Author: deuxiemepeau

An Ending to the Season

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Is this it,

Is this life,

Is this living?

Is this the reward for the struggle?

 

Is this all that was born from those battles won?

Is this the result of those wild Winter’s winds

And the all too shortness of Summer’s sun?

 

Is this it,

Is this all,

In a nut shell?

In the boxes placed in a huddle?

 

Is this all that is left from the life that we dared-

The trinkets on shelves we’ve yet to divide

As we pull apart the memories we’ve shared.

 

Are we done,

Is it so,

Is there nothing left to say?

Do I leave you without even a cuddle?

 

I thought that our troubles were a thing of the past-

I hoped we could spring from Summer to Fall

But it looks like this Winter is all that will last.

 

The ties unbind,

The sun has set,

Our season’s ended.

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Summer Sun in the Marshes

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Three boys and a girl,

Coasting carelessly

From teens to twenties

And coping lazily

With hangovers

Beneath the summer’s sun.

One blonde and three browns,

Laughing amid golden rays

That filled the most perfect of squares

In the once marshland of Le Marais

With it’s cobbled streets,

Men of elegance

And women-

Who followed their trend.

We were setting no trends-

The four of us,

But caught up in the richness

And comedy of it all.

We were Irish and English

And one of us French-

Young, unknown, foolish

And arrogant-

To everything but ourselves,

And ignorant-

To who it was that we were.

We were like the ground

We sat on;

A once sinking mess

Belonging to a world

Of daylight dreaming,

Where un-cautioned laughter

Tickled our sleep

Though not our feet,

But suddenly we’d found

Potential in possibilities

Seen through slumber-less eyes,

Far from dreaming.

I was laughing with one,

Blushing with the other

And was sleeping with the one

So typically French.

I’d befriended the one

I’d hoped to sleep with

And undressed with the one

I should’ve remained

Discreet with.

I would later miss her,

Lose contact with him

And wonder

How to stop sleeping

With the other.

But that day,

In that light,

In that heat of that summer,

We’d found our way,

Heard our voices

And finally found

What it meant to belong.

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Darkness and Light

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

And so,

Once again

I’ve put away

Those tediously tiring,

Hypocritical pretenses

And prepared myself for a fall

From the smiles and laughter

And wonder of it all?

At last, I’ve been permitted

To speak and acknowledge it,

Allowed to stop this world

And finally accept it,

See it, reject it

Or perhaps, no more,

Than assimilate to accept it?

Finally, I’ve conceded

To feeling the Darkness

As much as the Light-

If not more, at times,

In times that come to stay,

Unannounced, unexpected

And with much more frequency

Than previously suggested?

 

Can you see me

From the outside

On through to the inside-

Drowning?

Slipping slowly

Beneath the tide,

Washing away

On the waves,

Dissolving

Below the water

In such slow and subtle ways?

 

I had it, for a stay,

Within my grasp

And fooled myself into thinking

That firm footing could anchor me forever

To a space

So bright and clear

That nothing dull

Or darkly austere

Could ever find me,

Tease me

Or wrongly treat me.

Had I grown

So confidently assured

That nothing could rise so high

To drag me down so low?

Down to that dismal place

Without breath to breathe,

Substance to see or

Harmonious heartbeat to hear.

 

And yet,

All along,

Behind the smiles,

I knew you’d return-

For why anchor myself

So tightly to the shoreline

If not in the notion,

However subconscious,

That somehow, someday,

You’d crawl to the surface

And, in a sweeping swoop,

Erase sanity from solace.

In small and subtle shifts-

You’ve secretly

Sucked at my substance,

Though I distinguish you now

More clearly-

I see the darker shadows

You leave in your wake

And the slower motivations

Of my movement

Which you make.

 

So succulently susceptible

To your slyly serpentine ways

Was I, the last time- that first time,

But now, older and worn in,

You no longer slip in

Between the seams unnoticed.

I see you for what you are-

Standing blindly

In all your Darkness,

In the colossal cacophony

You create within my head,

And even in the numbing nothingness

You kneed into me-

I can confidently distinguish you

And your Dark handed distractions

From desires derived

From my own daylight delusions.

You are no longer

Just another side of me-

But another self, entirely-

Despicably dug in,

Deep in the depths-

A deviant dwelling

To distract my days

With Darkness

And Darken my dusk

With Depression.

 

You have settled in

And set up shop,

Trading in nothing more

Than torrents of torment,

Melancholic miseries

And a deluge

Of dejection and desolation-

Filling a basement

With boxed-up beliefs

And packets of possibilities

Placed far out of reach,

My spirit

Left idle and useless

As you file away everything

Valid and vital,

Human and hopeful-

All connection

To confidence and character,

And dress me in foreign forms

Fit for nothing more than

Subservience and surrender.

 

You wish me

A whisper of what I was,

A memory of something

Once lived in

And a ship wreck

That once sailed above the seas

Into which I now slowly sink

As the Light surrenders to the shadow

And all life unwillingly bows to the undertow.

 

And yet,

Before the dawning

Of the Darkest day,

There is still something

Lingering,

Longing and familiar,

Beyond the shadows,

My eyes, as yet,

Unable to certify shapes

But from deep inside

My spirit shakes

And from the corner of my mouth

A smile slowly breaks…

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Blonde Summer

/ deuxiemepeau / Leave a comment

It appeared to be my season for blondes-

Once dark ones- bleached to an inch of white;

Interval acts, lasting only the required amount of time

Before the audience lost interest and fidgeted in their seats.

 

You found me almost naked- drunk on gay pride

And neat vodka on a side street somewhere

I will never, for the life of me, be able to retrace

Under blistering July skies- my pee-stop away from royal-less queens

Who had ascended on the streets of Paris like it was their last dance of the season.

 

I was fresh white bait for you to snatch before yourself

And the summer sun burnt me- pink to a crisp,

Fodder to be grazed upon so as to merely pass the time.

 

You flirted yourself over me as I gazed on you

Behind semi conscious eyes, trying to distinguish the intensions

That lay beyond your angelic appearance- A devil in white

With hungry lips mistaking my totally intoxicated, almost naked,

Fully starved, pathetic condition for an easy lazy lay and yet,

As I proved all the more a challenge of a catch, you followed suit

And stood your ground as hunter with pray in sight.

 

Panic stricken lesbians tried to tear me from you

Fearing my need for sleep to be a step away from death

But they failed to distract you- although the ambulance they called

Stopped you in your tracks and halted your success or so I thought

Till I awoke in a veil of hospital white and chlorine aromas and saw

Your hand caressing mine and I freely fell pray to your tracking.

 

I swam in your nets for a month- twenty nine days

Longer than I thought possible and not one day more than I should have.

I was sceptical, friends had questions and you remained

Nothing more than a charms step from aloof.

Perhaps the reflection of yourself you caught in the glint of my eyes

Charmed you, perhaps my foreign status excited you or perhaps

You saw more in me than I at the time, though I think not that you looked that deep.

 

I remember during that time, it was night, 2am,

And I was walking home alone through cobbled twists

Of unimaginative Les Halles- all asleep but for the dwellers of the dark.

I was slowly moving away from you- in search of something

More real, more true, more to hold on to.

I was looking for something more lasting in this city

Of so much history, but had woken up- lost in the transitory.

 

You had fallen sharply from my grace- that white angelic figure

I had questioned you to be while fuelled on alcohol

Had lost its glow in the clear light of many a dark and dingy club.

 

I saw you there, admiring only your own reflection in the mirror

As you smoked your joints, snorted your poppers and closed your eyes

To all else but your own satisfaction. I was not a game to be played

Or a boyfriend to trade for an hours touch of another

In the back room of a former church, with disco lights, discounted drinks

With coveting confessions carried out on bended knee.

 

Our excitement of each other had been merely how we’d met

While our ending proved much more forgettable

And as visible from the beginning as the roots beneath the blonde.

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