Not According to Plan

Not According to Plan

A Poem by Brigid Cooley

And so it goes...

Right place.

Wrong time.

Complicated.

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Bet

Bet

A Poem by Brigid Cooley

You will find yourself in between the lines of Shakespeare;

Tucked into the corners of letters and standing atop the punctuation marks.

Take your blinders off.

You are not Pandora's box.

You are fingerprints on windowsills;

Loud and boisterous laughs.

You're the minor keys.

You are quiet footsteps and shadows that stand ten feet tall, depending on where the sun is.

You are broken. As are the rest of us.

There's nothing wrong with that.

You can't expect to come out of this life without a little wear and tear.

You are crossed arms and raised eyebrows,

and sometimes really stupid jokes.

Find the good. Run towards it.

There's no need for a map.

Stop waiting for one.

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In Response to Maya Angelou

In Response to Maya Angelou

A Poem by Brigid Cooley

She knows why the caged bird sings,

and I know what it's like to have clipped wings.

I could pull myself up, but I need a breeze,

So please go on and breathe on for me.

My wings are stiff and sometimes tired;

Yours are ones to be admired.

I think that you and Atlas conspired

to make the skies your own.

So help me leap off of the roof;

in the clouds, will I find silver-lined truth?

As I'm falling slowly, I won't confuse

New beginnings with the ground.

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Downtown

Downtown

A Poem by Brigid Cooley

The twinkle lights reflect in your hazel eyes, and my sweater dips off of my shoulder.

I breathe in, you pull me closer.

We kiss at a street corner and then in the parking garage.

Your laugh is loud; your hands are strong.

I bury my face in your neck.

If only a moment could last forever.

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Message: For You

Message: For You

A poem by Brigid Cooley

You aren't a loose end I'm worried about anymore.

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Apologies in Advance

Apologies in Advance

A Poem by Brigid Cooley

There is a part of me that I know is shutting down right now;

Even though everything is wonderful and you make me smile and feel content.

A part of me is saying that I should run fast and far away from this shot at happiness.

I want you to know that I'm trying not to.

It's just a hard process; learning to trust again.

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After

After

A Poem by Brigid Cooley

When I cry, my eyes get puffy and my lips turn red.

I wouldn't have expected you to know that.

You've never seen me cry.

That's because I only ever do it when you're far away.

In theatre, being punctual is imperative to success.

If you're not early, you're late, and if you're late, you miss your cues.

Well, if all the world's a stage, you arrived 13 years after your call time.

Or maybe I was a decade early.

I hope you're scribbling in your notebook right now.

Or maybe you're typing away at your phone screen,

Looking for the right rhythm for a stanza and for words that rhyme with me.

Someone told me once that to write is to heal.

It happens slowly, with first drafts and scratched out lines, but eventually, you heal none the less.

So that's what I'm doing.

Or at least, I'm trying to.

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