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Blackenedfigs Feb 2021
I think sometimes
about the thing lost
inside that bar bathroom stall

And about the blood
that had flowed effortlessly
in brilliant, shiny-red globs.

I said goodbye then—
to the accident I never wanted
or even knew existed.
Blackenedfigs Dec 2020
Take me back to a different hotel every night and living out of a suitcase. Getting comfortable in our naked bodies around each other; comparing breast size and stretch marks—examining ourselves like the men who’ve carelessly fondled us before for our likes and dislikes. Sharing a bottle of lukewarm tequila in the world’s smallest bathtub and then I sing you to sleep. Highway cars buzzing past and there’s only one road to get lost on, but we manage it every single time. Your car becomes a dressing room at gas stations where people stare with disapproving glares and worry for the safety of their wallets; because we don’t belong here but we laugh—still drunk from the early morning hours and just trying to find the next check-in spot for the night. There never is a real destination but home always seems too close and we both hate that part. It doesn’t feel right when it ends or when I have to crawl back into my own bed without a time frame to be out by in the morning—before the housekeeping maid comes banging on our door,
yet again.
Blackenedfigs Dec 2020
It is fascinating to listen to the world wake up in the morning. It’s as though everything is still and frozen in time that even the birds are hesitant to start their morning songs. But then suddenly, as the first stretch of daylight crawls across the lines and rows of rooftop houses, you can hear the whole Earth start up in stages. First the signaling of the distant trains, their own morning song in a way I suppose. Then the rest of the neighborhood follows suit in a chorus. Car engines rattle on to melt the ice off their windshields and they too, groan and moan not yet ready for the daily grind. I picture people sipping their coffee while their kids quickly and hastily brush their teeth to make it to school on time. The buses stagger in lines to greet them at their doorsteps. One by one the birds unruffle their feathers in the treetops and begin to rise in song. The streets that just lay undisturbed moments ago, pristine with a thin layer of 4AM dew, are now bustling with car exhaust and scurrying street cats who are simply trying to get out of the way. And you in the midst of your tossing and turning murmur something in your sleep and I wish I could lie here forever.
A lesson in prose poetry.
Blackenedfigs Dec 2020
The local convenience store dealers lean on glass windows with ****** pupils scanning the parking lot for any takers. I pump my gas on station four and spy from afar. Don’t make eye contact or that means you’re interested. No buyers yet. What do you suppose is on the menu for today? Judging from the amount of zombies I’ve seen pushing stolen shopping carts a block away from here, I’d say smack. Tar. Black. ******. Whatever they call it where you’re from. Welfare bodies withered down to just flesh hanging from bone, wandering around aimlessly for their next fix. I’ve only ever tried it once; I was curious and sad and it was there—in Violet’s hand and then in my lungs. Do you think my mother would cry out in those disgusting sobs of snot and heaves of not-being-able-to-breathe-tears if she knew? Do you think my sister would look at me with that glare of judgmental disapproval because yet again, here’s an example of why I’m the family ****-up? Do you think my father would smack me upside the head and call me a *******? Probably. And do you think my third and sixth grade teachers who told me I should one day do something with my writing would be gasping in disappointment? Definitely. The gas pump clicks off. A potential customer staggers across asphalt to meet his makers and I am no better than he is at this very moment.
A lesson in prose poems.
Blackenedfigs Jul 2020
M.
A drug
An inhale, exhale
I bend, you press
We hold and we lean

Through sweat and salty skin
His energy pulses through me
In momentous bursts
Of pain and pleasure

Uncertainty and unrequited love
Dance inside my womb
And flutter their wings to make their exit,
With the fragile whimpers of my breath

In a final act of exertion
And a careful execution of timing
Our performance comes to a euphoric end
And I fold back into myself,

Hoping to take a fragment of him
with me.
Blackenedfigs Jul 2020
We embrace;
I ask myself if I’m making a mistake
How can everything fit together so perfectly
Yet keep coming apart at the seams simultaneously?

You want me
So just say it.
This dance of “what if’s” that we keep practicing
Is not making either of us
Any better at our footwork.
Blackenedfigs May 2020
It is so strange
to see someone else
reliving one of your past lives,
spitting out the same words
you once spoke.
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