open
i see your words break
you know what i want most now
find me hold me help
Longing
8/5/17 7:43 am
Longing
Your orange juice mouth spit pulp into my vanilla guts
I sigh and shudder into the seasons
with too many reasons
to drop my fragile feral heart onto railroad tracks and take back
placing my head into your lap.
The rain dripping down the nape of my neck
I dissect
every action and it’s purpose
and I’m nervous to admit that
this is everything I ever wanted.
I stay platonic
to even myself and encase in silver plating
Never sating a desire to aim higher
or take a fucking chance.
It’s in a glance.
It’s scribbled into the follicles of my eyelashes
spilling over the water line
of my almond-shaped green longing.
Glitter laced across the space of your bedroom floor
wishing that there was more
sunshine.
I define myself in the sharpness of your incisors
and how they shear me just like satin.
Running through the streets of Manhattan
chasing ghosts of my childhood idols.
The expanse of mattress between my back and your hips
the quiver of your lips when you’re sleeping.
Make way for the stone grey of sunrise
where my heavy eyes
will pull you from the depths of Hades’ river.
I will keep running and never glance back.
You’re the meat of the roads I never took.
It’s in a look.
Time’s Prison
You asked me for my why, and I wrote it down all at once
It took me a minute or two to scratch out the stuff of it.
But then you asked me, “Why this why? Why is it this?”
And I sat down another day and wrote it all down again,
With other words, other thoughts, other dreamful reasons.
And once more you asked me to find it, find my why, dig.
I shook my head to another day and slept on it some more,
My night terrorized by questions and visions born in sweat.
Tackling the demons once more, I penned papers on papers,
I tore at ink and line and wrote my why and why not plus ten.
“Look, “ I said, “How much can I rip from my guts? How deep?”
She asked me why I ask, why not tell, why not the whole truth.
So I laid it down, tore it up, scratched it out, pored hungry art
And spoke it to an empty screen with nothing on it but me.
I stuttered and blinked, twitched it out to those who’d hear it.
Then I pressed play and watched it, me speaking my story.
And my why tensed between my teeth, flexed in my arms,
Trapped in my shoulders and neck, eked out in strained tones,
Like a trumpeter’s taut lips finding the sweet spot of wept wind
Forced air, struggling to the notes, hit them at the right pitch.
“No, no, no, noooo! That’s not it at all!” I screamed at myself,
My own image on the screen, speaking to no one at all,
Inside my head, looking at me, at her, the one tossing words
Carelessly, aimlessly, trying so hard, not trying at all, not enough.
You, I, we held back, kept it to ourselves, and gave up too little.
So I went back to my pen and cursed the notebook’s sheets,
Clean lined and beckoning, and with tensile fingers curled,
Anticipation clawing at my bloodied brain, I wrote and wrote,
The beginnings, hunger, anger, stubbornness, sorrowing quest
And tripping time’s prison, my why written, I locked it up, keyless.
You are mine
I see you approaching
From faraway
Your chest broad
Your pace slow
Your twinkling eyes
When they saw mine
Like the first time
We kissed
I long for you
To hug me
Boy! Do You comfort me
In your arms
The warmth of your breath
The touch of your lips
And your fingers through my hair
Oh, it’s paradise
Poem 32559 (2017)
Unexpected
Terror fills me
As I think of the shame
How do I even explain?
I hardly understand it myself
The time comes
It’s painful
But to my surprise
Ends quickly
The result of my labor
Rushed away
Time ticks on
Friends and family visit
I haven’t told them and yet
There is something in their eyes
A secret of their own
It’s been too long
They tell me everything is fine
But I know it’s not
Where is she?
I have to see her
I have to hold her
No one will talk to me
They act like nothing is happening
But their faces betray them
I prepare to interrogate them
Jolting awake
A moment, and then clarity
Just a dream
Yet there is an aching in my chest
A longing for her
She who is nothing more
Than a hope and a dream
Hour Two
A storm that almost came, false promises of wind and rain
turns south, leaves the path set out
To rend someone else
I don’t dare ask for it, I won’t dare speak
I don’t dare hunger, but I do, sight unseen
I watch it
I watch it
I watch it
Crest the horizon
I watch it
I will it
I want it
More now it’s gone
Hour 2: Here Am I
Winter blooms in crystalline clouds
like mold on wasted bread
And here am I
breathing shallow gales of ice
which freeze my lungs in place
And here am I, alone
Spring comes on, that lying harlot
like paint on rotted wood
And here am I
choking on her putrid perfume
which closes up my throat
And here am I, again
Summer festers, moist and burning
like sepsis in some fevered flesh
And here am I
suffering with dizzy sickness
which robs my mind of sense
And here am I, afraid
Autumn pools like clotted blood
a wound of changing colours
And here am I
stagnant, stale, and scabbing over
sealing shut my lips
And here am I, again, again
Alone, afraid, again
Yearning
If only just one other hears
the purpose, the dreams, even fears
Innermost thoughts to share they yearn
for light of day, this breath does burn
Longing grows desperate through years
seeks a kindred who then appears
Someone to get us, to discern,
for light of day, this breath does burn
#2 My beloved disease
If I could tell you
everything I long for
I would be wiped clean, barely a skeleton
because my body, my mass of muscle and tissue and particle
is sick with yearning
a disease long untreated.
But it is the cure that scares me
all of that exposed flesh, free but wholly undisciplined
and without order
My disease protects me
covers my ears so I can’t hear the screaming
of my subjugated heart.
Faith
I heard you say, “God does not give us more than we can handle.”
But God did not give me this bruise,
this scar
this memory,
this burden,
this cage
These are not gifts from God.
Do not tell me to have faith.
I am being burned out,
Slowly and deliberately,
But it seems faith was the first to catch fire.