Michelle Cowles

Vow on something that actually affects you.
Vow on your favorite color, and if you break that vow
never again look at the red roses and smile,
never admire the red flame licking away the darkness of night,
look at your lovers lips and feel nothing.
When someone asks what color you admire most
say yellow or blue.
Do you think this will make you a liar?
Your were a liar when you broke your vow, so why not after too

The more I grown up,
The more convinced I am,
That growing up is just gathering
More homes to miss,
And never being able to walk through familiar doors,
The same way you did when you first entered

I missed my theatre home,
and an incredibly kind human built me a new one.
Now I’ve moved again, and all I want is to fly to the roof of another home I left behind and play with the farriers on the roof, take a nap under the windows that always made the sunshine warmer, and fix the always breaking, beautiful, mosaic art of that theatre.

Being the sunshine and warmth
You can feel yourself climb and climb and climb
And people assume you can stay up there forever
Part of the joy is looking down
Seeing the fall, and taking a step higher
But sometimes you look down and you feel your own weight
You close your eyes and feel the fall
You feel the wind whip through your hair
You let the happiness drain and you feel the space you expanded inside you
And in that emptiness you feel a small sort of joy too

And for just a moment,
Let my bravery wash over you.

Could you kiss me,
Just once,
With half the passion you inspire

Could we for just one night
Feel as together as we did
The first night we slept together without making love

Can I for just one day,
Have my life back,
Before I knew our reality

I don’t have anymore fancy word to wrap around it
I don’t have the metaphors to hide behind
I miss my Dad

It isn’t a faucet I get to turn on and off
It isn’t a eternal cry into an ethereal echo
I don’t feel his presence as a light beam at dawn
I don’t hear his voice in a crowded as a joining of all the voices

My tears are just tears
They aren’t the first drip of water
That will burrow a riverbed down my face
I don’t think they were at one point a part of the ocean my Dad loved to sail

My insides do ache sometimes
But not in any big profound way.
This is just pain. I can’t make it into anything beautiful.. 
I miss my Dad

I go down winding paths to visit their homes
Sometime I will sit atop an old tree trunk and pretend
For just a moment, that I could be a tree.

I would stand tall every single day
Take only what I need from the earth and rain.
Have no doubts about where I’m meant to be
And I’d create oxygen vital to the earth

I am not a tree
My usefulness is not guaranteed
Sometime I do things that harm the earth
And sometimes I just want to curl into a ball

When you feel the tide swipe over your head
And if you knew poseidon's prayer you’d scream it
When hunger hits your belly until you’d prostrate yourself before Demeter
When loves twists your heart to do Aphrodites bidding
There is something buried in our bones
Our choices are old, and redone, and known

I’m reaching into the past everyday now,
Thinking of the girl I used to be.
I snuck around dreaming of a future,
Now I’m  here and back  there is where I want to be.

I met a man too good for me.
I took opportunities others could do better
I carved out this bit of life
And now I am not sure what to do

I had a set schedule, low stress and enough art.
I kept begging for more more more
More jobs, more friends, more meetings,
And now I’m always a little falling apart

She was rested and happy
Dreaming away the days

Oh to be that girl again.
To relive the little wins
To feel fulfilled with any praise
To not question the next step

Now I’m living her dream, and I’m terrified I’m going to let us both down.