I'm just a girl falling in love with life, and using poetry to say so.
The Brave Ones
For the Wastelanders
Tia Jones
6.17.13
We are the brave ones-
scraped knees and knuckles
from falling down and fighting.
.
Our hearts are heavy-
but we soldier on with our
lead feet and each other,
arm in arm
hand in hand
and if we go down, we’ll go
down fighting for each other.
.
We are the tired ones,
and we are afraid,
but we are the brave ones
and we will keep moving forward.
Fall Heavy
Tia Jones
6.5.13
Your words fell heavy,
like the rain, but we didn’t
try to shield our faces or
soften the blow, we
simply accepted it.
We’ve lived enough to know
the weight of a heart and
the need to speak it.
There is a language
no one knows but us,
the language of silence,
of gazes and nods.
We don’t even need these
to understand, and
we sit in my car together,
silently listening to the storm.
Each day falls heavy,
but I have accepted this,
and my dear friend,
you soften the blow.
Tide
Tia Jones
6.5.13
This life is the ocean tide
it keeps pulling me
further and further out,
but you swam out and
pulled me back to the shallows,
and now I struggle
just to stay on my feet,
because I can’t bear the though
of letting such an act
of grace go to waste
on a shipwreck such as me.
The Happened To
Tia Jones
6.2.13
I.
I was happened to
like a forest fire or a stray cat
caught in a 4 am thunderstorm.
I never saw it coming
and I didn’t stand a chance.
II.
I was happened to
when depression pulled out
my title and signed itself over
as the owner of this vessel.
I was happened to as my bones
creaked like shipwrecks and
the cage around my chest
grew tighter, caving in.
III.
I was happened to
each time someone danced into
my life and convinced me I wanted
them, and I was happened to
every time they walked out
and scorned the heart I
held out to them in these hands.
IV.
I was happened to
when I fell in love, I didn’t
welcome it, there were no open arms
or joyous shouts, just a quake that
entered my heart every night
and I cursed it, but I loved you.
Vacancy
Tia Jones
5.28.13
My chest is a living vacancy.
I grab at straw and tuck
it away into the hollow,
hoping the birds will return
and find life in me once more.
Can you feel the emptiness?
Is it the thing that makes
you run away, despite my
attempts to be filled with life?
I am afraid that this crust
is all that will remain,
that the birds won’t even
care enough to pick it away.
Brave
Tia Jones
5.28.13
The sun always sets.
It pulls its golden fingers
along everything,
closing the eyelids
of this green earth
and all its dreamers.
Only the brave keep
their eyes wide open,
the brave or the foolish.
The wise never chose to
remember, but I’m fighting
as night comes, feeling
the dark and the cold
creep into my veins
like poison (just like
the last time.)
I am so tired of being brave.
I am tired of waiting
for another day, for those
great golden fingers to
bring life back in its
brilliant glow or
finally put me to sleep.
Perhaps I am more foolish
than I am brave.
Summer Love
Tia Jones
5.21.13
It is summer-
When the night comes,
I will sing you to sleep
with songs of summer nights
and fireflies, the warmth of magic
that rests on your skin like dew.
I will run my fingers through
your hair, keeping each tendril
out of your face like a loving shepherd
of the hills of your cheekbones, your
forehead, your gently closed eyelids.
When the morning sun rises,
I will spark the stars in your eyes
and fuel them to burn brighter
than the sun that reaches down
to kiss your skin with fiery lips.
I will urge the breeze to whisper
sweet nothings in your ear and
make you feel like you’re flying,
like you’ve grown invincible and
beautiful wings.
And when the autumn comes,
I’ll do my best not to ask where you’ve gone.
Endeavoring
Tia Jones
5.17.13
I want to be that tree,
covered in rain,
trembling and sparkling
at the sight of the sun,
like hope is now
and not a “maybe tomorrow”.
I want to believe
that there is beauty now-
even in me, a fragile creature
endeavoring to be something
more than myself, making
these limbs a home for
tired and broken birds.
I am tired and broken myself,
but I want to believe
that the sun will break through
this smoke colored sky
and give us all new life.
When it does, I want to
reach out these limbs with joy,
not fold up in fear that
the rain will return.
Electric
Tia Jones
5.17.13
Let us be electric.
Let us sleep under jellyfish skies
with only hope for a blanket
and let our kisses shock these
broken hearts back to life.
Let us be the sun,
glowing radiant, the
best yet to come, reaching
for the glory of seemingly
endless days and falling
in flames only to rise
in flames again.
Let us be young
for just a while longer,
while we still know how
to live like it’s electric,
like it’s a fire in our souls.
There is a Home in Our Chests
Tia Jones
5.14.13
We sat there on the balcony,
the almost-summer air against our skin,
music pouring out from the windows,
unspeakable aches in our chest.
We poets, we came together with
our hearts in our hands for the
first time, vulnerable and tender flesh,
and our fingers entwined,
not looking for promises,
just a moment of comfort.
We found such refuge there.
Forgetfulness
Tia Jones
5.11.13
I have sought forgetfulness,
that elusive mistress
with eyes like sleeping pills,
promising numbness.
How she must float,
mist like and weightless
like fog on the empty streets.
How heavy it is to remember.
How tiring it is to hold
your memory to my chest as if
I could actually keep you alive.
I have sought forgetfulness,
and she has evaded me
endlessly, as if
I was born to remember.
To My Friends, Who are Going Away but Not Leaving
Tia Jones
5.8.13
I know you are afraid,
but on your loneliest nights,
while you are away,
count the stars and
ask for their names.
Ask them to guide you
to a better place and,
I promise, will be here
waiting for you to come home.
It’s not goodbye,
after all,
only a “until next time.”
Upon Meeting an Angel
Tia Jones
4.30.13
An angel came into my house
last night, tall and
honey-haired and glowing.
Her smile was sweet
and her eyes were kind.
She looked into the darkest
parts of my soul and
said she found beauty there.
Avocados
Tia Jones
4.29.13
I think heaven can be found
on a dew covered blanket.
I think we found it,
with our bare feet
tickling the grass and
our faces upturned to the sun.
I would have done anything
to make it last forever,
because I think heaven
rejoices in the slimy
feeling of an avocado
on your tongue and
laughter that comes
to the light after hiding
in the dark of the throat
for too long.
I think we found heaven,
and, by the grace of God,
I think we’ll find it again.
The Poet, In Black and White
Tia Jones
4.28.13
The poet came, dressed in
black and white, and
I handed him hope
in the form of an orange.
He kept it in his pocket.
I never want him to
find me empty handed.
I’m constantly grasping
for things only to
give them away,
hoping something as simple
as oranges and bracelets
can make him want to stay.
