When I was eight,
The Great Recession began.
During it,
I heard a line
that floated
off the page of a poem
and into me
“We hope the world survives.”
– Hope –
I remember that
and the nights I spent
sat up
on the uncomfortable
wheezy wooden floor
of my home
constructing a new one
from Legos,
where I could see
by way of a light switch
not a Coleman lantern.
Where I could eat
by way of a real stove top
not a portable one.
You’d think
that I was camping,
not sweating
in the stagnant air
of a house
devoid of power.
Now,
a virus moves
unseen among grass
beneath out feet,
flirts between the vacancy
of embraces
and
the fear of a handshake.
We speak words
underneath masks
and hope –
that this,
will be over soon.
Apr 28, 2020
Apr 28, 2020 at 5:05 PM UTC
Living,
with chronic
pain,
is like sharing a space
with a younger version
of myself.
At night,
I let her
come into my room,
she is slow, delicate
like a child sneaking
into bed.
Her nature
knows, no
childish mischief
like that of a child
up past bedtime.
She knows–
all the corners
of my tired mind
where my nerves
sag like telephone wires.
She knows–
where to lay
an icy touch
and play
in the realms
of my life, before
we met
and,
she knows–
how to go
to bed, at night
and wake with me
in the morning.
Jan 30, 2020
Jan 30, 2020 at 7:12 PM UTC
I can’t brush my hair
for it ignites, like a fire
across my soft scalp.
Jan 11, 2020
Jan 11, 2020 at 2:10 PM UTC
Mom.
Mom,
My skin,
is alight.
My fur, singed
like the surrounding brush
of my home
and your home (and their home)
alike.
Each breath
and step
that I take
secures a winded grip
from within my chest
as the crackled
orange embers, spread
their scorching grasp
across the rest,
of my feeble body.
–For a moment–
I, am picked up
in a heated embrace,
then dropped
like a child
gets disinterested
with one toy
before pillaging
to the next.
Mom.
Mom?
This isn’t a warm hug-
We’re burning.
Jan 5, 2020
Jan 5, 2020 at 11:15 PM UTC
I was seventeen,
when I realized
I wasn’t beautiful
in the clothes I wore.
At the arriving end
of December–
before my eighteenth birthday
I began my sweaty resolution.
It became a song
forcefully, put on loop
playing again, and again–
and again.
I counted units
of food energy
like beats
in a measure of time,
keeping practice logs
for when I could
eat.
My metronome
for living,
was kept in time
by the syncopated,
rhythmic beats
of my breaths
as my feet sped
long into nights
on machinery
that went–
nowhere.
Running,
the same line
of track
over, and over.
Jan 3, 2020
Jan 3, 2020 at 12:23 AM UTC
Sometimes,
I feel like, I’m drowning.
This feeling–
a never-ending rush,
of water, that cascades
throughout
my body,
my veins,
leaving me submerged
from the inside.
This feeling–
a longing for the mundane
when I could wake
to the sound of a 6:00am bell
and not,
have it be answered
by a throb
from within my skull.
Today,
my mind,
sags, like telephone wires
swaying tirelessly
in summer heat.
My bones,
ache.
These feelings–
a second self
carried
through this tired will
of conduct, I call mine
much like the nails
on my fingers
and the hair,
upon my scalp.
Jan 2, 2020
Jan 2, 2020 at 12:09 PM UTC
I,
am a walking
headache.
My figure parts beams
of others' light
my coming--
like an aura
that signifies
a migraine,
accompanied by--
the passing
unnamed,
unnecessary,
blips
of luminesence
that,
is my signal
to both come,
and to go.
Dec 31, 2019
Dec 31, 2019 at 3:50 PM UTC
They blossom
up from the soil, in which
they were first grown
on a different street
for no one, is planted here
underneath
the interstate.
Out from the floral spread
of the prosperous, Third Ward,
is a grievous sight
and I, am enraptured
by this scene in the city
of swollen summer loads
and multi-storied canopy
that flourish, like the
common wood violet.
Dec 23, 2019
Dec 23, 2019 at 5:35 PM UTC
When I was eight,
I would press myself
against the creaky floorboards
of my home
and listen
to their tired groans
of protest from my weight
atop them,
as I ripped the caps
off Sharpies,
and let the ink
spread across the plastic wrap
like a flare.
I’d stick my confused
colorful Picassos
into an oven
and watch in awe
as the wrap
would shrink
and fold in on itself
appearing smaller
to the world.
Now,
at twenty
I no longer listen
to the groans
from my creaky
childhood home,
I listen–
to the murmurs
from the black
cellophane wrapped
shop windows and signs
of tired buildings
tired of wearing
faces, to great
the masses
of the world
that don’t show.
Dec 11, 2019
Dec 11, 2019 at 10:04 AM UTC
Here, in this village,
I, am unpigmented canvas
my suburban skin,
unfamiliar.
Where the trees
bleed colors of resurgence
into the vacant
and vibrant damp,
dark, earth below
to begin and paint again.
Dec 2, 2019
Dec 2, 2019 at 9:38 AM UTC