Pressed with
starched confidence
I told her—
I want you to feel
the weight of my words.

Oh, they fell heavy.
Collected in institutions
of incarcerated desires
with no consideration
for the future capacities
of emotional faculties,

shirking the responsibilities
of such fragile hopes–
stomped to shattered pieces.

Pressed  with
ironed resolve,
I held down the diction
that resists the grips of reason,
my clenched fists spilling
to the ground, the dust of it all.

I shredded my sorrow,
using its remains as compost for new things –
disaster, dawns, death,

canned my compunction
to collect dust on shelves of a bone-dry past –  
the dark making it easier not to visit,
(sometimes begging is a good thing)

froze my fear into ice cube trays
to spike my drinks in healthy doses –
I fear temporary things;
good intentions, newborns, and large bouquets of roses,

drew a hot bath of nostalgia
and soaked in what remained of you,
letting it warm me before draining away,

stuffed my joy into a handbag
to give out in bits to those who walk too heavy,
speak too softly through prisms of pain,

and when the disappointments I had left shackled,
gnawed through their bindings
to trail me like a heavy perfume,
I sat down with them and my doubt,
rolled every bit of clarity I could find into a joint,
and got them high enough
to float from my window,
into the night, to wane with the moon.

I went to the bar, alone, for the sole purpose of getting drunk.
I asked for cranberry with *****, she poured me ***** with cranberry,
but you sound better in my mouth when my speech is slurred,
and you’re a better dance partner when you’re not around.

I asked for cranberry with *****, she poured me ***** with cranberry.
A memory showed up wearing your green jacket.
You’re a better dance partner when you’re not around,
and the jukebox plays pop music that’s far too loud.

A memory showed up wearing your green jacket.
Base is pulse, and the room beats with my heart.
The jukebox plays pop music that’s far too loud,
but I wanted one more hazy dance with you.

Base is pulse, and the room beats with my heart.
You sound better in my mouth when my speech is slurred.
I wanted one more hazy dance with you.
I went to the bar, alone, for the sole purpose of getting drunk.

Smoke fills my lungs, while serenity fills my mind.
I cruise by yellow green fields speckled with horses and cows.
The way the sun hits my eyes makes me want to dive head-first
into the billowy, pillowy clouds swimming in the sea of sky.

Lining the road are a million green hands
linked to thousands of branches that wave hello.
I let my thoughts wander, but they never get very far,
so when memories of you start flooding my car,
I roll my windows down to let you float away.
It’s easier being happy when there’s nothing to say.

I let my hand surf the wind, effortlessly shooting up and down,
yet always safely secured to my body.
Feeling, maybe, how a baby feels when she’s tossed through the air
thrilled, but well aware, of the adult standing there,
but - that’s as if a hand could feel these things.

I know the things my hands can feel,
and for now they are floating, flying, free
past the horses and cows and yellow green fields.

There once was a proper noun,
who started hanging with the wrong crowd.
With alluring adjectives who handed out compliments like candy
− gob smacking gossipers with an opinion on everything.
And with thrill-seeking adverbs,
who buddied up to the most dangerous of companions;
crash, dive, hurl, and gamble (to name a few).

Until the day the sentence came rambling into town,
planting punctuation in the form of kisses
on the noun’s eyelids, earlobes, and collarbone.

Provoking such admissions as, “My thighs stuck
to the black leather seats under the hot, cloudy skies
of that August afternoon, and my hair whipped
like willow branches in the wind,
when I rode on the back of his motorcycle.”
or, “He greets me every morning with a sun-drenched kiss”,
and, “The tulips were picked fresh from the ditch of
a curvy, country road, but now sit in a
vase by my bed, and are slowly wilting away.”

It would eventually be made clear
that the sentence had a nasty habit
of propositioning prepositions,
only to leave them hanging,
and to place things in parenthesis,
that simply did not belong.  

And so, the sentence would wind up leaving town,
or “run-on”, as the noun liked to tell it.
Went chasing after some particularly provocative expletives,
eventually trailing off with a faint set of ellipsis...

And the kindest of adjectives
came cooing after the noun,
calling to her; lovely, lustrous, listless.
And the adverbs brought with them
their gentlest of friends; comfort and console,
to speak with the noun:
softly, tenderly, lovingly- all witnesses.

But it was of no use,
and the noun whispered quietly:
“I have been enchanted with a single kiss
which can never be undone,
until the destruction of language.”


*based off of the poem Permanently, by Kenneth Koch

Angst begets caution.
Don’t enjoy forgetting
ghostly horrors
if jealous, kindred lovers
make new of pain.
Quick release,
simple things.
Utilize venom
without excuses.
Yearn,  zealous.

When you first told me you loved me,
I didn’t believe you.
But you managed to convince me,
when every time I tried to fold myself away from you,
you were unwilling to let me go alone.

You careered into the depths of my bends,
and I believed that you did love me.
This poem might be proof that you loved me.

But darling, paper can only be folded so many times,
before it becomes too compact,
and sits defiant of your efforts.

And all that's left is to
use your hands to try and smooth it over.
But creases can never be removed.  
Which is okay,
because some stories are meant to be told.

I said some stories

Like the time you spent
rearranging the furniture to our bedroom,
while I was busy rearranging the space of my heart.  
It seemed impossible,
but you managed to find a place
for that worn, leather chair,
just like I found space, again, for you.
    
You pushed my white desk neatly into a corner;
like the bends of your knees
tuck perfectly into the crooks of mine while we sleep.  
The bed was shifted from one wall to another,
thus uncovering the window
that lets in the first sunlight of each dawn,
and I could finally see the differences between us in their entirety.

but differences  are not secrets, dear
and I have met enough hurtful people to know
that ignorance is rarely blissful.  

To rearrange may not be a virtue,  
but god should bless those
with the patience of perspective.

It wasn’t long after
that my heart ate its way out of you,
and started attacking strangers.
Its tirade quickly stifled
by an avalanche of lies
that no amount of light
could have ever revealed.