My hands
are the shape of
this morning’s bagel: small
and untethered, sprinkled
with seeds, tasteful of hope
that today will hopefully be a good day.
I have made it - not for anyone
but for my own mouth. I have sipped
and tasted for years
what my hands have prepared
for me, cooked in the hope
that I could - no, _will_ -
make a day good
for me.
Jul 20, 2024
Jul 20, 2024 at 11:03 AM UTC
Bottled root beer tastes like summer.
The kind I used to spend
on Kelley’s Island as a kid with
bicycles and put-put,
ice-cream cones too big and
beach trips that stretched
the length of a road too long.
The kind of summer that doesn’t end
but rather lasts too long
in the June-heat and lake-splashes - filled with laughter
from siblings who still haven’t grown old enough yet
to think twice about laughing with their younger brother.
Bottled root beer is sweet
with condensation and sweat -
sweet reminders on my tongue
that though it tastes of memories,
that makes it taste all the sweeter.
Jun 21, 2024
Jun 21, 2024 at 4:26 PM UTC
deep bass is
a wide-open-night. Sweat and
stupid questions that really -
didn’t matter all that much
by the end of the night. She
once told me,
_I don’t like poems with awkward line breaks -_
_I like full sentences there._
I dance along to deep bass and - by doing so -
I have awkward line breaks. I have incomplete
thoughts
that don't matter all that much.
I swear I don’t remember the way her arms
swayed as she danced to the Beatles - or,
even the space among teeth as she smiled.
deep bass plays me a song and
I try to dance but my my mind keeps
with questions of how she must be - no!
No. I do not want to think that.
but - yet,
my brain keeps with it, so I do. I do.
Jun 8, 2024
Jun 8, 2024 at 9:21 AM UTC
Lovely:
he hands a helmet, she
slips away with him into the night -
The rest of us -
we talk about concerts
and what makes relationships last:
I wouldn't know that though -
my head is still
wrapped around my last one, although,
I think it goes
a little something like this:
_I will hand you my helmet
and you will hope
this doesn't crash._
May 29, 2024
May 29, 2024 at 3:11 PM UTC
Let me keep this simple - I do not
like my face, my hair, the veins that
pop and throb and burst from
my hands; I do not like my voice or
the way it sounds and scratches at
this air, this space, this empty layer
of skin and feelings that hang around
me like a bog. I woke in my **** clawed
at my eyes to have them open; I banged
and shouted at my face to have it look
differently, slightly, highly better than
this but instead of doing as I commanded,
it stopped and smirked and smiled at me
with such god-awful bravado that as I turned
it barked at me from the glass bubble that
could so easily shatter, I know you - like no-
one else - and that scares me the most. I was
in a class, windows peaked open, and I
swore I heard a voice - it was my own.
I heard you, I heard you for the first time
then, but you did not say “I’m scared”, you
just told me, I know, I know, I know this
can be scary, but that is okay, that is
okay, you are okay.
I am okay.
Feb 16, 2022
Feb 16, 2022 at 10:45 AM UTC
she dances in the light -
I see the outline of her
move and undulate before me,
waves that never stop to crash
and a shore that never seems to leave -
she dances in the mirror -
I watch her shape before me
become clear and clearer in this light,
she smiles and I smile back -
a dance that I don’t want to stop
Jan 25, 2022
Jan 25, 2022 at 10:57 AM UTC
There are stacks
of old paper -
my old thoughts.
Rough and torn,
there are many -
they tell my life.
On such old, sad
ground - I walk;
I walked here many times.
Life will continue
and continue
to stack - and I
will continue to write.
Jan 2, 2022
Jan 2, 2022 at 11:13 AM UTC
I see myself -
wrinkles
cover my eyes,
a smile
surrounds my words
and I
am old,
but I am happy
Nov 23, 2021
Nov 23, 2021 at 1:06 PM UTC
and he asked me
_Love - do you feel that for her?_
and I, feeling my heart _thump_ _thump_,
waited
for the words to find themselves
waited
for my breath to not stumble -
_If we were to grow old,_
_I would gladly talk to her grave_
_until I was beside her_
Nov 21, 2021
Nov 21, 2021 at 5:23 PM UTC
She smells of strawberries,
ice cream on a
melting, runny day
She speaks of blueberries,
waffles in the morning -
hot and warm,
comfy -
snuggled, next to you
I smell _strawberries_ so often;
I hear _blueberries_ so soon,
and every time I do,
still - I think, I speak
of you
Nov 18, 2021
Nov 18, 2021 at 3:10 PM UTC