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 Nov 2011 Linaji
david badgerow
I have been buried in a flowering sofa
I have been buried in punk rock guitar
I was swimming in a sea of orange juice
I wish I believed in unicorns and innocence
I wish my roots ran deeper
I was ******* us over in the middle of November
I was in way over my head
I have a cramp in my side-stomach
I have terrible sleeping habits
I have been carried by prophets up hills of redemption and
I have spent Sunday afternoons with ****** in basements
I have spent days huddled around burning xmas trees
I have a mind that suggests disease, and is riddled with laughter
I have drifted directionless on an autumn breeze
I have prayed to the gods of ***, before and after
I have been tossed about on shapeshifting seas.
 Nov 2011 Linaji
Misnomer
Do you toss the novel lightly?
-- Does it pound like your warbling
throat?

When you sleep beneath your
brother's armpit in trembles,
an etch collects the final drafts
of sick glasses, smoke and
Scottish gin patting your cheeks.

They are light against
dark undertones, the folds
of a curtain tucked for a spider's habitat;
for you.

I trace pirouettes in the back of
seamless air, countertop
wished to a balcony.

You do not stand (here).
I waste and recycle my fruit,
and sometimes naivety makes way
towards dented knees,
calves flexing in grey scale.

Once, we intersected city sc(r)apes
through glowing letters,
bar blinking red and I still clicking.

That is when my scent imagines,
eyes but a clam,
lingering in your body's bread.
smell. bread smell. smells like bread.

miles: a noun and proper noun.
 Nov 2011 Linaji
Samuel
Body
 Nov 2011 Linaji
Samuel
A frivolous fire crept 'tween some toes
Climbed up a calf and met with a knee
Danced past a waist that nobody knows
Up through all that blind fingers see
It crawled its way over the length of the skin
And over full mountains of rib-cages when
It got to the heart
And found you there
 Nov 2011 Linaji
Jon Tobias
Your heartbreak is as cozy
As the fishbowl I still get dizzy in
After you took me off the back burner
And placed me on the counter to cool
I have to remind myself that
It is not an earthquake when you
Slam the kitchen cabinets
Even though
My world shakes

The thing about fish is
If you don’t put a lid on their bowls
They tend to jump out
Not that it is an attempt at suicide
Just that some of us were born
Without the capacity to understand
Our own limitations
Don’t tell me I can’t breathe on dry land
*******
I am a man
Which means I am too dumb to understand that
Unless I try

How am I supposed to know
That I can’t protect you from everything
Unless I try

How am I supposed to know
That I can’t love you forever
Unless I try

How am I
supposed to know
That duct tape
can’t hold everything together
Unless I try

How was I supposed to know
That we would eventually be
Nothing but gasps of air
On a damp cutting board
When the lashings of love
Have denatured the thickest parts of our skin

Maybe I don’t know how to fix everything
Or love you like a normal person
Maybe saying every thought I have out loud
Makes you uncomfortable
It makes me uncomfortable
My face isn’t always this red
My skin isn’t always this hot
I am not always this dumb

But I am a man *******
And maybe I just
Haven’t learned that yet
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