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Kurtis Emken Sep 2012
“You need to leave.”
But I know you aren’t going on my volition.
I take heavy comfort that you are going to
visit me at my most vulnerable.  I have
learned simple adjustments, acceptance of
your spirit as part of this temporary, erratic
existence.  Everywhere I turn, you will be.

I have learned to deal with this.

I admit, it gets frustrating.  I wouldn’t know
that it was your face that gazes upon me if
it wasn’t so burned into my retinas.  You are
just inches out of focus, a world vainly viewed
through the plastic lens of a disposable camera.  

I ask you what you want, why you relentlessly
haunt the places I rest my worn, weary body.

I receive a forced, fractured smile in return.  

Some nights, I get a real reply, screaming
silence shot into a shredded cerebral cortex.
You say that we will be merged in this place.
Trust me, I’ll be waiting.
Kurtis Emken Sep 2012
Can’t go more than 2 hour(s)
without the 6mb/s fix. Cat-6e
cable wraps around withered limbs
like a starved boa constrictor.  Pushes
out air with a wet wheeze.  Jams its
ends into waiting wrists for a digital
high.  Injects and suffocates vessels
with ones and  zeroes of  hyperbole,
hysterics.  Let it fill to the brim with
the tedium of 547 who this one probably
hates.  Update broken beta software
to 1mb faster than yesterday, muscles
turn black(000), autumn without
rebirth, stunt the growth.  Absorb
convenient facts, no need to know,
no context, blog half truths get followed
twice fold.  New faceless friends,
dreaded foes, all specific silhouettes.
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Plug me in.
String me out.
Kurtis Emken Aug 2012
I want to hit
a walk off
home run.  
I want to strike
down any chance
you had
of winning with
my utterly
deadly arching
swing.
I want to throw
the perfect game.
I want everyone of my
lies
sleights
to burn right by you.  
I want to see
you go down
swinging.
I want to hit
for the cycle.
I want to single
double triple
home run my way
back to the
hidden places
you and I once called
home.
This is poem that I wrote while watching my team be terrible at baseball.
Kurtis Emken Aug 2012
A friend invite from a former lover is the common cold.
It’s irritating, hard to get rid of.  Try to ignore it.  Don’t.
Hover over her main page.  Bathe in the sick blue light
of LCD.  Cursors open portals to the past, their present.
Approach every aspect of the page like a ghost.  Read
through her interests.  Browse her wall posts.  See how
they change, don’t change, won’t.  Surf aimlessly through
frozen moments.  Find one frame you lurk around in, just
out of focus.  Probably just your right arm or forgotten shoes
that have left a tiny footprint on her digital identity.  Attach
needless significance to it anyway.  Check out the page
of the new person in her life.  Compare said person to self.
(Promise to) never go on the page again.  Respond to request.
She’s a number, placeholder, a ones and zeroes memory.
Kurtis Emken Aug 2012
Oh, the Lord spoke to his wandering flock, with
the love and authority that only a father could
possess. His word is powerful, uncompromising,
but he still keeps the gates open, giving us the
option to wander off a cliff or into the fearsome
jaws of wolves.  And we all walk through the
gate, even though he has trusted us to stay put,
even though he has given us all that we need.

I wish I was more like the Lord, so that I could
love you without condition.  I try my best to
forgive as you walk through the gate I built.
I try to be patient, but I don’t always have it
in me.  I break down, I become angry.  I do not
respect as He respects us.  For that, my apologies.

The Lord knows what we are and what we will
be.  His patience cannot be measured.  What is
the span of a life to the Eternal?  He can wait.
He can bide his time.  He knows the moment
in your life that your heart and soul will be most
responsive to his glorious message, his Gospel.  

If I could have a fraction of the knowledge of
the Lord and know when you will receive my
Gospel, my heart would be at rest.  I love
you with all my soul, but my will is not as
strong as the Almighty’s.  I can be tested, I
can be unruly, I can be unreasonable.  My
scope of understanding is limited, childish
in comparison to that of our mutual Savior.

Maybe my message isn’t something that you
are meant to receive.  My message could be
white noise, subtle as the spring rain.  But maybe
I can use the written word as the Lord has.  I do not
have loyal servants who feel called to spread my
message, for it is only meant for one.  I have
written in convoluted puzzles and trivia all this life,
but for once, my message, my goal is plain.

Know that no matter what happens, my heart will be your own.
I know a lot of people are going to think this is a religious poem.  It really isn't.
Kurtis Emken Aug 2012
I was waiting for a simple message from you that
we both know was never to come. I sat impatiently
atop the cities tallest building and watched the coming
storm.  I witnessed the water beat the feeble earth
into submission and it looked alright to me.  But then
the raging sinless sea swallowed the shore.  The end
of our hometown (est. 1919) took about a minute
and a half. A man leapt out of his chair and said it
was amazing as the punishing, purifying wave tore
into his home of 20 years.  The coin laundromats and
malls became the shallows and downtown by the Top 40
radio station became the deep.  Clown fish swam amongst
the stop lights, trash cans and satellite dishes.  And a
coral reef began to grow deeply into the brick of the tasty
Greek restaurant at the corner of MLK and Main.  Eels and
rays swam up the sidewalks and hammerheads patroled
the submerged skyscrapers.  Admittedly, a lot of the
busy people who didn’t take the time to look out their
smudged windows and watch the water devour the flood
walls and seafront property didn’t make it out of their
homes and cars and schools and businesses.  And those
people that didn’t make it to the outskirts of the metro in
time were quickly drowned and integrated breathlessly into
the oceanic food chain.  The deep began to kiss my ankles
and I thought I would surely drown.  I surmised that you
probably weren’t thinking about us at that moment and that
it was for the best.  You had other matters on your mind.

I watched a miniature apocalypse take place and
I thought I should probably call and quickly tell you
that everything you ever loved was gone or going.

I decided against it.

Anything I say to you is gonna come out wrong anyway.

— The End —