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Orion Schwalm Apr 2016
When I believed in monsters
And hid under my bed from the tooth fairy
Back in the days of lizard chasing for hours
Fall was the best season.
Fall was everything and everything was Fall.
The seas of leaves, Falling down, scraping knees
The feel of  the breeze and tire swings hanging on oak trees taller than fear was deep.
Spring water tasted sweeter than sleep.
Dreams were no different from real life.

All was Fall.
Falling down, falling up.
Falling in, falling out, falling in-

You sometimes remind me of the skin I shed. Bit by bit with every trip.
Building better birdhouses. Bruises, scars, and callouses.
Falling down to the ground. Fall leaves all around.
Scraping knees raw. Growing back...and forth.
Growing in and out.
Falling.

Catching myself halfway in a reverie.
Coming out. Coming back into the house.
Coming up the hill, growing up still.
Feeling like falling in love wasn't real.

But you sometimes remind me



of when I thought it was
Orion Schwalm Feb 2016
Take me to where the wild waters vanish...

Love to feel your happiness...

Promise me...
I wish, I wish...

Each time I think I'm falling, I wake...

Floating on a clear lake...
Orion Schwalm Jan 2016
Solace.
Solvent globe.
Run away again.
A life, still small.

This was supposed to be a sort of ventriloquistic reverie, disguised as a mimetic purging of all shiiiiiiiiiit in the body and miiiiiiiiiiind.
Oh well.
Here's the story: A bug- not one of any high or low blood-
began his run among the trees
at dawn.
Stopped along the riverbed-
Sang a song of Sparrows Nests and Lions Manes-
Gave the chorus his very best and made attempts of quieting the refrain-
Fell short of a fourth verse and ended the third-
So as not to disturb the delicate force of terseness in the words-
with a cadence akin to the angel's wingspan
decadence falling like skin in the snow sand...
Feeling smaller than anyone he had ever felt...

He crushed glory into small packets and buried them in a time capsule
for generations to come.


17 Years Later
A still, small life.
During the swarm of cicadas,
I awake.
Opening halo to blurry globe of light.
A sound so silent it burns every inch,
Couldn't help but wake up.
Couldn't help you when you asked,
Now in hindsight...open haloes to a grasp on love.
Inside the oven life. Light's like a buried knife, deep inside a mound
of earth.

Turn around.
Go back in the ground.
Dig deep. Faces, yes my friends, asleep.
Tear them from the blackened soil.
Forests of fire, lakes of oil,
Unearthing everyone I know to be alive. ALIVE LIVE. NOT INSIDE.
Get out of the earth, it is not your time.
Grandfather face. Good, you remain. Your remains are welcome.
Dissolving in the globe.
Exhuming corpses full of life.
Dancing the dead dance in the silent night.
The music of nothingness guiding my way.
All the **** night and nothing to say.
Nowhere to run, nothing to find.
Back into sunlight with those of my kind.


"Please wake up."
"Please wake up again."
A small still life.
In the meeting place I see.
Double globes, expecting your face.
Constructing your mind, full of me.

What am I doing? I'm memorizing your eye twitches. Every time a tiny particle of dust, called a thought, lands in the ocean, a million muscles contract, calling the thing dust, and noticing me.

See it's all one thing. The dust, grass, air, video games, steak, Salmen, Salwomen, bears. Riding a bear, bare-back, and totally ****. Being inside a room, or a cave, craving tall glasses of milk, the cow urinates in the grass, and the steak melts in your mouth, and the globe dissolves your body, while my eyes open and close, taking away your halo, and giving you a pair of human eyes instead.

Every time I open my eyes. It's all one thing.
The meeting place where I see my friends.
The circle of life, the beginning and end.
The smallness of death and the land of the love.
The sense of your presence below and above.
The time that you held me, and I held you.
This is the world. The cradle and tomb.

It's a part of you, that's clear enough. All I wanted was to see the whole thing.
Dedicated to good friends.
Orion Schwalm Dec 2015
As she swayed to the tide of music nobody heard
The ghostly rhythms of my own forgotten soul caught FIRE
Tap dancing tenaciously on the tightrope of the void
Calling forth cascading cataracts, callousing over the mind, a cacophony of Mallards, flying south for the winter,
NEVER AGAIN TO SEE THEIR MOTHERS.
She tied my brain into a rope and swung across the chasm
Laughing like a Mameluke who had just discovered his feet.
The camel was left behind at the gate
The Babble went on till the break of dawn
Till it stopped.
And collapsed.
And felt weak as a Sunday Noon Tide Carolers
Bunchcake, Fun and Dry, Severing again and again the Hair twine
Randal Slappy Blimp map candy man Cadillac attack
A BOTTLE OF WINE AND TWO LEFT FEET LATER
A scumaladdoodalla frigate-splayed poodle-cups
When finally she agreed to let me into her preschool
I had already given up the hope of ever having a career in the arts.
Bean friends. Are the only friends. That accompany you. To heaven.
Orion Schwalm Dec 2015
Every little dream,
sitting in a swing,
swinging the days on by.

Couldn't help but notice,
you were in a trance,
just thought I'd stop and try. (my bad)

Tell me, what's your reverie,
what's in your past that's flickering past that's going so fast that only your eyes can see.
See that's the worst of me,
prying to see why you're crying, you see how I'm trying to break in and steal something?

I must say that nice coat of numb would look much more ravishing on me.
I think I'll take it just to see you shiver once, and watch you watch me leave.


Anyway it's okay if your own steady gaze leaves the ground for a moment or two.
It's a moment of sun in a blustering gail when your eyes reflect light from the moon.

This is cute.
Look at the moon, dear.
Moon the onlookers.
They are cute as well.
Cute and small and cheering you on. Cheering your bare-assed attempts to be new.

Wait for dawn and the dream will be over.
One silent night after another
But do you really want to know
What it feels like to be
Your own lover?

Open your eyes and see-
I'll open mine too-
Look at them, what's there?
Reflected light
Everywhere you look
I can see you
Getting by
but I can imagine you
smiling
at the tiniest little things
every little dream
is flickering past
your eyelids
Orion Schwalm Dec 2015
Here's a light.

No I don't smoke.

See that house?

No I don't home.

We're going in.

I don't know.

Come on all your friends are in there.

I don't care.

See the big one? He's loving on your girl.

Not my girl.

We'll jump the gate, nobody will know.

Not my girl.

Everyone will be excited to see you.

Not my girl.

Well what do you care!

Not invited.

So ******* polite all the time.

Not polite.

Ok stay here.

No I want in.

Ok well let's go.

Wait.

WHAT?!

How do you know?

What?

That he loves her?

I can see him through the window, getting touchy feely.

But she doesn't love him.

She looks like she's enjoying herself.

It tears him up inside.

He probably wants to do that to her.

He wishes he were me.

Why?

Because it doesn't tear me up inside.

That she doesn't love you?

...


Don't know.

Well?

Don't care.

It doesn't hurt you even a little?

Doesn't belong.

What, you?

No, her.

Doesn't belong where?

To me.

And you don't care?

I don't possess.

And he wants to possess.

And he suffers.

I see.

Yes.

So?

Yes.

Let's go in there.

No.

Why not?!

I can't stand to see it.

See she does get to you!

No.

Well what then?

Him.

Him?

Yes.

What about him?

He suffers.

Yeah? And?

I can't stand to see it.

...

Oh.

Yes.

Well.

Yes.

Ok...well I'm going in.

I'll be here.
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