Claire Elizabeth

Claire Elizabeth Jan 2021

Yet

not all love is good love
yet
it's love, nonetheless

Claire Elizabeth Jan 2021

/Tracks/

i am the sawdust/sticking to the crevices of the garage floor

i am the smell of evergreen and cedar chips/on the wet air of the woods

i am the reflection of tail lights/flashed in the rutted puddles

i am the sound of train horns/riding eddies of cold winter air

i am a midwest city sleeping/halted still in its big tracks

i am the fog/floating in the dusk of the street lamps

i am the lightning and the thunder/crawling over the bluffs of loess and trees

i am the damp basement walls/steeped in summer

i am the heady nostalgia/filling lungs with ache and contentment

Claire Elizabeth Oct 2020

The Jealousy

it's almost time to explain The Jealousy to you
the spiteful selfishness that pools in my eyes

i hoard the love i am given because it is the love i don't have for myself

Claire Elizabeth May 2020

The World's Best Friend

He's tired. His eyes tell us when he watches us.
His tail goes every once in a while. But he's tired.
Over the years his body started to betray him. First his eyes, his ears, his hips. Then his bones decided to adorn his frame more prominently, his spine a mountain range, his ribs canyons.

He's tired. His naps in the noontime are his specialty, his days of chasing rabbits submitted to dreams. His paws run from time to time. But he's tired.

He's tired. And now his body is telling us. He sways when he walks and sighs as he sleeps. Sometimes he groans when he stands up and clatters when he falls. He's had thirteen years of sun-soaked days, cold weather play, of lively life. But he's tired.

He's tired. And I'll miss him for a while. But I'll be glad he isn't so tired anymore.

My dog isn't doing too well, and I think that today is the day.

Claire Elizabeth May 2020

Acquaintance

When these nights smother me
My past comes back in rivulets
Down my back, neck, through my hair like snakes and twine

I should be happy, no? Content, satisfied, full.
Never.

I've always questioned why my eyes get heavy when I plead them to look alive
And I've always wondered why my shoulders bear the weight of the past Millenium when I ask them to keep the present good company

I have an inherent gloom
And I suppose it's about time I come to make its acquaintance.

Claire Elizabeth May 2020

Mouth Aches

I write a lot about love and about the smell of rain. They go hand in hand, after all.
They both make my heart ache and my mouth water for something I don't yet have.

Claire Elizabeth Mar 2020

Though I Should

I am not in love with the one person I should be most in love with
We don't speak very often, and when we do, it's with guttural moans and soft cries
Late in the night, she peels away her curtain and stares at me through the mirror
Sometimes in the early hours, the misty golden hours, I pull her through my mouth and set her beside me
We listen to the sun rise, the dew rest, the sky yawn with a hand over its mouth
We sit there until the sky is more blue than pink and then I swallow her joint by joint until she settles into the bend of my ocular bone
I do not love her, though I should
She shifts around my insides and caresses the depths of me, makes me loathe the bits of me I can see, makes me loathe the bits I can't
I feel her in my chest most days, cupping her hands around the valves of my heart, making them ache even if she doesn't mean it
And I can't help but wish she was someone different, someone tougher, meaner, less romantic, someone more like me
But
She whimpers when I cry, she sighs when I curse, she squirms when I get angry with everyone and myself
She is not someone I can love

Though I should