Brooke E. Wayne: Romance with a Kiss of HumorLeave a comment

Hearts and Flowers (Poetry)

Hearts and Flowers

By

Brooke E. Wayne

Tonight we ride the wild bull with wild flowers in my hair,

And a whirlwind of impatience reaches a calmness,

Through misty waters pressed with fog,

From a lingering dream some time before.

Let our minds wander,

Never too far from home,

And journey beyond that precious place

We once believed would keep us forever.

And all that we feel will be reflected in our eyes,

Surrounding our laughter,

Expressed within our presence

As we smile blindly beyond the sun

Like children,

Gazing into Heaven with thanksgiving.

We are and were before we knew—

Destiny held us in His hands.

For God’s breath is inside our souls

To carry us into Eternity, long after our time,

Well spent,

Has cast shadows on any doubt drifting in from the past.

For in His eyes we are one—

Flesh of my flesh

As we have promised to be together.

Amidst any garden of roses,

Your love is purer than the rain that feeds the stems.

For I am merely one petal,

Capturing the dew of angel’s tears

Like liquid kisses trickling down my neck.

The colors, never muted within your smile,

Glow brightly in my eyes as we look upon the future.

I see Heaven

Surrounding a place in our dreams,

Where simple pleasures, unfolding in our love,

Once sacrificed their time.

Our lives entwined—

Yielding to moments impressed into our hearts.

We saunter, hand in hand, along our deserted shore,

Underneath that silver tapestry

With clouds strewn across an indefinite blue

Like islands in the sky.

And when this world has withered us,

We will walk on into the Light.

For time will have passed through our blood,

And the years will have been but a song

On the tongue of our Creator.

I wrote this when I was 18 years old–in pen from beginning to end with zero editing, and I haven’t changed a single word or grammatical faux pas since.

FullSizeRender

It’s been well over twenty years later, and I still look at this poem as an anthem of love in my life. It tells the imagined story of true love from the ‘wedding night’ until ‘death do us part’. Not too bad for a teenager who knew nothing of love at the time I scratched it out on a piece of binder paper in my bedroom one night. I borrowed my simile, ‘like liquid kisses trickling down my neck,’ for the novel I’ve recently completed. The line whispers to me on Page 2 as a little secret that I’m letting you in on—a journey that I am still traversing as a writer of romance, bending my path into a full circle that will keep tumbling towards traditional publication one day.

PS.  I took the picture, and yes, my cupcake was delicious!  Happy Valentine’s Day,

xox Brooke E. Wayne xox

Brooke E. Wayne: Romance with a Kiss of Humor

Tiny Treasures

IMG_0060

TINY TREASURES:  I walk past a row of naked trees poking their scrawny, leafless branches heavenward in hopes of a little springtime sunshine almost every day. Each of these wanton trees have become home to the nesting birds in the neighborhood. One of these tiny treasures could fit in the palm of my hand—it’s so itty-bitty. Others are a tad bigger, and all of them stand out against the stormy sky like scribbles among sticks. I love how the birds don’t seem to mind that hundreds of children breeze by their nesting eggs day after day, as the school is right across the street. I secretly hope that the limbs of these scrappy trees don’t sprout blooms too soon so that when the babies are hatched, my little girls can catch a glimpse of the baby birds poking their bobbling heads up chirping for some wormy-nommers from all of the momma birds.

Brooke E. Wayne: Romance with a Kiss of Humor

Pen and Paper: Journaling Love

IMG_9333

When I was eleven, I scribbled out my first novella, I’ll Never Be the Same Again, on loose leaf paper and tucked it into a binder, forever creating my own destiny.  I love writing.  WRITING, not typing–I like typing, don’t get me wrong, and I happen to be fast at it–but writing, oh my, I get like a shark about to take a bite out of life…my eyes glaze over at the aroma of the crisp, fresh pages of a journal, and I feverishly tear into it with endless amounts of words.

I was that girl throughout school that rivaled Harriet of Harriet the Spy in every way, meticulously documenting everything that was happening to me every moment of the day–each glance I would capture in passing down the hall from the crush I’d have while on my way to the next class or all of the juicy details of the gossip my friends would share over lunch in the cafeteria.  I was a “Dear Diary,” kind of girl for years and years.  I also started plotting out and writing scenes for a full-length novel before I could even drive a car.  I would write ideas down on anything I could get my hands on–gum wrappers, receipts, napkins–you name it.  I even penned hundreds of poems and short stories, all by hand.  Sadly, all of my stories starred my friends and their crushes, so I would let them keep them, and I never made second copies, so I’ve lost those first aspiring love stories, but all of the journals are still in my possession, locked safely away in storage, and someday, when I feel the muse coming, I’ll add YA (Young Adult) Romance to my types of genre that I write.

When I received my first word processor, my handwriting lifestyle changed.  I gave into the lime green glow of the words and veered away from the handwritten means of self-expression.  It was clunky and squealed out awful noises, but it made school a little easier, and seeing my words in print without having to type them on the family typewriter that had sticky keys was heaven-sent.  It wasn’t until I actually graduated from college with my BA that I received my first computer.  Yeah–I’m that old, just turned 44 last month, actually.  This new computer of mine was too slow for the internet, but the word-processing capabilities allowed me to begin another novel along side the one that I had completely outlined and written scenes for in high school.  A hundred or so pages into the new novel though, I upgraded the operating system, and I lost the book.  I stopped writing for a while altogether in my dismay.  When I finally came around again, I went back to good ol’ fashioned pen and paper until I owned a ‘real’ computer and another and another and…

I still journal in between bouncing writing around all of my Apple devices–my desktop, MacBook Air, my iPhone, etc.  I’m covered when I have something to say.  I no longer have to rummage through my purse for a gum wrapper like the good ol’ days of my youth.  And, I still journal.  In fact, my aunt-in-law blessed me with a new journal for Christmas that has a picture of my young daughters on the front cover along with the words, “Brooke’s Journal,” and, by the end of the day, those crisp, fresh pages had lured me in, and I had filled several of them up with an outline of a new Romantic Comedy novel that I plan on turning into an eBook once it’s written just to have “Indie Published” under my belt as a writer.

There’s something special about the pen and paper.  I’ve even studied graphology a little bit–the way people write revealing how they feel, what their personality is like, and who they are hidden in the curlycues of their writing.  My penmanship is atrocious.  Even I can’t read my writing sometimes.  It’s very loopy like an endless string of smiley faces, and it comes as no surprise to me that when analyzed it means that I’m open, positive, always moving forward, and generally happy.  Yeah, that’s about right.  I can easily go into a rage like any impassioned writer could, but overall, if I’m writing something down to be analyzed, it’s likely that my eyes are glazed over with the joy that comes with handwriting anyway and capturing that thrill in my scribble is bound to happen.