Remember when my necklace
Got so tangled in my
Hair that you had to
Cut the chain free?

Something about
The cool scissors
And your hand
Bracing my neck
Felt sweet

& now
The lock you cut
Won’t stay in place
I struggle with it
Most days

It’s blue hour
And I’m looking at the
Bird house
On the corner of flat shoals
Paradise plants
And like
Twelve cars in
The driveway

It’s a specific type of hot
The ten minutes before
The sun actually sets
And silver halos everything
My sweat makes me a little
Too cold to feel comfortable
And I think about the
Long sleeve
Denim I left
At a one night stand’s
House, uncomfortable,
I hope he knows
I didn’t leave it
For any reason to come back,
Just that I’m forgetful,
Fraught with impermanence.
Although I would
probably
Come back too
You know
If I was wanted, maybe,
A whisper of affection
Or if things were different,
If I was different

Anyway
It’s blue hour
And with everything that
The silver halos
I can’t stop staring at
The bird house
On the corner

if i could grow a forest
kessler, would you meet me there?

it's winter
again
and i'm somehow
always surprised
by the leaves
changing
and dropping
like edits
to your smile

my cupids bow
cracked
from weather,
weathering,
&  the softening
at your touch
crumbling
again and again
just like the leaves
do
in
winter

and I don't think my lips will ever heal

Somewhere
Deep down
I know you need
Our love to stay
Small and bruising

I cried
Driving home
From the bar
But I just work there
Mostly
The moon I poked out
Of the clouds to
Taunt me
maybe -
I’m not sure -
But she was Beautiful
And big
And she was taking up space
I want to take up space
Steal light to give
Others when it’s
Dark

I’m no good at
Crying &
Driving
But I think
I’m good
I think
I’m good
At other things

Summers only get hotter
Don’t they?
Spitting cherry pits
On the train tracks
That separate chosewood
From Lakewood
Cherry wood
I like the stain left on
My fingers
My lips
Runny bliss
Sampling the simplicity
Of hot
& sticky
& condensed
Forms of self
Nice girls
Get the chance
To be hurt again
And again
Right?
Do bruised fruits taste less sweet?
Not really sure
Just spitting cherry pits
Onto train tracks

Unfamiliar
Like a dog
Brick alley
And chills of winter
Suited up
In feathered armor
Cold and
Longing for
Home

Dreams of running in tunnels of sand
And burning cop cars
Making glass
A call and response
But the cry is never heard
Sand makes
Mass
In our self contained
Timers
But how long have
Some folks been
Waiting for just the
Toe to ground reaction
From white folks
When cop cars
Make glass
And white heat
Makes violent
Gas spitting at
Peace
When will I be
So old to see
Any change?

You feel like someone who crosses the street when there are pages they didn’t need to see

Photographs like light captured
From the edge of your smile
Wholesome threat
And your snaggle tooth that at sometime
At some point
I’d pray to never forget

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

Summer in Georgia
Is air clinging to my face
An attempt to keep
Me grounded
But how could air
Force me down
When It’s so light
Like pleasantries
Between neighbors
And the smell of
Oranges and tobacco
On my hands
Soul in my
Fingers
Historical clay
And a walk
On pavement
Cracked
And hot
Like the air holding
Me in place

I deserve good things
Like kettle corn
And the promise that
Seeds I spit will grow
Laying shoulder blade
To shoulder blade
sometimes
Summers on top of
Your comforter
And comfort
In knowing
The heavy softness
Of knowing
You

I’m not
Drunk anymore
Not ever
And I used to worry
That would
Take away a spark
I thought I had
No more feet pressed
To pavement in early hours
No nighttime
Sunburnt love
No more fires
I don’t want to put out
Poetic lush
A prophetic  touch

I used to worry
And I still do

spring floats through
with graduation balloons
and plasticine
alteration accompanied by
sweat behind my knee

I'll keep pivoting
and maybe soon
I'll find the courage
to take a step
in a direction

it's rainy season
and I find myself lost
in small love(s)
not present
& purely situational
but it's nice
holding hands
during rainy season
inheriting
the petrichor
that's just passing through

At the grocery
Mouth covered
Hand in glove
Hand to cart
Bruised fruits and
The power
The melancholy
Of a man leaving with
Only flowers
That won’t ever
Grow again

I sink in
Window like a screensaver
People living
Moving like
The leaves still attached
On the brink of
Fall

I sink further in
Cerulean chair
Bones from the 80s
(Could’ve been the 90s)
Cut & carved
With a story
Never ending

Sometimes
I wish my body
Was softer
In hard places
And my mind
Would soothe
In dark places
Sometimes
I wish I could
Press my lips
So quick
To liquids
That could numb
And other times
I don’t wish at all

Shaking hands
Not to be confused with
A meeting over
Four cups of coffee
Cream & sugar
The bridge between
Lips and a
Bitter water you
Grow into
Sometimes intolerant
My hands are shaking
Over caffeinated
And wet from walking
Down Moreland
Touching everything
I can

I take pictures of my hands
But not because they’re beautiful
Marked by my gnawing
A sense of growing older
And the tobacco stains
From each night before
I take pictures of my hands
To hold my place

In the spring time
I walk through the city
Palms up
Touching every flower
I can
And think myself a pollinator
Inheriting the passing petrichor
The sweetness of red mud
And isn’t that enough?
The bees momentary visit
To the flower
Asking her to grow
Palms facing up

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

it smelled like fruit at
the train station this morning
maybe it was the mother -
infant draped, arms
over her shoulder
soft and smiling

it could've been the man
holding flowers
white knuckled
hungrily consuming the tile
with black patented
like the ants I see
carrying off
other ants

or maybe it’s that three years later
summer still feels
like orange peels
baking in a hot
train station
and I’m still there
weighing out how
it feels to be human

I hope fall is
being sweet
in the cereal isle
& making playlists to
pick pecans
off the ground
in Brownwood Park

lips to the path
between shoulder
blades like
fingers to
moss
& the dissection
of your dialect when
you say
hello

There’s a pile of leaves
In freedom park that
I hesitate at
It’s tempting to
Dive in
Afraid I’ll find the pain
Of all the I love you’s
I’ve withheld
With cold
Curled fingers
Afraid I’ll find the ground
To be harder
Than I thought

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

I’ve been seeing
Shadows at the foot of
My sleeping sound
Sleeping so
Much my back creaking
At the thought of moving
Moving on
Moving forward is
so hard when
You won’t let me go
Like the thousandth
Cigarette smoked
Back to back
And discarded on
My porch

I wake
I see you
And I beg
That you leave me
Alone

Poems
Like the flowers you keep
Pressed to pages
Mythology of the
Soul
Or your shoulders
In motion
The summer time
And salt on
Your lips
I found out
Barefooted
On asphalt so
Hot

you said you liked me
wintered
weathered
working
you said you liked
the crease between
my lips and nose
from the pack and a half
a day
you said you liked me
but you said you didn't
need me

A memory
Chiseled away
Somewhere deep
In tertiary terrain
The need to be small
Trained to touch
Make no noise
Don’t need too much
I still shut doors
And turn the ***
To be as quiet
As a mouse
In my minds glass
House

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.

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

An emptiness
Like sitting down
In the shower
Not recognizing
If hours
Or moments have passed
Letting plants
Starve
Chain smoking on the porch
Like no ones ever gonna need me again
I’m so tired today

Walking down memorial
the smell of hot & wet soil
packed into plastic
making walls along the sidewalk
the gardener and the garden
both remind me
how the seasons begin to turn
like pages in a book
that was left
without needing to know
the ending

and yes
how sweet is that scent

You sleep like the echo
I feel in my teeth
When I go to bed drunk
And spinning
But I’m ok with
Spinning, are you ok
With familiarity?
A closeness you can
Taste then put away
On an untouched shelf
An awareness, granular
And brief.
So sometimes
mornings are
Shoulders to lips
And others are
Hoping you’ll wake

I walked into
The bathroom for
The third time today
Tiles
Cold and knowing
All the secrets I’ve shared
The ones I haven’t
Beneath my feet
Content with reading
Everything but
The lines between you
And between me
The light peering in
For more poems to
Keep
The beer in my hand
For a last word
To read
The book to my
Left untouched
Water on the stove to heat
And I couldn’t
Keep the warmth
To stay feet tangled
Toes pressed
To seed.

Old words
Like old songs are
Living old worlds
And still it seems
You can’t escape them

Why is it-
In brown paper bags
Declarations of love-
That I only want
You distant and sharp.

it's that time of year
where I always find myself
surprised by how much
sleep I actually need