The Poetry Marathon

Gas station girl

Wears different earrings each visit

One day she wore gold, the next she wore pearls

Such delicate material

In this hidden and dingy 76

Your presence is ethereal

I stand among humming machinery

As you walk in, scratching your nose 

Brown eyes flickering over the lottery 

“Your earrings are great”

I say in my head

In the silence you smile and ask, “Pump 8?”

I hear  the familiar chime as you leave

And watch you do the littler things

And imagine if you’re exactly as you seem

Gas station girl

In my isolation at the 76

I wonder what it’s like to be in your world

And wear earrings of gold and earrings of pearls

I memorized the

excitement in your eyes

As the incandescent greens, 

reds, and glittering golds

Lit the plaza from 

the Americana Christmas tree

My first instance of 

love for you

Where I had faith

that we would both

stay awhile 

I basked in the unevenness

of the trolly tracks

Remembering the exchange of 

warmth from my hand to your back

As the brass quartet

crooned their carols 

who perched themselves right

outside the bookstore

we now frequent

Children bounding past

Long carpeted hallways

Open eyes peering through the 

Shining slit

Excited to be the last found

Till parents beckon us home

Coffee cup, what do you think

of your creation?

You could be anything

Your amorphous design

Built to be held and admired

Molded by dreamers, to hold dreams 

Coffee cup, will you ever tire 

of your own variety?

The fluttering wakefulness of

three sips of coffee

The splattering strokes of 

an inspired painter

The fumbling pen of a 

musing poet

Coffee cup, how do you feel 

witnessing the love in my home?

In our daily ritual we choose a different  cup 

Worthy of our essence today

For him, a beaming smiley face

For me, a terracotta sun

Coffee cup, will you bring me joy

when I’m sitting at the edge of tomorrow?

Although tea is not within your name

You do our family the honorable

Service of warming the chamomile

To chase away the bad dreams

Through your scalding 

steam they float adrift

Today I will wear hope on my face

Sleeping on a couch for weeks

Too frail to move, too slow, too meek

I’m wanting for a lighter feeling

I will take my medicine

Right to the calendar’s end

Day by day I will try to feel fine

Pay what’s due for my life

Or else my lonely will dies 

I’m paying for brokenness

Still gazing at brokenness

I’ll eat my food

I’ll pay my dues

I’ll go to sleep on this day for good

I’ll go to sleep on this day for good

My health was never ensured

Humble artist, shine your light on

the world of worlds.

A fashion show in all its ceremonial glory,

Preaches about the encroaching 

deadlines of life.

Poised for a wedding,

captured and still,

detail makes beauty.

View the tiny marks,

tails upon tails.

Of questions and answers

“Why do we do it?”

Amongst the chatting crowd, 

between rooms five-hundred to now,

I stand on the shoulders of

a man, who I know;

Yet, I cannot trust to lead me 

through unscathed.

I am carried up above, black light,

eating my molecules

above the worlds, beyond the gods

Femininity is wonderful

It’s not afraid of spelling things wrong

The glitter pens and rounded swooping letters

The memory of someone calling your handwriting “nice” 

seared in your memory

Femininity is loud 

It’s the nights we watch our favorite movie musicals

And we treat it like our own personal concert

She laughs with me, jumping to the beat

Femininity is lovely

It’s the exclusive fashion shows

That take place on in cozy dorm rooms 

Littered with a trove of wonders

Femininity is problem-solving

Losing the key to my friends apartment because I

Was cat sitting and not being met with anger

But a, “let’s figure out what to do”

Femininity is self-love

In the softer and harder parts

And our love for one another

Instills a love for ourselves

Femininity is home

It’s the feeling of holding hands

Sunsets on a summer day

And the feeling of someone to hold

No matter how far away they are

Here lived a girl in her twenties

Clothes to be cleaned in the plenties

Not included with rent

Laundry costs 50 cents

Lies the dryer that she forgot to empty

In my box of keepsakes under the bed I’ve placed a jar of origami stars, a ceramic tinkerbell figurine, her torso cracked and glued back together, a teddy bear whose soft styrofoam beads have left to his extremities leaving his limbs limp and heavy, a pair of toy blonde dogs, one with a red bow in its ear and one wearing a bowtie– a handsome couple. I store away my skyflake crackers and the commercial that comes with it, Pokemon cards and a misunderstanding of the game, playing DS under the sheets in the silence of night, becoming best friends in one school day, birthday parties at family fun center, and the kids menu at Denny’s. I’ve hidden my hundreds of notebooks that I treated like sketchbooks, my report cards with Bs, a kitschy license plate spelling in big capital letters “NINA”, my bubbly side, easy things to talk about, needing to be a good person, and the fear of forgetting what it was like to be a kid at twelve years old.

Perfectly Manicured nails

Swipe a path on the dash

In her shitty green 

Weather-worn 

stick shift 

She taught herself

to drive

Collecting dust that she discards

Neatly and primly

With a golden smile

‘cause she cares for all things

That are hers

We were each other’s–

Always

And in three years time

Our childhood’s were renewed

In familiar spaces and 

aged faces

I was sad to let you go

She who completes me like

A broken note made steady

I sit a meditate on the feeling

Our laughter echoing 

all the way down the I-95

In her shitty green 

Weather-worn 

stick shift 

She taught herself

to drive