Baby, angel, I have begun
growing chamomile on the left side of my mattress:
you left it warm enough to grow something
as impossible as weeds. And I know
I am preferable to the sun
at least to you, but what about the moon? There is just
something about luna, the moon, lune.
Sometimes I want to talk to it the way I would
you: moon, oh my stars,
I did not believe in naturalism until I believed in you.
Baby, angel, we are only embers
of what we once were. I heat us up as tea
and grow herbs where you once would breathe.
Warding off bumblebees by
taking their stingers into my paw, the air can hurt us.
Your muddy shoeprints are engraved into the carpets. And at night when I stare at the cracks in my ceiling, your soul is all I feel. All the watermarks on the coffee table remind me of your brown irises. The sky is gray, the ground is cold. In the living room, flowers are sprouting in pots, and his smile flips my frown. He’s growing, taking up space, a mere fraction of the space you hold. I miss your rumbly, sleepy groans, your thighs intertwined with mine. I hope the sun comes out soon, because it’s growing darker in here each day I live without love. I know she makes you happy, and it both makes me laugh and cry to know that. I hope you’ll understand someday just how much I loved you, when it all has faded like smoke into the summer air, and I walk in a white dress to a man who didn’t just rent my house, but bought it. But for now at night I lay with lonely legs and one heartbeat and tears in my eyes as salty and bitter as our handful of goodbyes. I wish you were here, and I wish you’d never come in the first place. Every day I check the weather, and I feed the boiler, and I do my best to stay warm without your body, but it never works. Teeth chatter while I count sheep, and I lie awake wondering why the sparks ever faded and why you can barely say my name anymore. Blood nourishes the organ but not its treasures. Dogs bark and sleep folded in half, inside their little cottages. Where is mine, where is mine? I cover the roof and walls, with their creaks and faults, with convenient and daily tape; it’s holding it all together but isn’t healing it. The sheets are forming ice, and my head is forming thunder and snow. Darling, oh darling, why did you go? I swallow the medicine, I shovel the walkway, but I’m stuck in eternal January, with the front and back doors padlocked. This might just be a dead end street. Nobody wants the house with dirty rugs and splintered ceilings and ruined furniture; house for rent, house for sale. Somebody please just knock on my door. I want to float into the clouds like an angel, rising above it all not like a snow-capped mountain, but a green and grassy hill, rolling and free.
I saw the weather there
seventy-eight every day (every day) as long as you wait
for the clouds to burn away
they always
they always do
I saw the future there but don’t know yet if it’s
mine
I saw faceplates facades and artifacts there—painted bricks you couldn’t tell from the
real red bricks on your granddad’s house
(you don’t so much
remember what they looked like, but you are confident
that the difference is negligible)
I didn’t see much else there but the weather
boy
the weather is pretty in the afternoon
sometimes i wish i was alone.
completely and utterly alone.
i wish i didn't have to worry about anyone or anything.
i want to be in charge of my own life.
as awful as it might sound i dont want to have a family.
i want to do what i want, when i want.
it seems nice, ya know?
not having to worry or fend for anyone but yourself?
no need to worry about grades because your parents wont yell at you.
i could go wherever i wanted, whenever i wanted.
i have this dumb fantasy...
that one day i will be in a cafe, snow falling outside.
i would be sitting at a little table, drinking a cup of tea, reading a book.
and a cute boy will come up to me and we would just start talking.
no worries, no family, just us, no one else.
i know, its dumb, but its just my mind.
i guess id like to imagine that if i didn't have a family i could do all of this.
its just that sometimes the people we really love are the ones who hold us back the most.
and im tired of being held back, im tired of living my ordinary life.
i hate watching these tv shows because it makes me sad.
all of these people have such interesting lives.
being bit by a wolf, dating someone who your parents disapprove of, going off to magical lands where you never grow up, shrinking to the size of a mouse, fighting bad guys and saving mankind...
it just seems like a live a normal life.
nothing ever happens and i feel like its because of my family.
they hold me back and prevent me from having fun, or seeking out adventure.
i want to live the life i want to live.
so im going to do dumb things, make mistakes, read, write, drink, go to parties and live my life. because im sick of people telling my how to live my life.
I wasnt always good with words
until I learn they can be manipulated
stripped of its meaning
treated
reworded and planted as if sod
sound the same
rebuilt like a cars: thesauruses are essentially junk yards
they allow you to play tennis with your mind
they can replace signs
are intimidated by the weak and rejoiced by the blind
and,
and
in the end
I know words can do more than just rhyme
they chime in during chimes and relate simple parking tickets to fines
politicians use them as smoke screen
with word
I can
metaphorically call them ninja’s
the way they evade questions and attack with their sharp tongues
so i won
well
winning the battle with words, just know i can curse you out now without saying a curse
we shared a camel
after my thumb stopped you
I took the first drag
before I handed it to you
you trusted my spit enough to share
and my road look enough
for me to be there,
in your new Olds Eighty-eight
you
had just come back,
from there
I was on my way,
I did not ask if that was why
your right hand had only two fingers
and a thumb, though you told me
of trying to close an APC hatch
and the AK-47 round that kept you
from doing magic tricks
when our smoke was half gone, we passed
the dying neon of a long dead bar
safe from its stench in your new smelling car
was then you asked
if I had “anything else to smoke”
a line from our riddled anthem,
we sang like nursery rhyme
I had what I had stuffed in my socks
since thumbs attracted cops as well
as wounded warriors in shiny new rides
I piggy lit the joint with the fag before
I crushed it in your fresh ash tray
now we were sharing our deepest breaths
and whatever else we could not forget
the weed was gone by the time
we reached the last city lights
and we, in our flying chariot,
zipped into the black desert night, it
was then your demons began to howl
maybe it was a full moon that called them out
to ride on its beams into the starry sky
where they could dance with other devils
and gods who had forsaken them, and you
I did not understand your moans, your tears
or the song you played on the eight track
that chanted about freedom which could not be bought or sold
or to whom you spoke when you wailed
you were sorry, sorry again and again,
I only knew they were ghosts
spirits kept at bay by the light of day
but there to haunt you in the dark
“Reggie, Big Mike and Cleveland”
all silent as you begged them
to forgive you for some simmering sin
I could not understand,
(not then in the desert dark,
though one day I would beseech other ghosts
to let me off the hook as well)
your cries did stop when you turned
onto a rutted desert road,
where you put the pedal to the floor
and the rocks pocked the undercarriage
like machine gun fire
you stopped,
and popped out the eight track
a half mile from highway 54
I lit another camel in the synovial silence
your tears kept streaming down your face
but you no longer called out to the ghosts, perhaps
left behind you on that black highway
I don’t know if they spoke to you
when I handed you the smoke, you did
look around, as if someone was there
before reaching over to open my door…
I did not ask why you were leaving me
with the moon and the stars and the sand,
so far from the lights and sound, or why
I could not feel my feet when
they touched the ground, the last thing
I saw was your dust filling the rumbling air
and the orange glow of the camel
flying through the blue night
Palms together, the cold air settles slowly but with purpose and clothes me in goosebumps. I haven’t worn a watch in years, don’t need to know what time it is, know my heart is about to stop. The wallcreepers are on the move, feathers flee into the mist.
The wind seeks my attention, wants to dry the tears as I huddle but I won’t fight the strain. This mountain is familiar and I count cracks upon the skin on my wrists, assessing age that of a tree, rings now too many. Smirking while in search of the great white titan, taller than any sequoia.
The sun is prowling, scouting for a Tricity born tellurian playing hide and seek for yet another day. I jump and for a solid moment I feel an emptiness, an ethereal weight, I gasp and try again, gasp, try… sigh…
i know what newton tells us
i know countries and continents and cities
i know the planets and their moons
but i did not know the galaxy of my body the planets that are my organs or the nebula of my mind
until you showed me
you taught me and showed me and led me with course hands and eyes deeper than any space i have ever traveled. you caught me in your gravity when you showed me ribosomes and platelets and when you traced my veins like they were a map you needed to follow without even knowing where it would take you. you told me the cosmos are forever but the body dies and that is far more beautiful than any atmosphere or supernova. i want to chart the stars on your skin with my mouth and i want to show you the taste of an atom and i want to teach you what overexposure to your radiation does to me but you are already laughing and telling me that something as small as you does not deserve the attention of the universe.
when i said i wish i had never met you
i told the truth
the universe was easier to comprehend
when it was only dead stars
instead of the way you look at me
Seeing You Isn't Always Enough For Me,
But Your Love Is Enough To Keep My Heart Beat
You Make Life Beautiful For Me,
On The Other Hand,
I Cry
You Know Why
Because I Can't Have You
But
I pray
I Pray It Starts & Ends With You,
Just How I Want The Rest Of My Life To Be,
I Pray
That Your Heart Is Connected
Between You & I
I Swear
These Words I Write,
Words Just For You.
A Poem For You
My Love!
What a useless pit my stomach is and meaningless behavior to spoon feed these tired bones to chew, to taste, to swallow. I will take it in when the chest's un-clenched and I'm not moments from tasting bile again. Such a perfect soul, she could feed my will. Should I just choose to sit and stare, Or if a fit of courage broke, to ask her if her days been fair.
I am just a common spook. The locals ignore the spirit walking. He is just a harmless ghost. Don't pay attention to his haunting. He's a partial dead, a nearly headless Nick. Waiting for his final blow and for the moment that his peace will show. He doesn't shake the entire time, in fact I often see him crying. Sobbing gently out of reach in the rafters where he's flying. One time I saw him on the roof, as if planning his suicidal jump. I felt I had to let him know, he had no heart that pumps. He closed his eyes and stepped away, hanging in the air. Scaring all the shoppers away in violent cries while we just stood and stared. Only one old gentleman, with gentle eyes and a baritone with soul. Who seemed to try and calm the little guy with the comfort of the old. After that an ambitious youth said, "for a price I can chase the demon out of town." Curious what the boy would try I paid him to try to get him down. He tied a dream catcher to a rope and gave it one big swing, caught the fellow by the kneck then drove him through the streets. I still don't know if he let him go or if the ghost broke free. That is why the soul you see, looks like mangled meat.
