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Apr 2020 · 198
Society of Bones
since December, the world has turned--
turned into a skeleton place
first far away,
now commonplace

society became a bare-skinned animal
whose bones rattle in the breeze,
the infectious air diffusing
entwining inside us with ease

this animal's labored breathing--
poison emanates from every exhale--
is creeping, swirling, choking, whirling
without a visible trail

this animal roams about freely
without a stay-at-home order,
wraps its tendrils inside each painful breath,
knows not of race, religion, or border

so tell me why we've not tried to tame it,
most wonderful governor dear, oh yes!
your disregard for us, proclaim it!
instead you'd rather have fear, and death!

any call to action now
will have us all still writhing
the lame beast will conquer us,
thanks, to the lack of timing

the bare ***** beast hunts night and day
its being can't be cast away;
arm yourself against its wrath
society must pave its own path
Yes, Pete Ricketts, governor of the great state of Nebraska. This one's for you.
Jan 2020 · 70
College
I miss my dogs more than anything

But that doesn’t mean
I don’t miss you
Leave me alone

Move on!

You always knew you needed me more than I needed you.
My ex friend and I had a fight and stopped talking to each other over a year ago and she constantly texted me asking me why I wouldn’t talk to her. Months would pass where I thought she finally moved on but then she would text me again, and every time my heart would drop into my stomach. I never responded, until last month when I gave an explaination through text. I promptly blocked her number because I wanted to be done with it all. We go to college in different states so it’s pretty easy to avoid any actual contact with her.
Now I’m home for thanksgiving break and she happened to be running past my house and started talking to my dad, asking about my life. I’m tired of her. I’m tired of her asking about me. I’m tired of the “olive branch” offers for “peace”. Last month she said the “sin” of our parting was transferred to me (I still don’t know what that means). I haven’t spoken to her in over a year and haven’t provoked her in any way—I blocked her on everything imaginable—yet she insists on taking over my mind and slipping her way into the cracks of my brain, making me anxious when I know that’s ridiculous.
I don’t want to talk to her, and I want this to stop. I’m tired of it.
I know she hasn’t changed, and I’m no longer that stupid eighth grader who took her back in middle school.
I want to be strong but she keeps hammering at my walls and I’m afraid I’ll crumble.
Defeating the tentacled monster
once seemed impossible
The waters that my boat traversed were dark and foreboding.
i was afraid of encountering the beast,
and the threat of recurring attack shook me to my core
and left me feeling defenceless and empty

The waters would swirl and i would cower in fear,
in silence, in anticipation
that the tentacles would breach the sea's surface
and drag me down
into those dark depths

At daybreak i would set my sails,
check my bearings and
i, the skeptic, would pray
that the monster would keep to itself.

Months would pass without a threat of attack,
and i would delve into ignorant bliss
and forget about the creature

Then, a storm approached my ship;
the monster was within!, waves crashing
around its obsidian colored body,
tentacles reaching, extending towards me,
ready to grab and pull me under

it spoke in tongues i could understand,
and said the sin was now mine,
Mine?
with pleasure it smirked as it wound up to strike my ship

It struck and the wood splintered,
the sails ripped
and the boat, my boat!, began to sink,
i grasped for a piece of ship-turned-driftwood and i
screamed and kicked to stay above the surface

The monster could smell my fear and could taste the salt my tears were adding to the sea as the water rushed into the boat.
It thrusted its large suction cupped arm at me,
but i was ready.

Armed with the driftwood--pieces of the ship I had crafted with love and devotion!--
I struck back and severed the limb,
dark black goo oozing out,
reflecting the color of the hurt it had caused me

The limb sank to the bottom of the sea, and the monster dispersed in embarrassment.

I won this battle, but the monster will surely be back for more.
Until then, the pieces of my ship will float on--as will I,
and I will prepare for our next battle.

I will sail on, for the sea is vast and limitless.
The tentacled monster controls me no more.
It is my ship. My drop of sea.
My sails, and my wind.
It is me. I am me.
I am free.
who always sat perched on the porch at dusk
to watch the sun slowly set beyond the horizon

she listened as the last birds fluttered to their nests,
and inhaled the raw air as the breeze swirled around her
all the while her eye towards the sinking sun

vanilla bean was white with black specks
but when the moon rose
she became the universe

her spots radiated like a million stars,
her body obsidian like the backdrop of the galaxies
and she became the night
I do not like the cell collective
overall, I find it ineffective.

It makes me want to pull out my hair.
The information that's on there
has little to nothing to do with the course,
and requires searching in an outside source.

I am not paying my lab fees
to do simulations that are like these.
Please discontinue to use this in class.
Ask “Would you do it again?" I'd say “Nah, I pass"
Is this really how my tuition dollars and lab fees are being allocated?!
Feb 2018 · 150
My Darkness
Lungs pushed until even breathing is too hard, my mind reels. But that’s normal.

The obsidian monster swirls in my thoughts and consumes everything, until I give in to the feeling of loss that I’ve earned. I deserve it, I think.

It’s a square room of dread where I can’t see around or under anything, the walls are dark and foreboding.

It’s an inky whirlpool, one where swimming is impossible–I’m ****** down, down, down, into its unforgiving depths

It makes my heart fill with a weight so heavy, I think I’ll sink.

It pushes on my shoulders and propels me down until my ears pop from the pressure of the depths, and tells me it’s my fault I’m so deep. I scramble frantically for the surface, lungs screaming, head bursting, and reach it only just in time.

I wish I could wring the gloomy blackness out of me, like a towel, then cleanse it with bleach, make it white again, and try once more to wipe the darkness from my heart. My cloth is soiled with the sooty colors of mistrust, jealousy, and lost time.

I want to feel the darkness dripping off of me. I want to feel each droplet travel down the curves of my body like a stream of thousands of tiny snakes slithering, sliding. That is what I deserve.

I want to hear the drops of my sorrow hit the floor with a roar, and splash away into oblivion, the drips getting softer and softer as each one hits the ground, leaving me to hear nothing but my steady heartbeats and my unwavering breaths.

Yes! I want the onyx-colored pain to drain away into someone else’s space, into someone else’s time. I want it to defy gravity and go up, up, up, until only the stars can see it, and I am faced with it no more.

I want the twilight infused darkness to choose someone else. Choose someone who deserves it; I don’t want it to be mine.

I am forever stained a murky black.

I carry the stain with me, hidden. It threatens to take over me time and time again, in the most nuanced of ways.

Sometimes the shadows are felt in the spaces between typed letters, or it is exposed in the silence between spoken words. Sometimes it’s a moment captured in my memory, but all I can see is the shadows cast on irrelevant charcoal figures. Sometimes, it’s a picture. The darkness is there, right next to me.

The darkness refuses to recognize that it is not the victim. My darkness is naive, and it blames me. The wrongdoings are mine, and my darkness tells me so. It asks me why I don’t respond to its antagonism, but I stay silent.

The darkness fabricated stories of devotion, of caring, of kindness; and I believed it. It targeted my heart, my head, my soul.

It manipulated me, and it wounded me.

It singed my heart until it was black like coal, and all I can do is wonder why.
Feb 2018 · 414
Schillers Schädel
Upon returning from Deutsch class,
Where we spoke of Sturm und Drang,
I reminisce about Schiller’s scull in glass
and think it rather wrong.

Maybe it’s just komisch
your best friend stealing your noodle
somehow it makes sense, I wish
a really great poem he did doodle

Schiller and Goethe, the poets
and quite a pair were they!
Even after death we know it,
“Schiller’s” head was on display!

The inspiration knew no bound’ries,
words flowed without a hitch,
like blacksmiths in metal foundries
he truly found his niche

Know nature, life, and death alike
looking in his hollowed out eyes
you never know! Inspiration may strike
n'ere prompt, like lightening, o’re the skies.
"Schillers Schädel" means "Schiller’s skull"–which Goethe (secretly) had people steal 25 or so years after Schiller died, which he kept and displayed in his quarters…talk about friendship! It turns out it wasn’t even his skull! Was ein Pech!! (How’s that for luck??)
Jan 2018 · 131
Margaret
I miss her laugh
The way her nose crinkled
and the way she looked to the side, and sort of upwards when she giggled
How she nodded her head
and chirped her laughter
just like grandma did

I miss her effervescence
Her ability to talk to anyone
And how she could make anyone feel special
How she could turn the worst day into the best one

It’s been three months
But I think about her almost every day
If simply just in passing,
But her name is there
Floating above me like the angel she’s become

Her name hangs on the rim of the coffee cup she gave my mom
On the picture of a giraffe in our bathroom
On the Christmas decorations she gifted us
On the card my uncle sent my dad for his birthday

It’s been three months since she left but
It seems like just yesterday
we were eating lunch together at the Chinese place on the other side of town
we were sitting at her white table in the dining room, talking about my college experiences
we were eating cinnamon rolls around grandma’s table after mass on Sunday

I wish I had spent more time
Talking and giggling with her
But it makes the memories we do have together
more cherished, or so I tell myself
to cope with the hole in my heart

I miss her
Jan 2018 · 141
On the 24 to East Campus
I am sitting on the bus
and the man next to me is wearing
one white work glove
and one black snow glove
He looks too closely at his watch
His wrist inches away
from his face
I study his bearded silhouette
Watch as he hovers his hand
above the yellow “pull to stop” cord
His grizzled ****** hair
is sprawled out in all directions
His purple backpack
and camouflage winter jacket
clash with each other
But if you couldn’t tell
by the mismatched gloves,
this man is blind.
I wonder if his socks match.
I wonder if he wonders if his socks match.
Dec 2017 · 275
you got married yesterday
but I only know that because
my mom showed me your wedding pictures on facebook.
he is handsome, and you are beautiful, perfect.

i can't see your happiness anymore;
i'm behind a wall, and your special day--any of your days are invisible to me
you're not even tagged
in silly photos we took nine and a half years ago

why?

childhood memories and a wave of nostalgia hit me
remember the basketball hoop that almost killed you?
remember quarter-roy?
imagined fairies and magic in your cardboard fort?
swimming in the lake in your backyard on hot days?
me riding the bus home with you sometimes, eating skittles,
keeping them hidden from the bus driver?
we never talked about marriage, like all little girls supposedly do
and now i'm sad we didn't
the closest we came to sharing the dream
of looking pretty in a dress
was as prom queens together, at different schools

we met one time after i moved away from that small town
(where we both were pressured and compressed until we melted away into our own neat, square boxes)
and you said I looked different
but you did too

you wrote me a message
almost two years ago.
i was surprised to see it
it was so caring, compassionate, and wonderful
i did not respond
and i did not realize that meant the end

i miss our childhood
i will miss seeing you and your joys
and i wish i could change your push of a button

I wish I could say it directly to you:
congratulations, and
i'm sorry,
but not in that order
Dec 2017 · 313
A Childish Thought
Selfishly,
I only share my candy
with the people I care about most.
because
no one deserves sweetness
if they don't deserve me
Dec 2017 · 256
19 Above
Today I learned
That tears don’t freeze
Even when it’s nineteen degrees above zero

Even when they stream down your cheeks
They refuse to solidify

Today I learned
That tears warm up the body
better than they warm up the soul

Today I learned
that it is easiest to feel most alone
when the man I love walks beside me
Dec 2017 · 593
Library
The library smells
like ginger and coffee
and books that haven't seen the light of day since they were published

the sour scent of unopened pages
and the bittersweet commercialized coffee
diffuse throughout the building,

procrastination,
this is the smell of procrastination.

the air is swirling,
whipped along by the passers-by
its cool embrace is welcoming
gently blowing through me, onwards

cooling my mind as i brace
for the swell of tests and
tests and
tests

The coffee scent relinquishes,
as well as the task at hand,
and my dorm is calling me

— The End —