewell letters
with the tears that she cried.

I had finally found

the sentence
to render him
speechless,
this man of
a thousand poems.
Left him moonstruck,
wanting,
wild,
and in complete
and utter lack
of words.

No matter how hard she tried,

some things were never
quite right.
She was either a mess
or amiss.

Why then
had I been so determined
in staying,
in trying to save him
when all he could offer me
in return
was a malignant soul
and an abandoned,
bitter
heart?

Crime scene

The crime happened

years ago,
yet I continue
to search for clues
he may have left behind.
I dust for fingerprints
and find them all over me
in the middle of the night.
It's been a long time,
and has he learned
that my memory won't be
as easily disposed of
as this body of mine?

Haiku
I wonder, was he
sad I did not stay, or did
he wish me away?

Haiku
Tumultuous times,
when your heart won't stop wanting
someone it can't have.

Haiku
Tears shed in my car
may be the most honest ones
I will ever cry.

Haiku
When loving a man
keep your heart on your sleeve and
your head in the sand.

10

Haiku
I have heard of stars
collapsing in on themselves
when no one watches.

11
Maybe
just once
Maybe
I get to be
the one that got away
and not the one
who gets fucked
and is left for dead
with my heart
bleeding out
painfully slow
all over
someone elses'
white sheets.

12

Their thoughts
were one
a second before even
becoming a thought.
Perfectly aligned,
intertwined.
They talked
for hours
for days,
and no voices
were heard.
The "understoodness"
between them
required not a single word.

12

Let me come home

to you
Let my soul lay
alongside yours
naked and stripped bare
Tell me all the things
nobody has bothered to say
before
and let me sleep
messy-haired,
on your chest,
Hold me tight
skin on skin
Let me come home,
and let me rest.

13

All my life
I feel
my soul's been running.
My heart,
an erratic, beating thing.
My love
at flight risk.
There one day
then gone, the next.
This is what it feels like
to not be at home
in the world.

14

Like an insomniac
he sat alone by her fire
night after night,
writing his poetry
to her flickering embers' light.
She was aware
that he would roam.
But perhaps it was enough
for her to know that
although he could not have her
he would think of her as ~Home~.
 15

Haiku
No amount of words
will ever fill the spaces
of where he should be.

Part II Almost

1)
Well here you go, Baby.
You can find me now,
should you ever think
to look for me
in the middle of the night.
You can type my name
-with shaky hands-
into the search field
on Google, Amazon,
or Yahoo!.
(I know you've done it.)
Out in the open now,
years of secrets,
thoughts and poems.
It's all right here
in a book now, Baby.
Should you read it,
please know that
out of all the words
that were written,
not one of them was
for you.

2)
You weren't for me
to keep.
These tears aren't mine
to weep.
3)

Sometimes

I hear my heart

calling your name.

It gets caught

inside my lungs,

until I turn

and start

breathing again.

4)

You see, it never happened,

life didn't want us to be together.

But I do still dream of him

and will write about that forever .

5)

My heart

is fashionably fucked.

My soul remains

fabulously fine.
6)

You've made me your religion.

Now get on your knees

to worship and pray.

7)

Each year

I dread

Autumn

with its every

fallen

pretty red leaf.

Fall,

the way

it steals

the warmth

and beauty

of Summer

and then

leaves me,
creeping away

like a thief.

8)

Haiku

Miraculously,

his words held me tighter than

his arms ever could.

9)

Allowing another

human being to

carve themselves

into your soul

can be disastrous.

One day

you wake up

to find them gone,

and you

don't know it until

you reach out

and grasp nothing.

10)

"Fallen Robin"

There are mornings

I wake up

and wonder if

"Chelsea Hotel"

still plays

on repeat,

the way it used to

a million years ago

when you'd hold me

at night

as I was falling

asleep.

11)
"The One"
I tried to be one
with myself
but there were always
three of me:
The one who
I thought I was,
the one that
I truly am
and the one
I wanted to be.

12)
If Love could talk,
I would expect
some serious explanations
and an apology or two.

13)
Maybe one day
these words will find you
and wrap themselves
around your heart,
the same way your fingers
used to curl around my throat.
Too tender to
take your breath away
but firm enough
to make you gasp.

14)
It's never just a little or a lot.
But always,
it is either love or it is not.

15)
There are mornings
I read something
and the words make
my knees buckle.
Other days
there are no words.
And that will do
the same.

16)
He once called me
intoxicating
and said how
I had carved myself
into him
and that I was so tiny
that you'd think
he wouldn't even notice,
but he did.

I was never tiny.

But as it turns out,
I was small enough
to be
insignificant.

17)
And this fire rages on
and these words
are tearing through me,
and it feeds wildly off itself
like yellow flames
inside a library.

18)
Maybe one day
I will remember
why I wasn't meant
to fall.
And maybe then
I'll understand
why I should never
have loved you at all.

19)
I've learned to
let people do
their own thing.
I once talked a
friend
off the ledge
and he never
spoke to me again.

20)

It's miraculous and terrifying

how our hearts can be unlocked

with shiny keys

made from slivers of bone,

disguised as words.

The way one knowing look

from a stranger can

dismantle our being entirely,

and set our skin on fire

once we realize our heart

has been found and

our soul recognized.

Haunting,

the way our foreheads can

find salvation and happiness

against someone's collarbone.

How our tiny hands are

perfectly made to fit

into another's palm

just so.

20)
And I still sometimes
run my hands over
my heart and try to feel
for the five places
I imagined it broke
and would not heal.
I do this
just so I can turn
and point my finger
and place the blame
on you.
But the truth is,
my heart is fine,
the scar is gone,
and you are, too.

21)
Ask anybody
with a broken heart
how the hurt feels
deep down inside.
They'll smile at you
as they proudly march on,
knowing they've
survived the worst of it.
They understand now
about the bittersweet pain
of a fractured bone.
They know the way
a broken heart
can heal itself.

22)
He runs his fingers
through the sands of time
and I feel his hands
in my hair and
underneath my skin.
I find his words
with hidden meanings
scribbled in books older
than both our lives,
combined.
He is the man I will never touch
and I am the girl whose name
he does not know.
Still, he writes me letters
in the mornings
and I read them in the dark.

23)
My biggest fear was
losing you,
when it should have been
loving you.

24)
Dear ----,
I curse you every day
for not being around.
Damn you, I say.
Goddamn you.
You should have been here.
You should have seen this.

25)
"Sweet hope"
Their "Let's run away together"
hung in the hot summer air
like an unlived adventure.
But they knew better and
it remained unspoken
between them
that when the time came,
they would both drop to their
knees, paralyzed
and unable to move.
This was 30-something years ago,
but their suitcases filled with
silk stockings and tobacco,
sweet hope and wild dreams
are still there,
each at their own respective houses,
waiting inside their front doors,
right next to a pair of
rose-colored high heels
and a couple of old worn-out boots
that neither of them would ever
wear again.

26)
Don't question your own silence
as you watch her go.
It's good you didn't tell her.
It's best she doesn't know.

27)
I keep this heart from dying
with memories and words.
Some nights however I let it bleed,
I like the way it hurts.

28)
Strange,
how wounds
can turn into scars
while others don't heal
and just bleed.
Strange,
to see your own heart
crushed to pieces
underneath
his careless feet.
29)
Maybe it was me,
and I'm to blame.
I meant so well
and tried so hard,
but what if I still
didn't listen closely enough
to the sounds of your heart
as you were falling asleep?
Were there things I missed,
secrets I didn't hear?
Maybe it was the way my forehead
should have fitted like a puzzle piece
into your collarbone,
but didn't.
Maybe it was me.
I think it was my fault.

30)
Thank you
for knowing better than
to lift the lid
off this tightly shut cage,
for keeping closed doors
locked.
Out of many other hands,
yours may be the only ones
that knew not to reach
for something caged,
or how a glimpse of light
could be disastrous
for a fragile bird,
accustomed to
living in the dark.

31)
He keeps me hungry
with silent goodbyes,
his empty kisses
and spoon-fed lies.

32)
I was the secret
he did not know how to keep.

33)
I thought I was safe
in the palm of his hand,
but I slipped
through his fingers
quicker than sand.

34)
I was torn to shreds
and loved to pieces,
and broken into
two-thirds.
Locked in a cage
and left to starve
on pretty boys
and empty words.

35)
He left a scratch
in my kitchen countertop,
forever reminding me
of the fact that he was
here once
and now he's not.
And every damn morning
I run my fingers over it
like a scar,
holding my coffee
in one hand
and his memory
in the other.

36)
Sometimes

a thick layer of darkness

drapes itself across his heart,

leaves his soul shrouded in a fog

of desperation and sadness

and he hangs his head

against the cold drizzle of December.

But there are

better days and nights,

and he remembers that hope exists,

some days he sees

that it can be found

inside a coffee cup from the 70s,

or in the words inside his head.

And that's ok.

We all need our

reasons to live.

37)

We were both bent

beyond recognition
when we met.

Picture two question marks

facing each other.

How else can I explain it,

other than

that the way

our bowed heads fell against

each other's chest

was the only thing that

kept our knees from buckling

and our bodies from crumbling entirely?

38)

And I would have given

everything,

most of all

myself

but you know how

I would never

promise you
anything,

least of all

Forever .

39)

Out of all the things

I could have been,

I chose to be this

and only this:

His.

40)

There was no good or bad

with him,

no left or right.

There simply was

"wrong".

41)
It did not take much.
He pulled the right strings and
watched me unravel.

42)
My hands may have been
made to hold,
but my words
were meant to touch .

43)
Oh these girls,
like sad flowers:
The lovelier they were,
the lonelier they stood.

44)
The silence
can be deafening.
Ask any mother
who carried the world in her womb
and is now left with
hollow hands, an aching heart
and a home with empty rooms.

45)
I never did believe
in love,
but the fact
that you are gone
and I feel absolutely
nothing
now finally
makes sense.

46)
I was always in love with somebody,
but it was always wrong
and they were never you.

47)
I have a fever
and I ache all over.
The last time I felt this way
I was in love.
48)
That last kiss,
too many years ago
in a parking lot,
it took my breath away.
I think
I died that day.

49)
Silent fingers
wrapped around my throat,
his tender hand
on my seaward heart.
Fix me, ____ me
make me whole,
feed me
your sickness,
your sideways soul.

Part III Fly

1)
Skin against skin
and a rush of wings
a shallow grave
bone along bone
torn pages
a scrape, a cut, a bruise
tears
and hidden
-somewhere-
an unfinished book
holding all of your
life's tender secrets
and lies.

2)
I did not want you
until
I couldn't have you.

3)
We will never speak again
and my lips won't ever touch yours
and you'll find yourself wishing
you knew where in the world I was,
and cursing yourself for losing track
for losing me
but none of this will matter.
Because one day,
maybe thirty years from now,
I will write something
that will leave everybody else
wondering,
I will write something
for you to find
and it will be written in a way
that only you will understand
and only you will know
that it was meant for you
and only you.

4)
My greatest desire
My biggest fear:
Solitude

5)
I can't remember the place,
but somewhere in this world
stands a tree that keeps
both our names
and holds the forever
we never had.

6)
Quit searching, Baby.
You will not find yourself
inside my words,
I did not hide you
between these lines.

7)
There is no end
to me and you.
Love does things
time can't undo.

8)
The fact that
you're alive
somewhere
in this world
without me
seems somehow
catastrophic.

9)
He's relentless.
Each spring, every year,
his letters arrive
and I throw them away
the same way he did me.
Sad, angry, desperate notes.
Unwanted words
from a past that wasn't ours.

10)
I guess
they all loved me once.
The handsome one,
the tall one, the ugly one.
The one with the
beard and boots,
the one who promised me
Forever, then called his wife
right after he fucked away
my loneliness,
the one who left bruises,
and the one who never
wrote me again
because he had died
and for years I didn't know.
They all loved me and
I loved them, too
and I loved all of them more
than they deserved.

11)
I read it five times
in the morning and
three more times
before I sleep.
Oh these
desperate attempts
to hold you
when words are all
I have to keep.

12)
There is nothing
to be done here.
No late-night writing
drinking
reckless driving
or saying her name
backwards
five times in a row
will do it.
Handsome man,
nothing in this world
will bring her back.

13)
But for one summer
he was mine
and I-
his Heaven
his Magic
his Madness.
His Day and Night,
his light, his dream.
His North
his South
his inbetween.

14)
You've forgotten,
but you loved a girl once
who would come to you with
a tender heart and bruises which
matched the color of her eyes.
You never did anything but kiss her
and she would smile and cry
at the same time
and you never knew exactly
what to say to her.
You don't remember her
but I imagine these bruises
on her snow-white skin
are still calling your name.

15)
My heart
riots quietly
and there's
a shudder
a silent shift
in atmosphere
a want, a need
a sigh
unheard
a flinch unnoticed
each time
your name drops
at my feet.
16)
Florida
on a dead end
dirt road,
two months away
from May
and the palm trees
sway in the breeze,
the way my love for you
never could.

17)
Silent fingers
wrapped around my throat,
his tender hand
on my seaward heart.
Fix me, ____ me
make me whole,
feed me
your sickness,
your sideways soul.

18)
He promised me
nothing.
I took it
and ran.

19)
The truth is,
we are all full to the brim
and keep so much inside.
All it would take sometimes
is a strangers' knowing look
at our tender hearts that says
"I hear you".
Three little words
to make our
utter loneliness disappear.
Three words that
can mean the world
to those who need
to hear them the most.

20)
He was
sugar-spun sweetness
in-between the sheets secrets
His humming sermons
thrumming against my throat
on spring Sunday mornings
saved my soul
in more ways than one.

21)
You have left
and what was it
you returned to?
Clean sheets,
caged birds
and no songs.
White lace
and promises
that weighed
too heavy
on your stricken heart.
You never belonged
to no one,
yet I loved you
as though you were mine.

22)
Trust me.
This sadness
will not live
in you forever.
Nobody stays.
Nothing lasts.
Neither love
nor pain
are infinite.

23)
To this day
when they
speak of you,
my heart says
I love you.
My lips say
I used to.

24)
Tell me you love me.
You owe me
this last
little lie.

25)
I've already lost you
longer ago
than I ever loved you.

26)
Darling girl,
what did you miss?
You live at the shore now
and watch the sea.
You've never
fully forgotten him
and you wonder
sometimes
if he still exists
and with a memory
so faint
you question if
he ever did.

27)
Through all
that time has touched
and washed away,
you remain.
Still,
a faded whisper
on my lips.
On my hips
a tug, a pull
a forgotten memory
a sudden pain.
Like dry grass
in spring rain.
You are here.
Time goes by.
You remain.

28)
But one of these mornings
you will open a book
and not every word
will read like his name.

29)
Love wasn't something
we spoke of,
but we witnessed
miracles and madness
come alive
in the way our
hips clung to thighs
through the humidity
of steamy summer days
that were too hot
to be remembered
by anyone
but us.

30)
He fades with every sunrise,
he resurrects each night.

31)
Silent solitude.
Nothing stirs
inside your soul,
your solitary mind
untouched
unfazed.
Walls don't collapse here,
and things don't move.
Peaceful permanence
inside your
hermit heart.

32)
Testosterone-driven tragedy,
handsome man
looking at me,
like something
he desires,
something
never had.
Like somebody
in love.
Like somebody
gone mad.

33)
Stay.
Don't go.
I need you
to keep telling me things.
Words of things
that last forever,
unlike Sundays
and Summers
and Love.

34)
Our love
never did feel real.
This abandonment
does.

35)
How heavy is a secret
when now you are left
to carry it alone?

36)
The hope
I had been holding on to
for the past year
shattered across the floor
in a matter of seconds.
He wasn't setting me free.
He was throwing me away.

37)
He said
I was unlike any other.
Turns out,
he was just like anybody else.

38)
His doing
undoes me
and he is to blame
for none of it.

39)
At 32,
I was old enough
to know
not to trust
in hearts of gold
and love letters
that would
eventually
turn to dust.
I knew better
than to believe
in Goodbyes
and Somedays.
He came along
and turned
stones into stars.
He made me
question
all things
impossible.

40)
Another day
another month
another year
and I wonder
how much can
one write about
dreams
that didn't come true
and a love
that never was?

41)
Hope kept
you here
until one day
it died
and love
lay before you
slain by secrets
and lies.

42)
"Currently not available"
can mean many things.
Perhaps he lost his phone.
Or maybe
-unbeknownst to you-
the love of your life
went and married
someone else.

43)
I remember you ,
starving
and always in need
of something.
Tell me, did you
find it, Baby
and does it
taste like
Love?

44)
Love.
It will only last
a second or two
and it will only
hurt forever.

45)
I vividly recall the walls
being a harrowing yellow
and somewhere downstairs
a beige mutt
with a bellow
incessant and frantic
like the waves outside.
The minutes, the hours
like the ocean tide,
rolling in and away
and palm trees swayed
while off in the distance
a clock struck 4.
We spoke not of love
-too revealing-
a filthy hotel room floor,
and we stared up at the ceiling,
needing this damned clocks hands
to stick
the way this memory does
to us.
Like sand.

46)
Here is to you,
the skinny girls
in sky-high heels,
bent over toilets
like pale
crescent moons.

47)
I long for these nights
to be over.
This aching silence
no longer
needing to be filled
with sounds of ruined love
and lies.

48)
This heartache is elating,
the abandonment delicious.
Nothing like losing your soul
on a Tuesday morning
to a handsome man
in an outburst of love
and a sudden downpour
of silent rain.

49)
Here she was,
dancing on the rooftop
and I despised her
for a moment
because it was my dress
she had on.
But worse than that,
she stole my wings.

50)
I bend
to keep you
from breaking.

51)
So hard to ignore
the wounded hearts,
for they always call
the loudest.

52)
"9 ways to falls asleep faster"
I skip the article
go to bed
and try to find
the one way
to fall asleep faster
without you.

53)
I have spent
the sweetest years,
the best years,
holding small hands,
folding tiny shirts,
worrying
worrying
worrying.
One day
and much too soon,
the oldest first
(and then the littlest one)
will leave the nest,
their handprints still
on walls and all over
my heart,
and I wonder -
what will be
left of me
when they're gone?

54)
The sun rose
like a half smile.
Its warmth reaching me
in places
somebody I no longer know
will never touch me
again.

55)
I've taken up
rising at 5 am
when the fridge
hums too loudly
and words
feel less like
blows .

56)
I wasn't afraid
of the enormity of your hands
or the smallness of my own
curled wings,
but my love for you
made me painfully aware
of how fleeting
life can be.

57)
You were a falling star.
Forever falling into trouble,
always falling in love.
Falling
but mesmerizing,
all the way down.

58)
We both thought
I would forget you.
I didn't,
but I tried mightily.
And here it is,
the memory of you.
Still seeping
into places
left open and raw
by your anger and love.

59)
You carry
no tenderness
inside your heart,
Your own shadows
have turned you
cold.

60)
Splintered, or cracked
and incessantly aching
on a cold rainy night,
you were
like a broken bone
that was set and still
did not heal right.

61)
I shall think of you
in mornings' misery
and midnight rain.
My hands will reach
for you and only grasp
the empty spaces
of love gone wrong.
My heart aches
for you, tenderly.
I am not downhearted,
I am not alone.
But I do think
of you.

62)
And you
imagined heaven,
didn't you?
But all you were
was the heir
of her heart,
in shambles
and in ruins.

63)
To all the men
who drive
aimlessly
recklessly,
dumb or drunk
and fearless:
Nothing will
ever hit you
head on
the way her smile did
or cripple you
any more
than the words
she said
on the day
she no longer
cared.

64)
But my dreams
are getting too crowded
and I'm thinking,
perhaps,
if I flail my arms and legs
wildly enough,
I will somehow
be able
to detangle myself
from you
again.

65)
Tears,
everywhere you look
tears, tears.

Childless mothers
Motherless children
agony, anguish,
war-torn hearts
and beauty, in ashes.

Everybody for themselves.

Humans against humanity.

And we stare out our windows

and hang our heads, weeping
but the world keeps on turning
and things never change.

66)
Did you come here
looking for love,
or are you needing
to be saved?
Just know that
everyone can love you,
but saviors, they're not.

67)
You once relished the flames
but you cannot keep warm forever
by a fire
that has long ago
gone out.

68)
Motherhood:
Being kept alive
by a beating heart
that is not your own.

69)
2 am
too late
and I am here
and he sleeps
elsewhere
and I no longer
reach
for him
his hand
in someone
else's now.

70)
It wasn't hard to love you.
It was irresponsible.

71)
Early morning rain
and somewhere
a heart beats
for you
and you
live your life
as though
you can't hear it.

72)
6:30 am
and it's too early
to forget about you.

73)
It didn't take him long
to forget about me.
Ironically
here I was ,
still trying
not to love him.

74)
Oh these girls
like sad flowers.
The lovelier they were,
the lonelier they stood.

75)
Run your fingers
down my spine,
push the white lace
and promises aside.
Make me believe in love,
if only for tonight.

76)
He seemed catastrophic.
But nothing was more perfect
than his crooked little heart.

77)
You live in peace,
I'm still at war.
I am your stain,
you are my scar.

78)
He keeps me hungry
with his goodbyes,
his empty kisses
and spoon-fed lies.

79)
Sometimes
I hear my heart
calling your name.
It gets caught inside my lungs
until I turn and start breathing again.

80)
Hold me
like you would a book,
then turn me over
like a page.

81)
We were beautiful
though it didn't last long enough.
Like all things perfect.

82)
I was always in love with somebody,
but it was usually wrong
and they were never you.

83)
The most precious thing
I have ever received
came wrapped
in absolutely nothing.

84)
Sometimes
the lies we tell
turn out to be true.
Like that time
you told someone
you would love them forever
and a decade later
it turns out
you still do

85)
"Write me something
beautiful and sad",
she would say.
And I wrote about her
and her life
and she cried,
because it all
seemed so terribly real,
written down
in black and white.

86)
I did not ask for promises.
I demanded lies.

87)
Most things
are never really lost at all.
They may slide
through the cracks of time
but even then
they have somewhere
to fall.

88)
But my words
now fall on distant shores.
Too far
from where you are.

89)
I kiss his lips goodbye.
He smiles and says " Don't try".

90)
Your heart was like
an open wound.
It was nothing I wanted to touch,
but still something
that needed tending to.

91)
Your name was a secret.
I craved you like coffee
and made you into something
I simply could not live without.
But thirty-eight weeks have passed
between then and now
and I don't think
we will ever speak again.

92)
They angle their chin
towards you and their hands
speak a language that sends
you spinning.
Men.
They love you at first and
you stop at nothing, doing
everything -anything- to
keep their attention.
After a while you notice
yourself becoming invisible.
They look at you and their
eyes don't see you anymore.
You've somehow disappeared
right in front of them.

93)
Years have passed
and you're still here.
Like a scar on my body
I can uncover
anytime
I want to remind myself
of something
that will hurt forever.
94)
He claims happiness
but I can almost picture the way
he stands by the window
on cold February days,
hand pressed against the pane,
fighting the look of loneliness
that refuses to leave his face.

95)
Each night
she laid her dreams
to rest
and tucked them in
like children.

96)
Time is standing still again,
void of anything
and meaningless.
I know not
the hour,
the day.
Until your return,
what does it matter,
the number of mornings
the sun will rise
and how many moons
have passed?

97)
Florida.
The smell of magnolias
is too much to bear
and the humidity
clings to you
like the scent
of a lover
you've lost
too long ago
to remember.

98)
Don't look at me.
Keep going.
Keep walking.
Don't make me
want something
I already have.

99)
She lives
in a house of glass,
writes invisible poems
with fingertips
on windowpanes
to a man
who will not read
about a love
that never was.

100)
Late-night writing
won't bring him back.
So just a line or two
will do.
Not about him.
But for the dreams
he said that would
-but sadly never did-
come true.

101)
We were drunk
off each other's words
and in love
on two different
continents.
Diana Petzl was born and raised in a small town in Germany and moved to the US
in 2002. The 31-year old now lives in FL with a husband and two small sons. Her
poetry book collaboration 'Lovesick' with Thom Young hit number one Poetry
Anthologies Kindle Free. Her poetry is on her Instagram @currently_dpl