you can't always wring love
out of wanting to save someone
left yearning to be pocket change
rubbing subtly on her thighs forever
in vexatious clinks i sing
'i am useless and annoying'
serendipity,
my forever affliction:
tripping on the blanks.
sweet temporary
wake up tasting your thrush;
still feel like smiling
i guess i'm alone
but suddenly i feel filled
with "it will be fine."
experimenting, picking a single word and trying to write haiku about it
i am satiated sinful--
who cares more?
that we've been scorching bliss
and grafting these
blameless bittersweet distractors
like we won't hear thunder-
hiding from the condescending constancy
of raindrops on the tin garage
i will swallow you
until my belly rumbles
"enough cataclysm,
enough leaky roofs,"
filling me with sloshing
wistful reminders
of our tranquil dampness,
a shivering placidity in
our secluded synchronicity.
i understood
setting fire to the misplaced,
mismatched threads-
maladroit pleated-squares
of a warm, well-adjusted haven.
"i gave you that sweater."
yes, and as it drapes me
loosely like a lover's grip
losing interest,
losing heart
i feel so small and sheepish.
silent, sullen sinews
that i have sunken into,
though: "i'm so glad you are here."
yes, words fall out
faintly from my coward eyes about
losing interest,
losing heart
i understood
that when you left there'd be
no goodbyes
i understood
little saporous pretty prisms
dragged through ashen bones
to place your cloying melt
on my shivering paper skin:
your sticky face,
tongue stripping strangling,
char-chipping my caramelized blisters
from the burning maraschino hum.
Bubbling up whiteness
like our eyes unfocused,
hands moving unaware
spread the chapping numbness
over our senses, succumbed.
i am the blood in the sink
you are piss on the bathmat
wash me off so we forget this
failed flailing at repose's feet.
("maybe we can make each other's
winter's feel all right.")
no, i cannot make you quake
in my mocha movement,
draped in careful quirk
pastel enraptures
fantasies of argyle.
drawing your fingers into motion
along fantastical bony parts,
effulgent with the newness
of thrush april wetness,
i have never felt so pasty dry.
do the bad days outweigh the good
when you speak into the corner of my collarbone?
"sometimes it hurts to be this damaged."
could i whisk you up in the Kwanzan cherry blooms
though your body still feels imbued with winter?
"i've never met someone so afraid to be open."
must i crave the insatiable taste of salt,
gravelly crumbles of your encumbrance?
"i love this moment, with you and me, right here."
(in the morning, i am still syrupy stuck
and the sequestering sun washes me off.
clean from the vodka taste
that slipped off my sordid soliloquies
into submissively diffident lobes.
emotional adiposity
i'd love to turn myself off
whenever you're near)
your unforgiving body, supple
when rolling through my fingers:
the sands of you
are so cold when the night comes.
and in the blackness of your empty beach
i rub driftwood together
fruitlessly trying to extract
a single spark of fervor.
in the brisk silvers of the moon,
i wish your warmth would stay with me
for more than the time it takes
your body heat to leave the sheets.
i will forever pick these slivers from my palms,
stinging every time you crawl naked
to place your body on my blisters again.
your calloused fingers
building centuries of soul
splinters of the world
laugh into the night
wind carrying whiskey wisps
your authentic air
with you i am small
not a child but a songbird
cooing at your strength
the sun has wrapped you up
leather coat and golden blonds
clothed by nature's love
when you nurture me
beneath your confident touch
i feel i should run
i'm sorry for me
i don't deserve any of you
sweet primal lover
you leave me tasting so metallic
i'd always pictured such softer hands
when you smoothed me over
in daylight dreams.
but i am wedged in comfort's drawer,
corners dig into my hips
as I wheeze a stale warm release;
clouds that lift me in between
bated breaths and rumination
of time poorly spent.
4/24/13 journal freewrite
straddling the thrum
of our
bed-bound amalgamation
i come,
fall asleep on the couch.
uneasy flower
stretching and yearning for you
fed by your power
the sun sees all shame
trace yourself on my petals
i suck the dirt dry
sweet kiss of winter
when I need to be alone
wither, please, for now.
crawl to me in spring
pollen all over your face
i want to smell you
your roots on my roots
pluck you from your comfort zone
toss you in compost
shut the blinds on me
as the sun i tend to feel
like i'm far away
on the wet cement
i shared myself in the dark
passed a cigarette
one bike ride so far
solitude is still sweetness
my legs are throbbing
in the chirps of morn'
i hear their frantic bird songs
awaken newness
inauspicious you
crawl through my dreamscapes
dragging your silver heels
through my recursive grays.
scraping the grime from my
amorphous solitude,
i follow you into the clarity
of our bittersweet meanderings.
you'll find me in the lull
between comfort and composure.
i awaken in the hum of your absence,
clinging to your static repose.
and in the lingering shame
of my throbbing, wanting
a more immutable calm,
i am feeble-minded and floating
through the day
like a fleeting fever.
feelings dissolving like dreams into the day.
in my dream i was loved by a stranger.
i woke up to a face blurred like a rare thick fog
but warm hands--their visceral rapture--
stayed heavy in my sandbag morning.
every word, every song, i felt the stranger.
indulging again in the evanescent memory:
supple nothings traced from lips.
their gentle parting in the name of desire.
i was loved.
You pause to tell me
"Fools rush in,"
then tilt a beer into your labret;
a tiny clink and
your long practiced swallows:
I tremble with the aliveness of the room
and the miles you've traveled
just to turn up my volume.
chicago muse, 2012.
'This is the room one afternoon I knew I could love you/and from above you how I sank into your soul,' Jeff Mangum croons through the crackling speakers
...similarly simple,
like the coyness of corner smiles,
I am exposed
finally
to your bedroom,
and the snug universe you've built within.
Cross-legged on your bed
I hear your nervous, careful stories.
Spoken into fidgeting fingers, silken wrinkled
bedsheets debauched and re-washed--
your words fall into them so easily
like you've found benevolence in their silence--
their softness as language.
Imbibing every ounce of you,
I wish to endure
like the canvases that span your wall.
But I dissolve back into winter
as you regain your right mind.
The ascending stairs creak
hungover and meek
like me
someshittytimes i can't distract myself from the inspiration i draw from a single earthly being.
There isn't much sky
in this pallid, stale cocoon
no greens nor greys, no electric branches
searing fragile, barren walls.
But the heady, sagging scent of moisture
suggests a storm--
yes, there was once me:
a turbid bloom, an opportunist
exhausting avidity in one overarching spill.
As I rolled through your gutters,
flippant and bleeding into everything,
you rose with the dryness of the day
and spoke of your immurement,
the feebleness of my mold and mildew.
poem 2 from "favorite words in the English language" impromptu collection
With parted lips,
I draw in your sweet psyche--
all opaque and smoky--
as these placid, sober feelings swim,
verdant and gentle,
through twisting tendrils.
Still thawing and diffident from the flux
of our individual nuclear winters:
flakes of former selves
fall around us, formless,
flailing cold
to sting our entangled skin,
valleys where I end and you begin.
I exhale you again,
you are lasting in my veins.
Enticing fervor once hidden in marrow,
I am enlivened by the dreamy exaltation
of my breaths back into you.
Suddenly, all is warm.
i like the way
this porch feels precarious
when softness spills into five am air,
words I don't want others to hear
kept between palms and cement.
stillness is my hands breathing you in,
listening for secrets along the creases of your skin...
the neighbors are rustling,
they apologize for interrupting
what can only be described as holy quietude.
We laugh in the moon's golden greys,
surprised anyone is able to see us at all.
I have travelled endless places
just sitting here with you.
We are lovers in color,
salted scents that stick to covers.
Splayed out on your coral-reef couch
hackneyed and bleeding,
bleary but needing,
I've settled quietly into your imprints of indifference.
Stale vodka tongue I'm late for work.
speaks insipidity: Shower if you want to.
Lock the door as you leave.
It was nice seeing you.
I lay there greying all morning.
Soaking into everything, your carpet seas
brine my feeble, shadow-casting lesions.
Unsure if you've left me dirty or clean (this time)
I drag my body down your tainted hallway.
In stark fluorescence, there is no clarity
but the echoes, like reflections
of the emptiness of eve.
Blood-letter run dry
somehow still high,
thrust into the thoughtlessness
of
your
tides
(I am disregarded, but alive.)
