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 Nov 2016 tc
dye
IX. Vices
 Nov 2016 tc
dye
we were inside a gazebo
alone together
with salt caramel beer on our hands
and sticks of nicotine
to syncopate our life spans
to fill the dead air,
you thought it was a great idea
to talk about our vices
you asked me why
i drink and smoke
i told you that
***** is like my own personal body of water
my ocean,
my river,
my stream,
my sea,
my dead sea
where i could either sink or swim,
even float effortlessly
and i only smoke when
heaving a sigh is not enough
i threw the same question right back at you
and you said
you have always been a sucker for winning
so you drink to outdrink
and smoke to outsmoke
your buddies
but most of the time, yourself

we may have different reasons
but we both agreed that
we are at our sanest when we are at our drunkest

you gave me another bottle
and asked me if i was  
up for a challenge

i nodded at you
and that's the last thing I could remember
 Nov 2016 tc
scully
love is patient
love is kind.
it does not envy
it does not boast
love is virtuous and accepting
and whole
it is not angry
nor malicious
nor ill tempered or weak
loving someone
however you hear these words
is not written in textbook
it takes forces far greater than those printed on paper
it takes forces far greater than love alone
human progression is not overshadowed
or exempt of love
it is not absent
nor negligent to its person
love is recovery
love is healing
love is not a cure to the ones who experience it
ask them,
they will tell you.
their love has bursts of anger
moments of temptation
it has ill temperament
it has anger
it is boastful and envious
it has weakness
love is expansion
it is movement and growth
it is acceptance of envy
acceptance of weakness
loving someone is a full time job
it is not pure in nature
it is not the romantic era poets
it is full of lust
and anger
it is selfish
it is not a cure
it is an extension, not a necessity
it is not exclusive or inclusive to growth
it is something no book can teach you;
you must learn through experience
that love takes far more complicated emotions
than just love
 Nov 2016 tc
scully
vermillion
 Nov 2016 tc
scully
i fall asleep under brilliant greens and buzzing bees
and wake under a dying tree.
red tears fall around me and land next to fingertips
ladybugs crawl over my knees and find a home in the straw.

what once was filled with life has become quiet,
the sky sends apathy in place of the sun,
i wish that the wind would
speak softly and say you are safe in the pace the earth has set up;
push away my pieces gently
in the way it taught the sea so many years ago.

while we were trying to see who could hurt worse,
the world spun in circles like a child on a playground.
the seasons changed without us,
and the wind pushes and pulls you away like the tide,
it gathers your pieces and tells you you are safe without me.

the equinox spins backwards and
i am cultivated to the place where we decided that enough was enough.
my roots spread and break through the painful words we
planted in each others ribcages

i fell asleep under brilliant greens and buzzing bees
the flashlight flickers of tiny bugs
long, dazed evenings where the sun falls in slow motion;
and woke permanent to the comatose forests.
you left,
you took the vitality of the cosmos with you,
the wind pushes past me,
scatters me,
tells me,
*look around you
it is slow; it is rusting, flushed
it is flaming.
he set the world on fire when he left you,
do what he has taught you.
create from the ashes he has left you,
and you will make yourself safe.
 Nov 2016 tc
scully
i will write every time i miss you
i will choke out words and mix this feeling into permanence
i will listen to the blackness of the sky when it speaks to me
like it always has
before you,
after you,
this time, do not forget what he has done to you.
it is not your fault that you mistake pain for love
but untangle the wires
do not forget how this feels.


i will write every time i miss you
i will tell the world how i am feeling
i will tell them which i fear is worse-
the emptiness you have carved out of me,
feeling every bone in my ribcage expand and contract with my breathsounds,
versus the way i let you
the way i laid in place and pretended it did not hurt

i will write every time i miss you
i will exist openly and let the world understand how much i am feeling
because if i don't have a course of action every time
a wave of you washes over me
i will fall into the comfort it reminds me of
i will manipulate the skies until the stars spell out i forgive you

i will write every time i miss you
so you can read the damage you have done
and understand that with every word i write
with every second i do not come back
i almost do
 Nov 2016 tc
dye
iridescence
 Nov 2016 tc
dye
the sky bled pastel;
the angels must be stabbing
each other again.
 Oct 2016 tc
Pea
my fingers are your eyelashes
they long to dance, yearn for the fall
you bat them, i follow
how attachment kills the most
insanitary are the fingernails i grow

ssshh
listen
there is something pouring
to the rhythm
what's that liquid doing between
mirage and insanity
Honey is what I see
 Oct 2016 tc
Pea
three notes
suffocate me to death
white curtains and windows
the sound is coming in
wind blowing as if pigeon post
drive me nuts
there is nothing
between the lines

heart thumping like heavy machinery
over and over and over and over and ov
 Sep 2016 tc
Tom Leveille
ground zero
i become aware of boundaries
i am a dog chasing cars
i sing your voicemail to sleep
there are no surgeon general warnings
to tell me that
the objects in the mirror
are more depressed than they appear
so how do i tell you
that there are parts of my life
that move slower
without you in them?
or that i look for you every day
in emails & unanswered calls
in the sunrises
i didn't choose to be awake to watch
that i sometimes still stare at doorways hoping you would walk through them
   *stage 1
you tell your new lover you've got a splinter and they pull the sound of your body falling asleep on mine out of your fingertip
   stage 2 your new lover says something at dinner that makes you choke so they call 911 & the paramedics do the hymleich not knowing you would ***** our promises all over the the restaurant
   stage 3 your new lover surprises you by cleaning the house & washes the shirt you kept next to the bed, not knowing it was the last thing you had that smelled like me
after
people always ask
what was loving her like?
after a really long silence
i just say
"it must be nice"
but i never say
it's watching paint dry
i never say
it's a window seat in hell
i don't tell anyone
about the dreams
where i am reading you
bedtime stories
each one is a different way you die
& every time i can never save you
dreams where what i think
are angels in my bedroom
are just homeless versions
of myself you never loved
i have dreams
where i pay someone to shoot me
just to see if you would cry
just to see
if you would cradle my body
i don't tell people
that loving you is like
playing piano
for someone who can't hear
that it's hitting repeat
on my favorite song
& forgetting the words
every time it starts over
that it's finding out
there's no milk after you already
poured yourself a bowl of cereal
it's getting locked in the dark
& being told to
look on the bright side
that loving you is like
being reminded of what it felt like
the first time
you accidentally let go
of a balloon as a child
it's drowning without the water
it's the feeling you get
when you start to dance
& the song ends
 Sep 2016 tc
Tom Leveille
i don't watch home movies
hate them
reason being because
when i was young
i was looking for a movie
my mother
had recorded for me
and accidentally
put one in the vcr
that i'm not sure
i was supposed to see
i know the obvious response
"uh oh, ****"
sorry to disappoint
they were only marked with dates
  1991
on live television
montel williams asks my father
"how can you just throw
your child away like a piece of trash?"

   1994
i spend so much time
in the emergency room
that my parents stop
penciling in growth marks
on the frame
of my bedroom door
i always thought
it was because they believed
i would never grow out
of this sickness
sometimes i believe
the reason that they
never bought me a dream catcher
was because they never thought
i'd live long enough
to see them come true
   1996
i am eliminated
from a spelling bee
because i didn't know
the 'dad' is silent in 'family'
   2013
before i got into poetry
i used to do standup
none of my jokes were funny
one of the other comics
tells me my skits are dry
sometimes sad
he says "why don't you joke
about something like your family?"

so i say
"i never wore any sunblock
because i didn't want anything
to keep me from my father"

i say "what do you call christmas
without lights or heat?"

before he has a chance
to answer
i say "1997. better yet
why don't you
make like a dad and
leave"

   2014
every time we drive
past the hospital
my mother reminds me
how much it cost to save my life
like she'd rather
have her money back
she doesn't have to say
that sometimes she wishes
it was me who had died
instead of my brother
i can hear it in the way
she says "love you"
sometimes i imagine
that if i were to die
that she
would pick out a casket for a child
because she never loved
the person i became
yesterday i told my father
how close i'd been
to suicide lately
and he said
"that's my boy,
livin on the edge.."

and i can't remember
if i laughed
or cried
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