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  ROMANTICS

  By Blake E. Woodruff

 

  Once upon a time...

  No, this isn't how this story starts.

  It starts with a spark...

  *Star

  You who caught my heart on that warm Summer night,

  to you I dedicate all these words.

  For are not all my words yours?

  Before I meant you I was a writer,

  after, I became a man who was more than words.

  **Aye Aye

  You smell like smoke,

  the good kind.

  I saw a boy without a mask,

  he said were we alike.

  I find myself on the other side,

  a sadness that I can't explain.

  I feel homesick,

  this feeling is called loneliness.

  I found the shore,

  the city is underwater.

  I'm beginning to understand that love is an arrow,

  I move far too quickly.

  *Pleiades

  Sitting close I begin to lose the time,

  Your song in my veins,

  My words on your skin,

  the melodies and stories are reborn again and again.

  We kindle these sparks,

  stir the flames that erupt into dreams.

  This pitter-patter,

  this heartbeat,

  call them a set of stars that only we can see.

  **The Bellflower King

  I told you a story of a man who was a dream.

  He was a fool who became king.

  Upon the future during a reflection,

  You told me that was the first day you began loving me.

  As I reflect, I try to find the day you stopped.

  *Empire State Rain

  I awoke to your song,

  valiantly fighting against the sound of the Empire State rain.

  The grey light muted the hues of the tiny apartment.

  My feet quietly moved to the rhythm of your hands on the keys.

  The gentle dance between the ebony and ivory.

  I finally reached your body, poised and firm on the bench.

  It was magic the way you shifted the weight with your shoulders,

  back and forth your body swayed in front of the keys.

  A light cuts into the room from the window.

  the small parting of grey illuminates your silhouette in motion.

  If there was ever a moment of fear,

  even a single doubt,

  it had forever left me that day.

  For that was the first day your song met my words and I heard you sing.

  **The Smile on my Face

  The rain came and stole away your tears.

  You were broken and rusting in the storm.

  So I came and offered you a smile.

  Such heavy eyes for a little boy,

  quiet, alone, and forgotten by The World.

  Yet you are forever a smile on my face.

  I once made peace with the feelings devouring you.

  I once accepted that truth.

  But it was you who turned these words to blood,

  You who pumped my heart with inspiration.

  It was you who saved me from the rain that day.

  I'll stand with you and those terrible feelings.

  I'll burn every word till it illuminates your heart.

  *Heartbeat

  These echoes,

  these words dipped deeply in honey only belong to you.

  I who have waited so long to hear your song,

  I who felt these scars burn into memories.

  I'm taking this misery and giving it a voice.

  I who have always, and will always love you.

  Can you feel my heartbeat?

  Because you were the one who set it on fire.

  **Unwavering

  Those unwavering eyes

  staring clear into the unknown...

  I want those pure eyes on me.

  Piercing my depths and exposing me to my fear.

  Was it courage? No... Faith.

  The fuel to that fire that twists your insides

  I watch it dance across your irises.

  The gravity of those eyes as they urge perfection.

  The free-fall of laughter as you burn your own path.

  I've come more acquainted with your distant silhouette than your face.

  I want you to run,

  to find a way to breakaway from that soil.

  But please remember how softly we spoke that night,

  Please remember those words that fell from your lips...

  *Story

  There's a city.

  There's a moment.

  It all burns away in the back of my mind.

  These feelings,

  these reflections in our eyes,

  turn over like notes lost eternally to time.

  These broken verses,

  these dreams,

  they stain like blood on canvas.

  These words,

  they are yours and mine.

  Our voices travel like light,

  desperately reaching through time.

  You're like a story in my mind that keeps growing.

  I want to write you forever.

  But...

  **Binaries

  Your voice, a calamity.

  Your eyes, the light of hope.

  I believed we were binaries,

  spinning together into the darkness of the unknown.

  I felt brave standing beside you.

  My heart shakes as you step forward.

  I want to keep up.

  I don't want to let go.

  There was something...

  Something till this day that lacks a word.

  I wish I could understand what it meant;

  the space between us.

  I want to gently touch your face.

  I want to clasp my body around you,

  inside I want to understand.

  I want to learn the word for this feeling,

  because I don't want to believe in love.

  I don't want to accept the pain that is parting.

  *****

  There was only you and I.

  Together we stood, together we fell.

  Our time was over,

  And for once we struggled for words.

  Chasing a dream only alive in an impossible tomorrow.

  All I could see was my own shadow blocking your light.

  I wish I said what I wanted.

  I wish I wasn't a coward.

  One more time...

  If only we could...

  BELIEVE

  *Breathe

  I awoke this morning without sleep.

  The cold caresses my body,

  holding me tight and sheltering me.

  The cold fills the spaces your hands use to be.

  These feelings, I know that they have words.

  but I begin to wonder what good comes from them.

  I spoke them time and again...

  So I say them just once more,

  only for no one to hear.

  **Unseen

  We fall until we are bare.

  Time fills the space between us.

  To the world we remain apart.

  Two not one.

  Beneath our skin is a secret.

  A truth we wake everyday to try and forget.

  Even though time has parted us,

  memory continues to reunite us.

  *Cosmic Butterfly

  You are eternal,

  forever in my mind.

  I have chased you,

  but never caught you.

  Only in fantasies do my hands find your wings.

  I fell upon
my own ambitions,

  compressed into a void.

  You flew undaunted,

  a burst of light that illuminated my dreams.

  Every time I give up,

  every moment I believe you lost to that blackness,

  every second I hold my breath,

  You return.

  The beauty of your light is that I never had to steal it,

  you always gave it freely.

  **301214

  There's still a place in time,

  still a moment where we are standing again in the cold.

  Your tall thin frame sinks into me.

  I hear your words,

  desperately trying to keep each one.

  But even now, it's all falling through the cracks.

  I swallow the regret as I remember your hand grabbing mine.

  You kept yourself locked,

  all those feelings hidden behind your pride.

  Yet...

  You turned yourself bare that night,

  among the crowd you let out a silent cry.

  Over and over again.

  I'm enduring so I can fight for this,

  till there are no words left.

  I love you.

  And in that white silence,

  once upon a time, you loved me too.

  *Echoes

  There's a reflection,

  twisted into circles,

  played across a melody once forgotten

  Your words offer a memory.

  In this cycle I listen to them over again.

  Spinning in my thoughts of you.

  Didn't it rain?

  I try to remember,

  but quickly realize, that I could never forget you.

  I close my eyes and try to accept this as what it is.

  So I fall...

  Down

  Down

  Down

 

  Down...

  but I feel you.

  I open my eyes,

  I have gone so far,

  but you were always here.

  Together,

  we'll find a day when words like these aren't needed.

  These moments stolen outside of time,

  kept quiet from those who tried to lock them away.

  There's a reflection,

  of you and me.

  spinning over and over again.

  And like always I fall.

  But this time,

  into your arms.

  **Echoes

  The sun is kissing shadows,

  The sky starts to glow,

  where will these words go?

  I sing of a face I cannot see,

  voices that only sound-off in dreams,

  sleeping with nothing but memories.

  I'm stuck on this track,

  I missed your stop.

  The more I live on my own,

  the more I watch the world turn monochrome.

  I ask again, where do these words go?

  So I'm trying,

  here is me singing of you,

  filling these spaces with words,

  and asking where does it all go?

  No one has an answer...

  So let's make our own.

  *Psyche

  You came like a thief through the night,

  unpacking me on the table,

  and feasting on my memories.

  I've been measuring that 4/4 beat,

  this rhythm you keep as you sing of me.

  I've spent years trying to place

  thoughts into words.

  but I keep forgetting,

  you already know what I'm thinking.

  We were never alone,

  we were always catching each others' echoes.

  **Eros

  Love is but a song of eternity.

  Our hearts bare the burden of playing to its symphony.

  My dear, as my notes near their end,

  as your pages appear blank,

  know well and true,

  I was never without you.

  *Ignition

  I never knew if I'd see you again.

  I never knew if any of this was real.

  I never had an answer, so I set out to find my own.

  I'm beginning to wonder, if maybe it was me and not you that left that day. That maybe I'm the one that's waiting to be saved.

  I want to go as fast as these feelings can take me.

  I want to burn all this regret to just be illuminated with you again.

  But all I find is that my pockets are filled with your memories.

  And the only thing I can do is try and build a bridge to you with these words. Try to find a way to walk above the light.

  But day after day I find myself alone, tugging at this red thread trying to pull you back down to me.

  Maybe that's it. Maybe I have to come to you. Maybe the only way to ever wake up is admit that you're dreaming in the first place.

  **Strike A Light

  Running through the city,

  finding ourselves at the bends of dreams and reality

  Do you still remember that dream?

  Do you still remember why you were fighting?

  I want to take you by the hand,

  wake from the dream we once had.

  You're giving up,

  I can feel your grip slipping

  Please remember to dream!

  Please remember to fight!

  This tomorrow which you dread so much is the one I am willing to break for.

  You were crying that night,

  shouting like a supernova.

  Your voice strikes a light,

  and I can feel it.

  Your breath so hot,

  it turns snow to rain.

  I've made a promise to see your face again,

  even if you can't lift it.

  I'll carry the burden of this dream.

  This road is long,

  But you are not weak

  you are...

  It won't be easy,

  it never is, but...

  This is the end of our dream and the beginning of everything.

  *****

  This original work is property of Blake E. Woodruff

  This publication can be distributed for free use in all forms as long as three basic rules are followed:

  1. The work is not to be changed in any form. This includes edits or cropping of any images. Resizing is allowed but the work should be presented as is, typos and all.

  2. Any piece of this work cannot be used for profit. This work must not be hidden behind a pay-wall or used as a fund-raising reward. All content must be distributed freely and accessible to the viewer, at all times and in full form.

  3. Wherever this work is distributed, explicit credit must be given to Blake E. Woodruff and all contributors.

  imoutoArt strongly supports the free flow and use of art. However, as the content's creator, Blake E. Woodruff, reserves the right of distribution. If any of the previous rules are broken, or Blake just decides to be a jerk, imoutoArt will request that the content be removed and will follow with legal action regarding non-compliance.

  Thank you and please support the free exchange of art and ideas!

  ROMANTICS

  By Blake E. Woodruff

  ©2017

  imoutoArt.com

  Echo...

 

  I believe we all have something inside of us that calls to someone. It screams into this valley of people looking for a voice to return to. An eternal echo bouncing across the souls of every person just looking for that perfect sound.

 

  ...Echo

  END