I'm convinced that
My insides are
Clockwork
Instead of organs
Some screws are loose
Some wheels are stuck
I'm pretty sure
They're covered in rust
But when you touch me
They start back up
Being around you
Is just enough
To shake me from this
Lethargic state
I fall into
The longer you're away
The worse it gets
I'm hoping that
When you come back
I'll still be able
To reach for your hand
I hope that you still
Remember who I am
Or has time erased
My face from your mind
Like footprints
In the sand?

Published in The Quill on November 19, 2014:

http://www.amazon.com/Quill-Fall-2014-ebook/dp/B00PNVT6PG
...

To my Mother – 5643 days after your death

I still count the days, the amount of candles we burned, our unmade faces and her foamy latte – the kind with a drawn on design for no particular reason (other than to brag.)
I don’t worry about the perfume – the smell I do not remember – but I do open the windows, every. other. day.
The sunlight doesn’t burn anymore. My eyes still close. The moonlight blurs after hours of consciousness, and her dog’s birthday comes and comes and never stops but will. One day. Mine will never. Not at this rate. Although the calendar flips faster than I didn’t want it to, even though I did.

In a world where traumas are written all over our bodies


He has a bipolar jaw line and a suicidal knee cap,

collapsing and shaking

and reverberating his thoughts through his PTSD lip.

It quivers, and she looks away with an autistic eyelid.

See her a deaf cheek?

Their blind foreheads fluctuate, and their arthritic fingers vibrate.

Reynard’s Disease. Or Disorder IV. Perhaps,

one we’ve never heard before consumes the heart that’s about to break.

....

This was read at the University of Kansas in May of 2013: Read more about this event here:

http://shannonathompson.com/2013/05/10/contest-winners-and-poetry-from-my-ku-reading/