tiny rhyme time

if there were phone calls
once in a while

concern in your voice
instead of a smile

a couple of tears
for the couple of years

a small sign of regret
maybe I could forget

maybe then

it won't hurt so much to see
how much you're not missing me

© 2007 by Danielle Romanick

to all the boys I've loved before: part 1

we are not your mothers
you have been weaned from the breast of a woman for years
yet you come to us
wounded
and half filled with promises
you can only keep half the time
trying to suckle our sense of self dry
we have become much too accustomed to empty beds and damp pillows
become much too accustomed
to waiting for our empty beds to be weighted down
with the bodies of men
heavy with the scent and the hands of other women
and we
simply wanting to be loved and to love ourselves unconditionally
simply wanting the truth of whether you can really love us or not
play Hester Prin
place scarlet letters on our chests
become adulteresses
cheating ourselves out of what we truly deserve
willing to settle for less
willing to act like a little less than a goddess
willing to sleep with the enemy
men too scared to stop acting like boys
thinking we can love away their scars
so we take the lashes of the insecurities that they pour on us
and lick our wounds in quiet mourning
for the little girls we loose by the minute.

written by Mayda de Valle

to all the boys I've loved before: part 2

you said you had a photographic memory
but apparently
you forgot that honesty begins by being real with yourself
and the ones you claim you love
the truth cannot be hidden
what’s clouded in darkness will always come to light, my love
you should have known that
claiming you saw my light so clearly and brightly
i guess shit happens
i just wish it wasn’t me
and I guess it’s so much better to have loved and lost
then to never have loved at all
i know that’s some easy shit to say
but I’m still going to try and live by it
i’m still going to put my faith to rest in it
i will sleep on dry pillows now
in a bed big enough to love myself in
i will awake these coming mornings with my eyes dry
and shining full of the knowledge
i am priceless
and worth nothing but honesty
i will remove the scarlet letter from my chest
and take the hand of the little girl I used to be
and say I’m sorry to her
i’m sorry for cheating you out of the joy you have always deserved
and I will wait
for a man to come along
that can give me the truth
of how much he can really love me

written by Mayda de Valle

*there is a powerful video of her preforming this on Def Poetry Slam on YouTube

I've been published.

Check me out, I've been published on Poeartica!!

My Bio reads:

Bio: Danielle is an aspiring poet and has been from a very young age. She enjoys writing and is constantly looking for a way to grow and change as a poet. She enjoys the many experiences she gets out of being an artist, an amateur photographer and a tattoo designer. Danielle currently works as a paralegal in NYC, not to become a lawyer, but rather to work with great people. (and the money doesn't hurt) She is planning on returning to school for her doctorate next fall in Psychology. Right now Danielle is enjoying the people she meets and the friends she makes through the on-line blogging communities and visits to poetry clubs.

If you would like to view more of Danielle's poetry, please visit : Not My Year





Many thanks to Kim for posting my poem, and if you haven't been to Poeartica - you should go its an awesome site.

kind of girl

i'm a
country kind of girl

a
i-want-to-ride-in-my-car-to-go-somewhere
kind of girl

i'm an
easy to please
just give me trees
and a wide open sky kind of girl


*this is an excerpt from a song I'm writing called "that girl", i just like this part

*Rough Cut* of Pictures to Burn

yea, our love was something great
but its not something
I can't recreate
you know that i saved you, there's nothing new
but others out there who need saving too
i'll find yet another you
i'll go find an even better you

Chorus
i'm allowed a mistake or 2, baby
you were one - fourteen, maybe
i've gotta move on, and take what i've learned
i've gotta move on now, i've got pictures to burn

back then i was sad and dreary
i was angry, broken hearted, wouldn't let anyone near me
then one day, a friend knocked at my door
he said "what are you so sad for girl?
he wasn't worth your world."

just like that, the clouds parted
i left the ranks of the broken hearted
i still look back now and then
i know you'll never be that way again
cause that was never who you really were, baby
those first 6 months, a game for you, maybe
or it was just who you had to be
to get what you needed out of me

Chorus
but i'm still allowed a mistake or 2, baby
you were one - fifteen, maybe
i've gotta move on, and take what i've learned
i've gotta move on now, i've got pictures to burn

You kept me around until I lived out my use
that's fine, go hang by your handcrafted noose
there's a line growing at my door
I've no time to miss you anymore
now I won't have to compromise
this is you, through my eyes

Chorus
but i'm still allowed a mistake or 2, baby
you were one - sixteen, maybe
i've gotta move on, and take what i've learned
i've gotta move on now, i've got pictures to burn

inflammatory writ

oh, where is your inflammatory writ?
your text that would incite a light; 'be lit'

our music deserving
devotion unswerving
cried; 'do I deserve her?'
with unflagging fervor
well, no we do not, if we cannot get over it

but what's it mean when suddenly we're spent? - tell me true
ambition came and reared its head and went - far from you

even mollusks have weddings
though solemn and leaden
but you dirge for the dead
and take no jam on your bread
just a supper of salt and a waltz through your empty bed

and all at once
it came to me
and I wrote in hunch 'til four-thirty
but that vestal light
it burns out with the night

in spite of all the time that we spend on it
on one bedraggled ghost of a sonnet
while outside the wild boars root
without bending a bough underfoot
oh, it breaks my heart - I don't know how they do it
so don't ask me!

and as for my inflammatory writ?
well I wrote it and I was not inflamed one bit

advice from the master
derailed that disaster
said; 'hand that pen over to me, poetaster!'
while across the great plains
keening lovely & awful
ululate the last great american novels

an unlawful lot left, to stutter and freeze floodlit
but at least they didn't run, to their undying credit

- Joanna Newsom

light

blurred street lamps
however unholy
race past the window
she gazes out

cries of the spanish babies
unheard
impossible to ignore
the drunken men
they liked her
a couple more
here's to the birthday girl
makes her feel alive

and

the lights
she wonders
where they go
what they do
in windows
not her own

blurred street lamps
whatever acts
however unholy
they cast light upon
makes her feel alive

the car

the car
the empty parking lot
the deal
the drugs
the not for that price you don't
the sex
the dreams
gone crushed
under the tires

connectivity

a musician
he's a artist
a magician
infinite possibilities
out of an unassuming, uncut tree
carefully he molds
slowly he pries
eternally he works
crafts beautiful stained ambers
mahoganies
hollows the body
carves out the neck
pulls sinews of brass
taut
and at the end of the song
as she melts towards slumber
a smile spreads across her lips