Talking about sheet cake
And its plasticky persistence
How it holds to the roof of your mouth
The way words carry abundance, multiplicity
And the way roots dig into the ground
Comparing our years
In a wealth of cigarette butts
And saw dust
And new leaves on the plants
We’ve grown since
Ducking under wet branches
And building into ourselves
We’re older friends now Talking about sheet cake
And its plasticky persistence
How it holds to the roof of your mouth
The way words carry abundance, multiplicity
And the way roots dig into the ground
Comparing our years
In a wealth of cigarette butts
And saw dust
And new leaves on the plants
We’ve grown since
Ducking under wet branches
And building into ourselves

We’re older friends now

The gold touches the tops of the trees in atlanta
Pekerson park smells like
Elementary school breakfast
Nostalgia
steamed in a bag
My tire is flat
Again
The guy says you
Can’t plug a hole
On the outside
can you do it from the inside?
I don’t know much about rubber
but I know I’ve bounced back
Enough to feel like
My blood could just be air
I am sure though
That’s not true
Because I can feel it thicken
Early in the morning
In the crisp mundanity
Of finding honeysuckle
& blackberries crawling
Along shady fences
In the Atlanta south
the gold is still just touching the tops of the trees

no one likes to talk
about the waiting,
how everything is patience,
sweat to
tear muscles down
so they can regrow
and it hurts
but it's good

I had a dream
that you got braces
to close the gap
from your lost tooth
it was your left,
my right,
I think
and
I wonder what
it means
to dream of
someone else's
teeth

my stomach
hurts when
I think about
how much of myself
I've given to
"you"
indefinite or unspecified
"you"

I have a hard time titling poems that I feel didn't introduce themselves to me?  I just found them hiding underneath the way someones eyelashes hit their cheek unnoticed... Or in the way a retiree shuffles off the bus to buy flowers and tea.
I have a hard time titling words that felt borrowed from a moment, small & bruising.

still
the night
she reaches through
hazy and taciturn
leaving me
with memories
of myself echoing
into her breath -
staggering into
the grip
of planned
obsolescence