A Change
I met you with snow on the ground and
breath hanging visible in the air.
With no hope in my heart but curiosity in my brain,
I gave you the chance to spark the flame in my soul.
It was as freezing as the temperature but you speaking
was enough to allow the fire within me to breathe.
The ice inside my body I had grown to accept but
your change came quickly.
Although you left, my flame did not go out.
It reduced to that of a candle but
it was enough to keep me warm
for the rest of winter.
As Spring has come
and my surroundings are no longer frozen,
my own love has allowed the flame
to envelope my soul
so that even my thoughts
aren’t cold.
I met you when
the snow on the ground
was my heart and
my breath in the air
was that of the words
no one cared
to hear
before you.
You may be gone,
but now
simply,
I am the one
who is
Listening.
Intimacy
Intimacy is a funny thing.
It's even funnier when time changes it and all you can do is watch.
Intimacy thrives when there is excitement in the air
visualized by the smoke of a campfire
or the mirage of the sun
in a hot Summer day.
Intimacy, made colorful by the flowers left from Spring,
are still beautiful halfway through Summer or even at the end when
they are starting to wilt like a depressed girl starting to sink as the seasons change,
they are still told they are beautiful, at least in the poetic way.
Intimacy lacks and cold eyes stare at the ground
as you pass by what once was a stranger
and then a friend
and then a best friend
and then a stranger again.
Intimacy hides and is made known to be a sin by the time Winter comes
because Fall killed the flowers and
the brown leaves won’t start the fire anymore and
no one wants a fire started by dead trees in the coming cold anyway.
Intimacy, frosted over by ice, doesn’t even seem welcoming anymore.
The blankets covering won’t warm cold hearts and
hot showers won’t wash away the harsh words that killed the intimacy
back at the beginning of Winter.
Intimacy is forgotten, at least in its complete form,
because it has been found that small bits of intimacy that have
no lasting effect or meaning are better to live with for now
only because there is less responsibility.
With less responsibility comes less commitment and that all means that
there is less of a chance for intimacy to crash again,
taking your heart with it.
Intimacy drowns in your haze of insomnia or maybe
it’s just drowning along with you
in all of that alcohol you’re drinking.
Intimacy, approached ragged and weary when Spring comes,
starts to maybe look good again.
It was once nice to see intimacy as force of good
despite the tumble it took that began two season prior.
Intimacy, though different now,
is an idea starting to warm up to you halfway through Spring
because the flowers DO look nice and
that once despised face DOES look familiar because
you only despised the situation and not the face.
Intimacy, like Summer,
melts away the numbness you had like the ice cream you ate last week
with the excitement of trying to finish it before it fell to the ground.
The storms wash you anew and shock your heart and electrify your ideas that just maybe,
all of the past year happened to make intimacy
look more beautiful than it ever had before.
About the author: Emily Brandenburg is a nineteen-year-old recreational poetry writer from Cincinnati, Ohio. She is a Psychology and Family Science double major at Miami University, aspiring to become a child psychologist. She has only had one previous publication in A Celebration of Poets as a fifth grade elementary school student. With every poem she writes, she attempts to inspire other young women to value feminism and self-love.
