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 Mar 2014 Jay
Tom Leveille
2002:
today i kicked the door
to history off it's hinges
my jealous frame:
still too proud to say a word
it seems my folks forgot
to pencil in growth marks
cause they thought their boy
would never grow out of small breath
******* dead, years now buried
and i bare his name
too many syllables
for my father to go back
fish & play football
to stand in the yard and play catch

1994:
my mom, the bombshell in retrospect
broke her back in her sleep
a thousand times
since the stairwell in 87'
she still sits for spills
post nuclear about settling
now from the couch
she's a weather report
spouting nonsense
that makes my father
grow grey, crack remotes
& slam doors to dark rooms
abandoning ship
for "cheers" & "scienfeld"
while my mother
sometimes forgets
and sets his place at the table
and my appetite is abducted
by family photos
my mother says things like
"go see your brother today"
-- Johnny's long gone
don't you remember?
we buried him
the day your smile died

2014:
you are inches from me
******* a stray hair
caught in the fabric of your coat
the last remnants of a dog
we laid to rest last week
and here we are
in the hospital again
people don't shake like dogs
finality is found
in the eyes of humans
passing archways
into shallow rooms
where plague and prayer
are the only songs sung
round the stagnant clocks
it makes me wonder
if the clipboards cry
over being the last thing
someone ever writes on
take a number, have a seat
stay a while
i am back, 7 years old
& there are different doors now
they buried the ones
you kicked in that night in '92
when my lungs
were filled with holy water
you never stopped smoking
*i never grew out of asthma
 Mar 2014 Jay
Barton D Smock
Bruises
 Mar 2014 Jay
Barton D Smock
(second in a series of shorts for my kids)


Zen was a boy of nine years whose sister of fifteen beat him nightly.  When she would do this, it would be during bouts of sleepwalking that began when she too was nine.  Her name was Beam, and he loved her and she loved him when both were awake.  When both were awake, they would count the bruises on his body and see if their numbers were the highest they’d ever been.  Zen did not tell Beam she was his abuser and Beam promised to find out.  This presented a problem as Beam, no matter how hard she tried, could not stay awake long enough to catch the person she didn’t know she was.  Beam wanted to ask their parents to keep watch, but Zen would not let her, saying he was worried that if the person was identified he or she may start beating someone else.  So they counted bruises, and loved.  Zen is now a boy of fifteen and Beam went missing three years ago.  Every morning Zen looks over his spotless body and prays he too will be kidnapped by gentle aliens who cannot hurt their own but want to.
 Mar 2014 Jay
Jay
Lovely
 Mar 2014 Jay
Jay
Today my boyfriend said he loves me
My mother always told me not to say it back if it was something I didn't mean
My father always told boys only say that to get into your jeans
Taylor Swift said a boy would make me feel this way at age 15
I keep thinking about how my life should be
I didn't even want to be with someone until like age 23
But then he came along and showed me a whole new universe I had never seen
He makes me laugh and cry and scream
And I can't help but wonder what three simple words could mean
There is so much I've been told and I don't know what to believe
Three words don't mean anything
I asked him if they did and he said what do they mean to me
I said I didn't know a thing
But if I think about it, I guess it's eggs in the morning when you're hungover from the previous evening
It's being miles away and still not cheating
It's holding hands and PDA and kissing
It's yelling and tears and fighting
It's laughing and it's crying
It's climbing the ladder together, even if there are a ton of steps missing
Maybe it's just listening
Maybe it's everything
Maybe they don't mean anything
Today my boyfriend told me he loves me
I don't love him back
I said I love you too, and it's something I didn't mean
It's not that he isn't good enough..
It's just, the word love isn't big enough to express my feelings
I am enchanted
I am speechless
I am all in, head over heels
Falling down a hill
I am taken back
I am double taking
I am walking on clouds
Words are too small
Actions are too small
The universe is too small
I am too small to be loved.

Today my boyfriend said he is in love with me
I said it back, but it wasn't true.
 Mar 2014 Jay
Tom Leveille
i am seven and in your living room
with antiques & photographs
of family that are more like strangers
and handshakes at christmas
there is a jar of circus peanuts by the armchair
and i remember being told that these are here because they are never out of stock
and that they are the only things
children will not want to take from me

i still do not like the color orange.
i am eight and round the bannister
to an upstairs that reminds me
of heaven in that
place i can't go sort of way & i am
knuckle deep in your pumpkin pie
wiping it on my uncles suede jacket
our hands still shake but the jury is still out
on if he looks at me and napkins the same
i hope you do not sleep
with my apologies under your fingernails
i will not say them out loud
i know i should have mowed your lawn
i should have been a home
for second hand smoke
if i could go back i would be your ashtray
i remember the day you forgot who i was
i bound into the room and throw my arms
around you like an armistice
and you ask who i am
we are not in church
but everyone stops singing
i am passed from child to child
while we all laugh
but my lungs feel like
they've been mugged in an ally
who's son does he look like, mom?
my father says like gospel
you pull on your cigarette
sip from your watered down wine and shrug
and i am neck deep in forgetfulness
i imagine alzheimer's
as being born again every day
so, we will spend ages
looking at captions to photographs
telling your stories to strangers
as my father begins to forget
and when i imagine probate
an unfamiliar hand unfolding a will
to be read to wayward angels
i want to burn down the house
and sleep in the ashes
 Feb 2014 Jay
Tom Leveille
whenever i hear a wind chime i think of your voice. i wonder what it's like to be your bedsheets. what it would really be like to understand the jargon in your head. i ******* want to kiss you sometimes and then others i really do want concrete between your hands & my skin. i can't think straight all the time so i wonder if it benefits me at all to explain what it means that i don't want or expect anything from you but if we accidentally liked eachother in that middle school "sort of way" then i wouldn't say no. i want to really understand what you mean when you say "stay" to me in our texts. i wonder if your sleeping pills do to you what they do to me. i'm thinking again about "stay" and maybe i'm choked up on you leaving for school up north but i'll never tell you because get the **** out of here and don't look back especially not for me. stay. your smile, genuine or not tears me in two. i wish every face on the planet had your smile and i am ******* afraid of you wearing lipstick. i'm terrified of your bare skin and goodbyes. i hate farewells and see you laters. i knew the first time i saw you interact on your phone while drinking coffee the way you text people and how i now do the same thing. i get around read receipts. i sometimes want to hear you say you want.. not so much me, maybe me, but my company. theres a park near my house where i've imagined us paddle boating. i got written up at work once for daydreaming about it. what the **** is in a friendship anyway, decency in a human isn't biological. i get hung up on knee jerks and gut reactions. i want to know what the ******* are thinking about when i look up and you are looking right at me. but then again, i don't. as long as i'm wondering. as long as the door might swing open or closed. stay. go. run. **** your collarbones. **** your chest and skin and lips and everything i hate but crave and might like about you without say so. stay. sit down and explain to me why it is that i care anyway. i am afraid that if i say i want to *******, you'll think i mean *******, and not "*******". i wanna know if any of this sounds familiar and i here i am back to wondering what the **** is going on and why you're looking at me. the hair on my neck stands on end when you do and another thing... **** poetry. i cloud my feelings for you & anything else with the abstract so you'll never really know if i ******* hit rock bottom or not over the fact that i know we will never kiss. somebody just said "**** buddy" on tv and i think sometimes symmetry between irony & circumstance. i have harbored some of these thoughts since the night you said hello to me. i'm sorry i had to get over the fact that once upon a time i wanted to save somebody, and you weren't going to let it be you. i do sometimes think my hands might break you, that you spend your day painting a picket fence in your head that you can't get on one side or the other on. i felt like you didn't want to get up from dinner and i rushed it out the door because i am afraid to start a sentence with so. so stay. i am sorry my words often wear brass knuckles. your smile shoots to **** and if i ever die while you still remember my name i want you to read this or read something at my funeral. i don't know if these butterflies are waiting for me to jump or sit down but they speak up when my phone lights up & it's you.
 Feb 2014 Jay
maybella snow
warm blankets
cover me yet
there seems to be
a new coating
of frost on my skin
rippling tired
depressive wakes
behind me
shadows are
attached yet mine
is lacking in
a certain lustar
because it's constantly
fading... or maybe
I'm just slowy
disintegrating
into something
sharp and cold
and no longer
human
I'm seeing a psychologit  tomorrow.. I'm scared and am probably going to be medicated soon I need someone to hold me hah
 Feb 2014 Jay
maybella snow
i miss me too
the happy me
but i miss you
and i wish
i could take
everything
bad back
i miss you
I miss loving you
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