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Jesse Osborne Jun 2016
but he wrote a line in some novel
about love as a hair clip left behind on the dresser.
his lover coming back for it later.

i still think it could've been your bobby pin, there, on my bedside table.
however, now that i'm single,
i much prefer hair ties.
Jesse Osborne Jun 2016
The girl I love is in Brooklyn
and I don't have the currency to call
            collect
the clouds in her eyes
and sew her a sky above
the heads of buildings
           and smoke
cigarettes through telephone wires
           or bodies
of water.

We're both trying to quit,
in our own ways.
Jesse Osborne Jun 2016
Daffodils think they're sunflowers,
my grandmother thinks her couch is on fire,
I think you're still the same:

eyes faulty traffic lights,
chest an airbag in constant accident,
voice infrequent radio static.
Jesse Osborne May 2016
great-grandma Corinne was always doomed
to leave the room just before a big event

she was in the bathroom across
the hallway the day I was born
          
           she was in the supermarket across
           the street the day her husband died

as is my fate to wish for love
in the moments before i leave

but i’d take a lifetime of clocks
ticking two breaths behind

            to settle inside the cocoon of
            your mouth for a whisper of time
Jesse Osborne May 2016
that tasted like popcorn
and dirt; warm, and then
Alive.


The grass separates itself into individual blades
that glitter          and    dance
                                              under the sky
like a million knives
floating
              on
    the
            afternoon
                               tide.

Friend, I want to grow roots with you.
                                                                ­  I want to make a home in you.

I am as raw as a newborn.
All that my body can handle
is the sweet juice of a peach
                                        
                                         running
                                           down
                                             my
                                            neck.

I never knew the sky could open as it has,
                                                       could fill me with cloud,
                             and the dust of what the first atoms
have left behind for us.

My body is a torch
to light       with the world of your palms.
Use dandelions
                          as matches.


I am stripped of all pretense, bones
free of caveat and nicety.
Now, it is time to live as an
earthworm does. Softly, naked:
on the cheek of the
                                                        earth.
Jesse Osborne Apr 2016
My friends’ voices hum softly
outside the open window,
like night-bees over sleeping dandelions
lulling me into dream.
Jesse Osborne Apr 2016
The birds outside start their days early
hunting for worms
in the still-sleeping grass.

The fish in the bowl above my bed
parts the water, calling for Moses,
or breakfast. Whichever comes first.

For him, two freeze dried bloodworms.
For me, an old banana and a cup of cold coffee.
The two of us were bred for civility.
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