Phoebe

Phoebe May 2018

It isn't the night-creature's fault that you're afraid of it

perhaps it likes the dark

perhaps it feels safe in small spaces

like under your bed

or rattling around inside your skull.

it isn't the night-creature's fault that it's drawn to the whites of your eyes

maybe it's only ever known fear

and with a history like that, how can you expect the thing to know love?

Phoebe Apr 2018

Boxes

Well go ahead and box me up, I guess
The funeral will be nice and they will not say
"oh, but she is still living"
in the literal sense

They'll use it as a metaphor
instead of the rallying cry,
the encouragement

"but you are still living"

maybe I'll never die, at this rate.

So box me up in glass ceilings and
social norms

We'll call it the practice run

And let's go ahead and put "here lies a person"

So I can practice being equal when I'm dead.

Phoebe Apr 2018

Fool’s Gold

Sooner or later
you're going to have to realize
that the color of your promises
doesn’t match the silver
of your tongue

Phoebe Apr 2018

Heliocentric

If you're going to bleed, bleed sunshine

Spill light from the cuts on your knees

Paint the grey thing in your chest cavity that looks nothing more than scarred tissue gold

Pretend you are the sun

Pretend you are the sun

Might as well scream some, too.

Only call it laughing.

And when you try to explain your sadness to them, let them not understand a word you're saying because you're supposed to

Be the sun

Even though you didn't ask for people to orbit you, they did so

Give them warmth, give them light

One day you'll burn out but

If you're going to bleed, you might as well bleed light.

Phoebe Apr 2018

C(g)old Blooded

Yeah well here's what you are-

Cold blooded

Gold blooded

They cut you on the truth and I swear I've never seen such golden youth flow from anyone's veins

Like ice water over a burn

You laugh it off, your voice cracks, body turned grey

You polish yourself on lies

You little gold blooded freak

And if that's all you ever are

It's still something.

Phoebe Apr 2018

Hotdog Hellions

The best part about these boys I grew up with

Full of clammy hands and half-eaten hotdogs offered out bitten end first

Is that they always made everything into an adventure.

It was always a grand expedition with these boys;

One did not simply go outside to play frisbee

Oh, no, you had to come up with new rules, new bases, a new game even

And nobody went to the kitchen for goldfish

No, you hunted down the best fish-shaped crunchy treats from older sister’s back pack with two standing guard just in case

The best part about these boys is that they made and outing out of anything, anything at all

And I miss that.

Because they don’t eat goldfish anymore.

The frisbee has long since been lost and forgotten along with the rules to the game

Along with the willingness to be recklessly happy

Along with sloppy smiles and real laughs

It’s all been lost. And I’m trying to find it again

Phoebe Jan 2018

The Crash

Silence.

Nothing.

Shards of glass littering the pavement,
cars crushed like coke cans in summer.

And the passenger sleeping-
neck bent at an odd angle ,
looking back at the car
with the legs still inside,
forgotten as easily as car keys

Or a seat belt