the cops are at the door,
open the window,
toss me my running shoes.

out the window I went, left heaven,
down to the narrow street
into the welcomed night.

(my fair weather fade away.)

you have the prettiest eyes
the sky ever knew

so please don't be surprised
to find me one day at your window

some cold december night
holding plastic flowers for you

so love the thief who tried steal your heart,
and plastic flowers never fade.

It has been so sickly
Written, so
slidlingly

Redundant

said

that one is born to
in
the night of

Souls.

The dark triggers the time,
the weather and the
style
of the

Agreement.

The  is a
familiar Address.

Shutters close and
the dressings

notes the time.

Midnight is a fools
Game.

Sleep
Dulls the material.

You are unlikely
to call for, Toast
to

Love.

I watch As stars
Rapel down

sliding,
you so
carefully

placed to keep
out
Songs and poems
that lure

these lonely thoughts
Slipping on
the tears

of your

Indifference.



Caroline Shank
April 2, 2025

Three words whispered by someone
in the past were drifting behind my eyes:
“Don’t embarrass yourself.”
  
Trigger-induction, hypnotic phrase
stiffening my muscles,  
getting stuck in my legs.

These words make me straighten up
just in case, to avoid becoming a farce,
to not risk interior pain.

I walked through the narrow hallway
some stories were explained,
others remained in the pharynx
of watchful colossal squid.

I’m a broken record,
a sponge drinking salt drops.
Hidden, desiring wishes used  
not to be said.

Self-censorship is an easy way.
Just with a bit of self-irony,
I try to play fair; I try to play safe.

Stamping my tiny, rumpled ticket
joining a collective perfect match,
even if I don’t fit into this craziest crowd.

Until now, when through the crack,
the water has gone untamed,
refusing to return to the flood control dam.

I’m afraid of what will be next
when the water swallows
my piece of comfort la-la land.

Caught asking myself
to go where there is real music
or stay in an illusory state.

It’s one in the morning.
I zoomed into Lisa’s room
and threw myself on the bed where she lay reading
in a near virtuoso, Fosbury flop.
She bounced, jostled by my mechanical bed wave.
“I hate goodbyes,” I said, indignantly.
“You’re not strong on hellos” she said, not looking up.
“They’re so bone-marrow deep,” I went on, “they steal hope away.”
“Did that sound pretentious?” I asked her silence, a minute later, somewhat self-consciously.
Lisa took the yellow, #2-pencil out of her mouth—just long enough to answer.
When she studies, she chews on them, seemingly eating them like french fries.
“Yeah,” she says, “but I get cha.”
“I know,” I said, smiling at the ceiling, because in a rooted and real way, she always has.
I’d be a different person if we’d never met.
I feel very grateful for that.
“Your boy’s flown?” She asked, using her pencil to hold her page and finally looking up.
It was an ironic, near-rhetorical question, she knows he’s gone and she knows I know she knows he’s gone.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
.
.
Songs for this:
4am by girl in red
Don't Stop The Music by Rihanna
blushing! by BETWEEN FRIENDS