Dear John,
All my poems are addressed to no one,
And no thing.
You see, I’ve been trying to braid scenes, create spaces,
To hide and for you to seek. A sanctuary, a sin.
We could dream of fortresses,
places to protect us
From the worst of all: ourselves.
But we are here, in this city,
And your mouth is a sky,
Setting, leaving words black.
Every dream is on water,
And every morning, I wake up sinking.
In my dreams are ships, are sinking,
Are floods of skies and no rain,
Are jungles dry and thick and my finger on the trigger
Of a camera, imagining a frame to fit everything in
Side. And outside, car rides on roads closest to the
milky way. Bells do not chime in America, only horns, only
a billion birds fly but have you ever caught one in your hands?
Do you unravel yourself before falling to bed, but only dream in your sleep?
Dec 21, 2016
Dec 21, 2016 at 9:36 PM UTC
it was a pinnacle of ideals
every time
it rained
we tasted snow on our tongues
and inside
we pressed our cheeks
to a fire
and when discovering grass is the tip to woven roots,
nimbly, we fashioned strands
of earth into crowns
that slipped away from our fingers
before we were royal, before we created
our kingdom
Aug 10, 2016
Aug 10, 2016 at 4:44 PM UTC
I could have sworn
I could have sworn this
is what I needed. But,
regret (a
nasty metal)
And I wish I could drain myself
of all which it no longer needs,
when this is what I need:
Please, Listen, You
no longer know what you want and
what you do, you can not have it. Oh
God. Oh god. god, you say you are
everywhere. I have
not seen you in even
the most empty of spaces
Aug 10, 2016
Aug 10, 2016 at 4:40 PM UTC
Full and boundless and tumbling
across the plank that
is the universe. And us,
lay quiet as a breath but
don't forget to breathe. We, a seam:
holding together
two betweens.
Cool water in grains of sand &
undone stars. from here,
both are billions groaning
for less and more.
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 1:09 PM UTC
nerves stalk the battlefield, strangling,
only to beat out another breathe. only
to continue limping lamely and
timidly, I wander
home, holding my own
body bag. Tongue tied and
Toe-tagged:
forfeit!
Mar 29, 2016
Mar 29, 2016 at 3:42 PM UTC
Here: I've forgotten how the lakes freeze over. How the cold wears you, how the snow strips us all from the same tree. How breathing is breaking through the clouds.
How I was never ready.
Strange, from above, how the white of the world is an iris waiting to erupt. There is so much turbulence and yet not a single vein brings blood.
How the highways snake like veins, how this is nothing like a car crash but a prayer to God. How I was crashing next to the sea. Sleep soft, sleep violent
Mar 29, 2016
Mar 29, 2016 at 3:33 PM UTC
take me to the slaughter house
and behead me like the
pig that I know that I am
—raw and oinking,
squealing with gluttony
and delight
and shame:
the ugly ******* who
roasts me on an open flame;
licking my belly, large
and content and
although I attend church,
I never once prayed
for the body of a sparrow, this was always just
the direction in which I flew
I pray to be devoured:
finished with
licking lips & extended
bellies. I ask of you to eat me &
then never think of
my taste again
Mar 26, 2016
Mar 26, 2016 at 4:31 PM UTC
the hunching and the quivering
the way your hands are stripped like leaves
void of color
the way we *******
too many times to unearth ourselves from this
coffin of the bed. Morphing your face
into howling ground—those
days are hungry and wild,
moaning to be gone
Mar 26, 2016
Mar 26, 2016 at 4:31 PM UTC
remind me of the way it tastes on your lips
of the way the smoke is coy with you, holds itself around your mouth
for a lackadaisical second, the way you appear in shades
under the moonlight; is patient; is occurring slowly to my eyes
the smoke holds, breathes on its own accord
the lapse of lilac scent far removed from last summer in
the northern woods, teeming with a softness even in the ********* chirp of birds nestled on birch
now it is gravel; it is jarring; it is the way you hesitate like cigarette smoke;
caught between leaving too quick or never leaving at all
Mar 26, 2016
Mar 26, 2016 at 4:30 PM UTC
i.
In your arms, I felt like a child
Not a woman.
Listened to warmth, the
Tin raindrops outside and this
Bright light. Accepted
it and laid on you. Worn
Like the Midwest flatlands,
many arid miles longing
terribly
To comprehend, I can’t.
A glimpse of the shadows
Of the mind in the day of you:
Stripped and tender,
Raw. I bury my head
Like a child.
----------------------------------------(alternate version)
ii.
Like a woman – like a child
In your arms – (is) – raw
I bury my head. I feel like child.
Listened to the warmth of
Tin raindrops outside and this – stripped and tender
Worn, the mind in the day of you
Bright light like the many arid miles
Like the Midwest flatlands, longing terribly
To comprehend. Accept it
and laid on you.
Nov 25, 2015
Nov 25, 2015 at 2:07 PM UTC