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 May 2014 Joseph Childress
bucky
she says -
if i carve your name onto my ribcage in the morning before the sun comes up will it come true? will it **** you this time?
maybe ill lie down so that you can pick me apart,
fingernails breaking on my iron skin
would you like that?
it was on the 2nd floor on Coronado Street
I used to get drunk
and throw the radio through the window
while it was playing, and, of course,
it would break the glass in the window
and the radio would sit there on the roof
still playing
and I'd tell my woman,
"Ah, what a marvelous radio!"
the next morning I'd take the window
off the hinges
and carry it down the street
to the glass man
who would put in another pane.
I kept throwing that radio through the window
each time I got drunk
and it would sit there on the roof
still playing-
a magic radio
a radio with guts,
and each morning I'd take the window
back to the glass man.
I don't remember how it ended exactly
though I do remember
we finally moved out.
there was a woman downstairs who worked in
the garden in her bathing suit,
she really dug with that trowel
and she put her behind up in the air
and I used to sit in the window
and watch the sun shine all over that thing
while the music played.
1173

The Lightning is a yellow Fork
From Tables in the sky
By inadvertent fingers dropt
The awful Cutlery

Of mansions never quite disclosed
And never quite concealed
The Apparatus of the Dark
To ignorance revealed.
 May 2014 Joseph Childress
gd
I found myself missing
someone who used to
like all the little things
about me, so I went on
a little scavenger hunt
picking up bobby pins
and crunched up leaves;
a couple old CDs and
a bunch of little words
left unsaid; a tiny music
box and a ton of old
pictures that are the only
pieces left as proof and
all the little things were
laid out and added up
only to disappear in an
instant because they do
not even resemble who I
am anymore —
who am i
who
am
i

gd
Dear Heart,

You beat gracefully.
Your gracious pound,
Transferring life to another.

What heart doesnt love?
Was it the sweets that spoke,
Or was it his velvet voice.
That made you jump?

Dear Heart,
I love him.
More than ever.
Do you too love thee?
 May 2014 Joseph Childress
AJ
Garden
 May 2014 Joseph Childress
AJ
When I first met you,
You has this smile on your face.
And I swear to god
I couldn't make this up if I tried,
But if you looked at the ground
The way you looked at me,
I promise you
At least four dozen flowers
Would have sprouted right up from the ground.
You were that magical.

But three months in,
And a bottle and a half of *****,
You hit me so hard,
That you left bite marks in my mind,
And scars on my heart composed of your fingerprints.

All the flowers have died.
A fresh cut, a new mar
Soon just another scar
One more to add to the collection
Every time I look in the mirror

Yet I still seek my reflection
A fresh cut, a new mar
I can't help but keep collectin

The sort of cuts I make
Could make minds break
And still I seek my rejection

I don't know how much I can take
My mind it's strong
But everywhere
There's another mirror

There's no escape
When the blades
Are my own eyes

Staring with their haunted cast
At a shadow cloaked in lies

These scars are ugly welts
I stare at shamefully
But the cuts need to be made
For I hate what's become of me
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