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Love was just an insignificant occupant making me gag
Love was just a bad joke I heard in another language I couldn’t comprehend
Love was just a citizen that held me down and raped my soul with a jagged knife
Love was just a stench I couldn’t wash out
Love was just a word created by Hallmark
Love was just four letters thrown together to serve a ridiculous purpose
Love was just a shadow so I can feel myself
Love was just a bruise on my shin to prove I exist
Love was just a song written by a billion dollar jester
Love was just a death wish waiting in the wings
Love was just a plant I didn’t water
Love was just a black eye with covered up lies
Love was just a watercolor I can’t see
Love was just mascara running down my face
Love was just a cloud of obscurity
Love was just a gram and a kilo of voids
Love was just a room of emptiness
Love was just a shattered mirror I look at every day
Love was just a pile of poems that made sense one day
Love was a just a pile of poems that I threw away the next day
Love was just an adolescent that claimed to know it all
Love was just an adult with an addiction that didn’t know a damn thing
Love was just a bomb that exploded on planes, in buildings, and in schools
Love was just a clan, cult, gang, a war of losses
Love was just a book that millions don’t read
Love was just a doctrine of stolen beliefs
Love was just a pile of divorce papers
Love was just a trigger pulled by one finger as the other four were staring at him
Love was just an overused word
Love was just ten minutes of causal sex
Love was just an irrational scream
Love was just the sun not seeing the moon
Love was just a down payment for an item I haven’t touched
Love was just a puzzle piece that doesn’t seem to fit anywhere

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Love me father for I have sinned
Love me for my teary eyed tragedies
Love me mother for I have misrepresented
Love me for my emerald skin

Drowning in my identity

Love me fireflies for I have wept in the dark
Love me for I have crippled my vitality
Love me acquaintances for my tainted tongue
Love me for my abandoned flames

Soaking in a lost curse

Love me companion for I have misplaced love
Love me for I have spoken to my villain
Love me obscurity for I have been misguided
Love me for I have crawled in my dismay

Drenched on my knees praying to god “Fix me”

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Sweet little darling
Sipping tea from her cup
Deep thoughts on her rocking chair
Nose stuck in a Dickinson book
Style in her fingertips
Turning page after page
Wrapped up in forever
Coddling lukewarm memories
Counting grandchildren and lost ones
Guided by an inward candle
Unforgettable and refreshing

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I read this book in paperback. This is a unsolicited review.

What I Loved:
Braeden Michaels is another one of my favorite poets. He is a master at creating imagery with his varied and vivid lines. Somehow he combines these images to create a scene and that scene, if we allow it, gives us a view deeper into our own humanity.

He writes with such depth and his lines make you really think about who we are as humans and our place in this world, our emotions, and our different perspectives. I find that I can read nearly every piece over and over, each time walking away with more meaning than the time before.

I also appreciate his creativity and his titles are dynamite. Things like “Coughing Up a Smirk”, “Psychobabble”, “Tangled Snowflake”, “Marmalade Boots”, and “The Blush Vertebrae”… how does he come up with these names??

I didn’t find a single grammatical error or misspelling and that made me very happy (because if you know me at all, it is that those are pet-peeves of mine). Also, the paperback quality was very good. A nice size in your hand, great overall length, and the front cover art for me was great.

What I Didn’t:
I honestly have nothing negative to say about this book. It now happily sits on my shelf to be read again and again.

My Overall Score:
5 stars – This book is exactly what I want from a book of poetry. Excellent length, quality writing, professional and engaging cover. Worth every penny and minute invested.

Highly recommended for those who enjoy unique modern poetry that makes you think and feel.

Check out where “The Raven’s Poison” is available! The review can be found on Amazon.

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A part of me is mangled
A part of me is incarcerated
A part of me has no meaning

A part of me is ruptured
A part of me is poisonous
A part of me has fragments

A part of me is dismembered
A part of me is misrepresented
A part of me has a disease

A part of me is severed
A part of me is slivered
A part of me has lived in a smog

A part of me is a siren
A part of me is annilihated
A part of me has lost color

A part of me is ruptured
A part of me is an invisible soul
A part of me has died on Mangled Iron Lane

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Under her breath she uttered “Life is as beautiful as a forehead kiss”
Joy dances like a ballerina on her spellbinding tongue
She squeezed tea parties with her doll Delilah with her artistry
Quietly adoring her childhood books on the shelf from the tallest to the shortest
She painted love with the ocean with her steady hand on her prized canvas
Gazing at her innocent imagination
Memorized the pattern and pastel colors of her quilt
In a whisper she mumbled “Beauty is inside, not in the eye of the beholder”
Climbing inside her mellow perception
She glided across the beige carpet with an ornament of a smile
A sphere filled with crayons, lite bright, easy bake oven, and ballroom dresses
Cherishing the extraordinary recollection,
Embracing the collage of photographs in her heart
Drops fall to the floor as she glances at a hollow room on Wildfire Lane

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I woke up next to a vulture with a
dog bone chain around her neck
Staring at me with vile
I woke up next to a flame that wrapped
her sins around my waist
Staring at me with corruption
I woke up next to a blood sucking leach
that smirked with a lush appetite
Staring at me with disdain
I woke up next to a villain made up
of clay hiding the weapons
Staring at me with a plan
I woke up next to a furious soul
that was shaken from discomfort
Staring at me with delight
I woke up next to a bitten snake
that slithers through the camouflage
Staring at me with vengeance