Love ain’t a thing,
love is a verb.
Love is giving
and commitment,
an adventure
for star-crossed souls.
But when adventure
is too much
for a weary body,
love is time.
Love is every hour
of dedication,
every day of old stories,
every year of
anniversary.
It is the conversations
and songs
and, if one is lucky,
the slow dance.
Love ain’t a thing,
love is a verb.
© Blake Leitch July 13, 2016
It’s just a tooth,
just a tooth.
So why is there fear?
Why insecurity?
Why doubt and apprehension?
I remember a scalpel inside my wrist.
I don’t remember if it were
the radius or the ulna;
I just remember a rod of lightning
searing through my bones.
I only remember being torn
from the inside.
I simply remember pain, simple pain,
excruciating pain undulled by anaesthesia.
It’s just a tooth,
just a tooth.
There is fear,
insecurity,
doubt and apprehension.
© Blake Leitch July 05, 2016
I’m meant to be dead,
meant to have drowned in my own mucus
more than two decades ago.
Chest infections,
pneumonia,
liver failure,
respiratory failure,
tumours…
This is my resume,
my physiological portfolio.
And I’m stuck in between
hope and desire.
I hope for a bit of pity,
for someone to pet me,
for the basest of human connection.
This can happen now or tomorrow,
can happen at all.
Desire? I desire all.
I desire true love
and true passion
and true adoration above inspiration.
But I’m meant to be dead.
True things take time,
and I am disadvantaged by image too.
I do not qualify for lust, let alone love.
Have you ever tried going on a date
without physical possibility?
Well, no possibility means no result.
No possibility means no chance.
And even if there were chance,
if some mad god smiled on me,
it’s only one more chest infection,
only one probable heart attack,
only one slip of my control by my eroding hand,
only one step before fate is realised.
Happy endings are made for few,
and I am on the farthest end from there.
Death is the friend I have been taught to know,
and death is the friend forever at my side.
© Blake Leitch May 9, 2016
At a certain hour
before rest is yours,
aquamarine and forget-me-not
become nothing more than blue.
Royal, scarlet, ruby;
they’re all reds.
And lemon and gold,
just yellows.
Eyes and heart become
pieces of the whole of you,
and shades of love disappear
at a certain hour
before rest is yours.
© Blake Leitch June 3, 2016
Disability resides in me.
It doesn’t matter that I’m a writer,
doesn’t matter that I’m a student,
doesn’t matter that I’m attracted to certain things
or believe in certain things
or dream of certain things.
The purpose of my legs is ornamental,
the reason for my nerves is exaggeration.
Disability resides in me.
Of course it is not my everything;
I am brother and son,
uncle and friend,
fan and failure,
heart and mind.
But this does not change a fact,
does not change my needs,
does not change the truth of a label.
I am not anything less for it, but
disability resides in me.
War is a hellish thing,
an inconsequential pissing contest
between desk-set sacks of meat.
A palm and a pen and opinion
send cannon fodder afar
to an early grave of forgotten dirt.
It’s a tale as old as us, a tale
preceded and proceeded by ego
with minimal thought to real consequence.
The sign of a name that will be forgotten
in centuries – nay, years demands those
who we struggle to remember
leave behind a family who will be
impacted for generations.
War is a hellish thing.
But those who leave for what they believe
to be our sake do not question
political demand. They do not question
questionable decisions that will surely
haunt the dreams of any who are lucky
(or unlucky) enough to survive.
They fight and kill and die
because they believe that they do
what must be done to protect
the life they have learnt to love
and the lives they have learnt to love.
They are the accused and are persecuted
for crimes that need an answer,
an answer that does not belong to the servant.
War is a hellish thing.
© Blake Leitch August 7, 2014
I have grown so tired recently. It’s not that the sleep is left wanting, or that the dreams are yet to end; it’s that the humdrum of everyday life is becoming ever more exhausting. I have grown so tired.
I’d reach for my phone if I could. I’d call you… whichever you would pick up. Or maybe whichever you wouldn’t. I’d sit on my bed cross-legged and I’d press the buttons to make your phone ring. I think if you answered, I’d probably hang up. So I’d pray for voicemail instead.
I’ve imagined it a few times, imagined it more recently than before, rehearsed the lines in my mind that I’d say to your voicemail. Wanna hear? Let me try remember…
“Hey,” I’d start, “don’t hang up.” I’d take a moment to compose myself; it’s very dramatic, you see. “I’ve been waiting to call for a while. I’ve missed you, essentially. And I was just wanting to talk for a while. Even if you aren’t hearing me, right now I mean, it’s still nice to know you’re somewhere on the other end. It’s nice to know that your hearing me. I think it’s sometimes because it feels like I fall on deaf ears, so knowing you’re wherever you are, knowing you’re hearing what I’m saying… It’s nice.”
I don’t know what else I’d say; never really made it beyond that. Not that I’ve made it that far in the first place, but hey, life is full of fictions. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway. And nowadays, the fictions mean more than reality. Ironic really, but it’s true. I’ve grown quite tired, you see, and the idea of a listening ear seems quite nice.
blakeleitchpoetry.com 