Polyester Brown

Dec 2014

Devon Webb

We are critical.

We find flaws in
everything we see
because nobody
wants to write
about perfection,
even though sometimes
we wish we could just stay
staring into that
unblemished surface.

2. We are never satisfied.

We live our lives upon
mountains of
scrunched up
bits of refill and
ideas we gave up
trying to
express.

3. We never forget.

We write words about
eye contact made
three months ago
that we replay over
and over in our minds
even though it
stopped
being relevant.

4. We are fickle.**

Our emotions flash
from one
to the other
like strobe lighting that
disorientates us
until we feel as if
the world
will never be still.

5. We are exposed.

We don't know how
to keep our feelings
to ourselves so
we'll write them
down for
you to find
'accidentally'.

6. We are vulnerable.

We wear our
hearts on our sleeves
and won't lift a
muscle to fight back
if somebody tries
to break it
because we thrive
from the pain.

7. We will never stop.

We will never stop
feeling and
we will never stop
hurting,
we will never stop
breaking and
bleeding and
loving
even though the cycle
is endless
and we know what's
coming next.

We are addicted
to agony,
but we agonise
for the art.

It's worth it though.

Polyester Brown Dec 2014

Untitled

I remember the taste of salt on our lips as we kissed,
The tears streaking our faces as our mouths met for the very last time.

Secret and forbidden, we had agreed for some while that we would have to walk it back;
But only now had the time for goodbye come upon us.

She was wearing rose oil and her black wool coat and her hair was a dark fountain pouring down her shoulders.

We turned, parted. A foot. Three yards. Fifty paces; with each step my spirit drained from me and became ephemera.

I thought, if this is what life can make us to feel sometimes…I want no more of it.

Finding an alleyway, I mashed my fists against the bricks until they were slick with blood;
a homeless man turned the corner and found me.

Graciously silent, his face was sad for me as he watched me on my knees making sounds like an expiring animal,
every moan, every bark, every growl a testimony from my heart:

I love her
I love her
I love her

Like a movie, she took a job two times zones away, and
I stayed behind to become a hollow shell,
the world washed in sepia.

I tried to cleanse her from my soul; I would lift my eyes and find the sunrise, raise my jaw against the wind.

But every short brunette in the morning coffee shop line, every cream-colored sedan,
every vibration from my phone
was another taste of unrequited hope, and
I would have to start over.

She would return to me at unexpected times.
Sometimes between the pages of a book, or a clever ensemble on a busy sidewalk,
or in the lyrics from a song…

If you leave…don’t look back.

I heard of the accident in a crowded bar, her and her fiancée, from a friend who didn’t know any better;
No one knew any better.

Nor did they know what to do,
or say,
or why…
as I faltered and fell to a knee in between the pool tables in back,
my hand clamped over my eyes as if the tears would be stayed.

I never visited the piece of stone that bore her name.
Her spirit already whispered it as it haunted my heart.

Polyester Brown Dec 2014

(untitled)

Articulate with hate
Solidified with lies.
You die!
Tended to by flies.

Polyester Brown Dec 2014

Blue Cupid

Blue cupid played in moonlit kitchen
Reached for beers at the same time
Mouths shared shyly in approval of each other
Went back to the group regretting this secret had not more to hide.

Polyester Brown Dec 2014

Whiskey Seven

Whiskey seven methadrine man
slides filterless cigarettes across table
feels weight of .45 in shoulder holster
sneers knowing that between the two of them,
he's the bad one.

Dec 2014

Taylor

an almost boy

I Started To Fall For You At The Same Speed She Almost Jumped From
Or,
Couldn't You Have Said Something Sooner?
Or,
The Story of An Almost

Midnight exhales, meet 1 am clavicles.
2 am blushing, meet 3 am commands.
4 am cautiousness, meet 5 am lust.
6 am, meet the one you love.
I felt comfortable with you;
There was instant trust.
I wanted your creased cheeks and bleary eyes at every hour of the late night.
I would dream about my fingertips tracing your sides in the early morning light.
I've been missing the way I could only see half of your face once the drowsiness set in, the way you lifted your chin and smiled at me.
Your eyelids never crinkled evenly.
The first night we talked, you called me cute and told me that if I wasn't going to say the flirty things, you would.
You made me nervous. People don't make me nervous.
I don't get butterflies. I don't get pink cheeks. I get sickly moths and bats flapping around inside me. I go pale from head to toe.
You brought back raw emotion like sugar. It was too much all at once; it made both of us a little sick. Neither of us were used to it.
Your mind decided to change tracks and left me behind at the station. I've still been sitting at the help desk waiting for your return.
You're not the type I go for. You're much too cautious and gentle, generic and accessible.
That's gotta mean something. I usually go for the girls who stain their cigarettes with Ruby Woo or Sin lipstick; into none of those categories do you fit. I go for girls who live halfway across the world and would rather swim in tar than fall for me again. I chase after those who'd never want me. I do it so no one gets hurt. I once burned a girl so badly she wished she could fall from red steel at 70 miles per hour just to hit the water to escape my flames.
You're nothing like anyone I've ever loved. Why is it you had to pull me in so close, thaw me so much?
My soul is of the winter; if I'm not a raging fire, I freeze at anyone's touch.
I just wish you would've realized you made me feel so much, thaw so much, ache so much.
I wish you would've realized that no matter how much you hated poetry, the honey words still spilled from your lips.
You were one of my favorite poets.
From hipbones to little sighs, stinging skin and inner thighs; you told me stories of moonlight on shoulder blades and the dream morning of a nymphomaniac.
Maybe it was a dangerous mix of lust and a little too much trust, but I miss the way you made me feel a little loved

— The End —