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 Jan 2014 dominic rocky
August
You're at the bottom of this bottle
I think I'll find you when it's empty
And if you're not there hiding
I'll toss back another and another
Until you're sitting down there for me, waiting
Amara Pendergraft 2013
 Jan 2014 dominic rocky
August
I like a man with fire in his bones
And where his head should be,
There is a home.

And I wax and wane like the moon
If you turn away you might miss me,
I'll be gone soon.
© Amara Pendergraft

I'm gone with the morning.
 Jan 2014 dominic rocky
August
I wish I were a cigarette
Perched in-between your perfect arched lips
Breathe me into you
I'll swirl in smoke tendrils around your face
And then I'll happily fade away
Until you light up another later
Being your bad habit isn't so bad
If that's what I am to you,
I'll take it
Amara Pendergraft 2013
 Jun 2013 dominic rocky
Day
they mumble -
stifled laughs from the room next door,
but they aren't really happy the way that we are
because her heart doesn't bleed when he isn't by her side
and she kissed another man last night,
not I;
my lips have been yours for 113 days...
and I couldn't count all of the ways I smile
simply from your presence;
there is a bashfulness about myself when you enter the room
and a sigh of relief as we close our eyes together
at the end of a long day,
and it's all teeth from ear to ear, I swear,
when we're together.

/

but lying in bed tonight I don't feel the comfort of you by my side,
rather a weight, extreme pressure as if I'm being pushed...
these words swim through each vessel in my brain before pacing upon my tongue,
all night they pace, as my chest becomes tighter and your touch becomes colder...
when my eyes finally rest I dream of elephants on stilts;
that is my problems which should not grow evidently finding somehow to,
and a mockingbird sobbing, but how do I know that the tears are true?
I once, not long ago at all, longed for the touch that is making me ill,
for the laughter that is turning me bitter,
for the eyes that are making me weep...
no, it is not your mouth that makes me weep, not the hateful language, nor hurtful accusations;
rather, it's how you must see me to allow those notions cross your mind let alone to speak them aloud,
and with such fury...

/
unfinished.
I walked home coated in his smell,
it's under my skin.

His whispers are cutting,
little slices down to the bone.

The Earth chokes in weeds,
and his tongue is a dandelion.

But he's the shadow I leave on other men,
a darkness that rubs off me
and sticks.
 Jun 2013 dominic rocky
Day
I knew when I picked that tulip from the neighbour’s yard
that I wasn’t just killing a flower but something inside of me.
I didn’t know what it was, then.


(innocence.

that’s what it was.)

I didn’t know why I told them that I found the flower that way,
broken and left to rot and “all I did was save the poor thing!”
it seemed natural to weave this story rather than confess.

I felt bad about taking that flower. for stealing someone’s
pretty pink petals
that they’d undoubtedly cared for,
pruning and watering,
that’s why they looked so good.
that’s why I picked the best of the bunch.

they knew I did it.
I insisted otherwise, and received a slap on the wrist
no more severe than when I’d pushed my little sister
or spilled glitter on the new carpet.
but this wrist-slap stuck with me.


I’d discovered more than the sweet smell
of pollen or nectar or chlorophyll seeping
out the snapped portion of the stem.
when I told this lie I’d felt a joy in me that as a four-year-old
I couldn’t explain
but it made me warm.

I inhaled the shame and drowned in guilt and I thought
of how I could do this again and not get caught.

I was addicted.


and I knew it, then.
 Jun 2013 dominic rocky
Day
nobody has an interesting
thing to say
on a Saturday.
 Jun 2013 dominic rocky
Day
I remember losing something,
but I don't have a clue anymore and I'm not
afraid anymore
because I've had a little too much to drink
and I'm sleeping in my car

I've got to return all these toys to the kids today,
rid myself of these accumulative ways
that have gotten in the way
of my body that can't escape from the
ties that I've
tethered to my toes

I remember finding a place while
looking for a friend;
the impending sun was looking for us, too
but instead of my friend a stranger emerged
and followed me back to where I came from

back to the bar that we've spent so many nights
of not remembering all the laughs
and the fights; we eat like kings,
and we sing,
and we're not afraid anymore

I wander in this old bar, like I've never
seen it before
and there's a doorway I'm sure
was never there before so I reach for the handle
and open swings the door
and the most beautiful light:
I've never seen a one shine quite as bright.

she's bathing, free as the stars themselves,
so I uncover my self
and I sit in the water with her but we don't talk,
we just smile,
and we don't kiss,
but she touches my arm and we're in love

expecting eyes peer from windows
and a slit in the door
we've decided to leave open
because there's nothing more beautiful
than being here, every laugh line,
every scar exposed

there's nothing more beautiful than
bathing in love
where every laugh line and scar is exposed


I forgot about remembering that
I've lost something,
the delivery man is here to return it
but I can't find him, either
so I dance a little bit, I sit outside
and hope he never finds me.
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