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Pinkerton Nov 2020
Oh, to be a bear—
to eat and eat and eat, gorging yourself
on the fat of the land, until unrecognizable
in your own corpulence;
to just close your eyes and disappear,
a tumultuous season passing by as you dream.

It seems so unfair.
I could commit gluttony at dinner
yet, come morning, awaken
empty and needing.

How much time must transpire
between opening my eyes and closing them again
to be considered a new nap? Or have I succeeded
at one big sleep with brief intermissions
of disappointing wakefulness?
Some say it takes ten thousand hours
to practice a skill into mastery. I am
a student of the ursine arts. All I care
to do these days is hone this craft, still unable
to drift away for whole seasons.
A day or two may pass away, but I awaken
faced with all the reasons
I want to disappear. I close my eyes again.
Oh, to be a bear.

And how does a bear know
when the season is over,
when it is safe to open eyes once again?
How will I?
Pinkerton Aug 2020
“A man will leave his father and his mother and he must stick to his wife and they must become one flesh.” A burning plagued my side and in her I found the reason why. Each morning as I stared at her picture, I thanked Him; and every night just the same. A complement, sculpted by the hand of God himself, it seemed, just for me—everything I needed, everything I never knew I wanted. Before I even truly knew her and was trying to pawn off my heart to someone else, it already ran away, leaping into her arms. It’s true what I've heard some men say: “The most precious possession that ever comes to a man in this world is a woman's heart”

I don’t believe in fate, yet it still feels that I was born to love her. Every event that has ever happened in my life, everything molded me into a character for her heart and only hers. She was never a trial, it was never a struggle coming to love her; simply natural, like day giving way to night. Not before long, we experienced a bonding of mind and heart, a grafting of two souls that not even the most skilled of surgeons could replicate. Although no one is perfect, there is nothing about her I would change. For centuries love has been captured in song, verse, canvas, and stone; I believe it is she and I that all these artists have been alluding to. After all, she is already the archetype, the ultimate beauty that these very artists could only dream of capturing. She is my reason for leaving behind father and mother, even myself and every previous course of action if so necessary. Without her, there is only a little bit of me left.

Yet here we are, distanced, paying the price for our untimely love. A shooting star streaked across the sky and I wished upon it. But I guess it does make a difference who you are because she’s still not here beside me. When not compared to her, this vision really is as magnificent as she said it would be. Thus, even after a failed wish, I watch the sky because I know the Universe is something that she finds intriguing. And maybe we’ll be gazing at the same star so, in some way, we’ll be nestled up there together—aflame like a blue dwarf with our love, instead of so distant like Pluto and the Sun. She is my world and now that she’s gone my heart has little left to stand on.

“Remember me when you get into your Kingdom,” pleaded an evildoer hung alongside Jesus. And it is this Kingdom which gives so many the strength to live and endure. But my heart keeps beating, white cells keep fighting, I keep persevering for her. The future will bring her to me again, I know it will. When I’m bent over like a tree beaten by the wind with not many years left of my life, she’ll still be a cherished rose garnishing my frayed limbs. A fragrant flower of exquisite color, such beauty it causes the heart to rejoice, so delicate and graceful yet mighty in power so as to keep life in these aged veins. Never in all my years will I live for anyone other than her; never in all my years will my love for her wane. “Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”—she is my Paradise. She is worth the wait.
Pinkerton Jul 2020
I.
In kindergarten arts & crafts,
a classmate called my project ugly.
Honestly, it looked like *****-
too much glue, not enough tissue paper.
But I should've torn up his artwork
instead of mine.

II.
In first grade, not knowing how
to process emotions, I knocked a girl over
when she kissed me on the cheek.
I also called her ugly. She wasn't
and I didn't wash my face for a week.
Her arm, broken from the accident,
was in a cast for much longer.

III.
In fourth grade, math stumped me.
I just couldn't master my times tables
like all the other kids. I broke
a pencil every time I felt stupid.
I seemed to have nothing but broken pencils.

IV.
In 1994, Jack Kirby died.
He created my favorite character, the Hulk.
I missed my opportunity to write him
a thank you letter for a hero I could relate to.

V.
In sixth grade, the school play:
it was just a small role but ****!
I wanted to be flawless, rehearsed relentlessly.
I got so nervous I threw up on stage.
Everyone laughed.
I earned the name Puke Face.

VI.
When I was 15, dad left us.
He explained that he found a new woman
to start a family that he could love.
He never apologized.
I punched a hole in my wall
wishing it was his face.

VII.
I should've tried to make more friends.
But I wanted more time for tv and comics.

VIII.
Despite diligent studying,
I failed yet another math test.
I don't remember hitting my locker that hard
but school fined me for destruction of property.

IX.
There will always be bullies.
I thought I deserved the teasing
so I didn't stand up to them.
Except one... sort of.
I killed his dog.

X.
My grandparents always wanted to see me.
I was just too busy or
they lived too far away.
Now I miss them and they're gone,
so much further away than they've ever been.

XI.
I don't think I saw my therapist long enough.

XII.
I should've started exercising sooner.

XIII.
Every time hunger ******* foresight
and I ate off a taco truck.
Would superman ever eat Kryptonite
because it smelled good in a corn tortilla?

XIV.
How long did members of the Manhattan Project
relish in their pride before the fallout of regret?
You are the most beautiful thing
I've ever been a part of.

XV.
Sometimes I just don't know how to cope.
Sometimes I just get angry.
I try meditation and yoga,
I try to find my Zen.
But like Bruce Banner something green
and ferocious rages inside of me.
Sometimes I need to smash.
Sometimes I need to feel your skull crack
beneath my knuckles.

XVI.
Rip the plaster off the walls of a temple,
it's still a temple, still holy
still beautiful.
I'm sorry for how these fists
try to redecorate your face, for the ugly
colors they try to paint over your beauty.
But maybe
if you weren't so **** beautiful
I could feel like I deserved you,
wouldn't be reminded of things I am not
every time you smile at me; maybe
if you were just a little bit damaged, I
wouldn't feel so broken.
I'm sorry for how my hands say I Love You.

XVII.
I should have never let you stay.
How did you love me?

XVIII.
I'm sorry that all I have are I'm-sorrys.

XIX.
We both thought you could make me a better human.

**.
I thought your tears could wash the monster off of me.
Pinkerton Jun 2020
On a sunny winter day
when jackets held little heat
weather forecasts sent us up the mountain,
our first trip to the snow.
Only snowmen had liquefied like a western witch,
snow angels had fallen from grace.
We were left sloshing through sad puddles
ankle-deep in disdain for weathermen.
There were no laughs between us,
her demeanor solemn
as if in a funeral dirge for snowmen.
It was our last trip to the snow.
It was our last trip.

As she often expected,
I apologized for mistakes not my own.
Perhaps Channel 2 News was merely the prophet
forecasting an icy blizzard in her heart.
There was no shelter from her storm.
Pinkerton May 2020
Death dons a new face
and the whole world hides behind a mask,
has quarantined itself indoors;
yet, each morning brings new mourning
as statistics continue to worsen.
The odds are in our favor
but every day I still read story
after story
after story
of those we’ve lost to this virus,
those whose odds were not favorable.
Sure, the odds are in my favor but what if
I’ve made a mistake,
my preventative measures not cautious enough?
Any day now, it could be my name in the paper,
just another number lost in the statistics.

I obsessively look out the window
keeping watch for an enemy impossible to see.
Like this old house, my body groans and creaks;
every new noise has me panicked
about an unwanted visitor.
There is always a thermometer in my mouth now,
the constant smell of bleach on every surface.

I have not felt my lover’s touch in months.
We promised to let nothing come between us—
all it’s taken is 125 nanometers.
There is a killer on the loose
600 times smaller than the diameter of a strand of hair,
her hair that used to be everywhere.
Her smell in my clothes, in my sheets,
the subtle reminders of her frequent presence
washed away with disinfectant.

We must stand apart now
to improve the odds we can live a long life
together when this is all over.
This is the happiest love I’ve ever known
and I stay awake at night worried
that I won’t make it long enough to hold you again,
that I’ll wake up in a lonely hospital room,
machines keeping me alive.
I stay awake at night worried
that all the bleach, all the Lysol,
all the masks the in world, all the distance
won’t make a difference.
I stay awake at night worried
that I will be prematurely plucked from this life
and never get the chance to love you
for as long or as much as you deserve.
Pinkerton Mar 2020
Even on mute,
**** blares like air raid sirens
when roommates are home.
And as I look her up and down
up and down
up and down
suddenly I’m fearful my skull
isn’t soundproof, that the new age music
will be drowned out by the ****-smack
of our naked bodies colliding in my head.
I avoid eye contact, her figure burned into my retinas,
*** in the air taking it in down *******.
The class chants Ohm
but I only manage to moan ohmygod.

Perfect is such a strong word
but her designer yoga wear is a second skin
hugging in all the right places
a body that only has the right places
and when she bends over into a forward fold
there are no secrets.
Is it Bikram in here or is it just me?
Sweat flooding off my forehead, ujjiya out of control
as I struggle and creak from pose to pose
she flows into effortlessly. We
need to get tangled in each other,
move our asanas from the mat to the sheets.
If only I were Shiva, merely
to have extra hands to run over her flawless form.
I would give my salutations to the sun daily
if only for this view.
I may not be in love with yoga,
but **** do I love yoga class.
Namaste.
Pinkerton Mar 2020
There is a tirade of words
unspoken, a cataclysm
of silence and I wish she’d speak,
offer just a few syllables
to quell my heart from
wallowing in doubt.
But this is war
with every unspoken word
a land mine I stumble over.

When suddenly, D-Day erupts-
a barrage of artillery exploding as
insults and blame. We’re both wounded,
bleeding from our egos,
vehemently exchanging bullets.
Even pacifists must fight to survive
when thrown into the trenches
and as I take aim, wonder
if winning the fight is worth the losses
as her heart enters my cross-hairs.
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