MANDIE HINES - POEMS

Mandie Hines writes in the Rocky Mountain region. She’s driven to create pieces of fiction that capture moments of human vulnerability. Her work has appeared in Down in the Dirt, The Flash Fiction Press, and50-Word Stories. Visit www.mandiehines.com for more.

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                        The Things I Regret Forgetting
 

​
1.
The sparkle in your eyes.
See, when I try to remember…
there’s only a blank canvas.
I try harder
but then there’s only splashes of faded colors.
It’s like I’m legally blind
and I can’t see one single line.
And I just want to remember
what the color green looked like
when it was lit up by the heat of a thousand blazing suns when you saw me.
And the gravity of them
was so strong
that it pulled the corners of your lips up to kiss your eyes.
How I wish I could kiss your eyes.
How I wish I could see your smile.
 
2.
The sound of your voice.
I don’t dream of you often.
It’s as though you don’t want to haunt my dreams
like you haunt my life,
but I just want to hear the sound of your voice.
I want to remember the cadence of your speech
tiptoeing across my skin
reminding me that you believe in all of my dreams,
and your voice assuring me that I can believe in them too.
 

 
3.
I regret forgetting how to think of you
and smile.
 
4.
How to think of you
and not cry.
 
5.
How to think of you
and not feel my heart being ripped out of my chest
and mourning over the gaping hole that’s left.
 
6.
I wish I remembered the curves of your face.
 
7.
I regret forgetting
that just because you didn’t die at the scene
didn’t mean that you would survive
the car wreck.
 
8.
That just because I wasn’t in the vehicle
didn’t mean that I would survive
the car wreck.
 
9.
I regret forgetting
that I didn’t know how much time we had left.
 
10.
I’m sorry that I didn’t write.
 
10.
I’m sorry that I didn’t call.
 
10.
I’m sorry that I didn’t meet you at the hospital.
 
10.
I’m sorry that when I arrived,
you never woke up.
 
10.
I can’t move on.
 
10.
I can’t move on.
 
10.
I can’t move on…
because I know you won’t be with me.
 
10.
I regret forgetting
that I can’t forget
how much it hurts that you’re gone.


 
                                         Aspirations
 


Like petals plucked from daises
Aspirations float to the floor.
I continue in the darkness,
Searching for the outreached hand that led me before…
Closing my eyes, my world begins to spin
I have to remind myself once more:
Just Breathe…         
It’s not this space I’m lost in,
It’s the confusion in my head.
All I really wish to do, is curl up back in bed.
It takes all the strength I have
To open my eyes.
It takes all the hope inside
To proceed toward the door.
Stumbling on the thoughts I have
Tripping on the petals
Reaching with one gasp of breath
I swing open the door.
I’m suffocating,
Waiting for a whisper of air
I look up to see the same room I was in before.
Walking from one room to the next
They all look the same.
Sighing, I slump to the floor,
I’m tired of this game.
In one moment of clarity
A realization sets in:
It was never the rooms that were the same
It was the frustration that came from within.


                                     Silence Runs Dry
 


Voices from the past echo through the room.
Silence runs dry.
My heart's been struck by the moon.
Stars come tumbling down.
The forest shadows the sound.
If happiness lies behind me, what lies before me.
The rain falls toward the sky.
I stare from the ledge and see my life.
I turn away and cover my eyes.
I shouldn't be alone but somehow I've made it my home.
I step back and fall.
Scream softly as you can.
My last resolution has been spent on somebody else.
I awake to see nothing and sleep to find hope.
At depth I am shallow for caring too much.
Within I am empty filled with unrealized dreams.
At length I have already failed myself.
In short I have not lived.
I close my eyes and pray.
The angels turn to dust and sparkle over the sea.
My mind fades to some distant memory.
The sun begins to rise and pour over my soul.
I am not who I think I am, and I am not who you see.
I just wish for once I could see where I was going.
All I ever wanted was to see where I was falling.
And bottled up inside of me...
Is me.