Wishing Well, Life Lessons & I Left Him In The Morning by Catherine Cuypers
Wishing Well
I scattered wishes to the winds,
they ran distorted
this is not what I asked for
these are not the crimes that I reported
all of it flies back,
coins rolling up the insides of a well
losing their heads on the grassy slope,
tails between their legs as they head for the moors
where the ghost of the weeping woman finds them
they confide in her,
she lets them in
she always does
hoping they might stay
Life Lessons
I don’t like these life lessons,
these pain sessions;
These sitting in a lecture hall
feel it, leave it or lose it all
moments of “you’ll grow —”
but you’ll have to wither first.
I left him in the morning
There are missing posters up downtown;
faces of girls who got killed by a clown
The circus beckoning with a shiny zeal
Magic rarely holds a clean-bargained deal
Ribbons of red soaring in the wind
Tendrils of smoke rife with absinthe
Something in them wanted the pain
of comical laughter
innocent girls slain in slaughter
He stabbed them in the heart
lead them on, then turn them down;
the blade sunk in deep,
kissed them to sleep.
Left them in the morning,
The red dawn near at hand
no trace left standing,
bodies asphyxiated on the landing
Dried flowers hanging from the rafters;
a bee playing a tiny violin.
A meadow scene you feel in your bones
From when he left you there all on your own
Summers since gone spend crying;
chest caved in while slowly laid dying;
the reality tears you apart
weeping in bed with a missing heart.
It goes straight to the heart
being strung along, only to be cut off;
the wound echoes deep,
kissed while long-lost-to-sleep.
Lost it in the morning,
dusk a memory yet faded
no trace left standing,
no one’s dancing on the landing.
When you’re young and in love,
it can all be found in a song;
there’s nothing they wouldn’t have done
for the heart of a North Carolina son.
The bus stops are shattered,
To pieces they fell,
down on their knees,
they tossed coins in a well.
First the aim is for the heart,
no matter if it feels wrong, they can turn it off;
for them it’s never that deep,
as they kiss you, but never to sleep.
Lost in the morning,
the night at their back;
leave no trace standing
their goodbye never leaves the landing.
Incidents piling up over time,
nothing you can do to prevent a lover’s crime.
Their emotions do everything but last,
as they claim to move on pretty fast.
Drop a kiss on his cheek per farewell,
leans in to brush his lips past your temple;
you catch the knob of the door
and watch him pointedly stare at the floor.
Your getaway car stands idling in the dark
you did not get a proper goodbye, so just
make sure in the months after
he does not see you cry.
The cops turn in,
integration of the hour–
with on the witness tab
I, the sole survivor.
My voice is a shattered lilt,
an echo refragmented
into dislocated pieces
of a soliloquy I have repeated
all too many times:
They want you for your heart
lead you on, then turn you down;
cut you quite deep,
kiss you till you’re fast sleep,
Leave you in the morning,
the day near at hand;
no trace left standing,
you’re bleeding out on the landing.
21 is the age
where love is all or nothing,
finding a serendipitous ache
that holds a knife to your throat;
your first true love potential
turns to heartbreak.
Those eyes of salt,
that ocean stare;
six feet two,
and that golden hair.
It undid me once
How it undoes me still
He wanted me for my heart
lead me on, then turned me down;
the cut ran quite deep,
he nearly kissed me to sleep.
I left him in the morning,
The night barely alive
no trace left standing,
my blood glistening on the landing.
I left him in the morning
I left him in the morning
I left him in the morning
I left him in the morning
And I wish I never had
“These are three poems from a map in my notes app that has been gathering both words and dust over the span of two years. They are strings of words, evocations of emotions that ran through me after a boy broke my heart. I always felt that publishing these somewhere would be too much and if he would see them, I felt like he would win in a way, certainly seeing how much I care in these poems, the hurt that runs through them. This boy turned out to be a very dangerous person who lied and emotionally abused me for a year, and I feel like all these words are an attestation to that, even if I wasn’t aware at the time. So, they gathered dust in my phone for a long time because I never felt that these specific ones truly rang out the sounds my voice was trying so desperately to sound out. I see now that they were trying to tell me something, that they were asking for help and I was ignoring myself. They might not be the best I have ever written, but changing them now after so long feels like altering the truth of what I was writing about at the time. The first poem was once supposed to be a song, but the words kept pouring, and no melody has yet found its way between the words.”
Catherine Cuypers is an Antwerp-based writer passionate about faerie folklore, the Gothic, speculative fiction, dark academia, equal rights, the arts, following writerly whims, and traipsing about in the woods in search of Tír na Nóg.