I stumble out of the bar
where the white flakes consume my shoulders and clean my shoes
I should be cold and yet I am warmed
Maybe the alcohol, more so a feeling
And I walk and I walk and I walk
While my friends wait and still I walk
Everything around me is still
Still except for the somber snow that
falls, melting towards the ground
So softly, and yet with such intention
As if it feels the need to cover-and it does everything.
The bench and sidewalk and my
eyelashes and the knee of
my ripped jeans.
I look up at the empty sky
which seems to hold such nothingness
yet which contains everything
I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen
and it belongs to me.
For as my cheeks flush and my fingers chill
It is only me and the floating
reflecting ***** of light that
never seem to reach the ground.
They glint off of the lampposts
and the never changing streetlights.
I lie on the ground and feel
the world spin around and around
and I think of what I would say if
someone was around but only silence will do.
For in a place-- in a world-- where everyone
flocks and hurries and shuttles around,
I have no place to be--
no bed could give me more comfort
no boy could give me more love
no person could give me more attention
Among the streets covered in glass
I walk for hours to realize I’ve been gone for minutes
I could stop here and lie and stare and freeze without knowing and die
with the snow that hits the pavement and melts away
But I continue, where I want to yell to everyone who will listen
to come out and lick the sky
and lie on the cold earth
and make angels out of their mortal bodies
But no one is listening bar my beating heart
And when I enter the heat
and my feet turn into puddles
and my hair becomes damp
all I can do is gaze out the window and imagine
I was alone in the cold wandering home.
Jun 29, 2018
Jun 29, 2018 at 6:03 AM UTC
Lights flicker on the hillside like fireflies
or a star-filled deep purple sky
I lay and gaze, eyes out of focus
Until they succumb to sleep--
the air pulsing from crickets and the
static electricity of the streetlight
Barely outlined I see
the soft shadows of villa to tree
mountain to grainy sky
The silence broken by a car alarm
and conversation too distant to make out
warm sticky air rolls through the
cracked windows, bringing with it
the dampness that follows rain
I want to lay awake forever
But unconsciousness hits like a wave,
crashing-- taking the dream away
Jun 29, 2018
Jun 29, 2018 at 5:58 AM UTC
Gray waves that hit the shore over and over
The never-ending drum of the air conditioner
Electric flowing through the crackling light overhead
Conversation meant just to pass the time
The rough jolt behind every shift in gear
Blurry landscapes sweeping by sans form
A ceramic fruit bowl that remains fruitless
Bar a browning banana and bruised apple
Alcohol that makes for a buzzing mind
Gravity that seduces rain to the ground
Where bright yellow boots splash in cloudy water
Refrigerator light rushing over wooden floors
Cotton shirts stiff from salt and bleached by sun
None of it is enough.
The mundane beauty of everyday life
Cannot compare to how it is imagined with you.
With you, the hum of the air conditioner is a song
the empty bowl a sweet peach that's just been eaten
and the refrigerator light throws shadows
on people who are enough
for each other.
Jun 29, 2018
Jun 29, 2018 at 5:17 AM UTC
That little plant that stands by the door
Flowers on shelves and the counter
and petals on the floor
Old chalk sketchings poster the walls
Stares both hard and soft enamor us all
A little silver tin of orange chocolates
Refilled every time I am back again
For two soft kisses on cheeks of both me and them
and long wooden table etched with age
where crumbs disappear like magic,
or a quick sweep of the hand
Glass jars filled with pasta and sugar and sand
Lemon on the kitchen top and in the breeze
and red flowers on the terrace stare at the sea
The sea that is small and encompassed by land
and surrounded by sharp peaks
water cradled by a hand
Books and papers stacked all around
Not touched in ages
But found in the sound-- of the
words that so beautifully roll off the tongue
Of two lovely people,
who will remain unsung.
Jun 29, 2018
Jun 29, 2018 at 5:08 AM UTC
'Don’t be cynical when it comes to love
For when faced with all of aridity and disenchantment,
It remains as perennial as is the grass.
You are a child in and of the universe no less
than the oak trees and brilliant stars;
You have every right to be here.'
It's like sitting in a warm car after it's been
basking in the heat--
For although our instinct is to blast the air
We often hesitate to cool the hot leather
What we have predisposed ourselves not to like
Is often what comforts us the most
I'll sit in the car, hood radiating waves
like an endless desert road
As long as the grass is growing perennially.
And I'll know I'm rightfully here,
sans a breeze, or an immediately
endearing gaze.
Love, like the cool air blowing from the vents
will return.
Jun 29, 2018
Jun 29, 2018 at 5:01 AM UTC
In the dusty haze of light
reflected through tinted windows,
the sand seems stranded in midair
particles scattering in all directions
like a puff of smoke
falling softly with no purpose
until it settles into piles
the world on end,
waiting
for it to be scattered again:
from a footstep
an acceleration
a lofty breeze
the golden flecks making their way
into cracks, between toes;
yearning for a home,
as though they were taken from their own.
Jun 29, 2018
Jun 29, 2018 at 4:55 AM UTC
I can still feel your touch--
the pressure of your fingers
against my neck and waist and thighs
The imprints of your mouth stained to my skin
Never to be removed,
until days pass and they fade to nothing
Blown away by an unseen breeze
Not warm and sticky,
the kind that sweetens your lips and lightens your head--
But chilling.
aching your body and flushing your cheeks
and leaving your forgotten; still
I can feel you
Arms wrapped around me tight
Two strangers interlocked in the dawning light
As the sky turns from empty to soft
and the stars disappear to the sun
and the light streams in,
air catching fire
particles swirling round and round
I lay awake watching your chest lift and fall
Still for fear of waking you from sleep
and when your eyelids flutter,
you pull me closer
the sparse freckles on my shoulders against your chest
Outside the birds stir
and you kiss me, stirring something more
but our blood is rid of alcohol,
and awkwardness takes its place
and the goodbye lasts for weeks.
Jun 29, 2018
Jun 29, 2018 at 4:50 AM UTC
There’s an emptiness in my chest
I don’t know when it got there
Or how it found it’s place
But with every thought of you
It deepens
An immense black hole
Expanding and taking with it everything
Pulling and stretching
Enveloping time and space and matter
And even when I don’t think of you
Still it grows
Like darkness swallows the golden air
Without a notice
It swallows my self assurance
And my comfort
As if I don’t belong here or anywhere
And I can’t blame you
So I blame the world
And I blame the things and people in it
And then I blame myself for
Finding things to blame
And so the hole eats away
Maybe it eats away at other people too
But I don’t see them
I stand in crowds of people
And I don’t see a soul
Jun 29, 2018
Jun 29, 2018 at 4:42 AM UTC