Tag: spilled words

Model Cars

Monday nights were for building model cars

Showing me how paint thinner

Thins even skin

Effortlessly.

My favourite number, yours

My favourite music, yours

My favourite colour, yours

So much that is me was you.

Then you left,

So I guess that’s what family does

First our father

Then my brothers.

Now I’m here,

Leaky gutters

And a leaky mind

And a sister and a mom.

I didn’t know how

To knit any of it

Back together,

All my teachers vanished.

– Vagabond Prophet

Museum

Sitting in a circle

Common problems,

Same jacket even some of us.

Outrageous, magic even

That people so wonderfully flawed

Can mend it together.

As if piling sins up high

A great big writhing stack

And laughing around it helped.

We were reminiscing

On sorrows of the past,

Maybe it’s true.

Maybe they can be in the past

I always wanted brothers like this,

The kind that listen and love.

To put on display

The skeletons in the closet

Like a museum of remorse.

And they still just listen,

And when it’s over say

“I’m glad you’re here.”

– Vagabond Prophet

Ode

If I could beat a drum

By just thinking

I’d be marching to a different beat.

And if I could sound off a riff

Just by skipping a step

I’d solo down the street.

If I could hum

And have cellos sing

I’d waltz everywhere.

Then I met you,

Like instruments unknown

Your sound and presence baffling.

Beyond imagination

Or composition of will,

Ode to Heaven itself.

– Vagabond Prophet

Miracles

On our wedding day

I’d never felt taller

Maybe I just needed

A rooftop to scream off of.

Towering over everybody

Taking you by the hand,

We left as quick as possible

Tires kicking up dirt.

You still wear that dress today

And I think that’s wonderful,

I’d say you were never prettier

But I’d be lying.

You’re most beautiful

When you scowl at the sun,

For interrupting sleep

And cutting dreams short.

I’m just glad

That when the sun does rise

That you’re there at all

I really don’t get it.

You chose this

You chose me,

My body underwhelming

At the very best.

My mind plagued

With beasts and thistles,

And my soul

Struggling to float.

I’m like the arms

In a three legged race

Flailing

Most unhelpful.

But I said

I do

And

So did you.

Miracles really do happen.

– Vagabond Prophet

Focus

vagabondprophet:

Madness can be comfortable,

Like a sleeping bag

On a snowy day.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Sadness can be tolerable,

When everybody leaves you

And you can finally get some sleep.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Betrayal can be manageable,

If you betray yourself too,

It’s no different.

Just shut it out

Focus on warmth.

Then that all changed

I got locked up.

Psychiatry Ward.

More like circus

For people who

Just couldn’t handle any more.

Insisting on the existence

Of Neverland or something like it

And always being denied.

Every levee breaks

And every tower shakes,

Just ask the princess.

She’s in room 11B

Says her name is “Lady Hopscotch”

Her tower dropped her to the ground.

So when I got locked up,

Seeing walls of white like snow

I tore my bed apart

And crawled inside my mattress.

Just shut it out,

Focus on warmth.

– Vagabond Prophet

That One Co-Worker

vagabondprophet:

You’re breath smells

Like ashes and regret,

I’d like to tell you what I think

You just might get upset.

You’ve always been

A bone of contention

Calling me out on things

Of your invention.

You’re like a pencil

With erasers at both ends

You’re words don’t get far

And my faith in you suspends.

Always needing help

Yet rarely any offered,

You’re the last in and first out

So yes I am a scoffer.

– Vagabond Prophet