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Poems

Tom Leveille  Jun 2014
məˈräZH
Tom Leveille Jun 2014
do you ever wonder
about the difference between
looking at something
and the hallucination created
when looking past it?
if you look at your hand
it's all you can see
but if you look past your hand
there are now two of them
sometimes it's hard for me
to remember which is real
it gets me thinking
about how my father
used to wake me up
in the morning by rubbing
his stubble across my face
i spent my 11th birthday
under the assumption
that he might come back
if i drank his aftershave
like maybe if i could turn blue
if i could be his favorite color
on our bathroom floor
he would forget why he left
the paramedics were all sobing
as they pumped memories
out of my stomach
i coughed up the day the post-it note with your new address on it
burned a hole in our refrigerator
coughed up the day
the divorce papers came
and my mother
took a baseball bat to the mailbox
i've been choking on the splinters
for 17 years
it's been 17 years
since the last dinner plate
exploded on our dining room wall
17 years since my mother
started accidentally setting your place at the dinner table
17 years since italian night
at the restaurant on the corner
where the juke box
spat tired music
and like so many other things
it stopped working when you left
i guess it's no coincidence
since the juke box went quiet
that the cds in my car
only skip on "i miss you"
i've been hemorrhaging memories
for so long
and now that i'm looking back
i can no longer tell
the mirage from the truth
sometimes i swear
you showed up to my graduation
and last time
i was at your apartment
i can't remember
if the imprints of my hands
are in clay hanging on your wall
or if they were left in the mud
the day god had the audacity
to let it rain
or maybe it's like the time
i saw someone crying on a bridge
now that i think about it
i can't remember if it was me
SG Holter May 2014
He talked like a ******.
Walked like one.
Loudly assisting tourists in the
Line outside the bus.
My luck seated him in
Front of me. I answered
Evasively. Mentally begging

Shut up. Shut up.
I was tired.
I was hungry.

"Would you like a piece of pizza?"
He handed me a sealed
Bag. This close
His eyes contradicted his person.
Sober. Friendly. He smelled
Of aftershave and
Society.

"I shouldn't eat this, I'm working
With a Yoga project
To help addicts recover
Through meditation.
Should stay healthy. Been clean
For three years, though I
Know it doesn't seem like it.

I just love to talk to people."
I ate his pizza. We spoke.  
Squinted in laughter.
He cried like a girl when  
He saw Avatar
, he confessed.
"My sons still take the p...
Outta me for that.
I'm so glad they'll never

Have to go through
What I did. I'll
Make sure of
That for
Sure, for
Sure."

I usually write poetry
On the bus.
This Friday afternoon
I lived it.
Keilah  Jun 2014
2. Aftershave
Keilah Jun 2014
I opened the shutters and light eventually claimed
the perfection covered by my blanket. Dozing off
like it wasn't past eight and he had work
to do.

Last night was beautiful. It seemed like we were the after-effect
of a writer’s figment of imagination. No existing words
could ever describe and give justice as to how graceful and
stunning we were.

He held my hands – filling up the spaces that once stood
alone (but now never again). He touched the small of
my back and danced with me in the moon lit veranda with
only candles to witness us both.

His neck radiated of fresh soap and mint. His breath of
chocolate-covered strawberries we have shared fifteen minutes
ago. His soft, delicate hands tracing the non-existent contour
of my waist.

We swayed along Muse and Switch foot. As the last seconds
of our last song neared, he took me in his arms, and
put my lips against his. No one to see, no one to judge, no one
to ever write of.

Time flew so fast, yet so slow. Seconds turned into minutes,
minutes turned into hours, hours turned into centuries, and
after all my infinite nanoseconds, we were back under my covers
giggling like 5 year-olds, as love-stricken back in 2002.

And seeing his eyelids flutter now, I wonder if you are
ever going to leave again. Leave me back in my slumber, with no
deep brown eyes to wake up to. And without you, no one’s going to
*empty my aftershave or tie up my necktie anymore.