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 Jul 2017
christopher kathy
it’s been a year now,
full of carbonation bubbles and they still spit and sting at my face
every single time that                                
i am fooled enough to look.

it’s been a year now,
full of termite-eaten wood but still
no evidence.
i don’t want reverence.
i want you to forget about me.

       even after all this time
       i thought i could escape this slime,
       maintain the years of my prime;
       i could throw up.

              to tell you the truth,
              no one has ever followed me
              this far
              before.
 Jul 2017
christopher kathy
went inside the hourglass to pull apart
the flakes of sand and what was found
inside had passed since the time
needed was just spent.

walked along the acrobats
and models so of course right now
there comes a gap to have to get across.

a rope swing can only break when it’s
       tugged too hard // cut by the stars
the veins down my arms have traveled
too far

but,
with a good shelter,
nothing seems so bad.
 Jul 2017
christopher kathy
I      
                  where has this happened before?
                    leave your shoes on at the door.

at the beginning
my lips were cold,
smothered down by an impending hold.
too scared to sing a song,
wouldn’t dream to sing along.
come dress up with me
take me outside
and dangle me over
your favorite waterfall.
i will drink from its rays
until they freeze up my pipes
and you fix them for me
without being asked.

                                                behind the sky
                                                 is your house
                         and you invite me every day

II

but i will never visit you
because you are not really here
and your soggy smile
gets me upset.
by coincidence we made a bet
that was intangible for you.
although i should confess, Father,
even before the time capsule
cell eroded to the surface
and laid the past out as a hostage.

                                         i never felt for you.
                                          i never liked you.
                                          i hate to admit it,
                                        i always lied to you.
                                        get away from you.
                                         get away from me.
                                           don’t come back
                                       until i can come back.
                                     i know it’s ******* you
                                  but it’s crushing me whole
                                 and now i’m blowing away
                                              and the holes
                                                   in the net
                                      are too big to catch me.

III

some days we can make it a game.
some days we microscope our pain.
wrap it up like bday presents
show it off like the pretty pheasants.

no that's a peacock
the boys are pretty
will i be pretty?

even though
it feels ******

i want to move somewhere woodsy
but i can’t go alone, oh
turn up the boom box
        so it drowns out the
SCREAM
                 ING
 Jul 2017
christopher kathy
happy years aren’t
hard to come by.
out of 365 days
there is bound to be 1
that is full of maggots,
and to take its place
later on down
there will be 10 more
that are full of progress.
 Jul 2017
christopher kathy
the rooms cultivate together
the walls fold into each other
try to save it for sunnier weather
but i am too impatient
too eager to get this splinter out
when plumes of toxic feelings sprout

how do you walk away
from the things that protect?
will it ever be the day
the tremors stop melting all the clay?
in my mind the rain stings
it melts into my pores
it triggers the thoughts of
things i once cared so much for
it helps me see
right now might not be how it is
eventually

one day soon
i will lie down in the tall grass
and call out for the bright
warm rays of the sun
to take me into their force
and keep me as warm as i need
to survive in a place that fire
cannot thrive.
 Jul 2017
christopher kathy
at the bottom of your hill
that sits along the oxygen you grow
i remember being pricked
by a thorny vine last winter.
just so you know,
i wasn’t there by myself.

the flower petals spill
to the ground all in a row
it felt like being kicked
in the stomach by a ram’s horn.

i cried and cried
when that lightning bolt took you down
and me, without a fortress,
and no place to shine my crown.

still waiting to build something
amazing again.
 Jul 2017
christopher kathy
one leaf left conjoined, on the
last tree in the entire world
that was planted not only in
the barren desert but also in the
midst of an eternal sandstorm
that ravaged and blinded any earthling
organism that was brave enough
to ask for a taste. except one man
was blind enough already, and his shaggy
gray dreadlocks shielded his weak spots
while he trudged on for miles in his
balaclava, listening for the wind
in the closest space to crack and give
a sign. and then there was the tree –
not flowing in the wind but solidifying
into stone as the clock struck
15,000 years and the leaf blew away and drained the secrets
from its roots and locked them
away for the Titans to find. the
man was 2,000 miles away, and he
had just run out of water in the
desert when he realized that the
shift was happening already. so he
laid down and packed the sand on
nicely and waited patiently for
the Titans to take him under and
ask him questions about life up
above.
 Jul 2017
christopher kathy
misty in the back yard
walking along the perimeter
socks getting soggy

it’s barely first light
peering on the horizon
still no I’m Sorry

the wind whips my face
i cry from the pain
on the soles of my feet
on this wire i’ll stay

balancing act
practice never lets out
calling all the famous talent scouts

make me into the final act
that everyone laughs at
instead
 Jul 2017
christopher kathy
craters won’t move
but some things
have to stay where they are made.
humans are not
one of those things.
the folks who move all smile,
the people that stay
are unusually angry
they can’t preserve themselves.


but that is a strong accusation
kind of an ******* judgment
 Jul 2017
christopher kathy
gray feathers
trickle down in the frigid air.
the atmospheric pressure squeezes me
so tight,
like the room we held our noses in
so we could absorb maximum confidence
and squirm
        and twitch
                and build a fence.

once the hour is upon us
i’ll take my own hand and riot.
i’m used to it.
you haven’t even tried it.

now the floor is to the left
ears fill up with tears
recollecting nearby fears
to string on to a necklace
and give it to the next person
that looks at me with soul.
 Jul 2017
christopher kathy
what about the future?
what about the past?

well, what about the present?

right now there’s so much going on,
like how i can feel the vibration of the mower
in the distance,
the little scratchy nubs all over my body.
i’m trying to see from behind the scratches on my glasses
but my eyes are so drawn to the 9000 shades of color that
are so pervasive and sensitive.

and your talking is hummed and hushed,
like your morals,
because you fail to practice what you preach,
and what i’m figuring out in the present is that
i’m doing the same exact thing to myself maybe slower,
now, it seems, but
somehow even quicker.

and the clutches of that Mazda clutch we crashed
when we were fourteen are crouching to my level,
trying to say hello but all i hear are bubbles
in the pond where your little sister tried to drown herself.

the spiraling candy slide has me nauseous and ready
to spew chunks all over mom’s new ornaments,
and the plane changes again, the doctor’s office
and white gloves reaching inside my mouth to shut off
my anxiety, my perplexity,
to show me the worm inside that’s making this happen.


but all he pulled out was my brain,   entirely whole,
and i snatched it from his hands
and smothered my hunger
with such a satisfying snack,
fingers included!
                            what the **** did i just do?              Was it that Demon called Panic that, personified as moi,
took me on that train
without my permission?
                                    
                ­i really will never know what it is   that i have
               that is so special enough to be able to see
all 9000 colors in the spectrum.

they’re so vivd, it scares me, honestly,
                               and in the dark i feel fine, because there’s nothing
to see, but,
in the light, for real this time,
i wish somebody would take out
my eyeballs,
                                          and walk me like a
                              dog for the rest of my life.
 Jul 2017
christopher kathy
so much farther left to go…
bubbling pieces of my words that came out
a few hours ago.
i was stretching outward $wordfight$,
no one wanted to do it at that point.

we’re coming up on fields that bless
the earth with their areal embrace.
some people take up certain things
to put back in their place.

                    who ever would have guessed?
                it’s a lot of work to water a friend,
                            even as we’re moving over,
                         i can quench your thirst with
                                                  my drowning.
 Jul 2017
christopher kathy
but can it be transformed?
can the piles of bones form waves
and crash into beauteous palettes of marble?
can the deepening cracks in the concrete
be filled from the top and forgotten?
i think they would reappear much sooner.

lately it’s been good to think
and once the mind has wandered off
does it have the courage to stay lost?
because i think it’s funny –
the pain of trying to hard to find a place –
consumes the soul much more, it seems,
than thriving in the uncertainty
of being content while still feeling lost.

can the wires be untangled
if the ends are saudered shut?
can we pull apart the fibers
and recreate landscapes we thought
were places we’d like to visit.

i don’t want to believe the places i’ll find
are perfect mirrors at this point in time
and my arrival will shatter the equilibrium

but if that turns out,
i will hold my breath
and put the pieces back in a mosaic
and color the shards with my tears.
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