Ze phyrus: Favorites

Jul 2014 Ze phyrus

Flowers

Jul 2014 Ze phyrus

Joshua Haines

Flowers

I wanted to write a poem about flowers, so that's what I did.
It was short, expressed how I feel, and cut like glass.
I showed my father "Flowers" and he thought it was mediocre.
And I said, "No, "Mediocre" is the poem where I talk about dying,
and I'm trying to stay alive, so I wrote about flowers."

Flowers strangling soil plots with their roots, with their existence.
And to hurt something you love with your existence is a terrible feeling.

Jun 2014 Ze phyrus

Hormones, sewing, music

Jun 2014 Ze phyrus

Sansara Justinovich

Hormones, sewing, music

I was asked today "what
are you really into?"
while I was walking to film
class.

He had changed direction
with a flair of drama
and was walking along,
interrogating me.

I had to think.

I wondered how
I would answer his
question, were it posed
by someone I was interested in.

"I like the smell of hormones
colliding, omnipotent in their
decision to do so and in doing
it."

Could I say that?

"I like to feel like a hormone,"
or
"I like being a hormone."
Were these answers?

"I like patting my contracted
******* against the *****
majora of my partner."

"I like sewing," I might say.

That is, the idea
that if I push
and she opens
both testicles
and ******* may pop inside.

Like a **** needle pulling
a ***** thread
through a tight weave.

I laugh, imagining what the little man
would say, but
he doesn't know why.

"Stitch her up, Doctor!"

I'm
laughing.

He just says "you know, I'm into
chemistry, biology. Just tell me what
you're into."

I've been silent.
Is he still walking with me?

All I think to say is
"music" pointing to the earbuds
dangling over my chest, song
interrupted
by his pedantry.

He says "you've always liked music"
as if we've had this conversation before.
As if we know each other.
And it seems like he will follow me
to class.
And sit by me.
And talk about chemistry
and biology
while we discuss Singin' in the Rain.

Hormones, sewing and music.

Sep. 20. 2012

Jun 2014 Ze phyrus

Bipolar

Jun 2014 Ze phyrus

Sansara Justinovich

Bipolar

There is a new word describing me
type one, type two, type three
nothing is as it once seemed
brown bandages become red, ******
catheters go up my urethra
when I refuse to take your drug test
by accident.
I'm clean, now, clean and pure
I take Abilify to make sure
and remember that it's all an imbalance
and remember that everyone else is balanced
and remember that the whole ******* world is balanced
on a tether formed by gravity
gravity-- the severity of this situation-- is lost on me
and on that tether we all walk
unbridled by the weight of our bodies
we can shake all that makes us human
and pathologize every thought crime
every idea needs to be cleansed
with a catheter into the brain
we would be able to test it for drugs
and find that all I was high on was existence
and how terrible it is
that we will all die
but that shouldn't bother a doctor at all, now
should it.

MMXIII

Jun 2014 Ze phyrus

submissions to post secret

Jun 2014 Ze phyrus

Tom Leveille

submissions to post secret

kissing you was like swerving into oncoming traffic

i can never tell if i am more haunted by empty picture frames or the ashes of their contents

you taught me that the saying "pick your battles" meant not answering when love was at the door

sometimes when i drink whiskey i swear i can hear your voice in the creases of my bedsheets & i sleep on the floor

i still catch myself running my hands over things you touched the most, looking for the echoes of your fingertips

i practice things i'll never say to you

i remember the day you told me you didn't like poetry, how "everything's already been said" & how "nothing meaningful can be captured without being cliche" you know, i don't miss you like the sun and moon, i do not miss you like tide bent waves crashing on the shoreline, i miss you like a chernobyl swingset misses children

rumor has it that drowning is a lot like coming home, that drinking bleach can **** the butterflies in your stomach

for your love of cigarettes, i would have been an ashtray

this halloween i want to dress up as the you when you loved yourself and show up on your doorstep

i never understood what you meant when you said i was an instrument, back when you would cup your hands around my chest and breathe through the holes in my heart, i still wonder if the sounds i made remind you of wind chimes

i never paid much attention to abandoned buildings until i became one

in my dreams all the flowers smell like your perfume

i am the only person who has ever wished for the same snowflake to fall twice

if i could go back, and rewrite the definition of audacity, it would be how when we lost the bet of love, you said "we never shook on it"

i love you, if the feeling is not mutual, please pretend this was a poem

the only apology i want from you, is to have you repeat the names of children we will never have in your parents living room until they *****

we are the same person if you find yourself up at 4am dry heaving promises, or if you are kept awake by the laughter of those who've abandoned you

nobody ever told you that goodbyes taste like the back of stamps

sometimes i'm convinced that the only reason we hug, is so you can check my back for exit wounds

— The End —