Do not sanitize this as a calling
Do not raise me up with unclean hands
When those hands have never knocked on my door.
I feel each of his breaths slip through my hands
Becoming a living hourglass
I am angry
And I do not want you to conflate it
With a stage of grief
That would depict this as a natural course.
How dare you look at me in grief
I have grieved every day
Watching sand castles sink into the earth
While the tide climbs my neck
I check for monsters under the bed
As no one did for me
And I only find you.
I find your pats on the back
And your apologies
As great a void as your absence.
This is not a calling
This is not a gift for a dying dad
And this is not a kindness
To anybody, anybody but you.
Jul 14, 2025
Jul 14, 2025 at 12:03 AM UTC
Do not call me a martyr
Jesus never had to learn how to spell risperidone
Carbidopa levodopa, sertraline, donepezil
Glycopyrrolate, atorvastatin, allopurinol,
Mirabegron, and metoprolol.
Do not call me a martyr
I have never turned water to wine,
I have turned hallucinations into day dreams
And nightmares into fantasies
Do not call me a martyr
Do not confuse washing the feet of the disciples
To laundering piss-soaked sheets
And drool-dampened clothes
Do not call me a martyr
Jesus was never in hell
And I have sinned.
Jul 14, 2025
Jul 14, 2025 at 12:02 AM UTC
I fight with god and whoever
Keeps spitting truths at me like peanut shells
**** the doctors
And **** the first time my dad decided to drink
And especially **** the last time I decided to drink.
He did this to himself and I love him
And I’ll pay for his mistakes
But my pockets are empty
I eat **** sandwiches with stoicism
I praise the autocracy of the medical field
That told me dad is dying
And I should too.
Miracles don’t happen to people like me
And families like ours
In towns like this.
I’m dying with you
Stage 4
I’m dying with you.
I’ve got nothing to lose
Until I found I had more.
**** your age and **** my youth
**** Medicaid
And **** the truth.
Apr 13, 2024
Apr 13, 2024 at 12:45 AM UTC
My Notre Dame is burning
Let the bells ring
Of ancient fools.
My dad looks me in the eyes
And asks me how long he has to live
Is it terminal?
The Jim Beam speaks back to me
Of fathers come and go
And I lie.
I lie with my lips glued to my teeth
And nostrils flared
And with mimicked repose.
My spire collapses
And I book flights to Paris
So I don’t have to answer questions.
How can I take care of you
When Notre Dame is burning?
Daddy, someone has to put it out and I’m sorry.
Apr 13, 2024
Apr 13, 2024 at 12:32 AM UTC
Pressing the weeds that you pulled
In an ancient book like it were a bouquet
Presented with gusto and pride
As bright as the pest itself.
A cool bed and a cool temperament
Leaves me listless.
For once I’d like to eat and feel full.
I eat with my eyes the appetizer of your figure
And the breadth of your chest
But I never reach yours.
I am hungry and wanting
Beyond *** and repair
Beyond curt courtship
And cold companions.
And at some point I’m tempted to pull the rope,
Unsure if it will drop the curtain or the floor
And not knowing if you will want an encore
And filled with trepidation.
Why do we whisper?
It makes me want to cry.
A little louder now, love
Tell me what you want
If you want anything at all.
May 29, 2020
May 29, 2020 at 2:44 AM UTC
Eyes of blue
And skin of laurel
Serene indifference
Meaningless quarrel
Body still
But panic sober
A lifetime of stuck
And a lonesome October
A 911 call
And a lack of composure
An empty syringe
And a long for some closure
An absent friend
Giving a cold shoulder
An absent friend.
Wake up now, Laura
Dec 22, 2019
Dec 22, 2019 at 2:17 AM UTC
Calloused hands that give and take
Both to your detriment
That write and hold
Empty promises
I can’t tell whether
You’re grazing my cheek
Or wringing my neck.
Dec 22, 2019
Dec 22, 2019 at 2:08 AM UTC
Every moment a growing distance
Whether it be the speed of the plane
Or your apathy.
Your silence still makes the sound
Of a belt being unfurled from your waist
and I cower with trepidation.
Treat me the way you mean to -
Be as cruel as you intend
Clearly and with no distractions.
**** me and then never talk to me
Until you’re hungry,
Because I can decipher by now
The language of your disinterest.
Stop trying to dress it up -
In “how are you” and
Dispassionate kisses
As shallow as 2% milk.
I’m tired of finding reasons
For you to grip me a little tighter
And say my name more often
And hold me in the dark
And look my way in a crowded room.
I wish you would do anything,
like you really meant it,
whether or not it would hurt.
Apr 20, 2019
Apr 20, 2019 at 9:12 PM UTC
In Budapest I’d take a lover,
We’d meet outside a ruin bar,
And I’d notice as we stumbled
On the cobblestones
He walked beside me and not ahead.
And we’d **** on cotton sheets
On a twin-sized mattress
In a hostel full of friends
I haven’t met yet
While the city pulses outside
In an unruly procession.
He spoke into my wild hair
That until we must leave Budapest,
We would be wed.
I asked him what would become of us
The next day.
A smile plays on his lips, bemused
With the taut delicacy of stringing a harp,
He tells me, “we will part.”
And I’ve never known a kinder partner
Or a gentler fate
That feels like the dissolution of sea foam
Rather than the crashing of a wave
Threatening to drown you.
He would tell me he loved me
And it was easier to believe from
Someone I’ve known an hour
Than someone I’ve known a year.
We didn’t leave bed the next day until
Late afternoon.
We kissed simply and quietly
And yet it drowned out the whispers of the Danube
We clung to each other’s sides
The way a cobweb sticks to the sleeve of a sweater
Sure, soft, and smothered.
The next day I had a bus to catch
And tired eyes.
We checked out quietly and held hands
Until I had to go right
And he had to go left
And we did so with one last caress and kiss
And that was that
And it was the greatest love I had ever known
And I wonder if it were because of him
Or because the future wasn’t around
To complicate it
And that I didn’t know the difference
Between loving with abandon
Or without it.
Apr 20, 2019
Apr 20, 2019 at 9:02 PM UTC
i saw a homeless man
fidget with a twist tie
the way i fidget with my rings
crossing bourbon street
alive with the fare-thee-well
of sober times.
with weak conviction,
i admit the stars crossed one of us
and cut the other a break.
we are both drunk,
we are both merry.
we are embroiled in the microcosm
New Orleans has to offer
one day a year, guilt-free.
he jingles his cup for coins
and i show my **** for beads
and i will be bedecked in glitter
and jewels,
and he will sleep on the stoop.
but we both find our shoes drenched
in the mysterious gray waters
that plague that street tonight.
with the guise of my beads
i feel like a queen
but it would make no difference
if i were a homeless man
fidgeting with a twist tie
on bourbon street,
jingling my cup for coins
and sleeping on the stoop.
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 4:17 PM UTC