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Best Poems From
AMANDA SAVELEY
(December 29,1987)
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93.
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The Things I Do For You...
I should not be concerned with taking pictures of flowers.
Nor picking out flowers for my wedding that may never be.
I should be laying flowers on your grave, so cold, so cold...
I should not be thinking about my skin being soft.
Nor skin being soft on my children that may never be.
I should be holding firm your hand still, so cold, so cold...
I should not be distressed about crying once a day.
Nor take ill crying over lovers that may never be.
I should be shedding tears over your body, so cold, so cold...
I should not take care to sing so sweet and so smooth.
Nor singing to practice for others that may never be.
I should be humming near your deaf ear, so cold, so cold...
I should not wonder about kissing so carefully now.
Nor hoping to kiss as well for faces that may never be.
I should be kissing your forehead pallid, so cold, so cold...
I should not be worried about breathing tomorrow.
Nor even breathing for a future that may never be.
I should be lying in a grave deep down, so cold, so cold...
But I do.
I notice the flowers.
I worry over things vain.
I cry.
I sing.
I kiss.
I breathe.
Because that is the way you would want it.
Amanda Saveley
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94.
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The Truth?
The truth?
I lie.
I hurt.
I hurt others.
I get angry to make the pain hurt less.
I miss my mother, and my brothers.
I've never felt more alone than I do right now.
My boyfriend...
is wonderful.
but I don't deserve him.
My mother is
gone...
it's all I see anymore.
my mother has become a voice on the other end of a telephone line too long to reach my heart.
I love...
music.
It says everything I just can't seem to form in words.
But I don't dream.
I can barely recall.
What is a fantasy...
If you have nothing to imagine?
I am currently...
in a home that is really not a home at all.
A house is not a home
If there is nothing in it which resembles family.
I'm not...
happy.
confident.
smart.
stable.
honest.
All I really want is...
peace of mind
I am wearing...
my clothes.
my smile.
my facade.
My life is...
a lie.
plain and simple.
But my mood...
right now...
is as real as it's ever been.
Still, today I...
woke up.
went to class.
donated blood.
talked to friends.
saw my boyfriend.
came home.
sat at the same chair as every other night.
stared at the monitor.
buried a lie.
That's the truth.
Amanda Saveley
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95.
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Time and Change
Winds are changing
The tide has come in
And your number's up
So why fight it?
Spent so long...
Chasing roads that lead nowhere...
Paths that have both an end and no end
Because their ends only make another beginning,
Intersecting with another middle
Letting into one another like intertwined vines
Fighting change makes more struggle,
Pain most can't contend with
So why want to defend with
Nothing more than tooth and comb?
Swing the stick,
All you'll make is a scratch,
And we all know
Time heals all
Even itself
Amanda Saveley
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96.
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To Know You...
To know you is to love you
Then love you, I cannot
For I could never comprehend
That which you seem to be
And yet, are not
All at the same time
We bicker, nay, fight
Incessantly.
The victor alternates in a never-predictable pattern
In which neither of us really understands until the next bout
I can't ever understand you.
You, for whom I would lay life on line
Allow the theft of my breath before I witness your death
Eyes close once more, never opened
And to look upon your face and know that it would be my last sight,
I would swoon at the mere thought
Yes, I adore you.
You should know that by now.
Though we fight and we fight
Until neither of us has anything more to say
Only a thick silence to cover our naked egos
Our harshly murmured comments
Like knives into flesh
Cutting and slicing
Not to make pain,
Just a point
You once said you felt like throwing your ring across a room.
That ring which I so carefully selected
That ring which I presented to you in bare form,
No more vulnerable than I was when I was borne unto the world
And I laid life and light on line
Simply to prove that which I though needed be reinforced
And I cried at your words.
No,
I broke down.
Not in sobs
Nor curses
Nor scene of hands in hair on ground
I only shed a simple tear that could barely escape
For the walls so carefully constructed and set aside
Were crumbling down to the point of oblivion
I can honestly say I died that day
Just another part of my barely existent innocence
That which I sought in vain to preserve
And nevertheless,
I lost.
To know you is to love you
But I do not know you
I do not see how I ever could
But that preciously preserved ignorance I sport like an outer skin
Will protect me
Until the next time, perhaps...
Amanda Saveley
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