Morgan

Morgan Mar 2015

A very final goodbye to the whiskey king of NEPA,

I thought going to his funeral
when we were 14
& he was 15
would always occupy
the darkest,
most excruciating
space in my soul

Until her funeral,
when we were
all 16

But I was wrong,
both times

It wasn't losing
our wisest friend
to raging hormones,
****** parents
& a rope
that left the
strangest,
most mutated
bruise

And
It wasn't losing
our quirkiest friend
to striking anger,
a rainy night on
a windy road
& a sports car
that left the
deepest,
most potent
cut

It was losing you

And having this crushing
knowledge that you still
live in the town
that we grew up in,

you still light fires
in the back yard
where we used to
drink your dad's beer
and play his guitar,

you still sleep on the mattress
we used to drag down two
narrow flights of stairs
into your living room
on Saturday nights
when the stars were clear
through your sky lights,

you still drive that
Subaru outback
that's decorated in
dents & scratches
from all the times
we needed to
feel brave,

you still get the mail
at the bottom of
that dirt driveway
we scraped our knees on
every summer from
the time we were
twelve til the time
we were eighteen

And knowing that none
of that matters

The most unique agony
that's ever turned
in my stomach
is having this crushing
knowledge that
if I stretch my
arms out far enough,
I can poke you in your
puffy hazel eyes
but fearing you have
grown so cold
that my fingers
might just freeze
on contact

It's missing you
when you are so close
that I can smell
your tires burning
on the gravel
up Stone Road
but not being able
to hear your voice
the way I remember it,
all laced in
purple warmth
& yellow light

The selfish truth is,
at least I know why
Kris & Sergei
aren't with me,

at least I can tell
myself that if they
still existed on the same
earth as me at all
they'd continue to
tell me stories
sitting Indian style
across from me on
my kitchen floor

You're a rawer,
more lethal
kind of aching,

a more honest,
more dangerous
kind of void,

cause you know that
I am still right here
but it's not enough

You lost those friends too

You know how it felt

And despite all the breaking
you did for them,
you chose to **** me off
like some rotting
parasite in your
passenger's seat

I filled myself with
you for eight years
And if I could
be open with you
one last time,
I'd tell you that
I'm scared shitless
to tip myself over
and let that all
pour out
cause I don't
want to find out
that without you,
murky water
and slush
is all that's left

But like you always said,
"Let's ******* do this thing
before it gets away"

Morgan Feb 2015

Board Games

February nights rip me into pieces
So when I'm scattered randomly
across your bedroom floor,
I hope you look down
at my knee caps
and collar bones
& think about how much you
enjoyed doing puzzles at
the small, cherry wood
coffee table in your parents'
living room when you were ten
And I hope you put my tongue
back in my mouth
and my eyes back in my skull
And you breathe your
cinnamon & whiskey
breath all down my throat
until I remember how to
find air on my own

Morgan Feb 2015

Ebb & flow

I was 17,
And you said
You didn't want to miss out
On the right one
While cutting your fingers
On my broken edges

And I was convinced
I was the reason
Everyone in my life
Was always bleeding

And I was sitting in the center
of my naked mattress
at four in the morning
on a Wednesday,
humming along to the tides
made up of ***** & cheap beer,
ebbing and flowing
inside my stomach

And I was gripping
my favorite blanket
like a safety bar,
Cause the floor felt like
it was going to crumble
beneath my bed

And I was embedding
my nails into my veins
to feel some warmth

I was 17,
And no one would ever write
about the softness of my eyes
Or the way my bottom lip quivers
just before I start to cry

I was 17,
And already unloveable

Morgan Jan 2015

Filthy

I watched my best friend's eyes well up
with the burning words of his ex girlfriend;
I watched her trickle down his cheek bones
& all over his blue t-shirt;
I tried to wipe her away with my finger tips,
But I was too late.

She had stained him,
From head to toe he was drenched in her
And even if I had caught her
Before she even touched his skin,
I don't think I would've been able to keep him clean
Because my hands were ***** too
With the grotesque words
Of my ex boyfriend

So we'll just sit here,
An other year unchanged
A deck of cards
& a bottle of whiskey
In the space between our knee caps;
Staring into each other's pain,
Strewn recklessly over my bedroom floor

We'll just sit here,
Filthy together for an other year
Of scrubbing the wasted passion from our bones

Morgan Jan 2015

Hiatus of Growth

Scranton has me wrapped
around its broken finger
I fell abruptly into the palm
of Philadelphia
with eager eyes
and shaking hands
but the boring consistency
of a quiet purgatory
is too easy to come home to
And truth be known,
I am no artist
I'm just an other
tired college student
with displaced anger,
alcohol poisoning
& a surplus of anxiety
thriving on a tethered
thread of hope some
sad boy with a guitar
gave me in high school
and it's wearing thin

Jan 2015

Daniel Magner

Scapula

My parents might say
I've grown up since I left the Bay
that Long Beach has seen me mature
sure I'm older, more composed
but if you ask me,
I just feel detached
and lonely.

I always end up back on this topic, I need to stop it

Daniel Magner 2014

Morgan Jan 2015

Dear boy who keeps calling even though I stopped answering five months ago,

You want me to let you in?
To call off the guards?
To let down the walls?
You,
So passionately,
want me to
stop fighting

so I will.

I will fall violently,
unadulteratedly
& freely
in love with you.

Just like you want me to.

And you'll lie in my bed all day,
while I try on eight different
dresses for my cousin's wedding

And when you leave,
I'll watch my skin shrink
as I lie
paralyzed
in my bathtub,
day dreaming
about the two small freckles
under the left corner
of your bottom lip

And the first time we argue
& you spend three whole days
angrily ignoring my calls,
I'll chain smoke
until my throat burns

And when you
finally decide
to show up at my door
with a vanilla latte
and apologetic eyes,
I will melt
pathetically
into your collarbones
and all down your spine

And then we will sit
Indian style
across from each other
on my kitchen floor
& you'll tell me in
excruciating
detail all your past lovers'
infidelities and unkindnesses
that led you to fight with me

And that will be it

That will be
the exact moment
when I will know,
without a doubt
that I am
completely & entirely
******

And I will cry into
your neck,
knowing for sure
that from then on
even the most passive,
nonspecific
mention of your name
will make my stomach float up
into my chest
& jolt back down
into my abdomen
like I'm falling
from the highest point
on a roller coaster

And no amount of
poetry,
whiskey,
midnight drives,
nicotine,
house shows
or therapy
will make it stop
or even distract
my soul from it for
a ******* split second

Because
once I allow myself
to love,
I love until I break &
then I keep on loving
until I'm nothing

And I just don't know
if your conscience
is strong enough
to carry the weight
of my shattered heart

So...
tell me Hazel Eyes,
just how bad
you actually want me
to pick up that phone