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809 · Nov 2011
Afraid of Sambo.
Waverly Nov 2011
Walking home,
a girl in an orange
of a shirt and long
bell-bottoms
with a small protuberant
***
turned around to look at me.

Her eyes were large,
and the way she looked at me
was a question almost:

Are you dangerous?

Maybe, she wasn't looking at me,
maybe the breeze kicked up,
and she just wanted to shield herself.

But I don't know,
something in the way
she looked at me,


The quick stoicism
of her large blue eyes,
shocked into a quick
heavy moment of recognition:

black guy.
hoodie.
black baggy pants.
the scowl.


I knew that soon her eyes
would wiggle out of there sockets
and dangle behind her
always looking back
even as she kept moving forward.

The illusion of moving forward.

I felt like the black guy
the news tells you about,
the one that's dangerous
to all lonely white females
at 9:00 at night,
as his tongue lolls
and his head wags.

Maybe,
I'm being too sensitive.

Maybe,
I'm being hypersensitive.

Why is it
that whenever I see a white female
walking towards me at night
I cross the street?
804 · Mar 2012
Untitled
Waverly Mar 2012
I miss you
like the tree and the leaf.

It is inconceivable
that I have been given to you
and you to me
without the generosity of fate.

i thought you were
just a pretty white girl
and my ignorances
was dashed
upon the rocks
by your voice of freedom.

nature could not conceive
of a purity of a secretive love
more than you
have given to me.

There are a lot of yous
in the world,
and yet there are none.

I have tried to propagate
the same seed
in you
as I have
in black girls,
puerto rican
and irish
that I loved
who fell for my rico suave ****
so easily.

And that is not to say that
you are as easily
enforced
by the landscapers
of love
as them.

Love is love,
but I have not
felt a seed so
irrevocably
as your seed
that burns
the root
so easily.

And in me,
I have never felt so crazed
because i have learned the bias
of flesh
that wraps my heart
deeper than your skin.

Trust me
in the depiction
that I have
constantly visited,
that your flesh
is numberless;
your cheeks
so
fleckless
yet with so many scars.

I can eat a thousand
worms in a day,
I can devour
the whole of the earth
with the roots
of a player.

But there are girls
and there are women,
there are leaves
and there are seeds.

The leaves browning
in autumn,
the seeds giving in spring.

And the colorless
gender
of night
knows no bounds,
because there is not a race of love
but an insanity
of love.

So to the black girls,
white girls,
puerto rican
and italian
that I have loved,
I am not color-blind
but blind
in the dank night
humid
as your voice
with no name,
no race,
no label,
no gender,
no reputation.
803 · Feb 2012
The Cannon.
Waverly Feb 2012
I am an open mouth,
like a cannon,
a relic,
in the front yard of an enthusiast;
the weeds lick me,
the dandelions burst in the shadows,
and that shaggy black horse
shakes the flies off of her
in spasms
as she
nibbles them.

I am waiting
to become a planter;
for the old man
to throw dirt
where shells nestled.

I am done with destruction.

I like the comforting resound
of horse teeth against iron
and roots
crawling.
803 · Apr 2012
Untitled
Waverly Apr 2012
If i keep with my stroll,
I might just
catch a crazy case.

I might just catch
crazy
in the worst place.

In love,
the worst humans
debase
themselves
even lower.

So when her love
reaches me,
it make me less human
to the point that I don't even
know her.

I begin
to only know myself
in my episodic returns.

The episode
of kissiing.

The episode
of loving.

The episode
of breaking
over *******.

I wish I could pull ****
my way;
have gravity
in my palms
and the sun
in my arms.

I want to  feel heat in my biceps again,
I want the mountains
to rise up
again,
I want volcanoes
instead of pimples.
803 · Sep 2012
Holy Creatures.
Waverly Sep 2012
My teeth feel like plastic,
and I'm
going
hungry.

Today, is the day,
that I become a man.

Don't you know
I'm freaking?

Or did you think
the biggest control
was the one at your knees?

When I finally get out of here,
all the cardboard in the world
couldn't box me.

Punch me Love,
make my nose bleed.

I want to take it;
I need it my brutal valentine;
from you to me
I have nowhere to go;
you are desperate.

We are holy creatures,
and don't even know it.
801 · Mar 2012
Myth.
Waverly Mar 2012
"You're drunk
you
need it." - Lykke Li.

Don't puke
this time,
make it the seed
instead of the giving earth.

The earth pukes in fire,
and that hurts the belly.

Trust me when I say
I'm stupid,
and that I'm staying.

I have been with Heather,
I have been with Carolyn,
I have been with Gnat,
I have been with Yolanda.

I have ****** all of them.

Every single one
has not touched
as fatally
as you
and you have undone
the ropes
inside of me.

The unbound package
is
disaster.

It signals the death of promise.

But it gives in the lighthouse
of love.

I cross the fog,
I trample
the destinations
of rain,
I laugh at thunder.

No storm is greater than
you.

So replace me,
disown me,
hate me.

I love you,
and that will not leave
in the night,
like werewolves
after dawn.
801 · Feb 2012
Loaves of Fire.
Waverly Feb 2012
The farmhouse is bracketed
by two loaves of fire;
in the night the house looks like the face
of Satan; the black void of the nose;
the house: vacant and shut off.

The two loaves burn beside it
through the night,
eating the stars and all the time
in the world.

A Tom and the thousand others
sleep in the foyer; closed off,
held in
by a tootsie roll the size
of a block of wood
used to keep the door closed
and the screaming
within.

Sometimes the cats slink out the windows
and make circles around the loaves;
silhouettes of fur, shoulders,
and contemplating tails
that swing and arc
through the night; it looks
like there are cats at the feast,
and they have brought the snakes
with them.
799 · Jan 2012
Holding Lambs.
Waverly Jan 2012
The chaos of my childhood haunts me.

Daddy's fist, mommy's ****** broken nose, streamers of blood, lawnmower catching on fire and the firemen trying to cop a feel of my mother, mommy yelling, me getting kicked out of pop's house, living nowhere for awhile, dumpsters, stumbling drunk into an old sewer, sleeping on ****, ******* in my sleep, waking up smelling stale like ammonia, car accident, fighting the guy who hit us because he called Josey a *****, pop slamming me into the refrigerator, me knocking him unconscious, levelling a knife on him once, fighting everybody, feeling like life was a fight, like i couldn't trust nobody. Even my new friends, brought beef to my house, a kid brought him and a whole bunch of other shaved-head ***** over in a jeep. I came outside with a butcher knife.
now i've got this flock inside of me,
because whenever I feel someone talking ****,
i just want to fight,
just want to react.

I hold all the good things inside of me
deep within,
even the little lambs
with pink, innocent lips
who are suckling and hungry for the thing i was really missing:
love.
797 · Feb 2012
Koolaid
Waverly Feb 2012
I spike my Koolaid,
with *****,
and pour in
too many blue packets
until it is black and icy
and whales of clotted powder
bob at the surface.

I am trying to close this gap;

trying to bridge this form,
and break your reflection
hovering at my hips.

But
in weeks
or just a few days
I have lost you.

The carcasses float to the bottom.

I get drunk
and fall asleep
to a singing blue tv
calling me to the deeps.
795 · Apr 2012
Untitled
Waverly Apr 2012
I had so many purses
of night
that i couldn't sweat her.

I couldn't feel warmth
even in the embrace
satan
made
when he held me
in his sweater.

Hell could catch me for a thousand reasons,
I might be a sinner,
I might **** a man if need be.

But my heart
is made from a century
of hate.

A century of racism,
telling me that the white girl I loved,
was probably getting *****
when we ******
and made love
on the side.

So what can I say,
when I go on journeys
against Hades,
trying to pull life
from the depths
like Orpheus' stupid ***
couldn't do
for
Eurydice.

I'll never do it again,
this is where
the heart the begins.

In hell,
trying to make
sense
of the devil
and calling her
to make amends
for my sins
with girls
with a ***** smell like vanilla.

Blandness is a disease,
I can **** a thousand of them
with ease.

Ease is the son
of lazyness
and I've gotten careless.
792 · Jan 2012
Yukimi.
Waverly Jan 2012
Man I hate when a girl gets in your head,
because she stays there,
just squats
on your hypothalamus.

But even more than that
she takes over the left side of your brain;
sleep
takes
awhile.

Sleep is no longer
inevitable.

When I start feeling a girl,
I feel her hard,
and I feel her jumping
on my brain for fun,
even though she doesn't know it hurts.

**** my heart,
she'll make her way down there
soon enough.
787 · Apr 2012
NO Thing.
Waverly Apr 2012
We rise,
on ocassion,
to drink the blood
of our brothers.

The original vampires
drink the blood of youth,
and bring about the
wandering
and
ill-placed
musings
of old age.

With bitterness
we control our own destinies,
it is not fate
that is cynical with luck,
it is us,
cynical because of fate.

When we take control,
finally
in the last days of men,
we will see compassion
for what it really was,
the Jesus,
the salvation,
the temptation
that we never wasted
our energy on.

I still think
that demons crowd the plains
of our thought,
like gazelles
waiting to be gorged upon.

Demons
keep us down,
keep us in the waterfall
of stupidity
and
self-loathing.

Don't look back,
the demons take control then,
they hold sway
when the juries of our souls
let them talk
without consequence.-
784 · Mar 2012
Untitled
Waverly Mar 2012
the heart is not an easy
thing
to
devour.

The black of darkness
is a black
that's not easy to conquer.

And you have
brought troops
with superior artillery,.
784 · Dec 2011
The Trap.
Waverly Dec 2011
Remmel's
pocket smelled
like armpit,
and his switchblade
felt good
and heavy
near his thigh.

The air was humid with
passing rain
and asphalt
and he pulled out a Marlboro
and stuck it
to chapped lips.

A flood of water
hammered the gutters.

And the grass he stood on
was an island.

A flash of light rolled around the corner.
Two glimmering beacons
riding up on him.

Rolling slow.

The windows were all blacked out
and sheened in a perfect
reflection of orangeish streetlights.

Remmel put his hands in his jeans,
his white boxers
pin-striped in orange
bars.

He'd come out the house without a shirt, and
his black *******
got hard as lead in the new wind.

He licked his lips.
As the car rolled up,
a murmur of bass
making the windows buzz.

He put his hands on the hood
feeling the buzz go through him
warm and tickling
as he leaned into the car.

He checked up and down the street,
and finally squared on his reflection
in the black glass
seeing nothing but
the shaking
green God of himself
about to create.
780 · Jan 2012
Thanks for the Cable.
Waverly Jan 2012
Sometimes you wonder
how things can get so ****** up,
this happens
whenever it's about time for you to come home
and I'm watching Sportscenter.

Bodies flashing across the screen.
Commercials.
People cheesing over paper towels so hard they could be having aneurysms.
More bodies moving faster than I'll ever move.

Just bodies.

I loved you so much, I thought about you all the time;
just hot with you.

now when you unlock the door
around 6 in the afternoon
and walk in jingling all your annoying jewelry
you sniff at me, audibly, as you huff to your room.

But I'm watching you like a tiger,
out of the periphery;
you're just a body to get by and get through.
777 · Sep 2012
Untitled
Waverly Sep 2012
Travelling down a broken, dark highway,
delight bending.

Cops pulsing behind us,
in the rearview,
creamed by streetlamps;
the cars
whittle to bad stars behind us.

No hot humans allowed on the road
tonight,
and it's foggy in the dashboard,
the dictum of the reepers.
776 · Mar 2012
Writers.
Waverly Mar 2012
Write every chance you get,
there aren't many.

Write when you
have a quiet moment
by yourself.

Write when you
are
in
the
queue;
life is about waiting.

Write when you are in bed;
take your pen
and
close your eyes.

By morning
you will have forgotten
more poems than you have written
but
you will still be a writer.

Write when you are getting a haircut;
all that hair has a story.

Write while you watch a woman.

Write while you watch a woman
lugging a rolling suitcase.

Imagine what is in there,
what is so important to her
that she must roll it around
in the darkness?

If you get the chance,
write in New York.

New York is writers writing about writers.

Write when the
most
beautiful
girl
turns around
and
gives you
heaven.

Write because heaven is costly;
heaven is elusive.

Write because heaven is rich
and know that you will be there
again.

Write because of anyways, well-****-it-thens, and don't-call-me-ever-agains.

Write when there is nothing
to write about,
there is always something
to write about.

If your writing is ****
feel freedom
instead of
disappointment.

We ****
to make space
for
reason.
776 · Mar 2012
My Mother's influence.
Waverly Mar 2012
I have taken
too many shots today.

one.

two.

three.


four.




five.

And I was gone.

Cheap **** on my mind,
drunk as ****
at six at night.

I stay drunk.

And I hate myself,
so that's why
I stay drunk.

Where is the little marshall?

Where is that kid
full of romanticism,
and hope,
because my mom's
had me watching
the way we were
and
dance with me.

I tell girls the truth,
and I guess so many times
they've
heard
it
as the opposite.

But my heart is full of that ****,
full of taking in love
and on the assembly line
of my
arteries
trying to hold them,
protect women,
keep them from guessing,
becuase all along,
my romanticism
wasn't *******.

It was a process
of my mother trying to make me into a man
that wasn't him,
wasn't my father.

So yea,
my ****
may sound played and irregular
but me
caring for you
is nothing
but
regular.

I can't lie to a girl,
I can't fib
on my heart.

Because romanticism
has been there
from the
start.

My mother is to blame
for
my shotty game.

Game
is when you're trying to ****,
and
I can't knuck
with that.

I tell girls how I feel,
truthfully,
even if it sounds dupey.

This poem has turned into another love poem.
775 · Dec 2013
Midnight Tragedy.
Waverly Dec 2013
The ambulances scream all they want.
Sirens wail if they must,
Those sunset colors are killing her.

Let those angels hurtle down the highway
Gripping steering wheels with white knuckles,
screaming on their way to her.

They call out over their cb's
"We're five minutes out!!
Any casualties?!"

I lay sleeping,
In the nonsense of a dream
Thousands of miles away from the scene.

My body could not twitch
with the pain unknown;
My mind could not wretch
In ignorance;
My heart could not wither
Under the cover of nubile darkness.

But you lie there on the highway
a sideshow I feel so horrible about.

I felt no pain, didn't wake from my dream.

midnight tragedy you have taken my mouth.
774 · Feb 2012
Dear Kathryn.
Waverly Feb 2012
Hello Kathryn,

You left a message the other day,
I heard the phone ring,
but I didn't pick up;
didn't know how to talk to you;
or why you wanted to talk.

The **** was there to talk about?

I went to an estate sale;
big house,
big cherubs with their fat cherub hips and cheeks
and all that algae caked on their bodies
made them sick
on the front lawn.

I walked into someone else's house,
took what I wanted
and left.

Then I drove to the beach,
and I wanted you to be there,
so I could *******.

I wanted it to be a loud,
hard ****,
one that made me and you both
hurt,
one that made
my **** burn
and your cheeks blotchy,
one that made
you look at me differently
as you pulled your ******* back over your ankles,
slowly over your thighs
and quickly to your crotch;
One that made
your dress
some fabric
and your shoes
some soles;
one that made
you open the door
and just walk down the street
for a smoke
and some contemplation
about what kind of life
you were really leading;
the kind of life
where people sit in cars
and drink
and ****
all day.

I put the car in park.

The gulls sat on the dock,
raining **** on the water,
and I smoked half a pack,
just waiting.
768 · Apr 2012
For Our Fathers.
Waverly Apr 2012
What does a grown-*** man
do?

Does he wear a suit
and
tie?

Does he fish on the weekends?

Does he go to work in the morning,
and deal with constant pressures
on his head?

I think a grown-*** man
kicks his kids out
when
they're not acting correct.

I think he cries
when they sleep
in places that aren't home,
and scrounge
pennies
from their pockets
to get some Micky D's.

A grown-*** man
loves his life
because this is the only one he has
no matter
how
bad.

When he goes to work
he listens to jazz
because the trumpets
remind of him of his
baby's
gurgles
and
that child going hungry
isn't an option.

His wife and him fight
because he thinks she's not
raising the kids right,
when she really is,
but he's really got fear in his heart,
the good kind,
the kind that makes him compassionate
when he kisses his
baby daughter's
lips
before the sun has come up.

When I think of a grown-*** man
I think of my father,
even when he's ****** up
to the nth degree
and I can say I love him
because he is the tree
and he has carefully
tended my plot of earth
even when he dealt with a dearth
of love.
767 · Jan 2012
Yukimi.
Waverly Jan 2012
"People
.characterize themselves in relationships
like idiots,
all they do is refer to themselves
as 'We' and 'Us'.
That's ******* stupid.
Love is the most
individual
thing
any human being
can take part in.
It's much more selfish.
There's no altruism
in love. Only the selfish survive
in love."

"That sounds bad,"
I say.

"No,
It's good,
so good,
that means
that when I tell you I love you
it's because I do,
not because I feel pressured
to be a part of this 'We'
or
'Us.'"

"Love is being
able to be
this candid."

I think of videos
of big-haired moms
dropping birthday cakes
on the birthday boy
or
dad tripping
over the bride-to-be
as she falls for seven minutes
in a dress as long
as the beanstalk.

I think about this candid
scene.

How stupid
and bizarre
you and I could look,
but how 'we' don't.

I now realize how hard it is
to not use
'We'
in these situations.
766 · Feb 2014
Nostalgia.
Waverly Feb 2014
Today is a day,
for nostalgia;

For the reaper to finally and momentarily be
beaten.

Even in all of his infinite wisdom,
in which the past becomes just a laugh,
and the lurid poisons of our love,
have the shallow touch of a feather.

When the snow begins,
we relive all those duldroms,
all those meaningless nothings
seemingly so meaningful and wrong,
long ago.

We retell our stories,
silently,
to ourselves,
feeling less bitter as the words
litter our minds,
powdering the pain,
and covering with joy,
our sorrow.

In dementia,
they say,
our love goes stronger every day.

Grows newer
in old ways.

I hope to be like you someday.

Today,
we will beat the bitter sandpaper of tomorrow,
that which rubs away our definition with every brutal blow,
with the soft tapping of our fingers
against our skulls.

Puzzling over what made us beautiful and purposeful,
instead of what crowds against us like a box,
instead of what destroys us like a skipping cd,
instead of what sings against our mind like a harpy
with it's constant verses of regretfulness
that grow stronger with every fatal flaw
we rehash in ourselves.

once more,
you will be as beautiful to me today,
as that swirling suffocation.

I watch you fall outside my window,
covering each and every lichened rock,
in a linen of newness.

In silence,
I stop listening for the return of your love,
and instead marvel in the present satisfaction,
that you are,
and were.

I revel in your presentness,
in the swiftness of your presentation.

In the delicacy of your touch,
and the humility you drive me too,
as you take me too my knees with
each
quiet
drop.

And yes,
you will melt.

And yes,
I will remember.

And yes,
I will see the snow melt,
driven away by the erosion of the sun.
764 · Feb 2012
Killing Time.
Waverly Feb 2012
For instance,
I could just stop
right now,
and dress like a thief,
or take everything
and
drape myself
in mauve robes.

Sing your praises,
wish me a good demise,
empty those heavy bags
full of treasure
and drench the world
in silence.

Oh, I could see it now,
if I tried,
I could see it now,
if I tried.

The velvet quadriceps
and thighs,
the spindly fingers
and their amber warmth,
the tiny crimson tongue,
and it's legs striding across my chest
in conquest.

But then,
I am not stupid.

I am an instance;
a t-shirt flapping
on the clothesline
with all its infant sounds.
764 · Feb 2012
Untitled
Waverly Feb 2012
I love my mother
like the prodigal son,
she introduced me
to activism,
and where I'm at now
I can't release it,
even as we went
to the Lincoln Homes and Estates
to set up computers,
to give people that look like me
a chance.

I remember the older
dudes would tell me
to keep my head up
even when I was down.

There is a heart
in
"da hood"
as the white people
around me put it.

There are fathers
pushing strollers.

There are mothers
making it
against all odds.

There are families
decreasing,
but
increasing.

There are computers
full with words
and poetry
and novellas.

There are black children
picking up books
more than guns.

Picking up basketballs
more than guns,
and why should they be
labeled
as less intelligent?

****,
they just want to get
out
and achieve
and it's wrong
that you say that's the wrong way.

I hate going to funerals
for faces
with cheekbones still heavy
with baby fat.

And don't love me
for telling you this,
don't love me
for being that "black guy
that talks about problems
in the ghetto,
da hood!"

Change it,
go there,
help people,
hand out books
to children.

There is nothing scarier
than ignorance.
764 · Aug 2012
Another Love poem.
Waverly Aug 2012
There is a
home
someplace
for you, peopled
by the niceties
of a lot of time.

You don't have to fear,
this is heaven,
we are gold there.

Don't tumble
in your covers.

Sleep, child,
there is dessert
in your dreams,
and you can tangle with the spider-women
later.

But,
mother goose,
I do.

I do tangle with them,
their loving arms
embrace me,
and their mandibles make my flesh scream.

I hope I dream a dream
so beautiful
that it destroys earth,
and god,
and heaven,
and you.

I hope the spider-women
come to you at night,
lowering themselves into your bed,
and whisper into your head:
"this is nothing,
this poison shall pass too,
in heaven,
you will be free."

as they say lastly,
"I am your saviour,"
while sinking their fangs baring sleep
into your soft neck.
764 · Jun 2014
A Prayer
Waverly Jun 2014
No one to hold my fears.
No sanctity for my tears.
When I cry, it goes deep
into my system, lays down
beside my visions; oils my dreams, powers the machine
of my body.

God
allow me the strength to survive,
to strive,
to struggle,
to climb, to love,
to live a breathless life.

Even though I feel
sadness, I know
it wells from a good place
in my soul.

Uncomfortable without my tears.

So,
I may not be a blaster,
or a boxer,
or a firefighter,
but I've learned
to control my explosions,
take my punches when they come,
and let my eyes fall
to water the fires
that lick on all sides.
760 · Mar 2012
My Carlo.
Waverly Mar 2012
I want a Monte Carlo
with woodgrain
that drips
lacquer
like liquid
metal.

How sweet is the sound
of droplets
of wetted desire
and my chucks
dotted
by the bark
of a melted,
condensed,
glossed
and
digital
earth.

My Alpine's
make bus-drivers nervous,
with their hallways
full of a thousand faces,
staring down
at me
as I crack holes
in the concrete
big enough
for a squadron of buses
to fall into.

My Carlo
should have two things
in bunches,
it should have
the smell of a woman.

The smell of her
stale mouth
that lets loose fumes
in grated vents.

The Carlo's
smell should rattle me
like fences
that jingle when I brush against them.

Secondly,
my Carlo
should
be serious
and black.

All black.

I want my Carlo to have
opals for headlights
like the smeared *** of a firefly
or the eyes
of a panther.

My Carlo should be so beautiful
that it takes me back to the forest,
to the forge,
to the hotel,
to the hospital,
to the altar,
to a place of peace so loud
that I could take it between my fingertips
only to break it in a purr.
758 · Jan 2012
Yukimi.
Waverly Jan 2012
Bacon.
Eggs.
Cheese.
Bits
of
chicken parts.
Lion
teeth.
A feather
from a king's headdress,
given to you
because you told him
"Isn't this just a stupid ritual?
I was just wondering that."

I like the way your fingers tighten
around my fingers
when you talk
and I happen to be close by.

It's funny,
this poem was supposed to be about
breakfast,
going to the zoo,
and going to see the "Mayans"
and their stupid
fake kings.

We are becoming
a
very
stupid people.
757 · Feb 2012
Memories.
Waverly Feb 2012
I will add a poem
of love.

I will tell
you
in words,
that missing you
is the deep end
of the pool.

The part
I can forget,
and not
forget.

Jump with me.

Run around the water
with me
and my black heart.

Teach me
about torture methods.

I remember you
in the things you said,
like teaching me
about the flying eagle,
and I remember it
when I'm playing basketball
and cant get you
out of my head.

Trust me when I say that
I'm not a mongrel.

Trust me
when I say
what is on my heart,
and it may sound feverish
or
even
part of my game.

But it's true
and simple
like my heart.

I want to supply
the distinction
of the world.

I want to be your bench,
sit down on me
tell me what's going on,
because I'm so selfish,
so much do I relish
in your remembrance.
757 · Jan 2012
Yukimi.
Waverly Jan 2012
I never put
eggs
in my ramen noodles
to boil
before.

Never
let the yolk
break
and
dissolve
like cells should.

I never even thought
about Eggs
and Ramen noodles
in the same
sentence.

What's next?
You gonna tell
me
we can have four course meals for dinner if we just
try
and
believe?

God, Yukimi.

God Yukimi
give me some of your new morals.
754 · Apr 2012
Love in a City.
Waverly Apr 2012
A moon-shaped belly button
full with sweat
where i hung my tongue



where did you put that
poem i gave you?



I think you tucked it somewhere
in your bra,
and let the ink run
over your skin
that day it was too hot
for shirts.

You sat by the a/c
in your *******
and sweated out every
sin that god ever
created.



Right below our apartment
were the subways filled with people
in the tunnels where
the heat made the people want
to strip down to nothing.



I don't have to tell you about that day,
but i want to just in case I forget
and forget this final *******,
not to you,
but to those
underground rumblings
and tiny teeth of electricity
that flitted up through our bones

as though we were just tracks

of steel.

This love
was the thing running us over
grinding our skeletons
out to a mechanic thinness.



the day we said goodbye
we said it
with middle fingers.
754 · Mar 2012
I want to get out of this.
Waverly Mar 2012
Gnat
really did love me,
she cooked soup when I was sick
and came over
and listened as I told her flu stories,
I held her
as she cried over lost loves,
We glistened
in the sun
as we laid in the sand
of a contaminated lake,
she put her hand on my ****
like she was holding
love in her hands,
and I played in her pelvis
like a child, innocent
of anger and resentment,
so many of the lies
that we attribute
to adult relationships
occur
after love.

I hate that Gnat and I
no longer talk,
hate that she can't make me
pancakes in the morning,
or that I can't put blueberries
in her waffles.

I bumble down the street
to get some Wild Turkey,
remembering her last call,
our last talk.

It'll be ok,
she's gone
and I can find
place-holders.

This will be easy,
right?

Love is easy,
right?

Heartbreak is easy,
right?

But it's not,
it hurts like nails
in my forearms and palms.
749 · Dec 2011
My Father.
Waverly Dec 2011
The
eggs crackle and ****.
I stand over them
a
god.

My son
used to write me poems
when he
was little.

Poems about
how much he loved me.

Now
he's 21.

And I leave his Christmas gifts
wrapped hurriedly
on the
dining room table.

I turn off the range.

Ladle the eggs
in between
two slabs
of toast.

Zip up my track suit.

The gym is always open
even on Christmas
for a few hours
as the fried whites
hang out
of the sides of my sandwich
floppy
like
dog ears
and my son
sleeps
to find
the soft bundles
and a quiet
house.
745 · Dec 2011
Morbid Truth.
Waverly Dec 2011
Last night
I had a dream
that
a kid pulled a Mossberg
out of his black
Jansport.

Pulled it
out by its ears
and flashed
its shining
black pelt in my direction.

He let loose
two
thumping shots.

No pain,
no nothing.

Just a dull, pushing thump in my chest.

Death will come to me one day, and it will be like magic.

I will exist,
and then stop existing.

I woke up this morning crying,
because in the evaporation of a dream
I came out of it
sweating, shaking, hot,
and
knowing death was close.
743 · Feb 2012
Tornadohead.
Waverly Feb 2012
My mind is a tornado,
trash whirls in the attic,
temperaments
change
and
rain
like mercury falling through the cracks.

Little pools of glass
shimmer
and then vibrate madly
in my ears.

Where is that ******* riff,
whimpering up the scales?
where is that glacial voice
that used to break
in my ears?
741 · Feb 2012
Anger.
Waverly Feb 2012
Lord Forgive me,
I have talked about love,
I have talked
about love,
I have broken commandments
on my skin,
I have killed a thousand
dogs
in my mind,
I put arsenic
in Jesus' cereal,
I placed myself
at the center
of the world
and lit a match,
I have put my heart
in precarious positions
and called women
demons,
I have stolen $3,000
from my family:
credit cards
maxed out,
private stashes,
blacked out,
I even asked my own momma
for a few dollars
for something to eat
when you know where
I went; how I fed myself,
Lord Forgive me,
Lord
*******.
Lord Forgive me
for ******* the You
in Me,
no born-again **** here,
I'm just placing a collect call
out to the galaxies,
please accept the charges.
733 · Jan 2012
Hope.
Waverly Jan 2012
"What do you want for breakfast?"

"Blueberry pancakes."

And she got out of bed,
tapped me on the neck with her lips,
a good love tap,
and walked out naked to the kitchen
her *** and quads just bouncing
and beautiful.

I could see her in the kitchen,
all of her,
and i rolled over to her side,
where her pillow was,
took a long drag
of her smell,
and just passed out.

She woke me up
and I dipped blueberries
and fluff into lakes of syrup
and we watched TV and laid together
for a while.

Just close to each other.

I worked on her car the whole day,
changed her oil,
plugged a blown gasket,
and came back in when the streetlights
were starting to flicker on
And that Saturday
I got to lay down with her the rest of the night
and we were realistically happy.

What I really think it was,
was that
our dreams,
when we allowed them to,
coincided
beautifully.
730 · Dec 2011
Young and Useless.
Waverly Dec 2011
Whenever I come home,
I think about Ellie.

There's a gym
right beside the community pool.

The gym is small.
The pool is glassy.

I think about us
bumping each other
in that unbalancing
green pool slime,

*******
in the most ugly
and lame way
in the purple darkness.

While I run on the treadmill,
I think about
how young
and useless we were.
729 · Mar 2012
To Nowhere.
Waverly Mar 2012
Her voice is sweeter than its path.

With so many berry leaves latticed
into the chain-link fence,
it sounds like millions of feathers
tinkling.

Her eyes are in Arizona,
in impacted zones of clay knuckles
punching their way outwards
into the redwood bone of the earth.

Her smell is wet limestone; baked apples; hungry petunias.

And the sound they make is a train,
a reveille
moving away.

Heather tells me about a recent trip to Los Angeles;
about forms of travel
that don't move on tracks,
where there is no discernable distance.

I tell her I have been here all along;
I know where you have been
and how you sound there.

I know the heathers of the world
by the berry in your mouth.
729 · Feb 2012
Smokey vigils.
Waverly Feb 2012
He went home
to a candle light vigil.

There were tiny jars of light
and a picture that flickered
leaning against the leg
of a bench.

He was part of a group
holding other lights
and there were those
in hoodies or wraps or badly put-on makeup,
and they were were quiet,
or quietly crying
in the smelling cold.

Some were in the curb,
or on the road,
or leaning
on each other,
shoulder to shoulder,
arm on shoulder;
and it was foggy
and the streetlights
burned in the fog
like it had just rained.

The picture couldn't say another word
and there was no emotion left,
to stand, or sit, or kneel,
or pray,
there was just a village
stranded.

Life is an array of lights
that burn against pictures.
There are too many
smokey days.
729 · Nov 2013
Untitled
Waverly Nov 2013
In the alcoves I hunt for mystery
and pleasure. Seeking your joy. I hope
to break you to the core,
and make you crumble to all my love.
Id hope your days are perforated silences,
my voice a trickle of whiskey.
I treasure your absence,
thinking to myself, with a cigarette.
I sip down evan williams
Pretending not to hurt,
but with a hurricane
your surge through me.
727 · Jan 2012
Yukimi.
Waverly Jan 2012
I hate going
to clubs
where people just stand around
with beers in their hands,
laughing and sleezing
under the revolving eye
of the strobe sun.

I gotta dance on a girl.

I gotta feel her hips
underneath a velvet miniskirt;
her legs
all soft
and microscopically
prickly.
726 · Apr 2012
Untitled
Waverly Apr 2012
My drunk dreams
are astounding.

I wake up
at four
in the am.

have a smoke.

Then go back to sleep,
still tipsy.

Judy Greer
makes it to the farthest
reaches of my imagination,
and I must save her
from
a
man
with a hundred
groping hands.

A girl with a spirit
full of the ripest sunrises
in their peaches,
pinks
and plums
must be told
that it is ok
to be this sad
in the morning.

When there is no reason,
and night is crying
over
its demise.

I must take her from the sky,
to take her to my bed,
where we lay naked
having never ******,
but because it's much easier
to tell the truth
when skin is touching.

It is much easier
to feel human,
when you are touching
them
unadulterated.

I must rescue
the world in my dreams,
I must eradicate
disrespect
and
cat-calls.

I am the defender
in my dreams.

Why is it that I dream of saving women,
because I have been told
to do so?

Or because
I am doing what comes natural?

Or maybe
I am just hurt,
and when I am hurt,
I want to save people.
725 · Jan 2012
Yukimi.
Waverly Jan 2012
Smelly house party.
Smelly people.
Beers got tipped over.
Loud people
yelling
happily
all over the house.
And we just stayed in that
corner
all close
and kissing.

The fake tree right beside us
glittered with christmas lights
all night long.

Your eyes burned
and twinkled
giving life.

I didn't want anyone else
to ever see
how reflective
you can be.

"YUKIMI!"
someone yelled.
"THAT'S SO GROSS MEYER,
GO SOMEWHERE ELSE
WITH THAT ****,
YOU TWO ARE GONNA START *******
OVER THERE."

THEY FORGOT US
AFTER THEY SAID IT
AND WE
KISSED
DRUNK
UNTIL WE WOUND UP IN A CAB.
WOUND UP SMUSHED TOGETHER IN THE BACK
KISSING MORE AND MORE;
LIPS JUST STUMBLING FOR REST.
WOUND UP BUMBLING UP THE STAIRS.
WOUND UP IN THE APARTMENT.
WOUND UP TAKING EACH OTHER'S CLOTHES OFF.
WOUND UP KISSING NAKED ALL NIGHT LONG.
wound up closer than clowns in a cannon.
we were hot all night long.
woke up sweating.
woke up feverish.
woke up with more love to give,
after puking
and brushing
teeth.
721 · Sep 2012
Untitled
Waverly Sep 2012
I put you
over my shoulder
like a spooled
rope.

Twisted too many
directions,
a little tug
and you might go
anorexically
thin;

too taut for me
to yank anymore.

And when you come to me
drunk,
a *****
of yelling,
I think of those times
when we sat close together,
barely touching.

In those days,
we were both drunk
and bitter over forever.

Beers chased liquor
over steeples;
we dropped dimes of pain
over smoked ****
and bleeding anger.

Time languored,
and eventually
or anger
stymied.

When you cried
twisted beyond
compare,
I held you close,
sniffed your hair.

People hurt each other because they can,
and we lay
on a mattress of your canned hopes.

I would never be a prince charming,
even when I groped
you;
when we were tossing each other,
fighting like ghosts do:
bad jabs,
quiet knives,
softer moans.

So, I curled you
over me;
beneath my earlobe,
as your whistled tears
drained energy.

Our synergy was syphoning
each other's
pain;
coiling nooses around our hearts
and kicking out the chairs
holding up our underneath souls.
Waverly Dec 2011
"Mane, that girl's so fine,
I think
I might **** her," Heck laughs.

I don't know how the conversation
dawdled
to this.

I don't know where we came from.

But it's here now.

The bones are loose,
the mind is loose,
the lips are loose.

And we end up saying things
without knowing
that we're saying them.

We here ourselves talk,
and the hurt
is numb.
Sometimes i wonder about the inner-workings of the human soul. But Heck is not an evil person. And he would never **** a girl. But it was said. And I still love him, because he's my homie and he's been there through it all. But I just want to shake the soul of man sometimes. Just to wake the soul up to its own drunkeness.
715 · Feb 2012
the Tributary.
Waverly Feb 2012
Nat called me,
said,
"I missed it."

Skyscraper to the sky,
hit me
hard,
rushed through my body
in a light year.

So bugged out,
I puked,
right there,
on the receiver.

"Are you ok?"

"Imma be fine."

But I wasn't,
I'll tell you how scared I was,
I was scared
of breaking her face
open
on the side of a sofa,
afraid of my father,
afraid
of just up and leaving,
being the father's
some of my friend's
fathers had become
awaiting the same fate
for them,
afraid of being my father,
afraid of over-eating
and taking up all the food
in the world,
afraid of being my father,
afraid
of
this being something
that would define
me
at age 18.

Afraid of being my father
but way younger
with the insanity of fear.

Nat got it
a week later,
but it still ***** me up,
because now
I think about the baby
that almost was,
because I think about the
father
I could've become,
the kind
that loves
his
child.

The kind
that doesnt' hurt the baby
and the woman
that birthed a new God;
the kind that is a channel
away from the tributary
and all the things
the tributary
could never be..
No structure, confessional.
715 · Mar 2012
Untitled
Waverly Mar 2012
You could take
thunder apart
with your teeth.

Lightning
doesn't know
the light
of
your
mouth.

When we finally talked again,
me and Gnat
were cordial.

I was finally happy
that she
was
happy.

She said,
"I really am in love this time."

And it felt good
because
I'd known she'd finally
found it.

And that the verses
of my poetry
couldn't reach her,
like the symphony
of the exquisite
symphony
of his
could.

I love Gnat,
because
she is in love
and
happy.

I find happiness
in the fact
that a girl
I constantly ****** over
is now in for the ride of her life;
a ride full of ups and downs
highs and lows,
but a love
that can resist
a rollercoaster.

I am finally happy for the love
of my life,
and they don't tell you in the movies
that you can be happy for the love of your life
when they're in love
and staring down the
barrel of eternity
not thinking of it as a gun
but
thinking of it as true
real
love.

And that's what Gnat has.

And I'm so happy.
714 · Jun 2012
Night of the Living Dead.
Waverly Jun 2012
I decide it's better to live like a hang glider,
to look down at rivers
snaking towards hips.

Better to hold handlebars
like cold lips.

Better to take the tongue to teeth,
than try to guess what's
in her coffee.

I'll be high
in the morning;
still a speck in her eyes,
as she pukes in the Cheerios
and tells me not to look
because it's unbecoming.

But I've seen her puke when
we're watching the Dog Whisperer.

She'll be staring up at me

and I know
that
she'll
be thinking about hanging a motherfuker
with a tight rope pulled
from a trapdoor
hinged by her
lavender *******.

Let me fall to the earth
through that opening.

Crush me
with the nails
that hold you together.
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