Jump to latest poem.

After the rain,
The world seems
All shiny and new.

Spring-cleaned.

The trees ready
To burst into song,

Their arms still
Open wide,
Their hearts dancing,
Ready to let life
Start over.

But look, not all of them
Could welcome the rain.
Some, I’m afraid,
Will never bloom again.

And I can’t help
But wonder:
Which one am I?
Maybe I’m all shrivelled up,
My arms wide
Waiting for rain
That will

Never come?

I wish I could
Have held you
Just a little longer

You were the only light
In my darkness

But I always knew
I lived on borrowed light
On borrowed dreams
On borrowed time

BOUND

Bury your nails in my skin
Deeper, deeper

Pull these bindings
Tight, tighter

I need to feel
You really mean it

Don’t just whisper
The words
Cut your I love yous
Into my flesh
Deeper, still deeper

Hold me so tight
I can’t breathe

Kiss me, kiss me
Don’t stop
So I can’t scream

Use, abuse
Every part of me
Until I’m utterly spent

So that when you loosen
These bindings
I’ll still feel them
Like invisible strings

Forever connecting

Your soul
And mine

You provided the rich ground I grew in
You taught me the language I dream in

Long I slept in the warm earth
Finally crawling out of my cocoon
Spreading my wings

Let your heartbeat now
Call me home

DEMON

Your voice
Like chocolate

But I’m the one
Melting

Your gaze
Inviting me in

One careless moment
And I can feel you –
Right behind
My own eyes

How long now
Until you’ve possessed me
Completely?

Not long
I imagine

Not long at all

So close
I could breathe
Your hopes
Your dreams

So close
I could feel
The warmth of your skin
Hear your heart beat

For one short moment
I was alive
As real as you

Suddenly beautiful
Suddenly loveable

But then
You let go

LATE AUGUST

As these tiny droplets
Of morning dew
Catch the sunlight,
A thousand tiny stars
Come to life
On the grass.

Summer’s almost over,
But these blue skies
Try their best
To make us forget
That there are any other seasons
Than summer,

Endless summer.

You’re my word
For joy and for beauty
For longing and heartache

One word
So many meanings

One word
So much happiness
So much pain

One word from you –
All it would take
To finally heal me

But I know
I can never be

Your word

Pain is
What inspires us
Sadness has us write
Songs and poems

How ironic
To think that
We could both be
Each other’s remedy

Never to write
A single verse again

Sometimes
I think
I made you up
That you’re not
Even real

And then
You hold me
And I realize
That it’s me
Who has never
Existed at all

I love everything about you
And I will still love you
When everyone else has deserted you

I’ll be the one
Standing in the corner
Waiting
Waiting to finally take you
Into my arms

For good

In my dream
I simply melted
Into you

In my dream
You suddenly saw me
Heard me
Hugged me

I was happy
In my dream

Frühlingsgrün
Verweben die Zweige
Der Buchen sich
Mit tiefblauem Himmel.

Froh ertrinke ich
In seinem Sehnen.

You tapped into
Some hidden magic
I never knew
I possessed

Sometimes
Trying to connect
Feels sheer impossible –
Like reaching
Across oceans

But talking to you
Has always been
Effortless

Our words dancing weightless
Between the realms
Of metaphor

We speak the same language
Heart to heart rather
Than mouth to mouth

And you were my word
For love
Long before I
Ever met you

Even though the whole world
Holds the Orange Man
In contempt

We are all merely watching
As he’s ripping
Past
Present
And future
To pieces

CONNECTED

In this reality –
A web of pain
And possibility –
Let our lives
Be interwoven

Let the air
You breathe out
Be the air
I breathe in

Entangled in
Each other’s arms
Each other’s dreams
Each other’s hopes

Let’s hold on tightly

As we gracefully sweep past,
Colour, beauty and magic
Come to life

In a world of businessmen
And bureaucrats
Let us be dancers

When they buried you
I didn’t grieve
I must admit
I mostly felt relieved

Only now
Have I realized why:
I had wept for you
Long, long before
You died

For the father
Who loved me
A real dad
The one that I
Never had

She’s been a faulty creation
From the get-go

Because from abuse
And from loneliness
Only dark flowers grow

Today is one of those days
I feel it again:
The neglect
The hurt
The abuse

It will always be
Part of me
Lingering deep
In my bones

Most days I can
Just shrug it off:
The past is the past
The future not yet written

But some days
– Like this day –
I suddenly fall
All the way back

Into the small child
That was wondering then
What unconditional love
Actually felt like

I’ve put my heart away
For so long now,
I don’t quite remember
How to open its rusty box anymore

And why
Would I want to?
Most days, I’m relieved
That box is safely tucked away somewhere,
Most days, pain is all there is to feel anyway

Better to grow numb
Than to keep hurting
Because you never quite fit in

To walk around with a heart
So hungry for love
Will only kill you

It would swallow
The whole world
And still

Feel empty

Falling for you
Was as easy
As breathing

Living through
The pain
Of never being
Quite enough –
That’s been
The tough part

Living without
Holding you
Truly broke
My heart

Feeling like I’ve never
Really lived
My own life
But someone else’s

I’m watching you
From the sidelines
Admiring you
Longing to be with you
Longing to be you

But I know
This smile of yours
That still catches me
Off guard

Will only light up
My world for a moment:

The darkness
Is always
Waiting

HEARTBEAT

This life –
just one moment
a brief flickering light

In the eternal darkness.

So precious –
every day,
every minute.

And still,

I’d lay it all down
for you

In a heartbeat.

I really tried
Not to fall in love with you.

You just made it
Impossible.

INTO THE NIGHT

If the world ends
Tomorrow,
Let me hold you
One last time
Today.

Hold me,
Kiss me,
Smile for me,
And I won’t mind going

Into the night.

COME WITH US

Come with us
Come with us
The waves whisper sweetly
On the wind

Cool and gentle
Their touch
As they lift me up
And carry me
Towards the horizon

Come with us
Come with us
They sing to me
Surrounding and
Caressing me

Soon
The shore is
Far away

My heart
Suddenly peaceful
I still follow

Come with us
They whisper
To where the blue skies
Melt into us
Come with us
Beyond the horizon

And their siren song
Almost makes me
Believe them
Believe they mean no harm
But for the warning
In my heart

So I finally
Break free
From their cool embrace
Struggling to get back
To the safe shore

But lying down
On the soft, warm sand
Of the beach
A little while later
A little shaken
A little out of breath
I can still hear the waves whisper

Come with us
Come with us

And I know
Their song
Will follow me
Into my dreams
Tonight

I admit to
Having your words
Etched into my skin
Quite literally

But how
They also ended up
In my heart
I really can’t say

OVERINDULGENCE

I drank
The blue
From your eyes

And now
My soul is so full
I can’t sleep

You’ve been carrying me
Through the world
In your songs

Jumping from one stanza
To the next

I never needed to touch
The ground

There’s never been
Much hope
For us

And still I clung to
Every kindness
Every smile

Because that’s what
Anyone will do

When drowning

We’re born
From darkness
And the void will soon
Call us home

Some days
I can hear it whisper
In the night
Some days I’m afraid

Some days
I just want to
Let myself fall

I’ve always loved
The storm

The world seems
Truly alive only then
And something new
Might be travelling
On the winds

The storm brings
Relief after the heat
And much needed water

But it also drives
The clouds away
After days of stillness
And despair

Storms always remind me
Of what it’s like
To live by the sea

Storms always remind me
I’m still alive
And I can change too

There’s a voice
In the darkness
Whispering to me
It even knows me by name

There’s a voice
In the darkness
Telling me I’ll never make it
Better stop trying now

There’ll be nothing
But pain in store for me
Sadness and heartbreak

And no one will hear me
Only the darkness will answer
Only the darkness
Will know my true name

(Right-click and open in a new tab to enlarge the image above.)

“Sing, sing, little bird!”
They’ll tell you.

But what songs
Are there to sing
If you can’t remember
What blue skies look like
From up close
And what warm winds feel like
Beneath your wings?

They’ll pluck your feathers
One by one
Because they’re too colourful
In this world of grey men.

They’ll put you
In a golden cage
And then they tell you
To sing.

There’s this weariness
In my bones
And this sadness
In my heart

I’m alone

A ghost watching
The world go by

I came into this world
Alone
And alone
I’ll leave it

So why bother
Finding a friend
For the short time
In between?

Sometimes the silence
Engulfing me
Feels peaceful
Feels right

But I guess
A part of me
Will always be searching
Waiting, longing
For the impossible
To happen

A part of me
Will always be
Waiting, hoping

For you

I wrap myself in silence –
A warm blanket
To hide
The scars on my body
And soul

Isolating myself
From the world
I watch
All those busy lives
Of other people
From afar

Peace and loneliness
Are sometimes hard
To distinguish

You opened your arms
An I let myself fall
Holding on for dear life

You smiling down at me
Brought a thousand glittering flowers
To bloom in the darkness

Now I sometimes think
I probably imagined it all
Now that my days
Have grown cold and black again

But sometimes I still
Find one of those soft
Perfumed flower pedals
And I realize
It was more than some dream
It was real for a while

And this hurts the most

It’s pretty cliché
I know
To tell you
You light up
The whole room
With your smile

Well
It’s not even true anyway
Is it?

Closer to the truth
Might be to say
You light up
My whole world

And that your words
Weave meaning
Into the fabric
Of the universe

And that every time
You turn away
I’m cold again –
Cold and lost
In the darkness

Standing right before you
Always tears me apart
Moves me to tears and
Breaks my heart

In your doubts and imperfections
You’re quite perfect
In your frailty and sadness
You’re beautiful

And your humanity and kindness
Might just put the world back together again
The way it always should’ve been

People keep fearing the darkness
But much greater peril lies
In getting too close
To the light

Like a flower
Blooming in November
I try to make the most
Of what little sunlight’s left
In these last days

If only you loved me –
This would surely be
All the light
All the warmth
I’d ever need

On her own though
This fragile flower will never be
Brave enough
Or strong enough
To keep growing
When winter comes

Seeing you again
Stripped away
Ev’ry last layer of my skin

Sharp and raw
The pain tore through
The ruins of
A shattered heart

Just to keep standing there
Clearly was
The most difficult of arts
Just to stand there
And breathe
Not drown
In my own tears

Memories of brighter days
Swept through me
Of days
When I could still
Knock at your door
Fall into your arms
And revel in your warmth

It almost felt like
You really wanted me there then
But of course, that’s not true

It’s only ever been me
Who kept choosing you
For as we all know
The Moirai often are cruel

Der Geruch der Felder
Nach Sonnenuntergang.
Der Geschmack von Erdbeeren
Auf deiner Zunge.
Der Himmel so blau,
Dass man hineinfallen möchte.

Sommer.