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She’s exhausted from spilling ink
She’s uncertain with her fingertips
She’s wobbly and shaking on the inside
She’s powerless from the past
She’s flimsy as a thin piece of paper
Sing me a song for wide hope
Sing me a song for stretched out faith

She’s frail within her bones
She’s isolated from the rattle
She’s licking her wounds quietly
She’s aching for companionship
She’s comfortless and abandoned
Sing me a song for freedom
Sing me a song without chains

She’s tangled up in desolation
She’s withdrawn and torn down
She’s a tragedy without a witness
She’s reclusive and friendless
She’s a sky without any clouds
Sing me a song for change
Sing me a song for healing

My books are available here.

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For You, Love Always

Captivated and infatuated by love’s delicate spirit, poet Braeden Michaels composes a collection as timeless as the dawn of time: from budding first glances to whispers of a heart broken yet mending to vows in forever to the exhilaration of a lover’s touch to joy in parenthood and the reverberation of desire. Here is love in all forms. New love. Learned love. Growing love. Surprising love. Love through the ages from a man for his woman. She is the compassion that forever sits still. She is the scent that lingers on his skin. She is the enchanted sea of grace. She is the sunflower’s breeze in his eyes.

My books are available here.

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I use to wear a serenading taxi cab colored sweatshirt with a patch of of birds heading south for the winter to Morgan’s house
She’d always laugh at the caption below
“Are we there yet?” and pour me a drink
She paraded her fathers den that reeked of nicotine and late night affairs
Flipping through the eclectic taste of albums
Spinning the quarter in the afternoon air
Indecisiveness roaming like a soldier
Morgan was the advocate of passive aggressiveness
Mumbling curse words and playing with a rubber band in tangled dialogues
Morgan would often lean in and tap her fingers on my thigh as if she was playing the piano
Slightly obtrusive and deliberately coy
Consistently playing word games with my emotions
Shouting “Love is fickle, but you could dance with me for a nickel”
Often devilish wearing a copper halo
Tossing idioms between stirred pauses
Blatantly ignoring the officer in the pictures on the olive walls
She referred to him as the man that dragged her from state to state
Leaving her in decorated homes with meaningless jewelry
Constantly toying with closeness and distance with my lips in the sanctuary
Shaking my head from the autumn perfume
From month to month my title changed from tool box to aberration
On that fateful hour I made the doorbell sing and no one replied
Glancing down at the welcome mat I picked up the ivory envelope
Ramblings were engraved and cemented
Paragraphs leaving a starry eyed melody
Entranced by the last line that catapulted reality
“The officer who claims to be my father hasn’t taught me how to say goodbye”

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Loveless Eyes

She rambles within her scattered and spinning monologue, a speech incomprehensible

She scrambles the phrases unapologetically and unleashes long winded statements

Continues to prance inside her lies, behind those loveless eyes

“I spend my life to prove others wrong, those are the lyrics to my tragic song”

She clarifies the subject matter in a bow to one gender

She defines the topic with tantalizing innuendos to the other gender

Continues to wear that disguise, to hide
those loveless eyes

“I spend my life to prove to others that I’m right, those are my words in this never ending fight”

She’s threatened by others intellect as her insecurities bite

She clings to the accusations and defends her spotted purity

Continues to prance inside her lies, behind those loveless eyes

“I spend my life to prove to others that I’m on the right direction, claiming that I don’t need anyone’s affection”

Forgetting in the end to love herself

My books are available here.

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For you and the truth,
I lay awake circling my vulnerability
I can taste the poison on my tongue
I dwell in my pond of insecurities
I gnaw at my unspoken and sedated soul
I claw at my resilience with my tired fingers
I pick at my invisible wounds with an axe
I watch the apprehension hang over my head
I whisper to my demons “listen to the crack”

I am holding your hand with one eye open
a gust of change feels like a storm
I’m terrified to open up both eyes
to see I don’t deserve you

For you and the truth,
I find myself misplaced and disoriented
I spot the conditions and uncontrollable urges
I removed the hindering spotlight
I am haunted by my effervescent carnival
I have waved goodbye to the magnetic carousel
I steer toward the corridor of isolation
I clutch on to the paradise dancing in your eyes
I am sinking in the malevolent circus

I am holding your hand with one eye open
a gust of change feels like a storm
I’m terrified to open up both eyes
to see I don’t deserve you

For you and the truth,
I am weeping on the inside in this masquerade
I am praying I will find edges of my identity
I leave my pieces behind reaching for you
I grip on to tomorrow and replay yesterdays
I cough up the suffocating air and sorrow
I choke on my frustrations and crooked thunder
I see the lightning in my affliction
I recognize the heartache that flickers within

I am holding your hand with one eye open
a gust of change feels like a storm
I’m terrified to open up both eyes
to see I don’t deserve you

My books are available here.

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Between the ivory blank page
and the tangle among the frozen words
I grunted frustrations and dabbed
my fingers in the reverberating clouds
Love was written for daydreamers
I vigorously plucked the petals from
the fortune teller’s teary eyed rose
Agony and torment stretched out
along my hypersensitive spine
Tenderness was shattered into fragments
glaring at the distinguished pieces
Astonished from the inward discovery
never seeking the grace within
Clarity crept in under a cherry tree

My books are available here.

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She murmured sardonic puns, three line riddles and a secret written by her morning phantom
She was sipping on Coca Cola with percolating eyelashes carrying a catatonic grin
I sighed “your diabolical scent is quite ravishing and eloquent”

I didn’t mean to ignite the past
I didn’t mean to love you with the left eye
I didn’t mean to fall so hard with a faithless romantic

She gargled bits of authenticity, lucid theories, and swallowed a vitamin of intensity
She often spills her aggression, animosity, and uneven morals in her bloodhound diary
I cringed “your radiant light is piercing through the thick of the night”

I didn’t mean to surrender to your heart of stone
I didn’t mean to adore your nightmares
I didn’t mean to wipe away the rain in the storms

She has a mystifying language drenched in symbolism and an accent with a pinch of kindness
She miscalculated and misplaced the affection
I gasped “your insidious magic feels like gold, makes me wonder why your story hasn’t been told”

I didn’t mean to say those words
I didn’t mean to remove your veil
I didn’t mean to make you so afraid

My books are available here.

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I use to languish in the polygon of my weeping mind

I thirst for the fragments of my anguish to mold my center

I use to sulk inside myself and drink the wine of selfishness

I sunk my teeth into the dejection

I use to dwell in the camouflage and sink in my words

I swam in the black river under the oppression

I use to neglect faith and drown in the empty tear ducts

I fell into the depths of silence

I use to grieve in the awaken sadness and never sleep

I felt the last breath deceive me

I use to shed my dead skin in the morning to erase the gloomy nights

I carried a chain of misery

I use to gasp at the hollowness and gazed at the autograph

I refused to stare at the nemesis

I saw the signature and found it revolting

A transformation within shouted

My books are available here.

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I’ve been cauterized by my figment of
my bleary imagination
I’ve overlooked the obscurity dripping
in the marrow of my bones
I’m reminded of my thin sensibilities
drifting in a whirl
my memories weep in the photograph of
Black-Eyed Susans in the vase
next to the grin of my brave mother

Thank you for the encouragement
Thank you for the warmth
Thank you for walking with me in the dark
Thank you for the light
you gave your grandson

I’ve been sobbing at the gravesite
with a four leaf clover clenched in my hand
I’ve heard the growl within the pieces
of my shattered heart
I’ve stared into the loss and the pins
sticking in my sensitive nerves
my memories weep in the photograph of
Black-Eyed Susans in the vase
next to the grin of my brave mother

Thank you for the joy
Thank you for the unconditional love
Thank you for your never ending presence
Thank you for the smile
you gave your grandson

My books are available here.

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She disguises herself with prescriptions
and 1970 cliches. More often she sleeps in black leaves and clenches to the whispers of the blizzard. She prays to the secondhand lions and searches for forgotten riddles. She laughs at horror films and weeps at the comedy classics. She’s never used the word forgiven.

She wrestles with the fears in the morning and drowns in the insomnia at night. She speaks in a language without discretion. She plays with her skeletons in the closet. She ignores the left side of her imagination. She dances to jazz and dips her fingers into white pages to write enigmatic poetry.

She expresses affection with amber kisses and her fingertips. She said goodbye to her fireflies. She built walls with quicksand and tears. She stares at her right side of her imagination. She pleads with the stone truth. She’s witnessed more endings than beginnings.

She circles her anger like a hawk. She’s deprived of human decency. She loves with a small percent of her tattered heart. The rest is locked in a music box surrounded by caution tape. She sings to her frustrations to soothe the madness. She’s in love with only parts of her identity.

My books are available here.

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For I am the gust in this brilliant joy
For I am the hope in these disorientated chapters
For I am the trembling suspicion in the corner
For I am the optimism in your stained pupils

And the fascination pierces in the burgundy sky

For I am the prosperity in this shattered mirror
For I am the wisdom you have never heard
For I am the glare in the whispering blur
For I am the salt in your four seasons

And the enchantment glows in the burgundy sky

For I am the zest in your shaky bridges
For I am the rainbow in your weeping azure
For I am the shine in your rusty screams
For I am the fear in your gripping wishes

And the artistry blooms in the burgundy sky

For I am the peace in your self destruction
For I am the grit in your sandcastle
For I am the treasure you haven’t touched
For I am the daydream in your hallucinations

And the elegance radiates in the burgundy sky

My books are available here.

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Slithers like a charcoal sidewinder
French accent is a wicked aphrodisiac
Natural head turner, twinkling nighthawk
strutting her curves at the Foxglove Tavern
A logical spinning conversationalist
twirling liberal storyteller with satin lips
dogs with saliva disregard the translation
centered on the painted mask and surface
neglecting and overlooking her education
refusing to sift through her elegant layers
ignoring her quiet pulsating sensitivity
discounting her popular and beloved color
suits craving sin with childish innuendos
speaking bland three dollar pick up lines
meaningless chatter leading to nothing
outsmarting the tacky salesman pitch
self respect higher than a skyscraper
hidden goals remain underneath
patience lingering in her queen size bed
two hands on the steering wheel of self love

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Sweet Ophelia,
Out of morbid curiosity
Are your lingering shadows in disbelief
Bitter tongue bound and burned
The scent of your scars never learned

Sweet Ophelia,
Between your warmth and generosity
How can you be in love with me
Sadness is a hummingbird in my eyes
Broken down with armor in disguise

“She deserves more than I could ever give,
But she clenches on to me as long as we both shall live,
Neither of us know what we deserve,
With her by my side, I can see my worth”

Sweet Ophelia,
Inside this snowflake feel the monstrosity
Are you afraid I will be the one to leave
Fear is the calm wrapped around my bones
Whispering “you are my center and my home”

Sweet Ophelia,
Of all the treasures and the uncertainty
Faith is trusting in the power of what you can’t see
How can you love a man who doesn’t love himself
For I have forgiven the stars, nothing else

“She deserves more than I could ever give,
But she clenches on to me as long as we both shall live,
Neither of us know what we deserve,
With her by my side, I can see my worth”

My books are available here.