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Oct 2015 · 519
Manchineel Rainstorm
Jaime Nautte Oct 2015
It's grey now
In the calm, after the storm;
or perhaps in its center
So quiet that I can hear her breathing,
like the last note in a song,
and under it,
at the very edge of hearing:
the soft whispers
of small spirits
in an unfamiliar language
like old cedar woodchimes
on a windy day

Outside is dark,
and rain,
and trees
It's been raining all week
and I hope it won't stop
Maybe, if it doesn't
all the ground will wash away
and I'll finally know
what exactly is under
that odd moss statue,
half buried in sand,
always looking in my window
like I did something wrong

Our home is blue smoke,
and cats crying on carpet
But mostly, it's her
Alone in the foreground,
without competition
So I look to the hazel,
****** glow of her eyes
Always so bright,
skeptical,
and laughing
But now they seem darker,
****** and less green

Her words were all curses,
violent and heavy,
pulled down, to the floor,
by their own weight,
to make quite the mess
Such lingering filth,
and not easy to clean

But I'm ****** and she's pretty,
like a manchineel tree
exhausted of patience
She's looking at me
like I took away,
every good thing,
in all of the world

Blame me,
Or our town:
built on miles of buried *******,
rotting in the dirt
We pretend to be offended, but don't really care
Why should we?
I imagine it's much the same in other places,
with other people
I think that all towns are grey,
just different shades

But her,
She'll stay red forever
Jul 2015 · 361
Untitled
Jaime Nautte Jul 2015
A forest filled with floating spirits,
spilling over with sparkling intentions.
Isolated and intelligent and irritated,
they curse a lot.

Yellow eyes yearn for
Jul 2015 · 355
Stunted and Static
Jaime Nautte Jul 2015
You and me, we're half-formed.
A caterpillar in a cocoon, stunted.
It tries for years to chew its way out,
only to find its wings misshappen.
Before it falls, too far.
A fatal flaw.

I can't see your hair and the television
at the same time.
One or the other is always
static.
Jul 2015 · 428
Hazel Fly
Jaime Nautte Jul 2015
Look closely as she cries
and spy a piece of a fly.
Within her pupil, its eye.

Brown and green and black
and, there, you see?
Reflected in it,
is me

I knew a young woman
who wallowed, will cry.
And I'm not sure why,
I am so high.
Perhaps I'll die.
Jul 2015 · 1.1k
An empty stomach
Jaime Nautte Jul 2015
On my way home, after a bad a time
and I'm caught in a thunderstorm
It takes a long time, to move my
feet through the mud
and self pity

I'm hungry
for white-blonde hair and green eyes
or steak and strawberries
but I go to bed with an empty stomach
and dream so vividly
that you lost your tongue
to a stray dog at the bar

Your legs are wrapped around my waist
I put my hand around your throat
and you press your hips into mine.
I'm hungry.
I move my lips to your throat and
you inhale sharply.
I'm so hungry.
I bite you, maybe too hard,
but you don't make
a sound
Jul 2015 · 591
Rug Burn
Jaime Nautte Jul 2015
We were on my couch, tangled up in each other.
Until you fell off, into the red floral pattern carpet.
I offered a hand and you pulled me down,
into the flowers after you.
So we stayed there, marking each others skin
with our teeth and your nails.

The morning after I looked at the bruises
on my arms, chest, and neck.
It still hurts where the carpet rubbed against my elbow.

It'll hurt till tonight.
When you'll come over
and replace my bruises
with new bruises.
Jun 2015 · 356
Heads
Jaime Nautte Jun 2015
I haven't slept lately. Every time I close my eyes I see strange creatures. Luminescent and sharp toothed, crawling over one another to get closer. And the sound, like organic radio static.
I'm worried if I fall asleep, keep my eyes closed for too long, they'll get too close. They'll get out.

I got a strange call today. A man called and said he could help. He knew about the creatures. He called them Faces and told me to meet him at a gas station.

When I arrived a man in a grey suit walked up to my truck and gave me a bottle, filled with clear liquid, and told me to drink it right before bed. I tried to ask him...but what was it I wanted to ask?

It's night, I swallow the foul tasting liquid and then...
Ripping
Red
A Lake
Trees and Meat
Teeth
Teeth
**Teeth
Jun 2015 · 2.6k
The Devil, Old Fashioned
Jaime Nautte Jun 2015
A room filled with smoke and drink and
knives in pockets. A man in a grey suit
sits at the bar and lights a cigar.  

He can smell violence in the air here. Metallic and
sickly sweet. He grins with anticipation and orders
a drink. Old Fashioned.

A short time later in a room filled with smoke
and blood and knives gripped in dead hands,
a man in a red suit laughs softly and sips an
Old Fashioned.
Jun 2015 · 1.2k
Big Bugs and Day Dreams
Jaime Nautte Jun 2015
I sit in a forest, with my back against a large oak,
and listen. Among rustling leaves and
whining cicadas I hear something else.
Something larger.

It's moving through the forest on jointed legs,
snapping the branches of century old trees.
An insect the size of a castle. It lets out a cry.
Sounds like a thousand year old whale's
death rattle. The cicadas stop whining and I
shudder.

It's heading to the lake to breed,
or to die. Their kind begins and ends in water.
Very morbid creatures, they are.

I can feel its steps shake the earth as it comes
closer and then I see it. Ten long, jointed legs
support the bulk of the thing. It towers over me,
silver. Its shell is a knight's armour and its red
eyes are the devil's. I stand up in awe of the
colossal bug as it lumbers past me, blocking the sun
and casting me in shadow for a while.

I light a cigarette and listen to it move through the forest.
Eventually, I can't hear it anymore and the cicadas
start to whine again.
Jaime Nautte Jun 2015
A dark haired loser and a kaleidoscope
girl with a perfect ***.
What will happen when
we overflow?
Will we forget, just
for a while
how we're not
supposed to?

I'm worried. Or
aren't I? I wish I was.
Don't I? If I do and if I am,
then maybe we won't.
And that would be...
Okay

My head is all snakes
and your skin, pale
and writhing, and I wonder
what the weather's like
in Ireland. Mild, probably.

My usual rhythm is ******
when I hear a sound
you make. You throw
me off balance and
I'm worried I'll fall
right past my reservations,
and into a pit of pale skin
and poisonous snakes.
Jun 2015 · 1.4k
Smoke and a Mirror
Jaime Nautte Jun 2015
We're all dead here, so go ahead
and smoke. Have a drink. Play a game.
Sleep, or don't.
****.

Go! Tear yourself apart living,
if only just to spite the bored
and the apathetic.

Outside is warm and trees
or cold and grey.
It's nice, enjoy.

I'll sit here and wait quietly.
Not just bored. Not only
apathetic, but made up.
Illusory.

A reflection in tinted glass,
waiting for something interesting
to happen.

— The End —