chris-emig - Hello Poetry

You left me with a dagger stuck in my chest Wedged between ribs Almost touching it Too bad you didn’t finish the job I carved out my heart with it And ate it myself Served with some fava beans And a nice Chianti It was delicious The useless garnish on the plate looked like you So I left it pushed to the side to be scraped into the trash When I was finished.

0

Apr 4, 2023

Apr 4, 2023 at 6:11 PM UTC

Hungry

You left me with a dagger stuck in my chest Wedged between ribs Almost touching it Too bad you didn’t finish the job I carved out my heart with it And ate it myself Served with some fava beans And a nice Chianti It was delicious The useless garnish on the plate looked like you So I left it pushed to the side to be scraped into the trash When I was finished.

12

Take a can opener to my forehead Twist the **** until the contents inside present themselves And with both hands Scoop out my thoughts Fill their absence with salt To preserve or ferment Whatever may be viable Cut off the gangrene Even a rotten vegetable Is good for pickling.

0

May 21, 2022

May 21, 2022 at 8:38 PM UTC

Pickle

Take a can opener to my forehead Twist the **** until the contents inside present themselves And with both hands Scoop out my thoughts Fill their absence with salt To preserve or ferment Whatever may be viable Cut off the gangrene Even a rotten vegetable Is good for pickling.

12

The bonds made within that space are not easily broken Cluttered with vocabulary words Textbooks Care And hard work A relatively short time in the big picture But sometimes I am all they have The only one to tell them they are worth something And deserve to chase whatever dreams they can Each year unfurls like a clean sheet of paper Unmarked with pencil But at certain angles you can see the depressions and imprints from all the pages written atop the current one They do as much for me as I them Giving meaning in a purposeless world that threatens collapse every minute Pushing me to give a **** about what happens next Teaching me that there is always a new perspective to be taken Something to be absorbed Instead of sitting quietly in apathy Waiting for my turn to go You were one of the kids I wanted to keep track of To see where you would go and what you would make of yourself You were accomplishing everything you had wanted You leaned on me as a mentor and I felt significant Knowing you thought of me for advice I know of others that were lost before A car accident An overdose A suicide All gone before they turned 18 I had counted myself lucky until now that it had never touched me directly Always a few degrees of separation between My breath caught ragged in my throat In disbelief when I saw your name embedded within that email Coupled with the phrase “it is with great sadness” And to know that you were gone It was your 21st birthday Someone told me that the first one is always the hardest But I can’t imagine this ever getting easier.

0

May 30, 2021

May 30, 2021 at 7:17 PM UTC

Austin

The bonds made within that space are not easily broken Cluttered with vocabulary words Textbooks Care And hard work A relatively short time in the big picture But sometimes I am all they have The only one to tell them they are worth something And deserve to chase whatever dreams they can Each year unfurls like a clean sheet of paper Unmarked with pencil But at certain angles you can see the depressions and imprints from all the pages written atop the current one They do as much for me as I them Giving meaning in a purposeless world that threatens collapse every minute Pushing me to give a **** about what happens next Teaching me that there is always a new perspective to be taken Something to be absorbed Instead of sitting quietly in apathy Waiting for my turn to go You were one of the kids I wanted to keep track of To see where you would go and what you would make of yourself You were accomplishing everything you had wanted You leaned on me as a mentor and I felt significant Knowing you thought of me for advice I know of others that were lost before A car accident An overdose A suicide All gone before they turned 18 I had counted myself lucky until now that it had never touched me directly Always a few degrees of separation between My breath caught ragged in my throat In disbelief when I saw your name embedded within that email Coupled with the phrase “it is with great sadness” And to know that you were gone It was your 21st birthday Someone told me that the first one is always the hardest But I can’t imagine this ever getting easier.

39

I never was good enough for you Not in the sense that I felt it about myself But with every action and word of yours The first time you asked me not to tell people Where I worked or where I lived Like a shiny piece of aluminium foil crumpled by rough hands I was made smaller You said it was because they would judge me Your friends Your family Because I didn’t get a private education And I worked in a restaurant You assured me you didn’t feel this way But wanted to save me the pain of feeling less than in comparison I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of company you kept Even though I knew differently My wealth irrelevant compared to the work I had put into myself It still stung The scars of being small preventing the foil from reaching its full size Unfold the tangle and try to smooth it But there will still be the creases that stunt its growth. Our lives merged when we signed a lease If only for a few months From the balcony of our 3rd floor apartment Surrounded by palm trees shaking violently in a monsoon I watched them shed their dead fronds Dry and crisp from summer And falling to the concrete below The swirling red dust and debris collected by the wind A sign of what was to come that I didn’t recognize But it was always there, wasn’t it? Hidden beneath the fragile membrane of reality and fiction Waiting to boil over like caramelized sugar Stuck and burning everything it touches It cooled and hardened like glass Fragile but sharp Breaking into sweet shards that pierced my chest A heavy emptiness after all the blood was drained from it And who’s fault was it You were allowed to twist the blade as many times as you did? Every yellow flag that turned red I ignored Each time you’d dismiss or diminish I overlooked it I was too enraptured with you Intelligence, *** appeal, charisma The type of life I would lead on your arm But none of it was real A fabrication of someone you wanted so desperately to be but never would The night we drove up a road lined with gated properties It twisted to the top of a mountain overlooking the city at night The white lights of the valley below Like twinkling stars of glitter across a black fabric I’m not sure which mountain it was And wouldn’t be able to find that spot again Dancing in the headlights to Frank Sinatra Our shadows merged into one swaying mass Never again would we feel that enmeshed or connected When our bodies broke apart to get back into the car We would never rejoin All the chances you were given All the secrets you kept until it was convenient for you You slowly became a stranger It was as if someone else replaced you A fraud taking over as if you had died I wish you had.

0

Apr 26, 2021

Apr 26, 2021 at 8:16 PM UTC

Foil

I never was good enough for you Not in the sense that I felt it about myself But with every action and word of yours The first time you asked me not to tell people Where I worked or where I lived Like a shiny piece of aluminium foil crumpled by rough hands I was made smaller You said it was because they would judge me Your friends Your family Because I didn’t get a private education And I worked in a restaurant You assured me you didn’t feel this way But wanted to save me the pain of feeling less than in comparison I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of company you kept Even though I knew differently My wealth irrelevant compared to the work I had put into myself It still stung The scars of being small preventing the foil from reaching its full size Unfold the tangle and try to smooth it But there will still be the creases that stunt its growth. Our lives merged when we signed a lease If only for a few months From the balcony of our 3rd floor apartment Surrounded by palm trees shaking violently in a monsoon I watched them shed their dead fronds Dry and crisp from summer And falling to the concrete below The swirling red dust and debris collected by the wind A sign of what was to come that I didn’t recognize But it was always there, wasn’t it? Hidden beneath the fragile membrane of reality and fiction Waiting to boil over like caramelized sugar Stuck and burning everything it touches It cooled and hardened like glass Fragile but sharp Breaking into sweet shards that pierced my chest A heavy emptiness after all the blood was drained from it And who’s fault was it You were allowed to twist the blade as many times as you did? Every yellow flag that turned red I ignored Each time you’d dismiss or diminish I overlooked it I was too enraptured with you Intelligence, *** appeal, charisma The type of life I would lead on your arm But none of it was real A fabrication of someone you wanted so desperately to be but never would The night we drove up a road lined with gated properties It twisted to the top of a mountain overlooking the city at night The white lights of the valley below Like twinkling stars of glitter across a black fabric I’m not sure which mountain it was And wouldn’t be able to find that spot again Dancing in the headlights to Frank Sinatra Our shadows merged into one swaying mass Never again would we feel that enmeshed or connected When our bodies broke apart to get back into the car We would never rejoin All the chances you were given All the secrets you kept until it was convenient for you You slowly became a stranger It was as if someone else replaced you A fraud taking over as if you had died I wish you had.

65

I am unsure what I am made of. Most of the time I am: Half at peace One third a mixture of confidence And intended kindness And the rest passive disquiet This slice of anxiety is a vacant gap Where the piece was cut and lifted out To be devoured or thrown away It’s fate unknown The space is constantly changing size Only a sliver most days but some Nearly the whole pie is missing A permeating emptiness That slowly carves away at everything It can grow like vines around my limbs Slowly snaking around my throat A serpent poised and ready to strike Paralytic poison quick and complete The air choked from my lungs And replaced with hardened concrete Other times my heart swells And the empty part shrinks to almost nothing Like poppies that need a hard winter To bloom and fill my chest with warmth And overwhelm the fracture of hollowness Any small thing can create this chemical reaction: The sun on my winter-chapped skin Heating my body out of its hibernation The mutual smile between people in love That says everything without words Diving into the worlds created by written words Spending hours living in their universe until you must come back to the real thing The problem is the return Days or weeks may go by Living on borrowed time Until the void will inevitably start to grow And swallow up everything again Like an undertow pulling me down The water rushing and sweeping overtop The surface becomes too far away to reach anymore It is a constant balancing act To manage this ratio to a point that is livable But lately the vacuum is less potent It no longer has the same arresting nature I have learned ways of stopping it Or at least slowing it down Sometimes I still lose But those times grow shorter and shorter And I win more often than not.

0

Apr 11, 2021

Apr 11, 2021 at 4:38 PM UTC

Pie

I am unsure what I am made of. Most of the time I am: Half at peace One third a mixture of confidence And intended kindness And the rest passive disquiet This slice of anxiety is a vacant gap Where the piece was cut and lifted out To be devoured or thrown away It’s fate unknown The space is constantly changing size Only a sliver most days but some Nearly the whole pie is missing A permeating emptiness That slowly carves away at everything It can grow like vines around my limbs Slowly snaking around my throat A serpent poised and ready to strike Paralytic poison quick and complete The air choked from my lungs And replaced with hardened concrete Other times my heart swells And the empty part shrinks to almost nothing Like poppies that need a hard winter To bloom and fill my chest with warmth And overwhelm the fracture of hollowness Any small thing can create this chemical reaction: The sun on my winter-chapped skin Heating my body out of its hibernation The mutual smile between people in love That says everything without words Diving into the worlds created by written words Spending hours living in their universe until you must come back to the real thing The problem is the return Days or weeks may go by Living on borrowed time Until the void will inevitably start to grow And swallow up everything again Like an undertow pulling me down The water rushing and sweeping overtop The surface becomes too far away to reach anymore It is a constant balancing act To manage this ratio to a point that is livable But lately the vacuum is less potent It no longer has the same arresting nature I have learned ways of stopping it Or at least slowing it down Sometimes I still lose But those times grow shorter and shorter And I win more often than not.

52

Leaving the desert was the easiest and hardest thing I’ve done All the loose ends and what ifs that still exist are on hold Awaiting a return that will almost certainly never come I sometimes think about the pieces I left behind And what they would be now if I had watered and pruned them Protected them from the beating sun that scorches everything Alive or dead Or somewhere in between They still hold silk threads weaved through my heart Pierced by a needle so small I couldn’t feel it until it was clean through Like the exit hole from a bullet that leaves a gaping wound surrounded by the frilled edges of torn flesh Would I be happier if the outcome had been tails? It is impossible to know But leaving everything to begin again in a place I’d never been Forced me to bring only what was useful To leave all the broken parts To become sun bleached until they are something I don’t recognize To find things that are new and whole And try to heal the paths of silk thread into small pinholes Still present but no longer as painful After a few years I am starting to feel it My heels are dug deep into the rain-softened earth and my arms enclose the fresh green that surrounds me The ocean rushes back and forth on the shores covered with smooth stones The hypnotic sound cast against mountain ranges jutting above the clouds I think I am beginning to understand peace.

0

Apr 11, 2021

Apr 11, 2021 at 4:32 PM UTC

Leaving

Leaving the desert was the easiest and hardest thing I’ve done All the loose ends and what ifs that still exist are on hold Awaiting a return that will almost certainly never come I sometimes think about the pieces I left behind And what they would be now if I had watered and pruned them Protected them from the beating sun that scorches everything Alive or dead Or somewhere in between They still hold silk threads weaved through my heart Pierced by a needle so small I couldn’t feel it until it was clean through Like the exit hole from a bullet that leaves a gaping wound surrounded by the frilled edges of torn flesh Would I be happier if the outcome had been tails? It is impossible to know But leaving everything to begin again in a place I’d never been Forced me to bring only what was useful To leave all the broken parts To become sun bleached until they are something I don’t recognize To find things that are new and whole And try to heal the paths of silk thread into small pinholes Still present but no longer as painful After a few years I am starting to feel it My heels are dug deep into the rain-softened earth and my arms enclose the fresh green that surrounds me The ocean rushes back and forth on the shores covered with smooth stones The hypnotic sound cast against mountain ranges jutting above the clouds I think I am beginning to understand peace.

25

Sometimes I am a Bobbit worm I live alone Deep in a burrow of my own making My mouth an open bear trap Crooked teeth replaced with polished daggers Patiently wait to ensnare An unsuspecting passerby I can open myself Or snap shut just as easily I am isolated despite my halfhearted efforts Solitude suits me best anyway Alone is a lawless wasteland Littered with the weathered bones of love and liquor And tattered scraps of flannel shirts Where cologne and sweat still weakly cling The barren ground growing ever crowded With bar receipts and gold wrappers from empty nights The company I keep is of no consequence Sometimes when I venture out from hiding I meet someone And there is a magnetic spark Static that has built steadily over years pours out at their touch The way a shock leaps from your hand to theirs After you’ve dragged your socks on the carpet The pistons and gears of my stagnant heart Shrug off the dust piled thick from disrepair And work as if they had never stopped It is painful and unfamiliar The deposits of rust breaking free from the cast iron Lodging in my ribs And releasing a cloud of moths to thump around inside my belly Until they can escape my throat to find the street lamp above us But just as it began it is over Unexpected and ill prepared And I am again left alone Crying out into a canyon so deep I cannot see the entirety of the abyss To hear only my own desperate voice returning from the darkness below If someone is at the bottom returning my call I cannot hear them.

0

Apr 11, 2021

Apr 11, 2021 at 4:31 PM UTC

Worm

Sometimes I am a Bobbit worm I live alone Deep in a burrow of my own making My mouth an open bear trap Crooked teeth replaced with polished daggers Patiently wait to ensnare An unsuspecting passerby I can open myself Or snap shut just as easily I am isolated despite my halfhearted efforts Solitude suits me best anyway Alone is a lawless wasteland Littered with the weathered bones of love and liquor And tattered scraps of flannel shirts Where cologne and sweat still weakly cling The barren ground growing ever crowded With bar receipts and gold wrappers from empty nights The company I keep is of no consequence Sometimes when I venture out from hiding I meet someone And there is a magnetic spark Static that has built steadily over years pours out at their touch The way a shock leaps from your hand to theirs After you’ve dragged your socks on the carpet The pistons and gears of my stagnant heart Shrug off the dust piled thick from disrepair And work as if they had never stopped It is painful and unfamiliar The deposits of rust breaking free from the cast iron Lodging in my ribs And releasing a cloud of moths to thump around inside my belly Until they can escape my throat to find the street lamp above us But just as it began it is over Unexpected and ill prepared And I am again left alone Crying out into a canyon so deep I cannot see the entirety of the abyss To hear only my own desperate voice returning from the darkness below If someone is at the bottom returning my call I cannot hear them.

39