My family eats dinner underwater.
We bounce between the seats of our chairs
and the bottom of the table,
we pass the stuffing
as it floats off the plate,
and no one seems to blink.
My parents just talk about how safe
it is, here,
below the surface.
No gay fiances
or athiests
or postmodernists
or liberal Christians.
I am the only one with an oxygen tank.
“I have never owned a tent that kept the rain out.”
My family camps with gear from the 80s.
We cook in bare aluminum
and eat with volatile plastics,
a crusty dining cloth pinned
to the warped picnic bench.
My feet and head push
through the tent wall
and into the rain fly.
I always wake up wet.
“I have never owned a bed that was long enough.”
In house 1 and 2,
my feet hang off the end
of the bed, circulation halted
at the ankles
by the wooden frame.
In dorm 1 and 2,
I lie diagonally on the bed,
my shoulder hitting the wall.
In dorm 3,
My feet are pressed
flat against the wardrobe.
I fall asleep not knowing
who I wake up for.
“I have never loved anyone I didn't have to.”
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 3:05 AM UTC
(a rondeau)
when it was new, this farm shone
with the tractor’s polished chrome
the barn’s crisp trim
the silo’s glinting rim
and the field’s glowing loam
it became a place for weeds to comb
through rotting cars as if sown;
these rusting crops never creased his skin
when it was new
now, the gate creaks with his bones
the fence posts lean and groan
with his warped, hobbling limb
familiarity cannot sate him
he never felt as alone
when it was new
Aug 18, 2013
Aug 18, 2013 at 2:02 AM UTC
(trioletish)
she is lithe and serene
as the staid air melts, frantic.
as she befriends a sable fiend
she is lithe and opaline.
for completion, they convene
and together study the bleak, pedantic.
she is lithe and agleam
as the staid air melts, prismatic.
Jun 12, 2013
Jun 12, 2013 at 4:48 PM UTC
your laughter is interrupted
and the punch line crumbles onto your lap.
as you answer your phone
the chair hardens
svelte
to skeletal.
every corner in your bones
grinds
against every edge of wood.
as the earpiece exhales
the grey seeps in from the dusty dome
and a wheeze of cloudy cold
floats, foggy, over the sill
and freezes firm your loose lips
before a smile can stretch them.
you rise
and the door evaporates
at your touch
a droplet
to your violent,
expanding
gasps.
the croaking in your ear
feeble
but ‘fine’
traps your tongue
under stacks of pennies.
your heart
singular
sympathetic
beats fast enough for two
bodies.
you stand on frail, fractured leaves
and try to cram crutches
and buttresses
through a receiver,
but your fumbling fingers
won’t speak.
your neck buckles
and bends
under the heavy phone
call.
back inside
teetering on your bony seat
you try to sit on your hands
scoops of your scattered words
‘my leaving
was the healthiest thing
that has ever happened to her–’
foreign and
hollow.
Mar 10, 2013
Mar 10, 2013 at 1:10 AM UTC
poets often write about running
carefree
through prairies
as if it is romantic.
they don’t know the itch
the ***** of thick grass
the **** of goldenrod
the sting of thistle.
they haven’t hoisted one moist rubber-clad leg
waist-high
over the other
again and
again and
again
waterproof yet sweating
just to move ten feet.
they haven’t picked seeds from sticky skin
as the fields give way to marsh
grass to cattails
reeds to rushes.
they haven’t bobbed
and balanced
up and
down and
up
on floating mats
of dead, sewn stalks
walking on water
a minefield of bog slime.
i haven’t stopped watching my steps
since i got that job
and i think i’m due for a misstep.
i’m looking to stop scratching
to stop picking
to stop bobbing.
i’m looking for a darling weak spot
strong enough to swallow me
in this swamp.
i would bushwhack to her
through the pricking
the prodding
and the stinging
put the wrong foot forward
plunge through the mat
and let her pour over the tops of my waders
and sink me
deeper and
deeper and
too deep.
i would drown in her.
Mar 7, 2013
Mar 7, 2013 at 12:53 AM UTC
his hands are gripped tightly around the mallet
ripped koozie foam under his white fingernails
crack-hiss
crack-hiss
he is pounding flat the knots in the tree
until his tender grain sighs bitter bubbles
crack-hiss
crack-hiss
*grow straight, **** it. stand tall.*
Jan 28, 2013
Jan 28, 2013 at 8:01 PM UTC
constantly wavering
staggering back and forth
pure grey wisps
lilting over liver spots
on a glinting crown.
after days spent vegetating
sedro woolley has let him go
under family escort.
the first seed
he ever sifted through his fingers
has led him here.
every acre planted
every berry blossomed
every cow cured
every milk pail filled.
now
he
constantly wavering
in the breeze
pure grey wisps
lilting over ferns and moss
under great cedars.
the first seeds
he ever sifted through his fingers
led us here.
he has grown acres of us.
now we stand tall against the wind
as he sifts through our fingers.
Dec 10, 2012
Dec 10, 2012 at 6:42 PM UTC
' 1. I read the online account of a man who, after fifteen years of hitting gascid – nitrous oxide and acid in tandem – developed a B-vitamin deficiency. This may sound rather benign, but it made him begin to lose feeling in his fingertips. The numbness spread up his arms to his core, and he was soon paralyzed. After what he summarized as the better part of a year of ‘psychological horror,’ he emerged from the episode fully functional again, but with one caveat; he had fried his neurons so badly that every single incoming sensation from each nerve in his body was received by his brain as agonizing pain. He has spent the last fourteen years enduring this. He has tried to commit suicide several times, simply to end his constant physical suffering. He is still here today. His will is stronger than I can imagine; I was afraid while reading his story.
2. The guy who said ‘all women want in a man is confidence’ wasn’t ugly or poor.
3. Once, I chugged enough coffee and energy drinks on a long-empty stomach to experience a moderate overdose, to the tune of something between five hundred and seven hundred milligrams of caffeine. This may sound rather benign, but as I laid on the floor of my high school’s bathroom, convulsing, I had, up ‘til that point, never lived through a more unappealing chemical episode. The nausea was all-consuming. At two thousand milligrams, I would die outright. At the level I had ingested, my heart beat three times every second for five and a half hours. During the peak hours, I could have sworn I hit a steady two hundred-plus beats-per-minute. I hammered out a several-page text to my father with the same haste, cataloging my plight. My heart probably aged fourteen years, enduring that.
4. There was a time in my life when I stopped looking into mirrors. It took me seven years to develop a coping mechanism. Ten years after that, I found myself spending minutes with eyes locked in the mirror, examining that foreign face. Some call it confidence. That behavior scares me more than anything else in my life.
5. I stopped looking at your familiar face a couple years ago. I was afraid of your gaze begetting your touch, and those lightning bolts of pain shooting from each of your fingertips, through the front of my torso into my spine. I am afraid to tell you that you’re hardly on my mind as much as myself these days. I am not confident that I could tell you this, were I given the chance. My heart is facing its midlife crisis now, and I am still figuring out how to treat you like an adult would.
Dec 10, 2012
Dec 10, 2012 at 6:40 PM UTC
a blushing van rolls to a stop.
he steps out onto the school parking lot
walks around the embarrassed bumpers
clad in duct tape and inaccurate repaintings
brazenly
so sure he has it all.
she slides off the hood of a manicured foreign tank
hulking and onyx.
they embrace
too long
something is up
he is wary.
arms at her sides
she reaches for his lips
he does not look down
he is wary
she leads him to the grass
his suspicion turns the green from vibrant
to synthetic
he is wary.
they sit
across from each other
no table to negotiate over.
she is sure of the future
unsure of the way through the present
searching for words.
he prods
she speaks
she reaches for his hands
he tries to sit back on them
she catches his fingertips
he knows.
sitting
she leaves him.
sitting
he calmly waves goodbye
and heads in another direction.
still on the grass
he
so it goes, eh?
she
hah, vonnegut.
days
weeks
months
years
jubilantly lilt by.
he is becoming a whole
looking to pair up
instead of a half
scrabbling for completion.
she takes trips
draining coffers on other continents.
in between vacations
another party
another one-word encounter
become but tallies
on a scoreboard no one reads
until
she finds him squeezed onto a full couch
tripping.
she slurs
pre-vomit
hurt and frustration.
he looks at her
he is weary.
he was free.
in this moment
he is trapped
on loop.
she stuck a fork in him
chest bleeding
it was not enough.
she honed his lust
against his pride
until
the fork
hummed a tune
only for her.
the vibrations cease
he stops singing.
he is hoarse.
it is over
this is overdue
he
finished with belting out
softly speaks.
she
you just don’t say that
he
why not?
Nov 16, 2012
Nov 16, 2012 at 5:42 AM UTC
On my way to the attic,
each step creaks
protesting.
I’ve worn this path smooth.
I reach the landing
and turn.
You sit there
on top of a stack of boxes
easy-access
composed, legs swinging
insouciantly
I brush off the light
layer of dust,
open you up to the dark room
and take out a golden trophy.
After reminiscing, I return it.
You put your clothes back on;
I fold you shut and walk away.
You don’t bother taping your seams
you never did.
What we do isn’t pretty.
We aren’t two starlings
in our own murmuration;
we are a ****** of crows.
Our dance is getting away with felonies.
Take it from a jail bird
a trophy is no occupation.
You watched as I was polished and shelved,
captive after a year
of looking for a champion.
She had me cast
at the start of that long year
well before she clinched her title.
I was touted around, then passed on.
She never dusts me off, dear.
That is why I smudge your sheen
I have no shimmer left myself.
That is why you stay
you seek the heft
of my cast-iron company,
the weight we have borne
six years without touch
sixty ****** crime dramas
six hundred batches of half-baked cookies
six thousand nights in.
You are my memorabilia.
I just don’t want your dust to settle as mine has.
I want you to dance, gilded, on the sky.
On my way to the basement,
each step squeaks
inviting.
I’ve worn this path smooth.
I reach the foot.
Brothers greet, glasses clink,
plumes build, couches sink.
The ceiling dances with golden trophies
all with your composure
gleaming
legs swinging.
Nov 16, 2012
Nov 16, 2012 at 5:36 AM UTC