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175 · Oct 2017
The Icy Grip of Time
sparklysnowflake Oct 2017
Time is the realest thing in a human life
But no human can define it;
Everyone can feel it
But no one can touch it.
What was it like
Before Time?
The universe was simply
There?
Simply
Existence?
Or is the universe linked to time -
If they are one and the same,
There would be
Nothing
Without Time.

Time passes.
That is the only thing I know
For certain.
No matter how hard I cry
Each tear that streams down
Wishing, begging Time to stop
Only for a while
As Time evaporates the futile defiance
On my face and puts a sting in
My tired eyes and
Makes the wet tracks cold.
Second after second.
Unrelenting.
I'm running out of
Time.

Time consists only of moments.
Every moment is real and alive
When you are living it,
But Time converts to memory
And those living breathing
Moments
Are now
Gone
Except from your imperfect memory.
Vanished.
A small voice
Echoing in a dark tunnel
Just a moment
You cannot be sure even existed.
I can only be sure of now.
One day I might not
Remember today or
This
Moment.
The paradoxical instant where past
Meets future.
We live in that
Indefinitely small moment
Where who you were
Meets who you are making yourself to be
With the irreplaceable aid of
Time.
169 · Sep 2023
fragile thing
sparklysnowflake Sep 2023
my bones that have now carried worlds
are frankensteined bits of shells and shrapnel glued
together with calcium paste
and slathered in blue dye
to make everything look new---

I was so whole.

I have now already fractured
in every predictable place,
re-engineered and retrofitted my consciousness with
seismic dampers
and levees

and I am so strong, now.

how does it feel to know that it was you who broke me?
there is no one---
not even you could do what you did to me
again

and it feels good to be a god but mostly infuriating
to think of the fragile thing I used to be
for you, when you knew me.

I haven't seen a waterfall in 4 years,
my re-grafted skin has lost all its electric-sensitivity
and my heart still pumps blood but I reforged my arteries into metal,
which keeps me alive better than before but I
don't remember the last time I
felt anything.
in any life i would have still loved you
i am sure
and love itself would be jealous of the way that i love you
with desperate fervor and with fear
only of our own mortality
only of the ephemeral rivers and mountain ranges that could erupt in our way while we are alive
and of the time we may lose
but in every lifetime
when we are taken by whatever will take us away, wherever and whenever we reawaken  
in every lifetime i choose you
167 · Sep 2018
Ode to Sleeping Dogs
sparklysnowflake Sep 2018
Beauty is everywhere … isn’t it?
Truth ribbons twisted into knotted nests
housing corrupt filth and crusted lies
            remain deliberately ignored
to spoil further
and pollute the air with
            smog the color of rupees and shifty eyes

why let sleeping dogs lie?

too many can crowd your Mind
steal the breath from your eroding lungs
press against the brittle glass of
            moral compasses
                        and shatter
            rights and wrongs
blur lines between
            honest ambition and power addiction
            use and abuse
            the lower classes and
                        “untouchable” garbage scavengers plastered
                                    with muck and grime
                                    too filthy for water to clean
                        deprived even
                                    of the life of a sleeping dog

absolute power corrupts absolutely
Power is not love
            whether you are crooked slumlord of Annawadi
            or All-Holy Divine Servant to God Himself
and neither is pride
Love does not burn tongues
            except when it is not
Holding me with his right hand
and scarring me with his left
is not even half-love

sleeping dogs don't deserve to lie
It is my universe to disturb
They will bite me but
the crushed Purple Hibiscus
            underneath full bellies
will unfurl their petals and rise up
again.
Written as a synthesis of and response to Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
167 · Dec 2018
faded and forgotten
sparklysnowflake Dec 2018
i thought i was special
i thought she went home and
            spent hours combing through my irises searching for
            colored flecks that match her own

i thought she was hoping so hard that i felt
            her wishes dissolved in tears
            seeping from her palms
                        when she cradled my cheekbones

i thought she always knew what i was thinking –
            that if i let her stare for too long,
            she would find the hopeless poetry
                                    brimming with bitter-tasting imitations
                        that i etched into my retinas
            and the thousands of tattered fading photographs
                        i plastered onto the walls of my mind
                        – a record of all the moments when she
                                    let me go

but really
i've always known she loves you more
i know because i can see your name
embroidered in the fabric of her spirit
and mine is
only
fading in temporary ink
it will be
g    o        n                e
soon

when i am faded and forgotten:
i hope you remember how special she is
i hope you
            tell her everyday ...

            while i cry,
                        missing her,
                        desperately clutching
                                    the skin she touched
                                                now peeled into open wounds
                                                burning in the cold
                        and waterlogged, bodiless papers
                                    covered only with
                                    bitter-tasting imitations,

i hope you
listen as her words melt through you
            as her laugh sparkles in the empty air
fill your cracks and gaping canyons with the gentle blue
            she pours from her irises in silky ribbons
etch the feeling of her delicate fingers through your hair
            onto your retinas
                        maybe you will be able to immortalize her
                        and everything you see will
                        glow
let your pained tears drip silently into her cupped palms
            as she holds you in her sweet rose-colored warmth,

and pin just this one moment
                        onto the blank walls of your mind
            the moment when she held you and
            when, inside, you knew
            that
                        she would
            never
let you go
AU
166 · Aug 2018
perfect
sparklysnowflake Aug 2018
I agree that
you are the epitome
            of perfect
everything you do is
            impeccable, flawless
your life is free of paint splatters–
                        unless they are symmetrical–
            wild, unbridled adventures–
                        unless they are in your schedule–
            loops of messy cursive–
                        unless they are precisely designed
                        to embody a particular style–

and nothing you do
            is ever wrong
ever disorderly
ever imperfect

but
what are you
            now that you can produce
            perfection?
            can you say
                        with the pure honesty you are so proud of
                        that you are
                                    free?
                      ­  that you are not a slave to what you make?

did you ever stop cleaning
                        wiping
                        e­rasing
                        redoing
                        re­writing
to notice that
you have eradicated with
            blind disdain and vehement prejudice
            what might be considered
                        art?

that the joy of flawlessness is not real–
            just
                        the temporary absence of fear?

that true, natural, unplanned beauty has become
            not only your enemy but a lethal weapon?

that maybe
in your relentless process of perfecting
            you have generated imperfection?
a note to myself
162 · Jul 2018
the vow
sparklysnowflake Jul 2018
some vow to serve their god
                        rosary beads imprinted in red
                                    on trembling fingers
            to love their partner
            to be silent
            to live in poverty
                        hoping that the filth and dirt they sleep on
                        will nurture mythical seeds of enlightenment

I
do not grovel on my knees at night
            wishing that one glittering silver prayer ribbon
                                    from ten thousand
                                    all crumpling against the walls of my mind
                        would please reach something somewhere
                        or someone

I
pray standing
I pray alone
            firmly in front of the mirror
feet planted
            on top of dirt
                        filthy but barren
I pray to Truth
            yes it is cold when it is
                        raw
            its sharp teeth hurt when it
                        bites
but may Truth freeze and shatter
            my defeated heart
            when I forget

I
make a vow to myself
            that I will never
                        wrap up my cracks and fissures
                        with bandages made of someone else's skin
            I will never
                        set a torch to my Power and burn it
                        to ashes small enough
                                    for you to eat it
            I will never pay you
                        for the Soul you
                        do not own
            you cannot
                        wring me out
                        and mold me
                                    into one of you
                        I am stone

yes
I
am cold when I am raw
my real thoughts
            fears
            feelings
            dream­s
are sharp
and you
            will feel them bite

some vow to serve their god
            to love their partner
            to be silent
            to live in poverty

I
pray standing
I pray alone
            that when my knees are weak
            Truth will grant me the strength to fall
            into the godforsaken depths of hell
                        before I kneel
161 · Oct 2017
Musical Souls
sparklysnowflake Oct 2017
“Enjoy the silence”
But we whose blood pulses
in tempo and
Whose souls dance
with melody -
We do not know silence.
We never sleep.
We cannot enjoy the silence
or ever stop
Imagining.

Lavender water ripples
Onto the dazzling golden shore
Pushing sequins into the
Ruby air to crown the sunset

Deep green silk ribbons twist
Into palm trees and
Bright orange stones line
The shell of an elegant turtle underwater

Scarlet and silver puffy clouds
Rain shiny white pearls
That click as they hit the sidewalk
And fill the street with snow

We fear silence.
Silence is deafening -
Dissonant tones that echo
“Alone”
Without music, we are
Nothing.
Vivid reds and blues drain
into empty grey.
Glitter turns to dust
Rhythm slows
And I fade
away.
159 · Jun 2022
aspiring mechanic
sparklysnowflake Jun 2022
I have a body with purple crushed fingernails,
with burn scars and with joints secured by bolts.
I find soot and oil behind my knees
and in the creases of my sunburnt elbows,
and I tuck it underneath my tongue for nourishment,
paint black the fleshy bottom of my mouth.

In the daylight we work,
in the moonlight we drink and stumble to bed spinning.
We wash our hands in gasoline
and our faces with dirt and kiss our women goodnight.

But coated in whiskey and grime and spit from the mouths of mechanics and truckers and anyone else who wanted me,
my tongue is drunk and slowed but still refuses to forget what it is.
I am, unfortunately, a body that courses with concertos of amber glowing cobblestone and morning sunlight sparkling blue and sprawling green vineyards and everything unmarred and more vivid than life,
and my tongue knows I can only love things that taste like music.
inspired by Concierto de Aranjuez
https://youtu.be/kJzur5y06FE
158 · Nov 2019
human condition
sparklysnowflake Nov 2019
nothing is so
            small that it is
            inconsequential

and yet everyone is
            blind

sickeningly bright
            cities
                        with their glittering thousands
            flicker and burn
                        glimmer in the sun
                        and crumble to ashes in the yellow-grey
                                    belly of night
            and all resurrect at dawn to
                        die
                        again
    ­                                and again
                        without a moment of awe or any consideration

the sidewalks pulse
with
deep blue rhythms

a steady
           dull
                        drumbeat
                        lur­es immortal souls like a magnet
            with each
            metered throb
                                    pounds
                                    illusions into their malleable minds
                                    of meaningless mortality
                                    and empty entropy

their eyes glow with infinities but they
walk according to ephemeral rhythm
            marching through their cyclical days
with strings
            tied to their shoes
convinced they are free and
            that their grey and blue dreams
are the only colors
in the universe
158 · Apr 2020
six flags
sparklysnowflake Apr 2020
I fell for you all late summer steam and dark humid rain,
            electrically charged fingertips and cursive smiles.
I didn’t even open my eyes in the deep to
            see and mourn what I had lost ...

The moment you balanced your feet next to mine on the curb and
            bowed your head
            to hear the absentminded showtune
                        on my breath like whiskey,
            whispering to me in my tapered silence that you
wanted to hear me sing,
            with earnest like opened peach halves so raw and sweet
            that my voice obeyed
                        before I had the chance to decide ...

The breath you took when I whipped around
            in my bus seat to offer you a pink polka-dotted grin,
and the delighted children we became in our anticipation,
            all crossed stars and side glances savored like chocolate truffles
                        too thick and syrupy to devour whole ...

I fell for you all sweaty foreheads and damp pavement,
            full palms and knotted stomachs –
I always knew that my concavity had a counterpart.

But then the ache in my lungs when,
            with bellies full of Dippin Dots and funnelcake,
            retinas imprinted with neon orange lights,
            throats scratchy from belting and laughing,
            your hand burning my thigh in the dark and
            my head on your shoulder,
you rested your head
            on mine
            too,
            hard and heavy,
                        straining my neck, and

girls are told that they will be
            held and carried,
but love is not gilded or glittered,
            not a pedestal or throne,
            not a carnival or sweaty palms,
            not plastic smiles or chocolate truffles,
            not whiskey or shared melodies sung quietly in the rain.

I fell in love with you that night,
            nothing but hard, heavy heads on bony, tired shoulders.
157 · Oct 2017
Cotton Hearts
sparklysnowflake Oct 2017
I used to hear them breathing
Their shiny black eyes would
blink at me
cry with me
understand my childish mumbling
listen with undying patience
and reassuring sewn smiles
as I rambled for long hours on end
sprawled on the floor holding them above me

Even though they never moved
I could feel their heartbeats pulsing in unison
the warm glowing light radiating from their souls
I was loved and safe
Their kind thoughts like blue and yellow ribbons
in a magical whirlwind around me
protecting me from the world

I remember being so angry when
I was told they weren't alive
I cried and screamed in torturous agony
the soft purple dreams
that were sewn into me
viciously torn from my heart
I heard the white stitches pop
the seams broken beyond repair
my soul was bleeding
but deep down I had already known

Now I can’t even hear them crying
when I forget their names
I stare with stinging red eyes into their faces
for long hours on end
but I don’t remember
I know we had fun together but
I will never remember
our fantastical adventures in detail
I will never hear the comforting steady rhythm
of their heartbeats again
Now they are only stuffed spirits and
cotton hearts
156 · Nov 2017
Grandma
sparklysnowflake Nov 2017
My grandmother has a pillow
on her couch that says
"God couldn't be everywhere
so he created grandmothers"
My grandma may have a slight hobble,
veiny, knobby hands, and
smile lines and wrinkles of every kind
but she most certainly is
an angel from God

She may have the marks
of a long life on her face
but she has the kindest blue eyes
like delicate robin's eggs

She may not have a model's skin
or figure anymore, but
she wears elegant, clean suits,
shimmering brooches  
on her collars,
and glittering little earrings

She may not have a voice
like smooth velvet anymore, but
upon hearing my slightest achievement
she raises it in ecstatic praise

Sometimes she looks at me in such a way
that I can feel her heart rise with hope and pride
for me and
for what she somehow knows
I am going to accomplish
she smiles a warm little smile and calls me
"the lady with the almond eyes"
pronouncing every consonant
as if each one is a delicate teacup
she is trying so hard not to break

I don't know how she knows
that I am going to make the world proud
but when she calls me
"the lady with the almond eyes"
somehow
I know too
155 · Apr 2019
cold
sparklysnowflake Apr 2019
how can you tell me you love me?
you know i know you don't mean it
            i know you don't mean it

just like i knew you didnt know–
            couldnt read the lovesick poetry
                        etched onto the curvature of my pupils
            when you laughed and said "you love me"
because–
            no ones in the business of truth here right?
                        i know whats going on
            we're just pushing jokes real close to the boundary
                        but still no one could trammel up enough evidence
                        to make a case for one or the other

but god if
if you meant it

if you really do love me
then
            i dont think i know who i am
i dont think any of me is left
i think
            i am all evaporated tears by now
            and spent ink

please i hope
i hope you dont mean it

because

this doesnt feel like love ...

id have to forget about you
forget that i ever believed id have it someday
tear down my hope banners and polaroid fantasies
            lists and plans and dreams
because

you told me that i
already have

what i thought i wanted

i guess i had hoped you
wouldnt give it away so easily
            even though i used to wish you would

i hoped id feel enveloped in it
thought id never have to bandage up another frostbitten finger
but i

god
why am i still so
cold?
AU
sparklysnowflake Feb 2020
i guess my question is
what makes people move?
            what thought
            what spark
            what breath
                        in what language
straightens the bones in their knees and tightens the tendons in their legs like
            strings in wooden puppets
up
            down
up
            down
push
            ­off
lift
            up
step
down

how

do they decide
            where to go?
how
do they know
            it is right?
is it
what they are told?

do they ever make
decisions that are their own?

            i think if
that were true


no one would ever move


all paralyzed
            stuck
            in the pitch on the stairs

calculating
            visualizing
                     ­   optimizing
            philosophizing
ourselves

in circles
            in spirals
                        like drills
                        into the cold wet ground
"... I meant questions about the exam"

just something I found buried in my notes app
150 · Oct 2020
mirror
sparklysnowflake Oct 2020
if it wasn't for that pretty head ...

staring into my dark, lonely mirror, i feel my body
devour itself – my organs
twist and wring their tissue into thick dark vines—
capillaries converting into tangled leaf clusters on
two heaving baobabs,
the stomach flattening into a rotting jungle floor,
and without seeds or a plan or an objection,
an ecosystem erupts,
growing by night—

not the science textbook kind,
with turquoise estuaries and mangrove trees
and perfect clouds like pulled white taffy, no—

the water there is tar, pooling
at the tip of the cranium and
oozing through the brain
like a slimy pink grate, raining
over the dead and the deathless alike,
making misshapen monuments
out of pain.

the body is silent
as its inner kingdom declines,
and because it is a shell it
becomes preserved,
a petrified relic
of its old glory.

if it wasn't for that pretty head
with those bouncy brown curls,
that pale, almost blue-tinted skin and
your innocent doe eyes glaring into their own headlights like they didn't deliberately design the nightmare that lurks and grows behind them, like they never notice the sticky burning tears collecting in their corners, like they really might
miss their reflection
if it was gone ...
i’m taking a poetry class and, naturally, i forgot how to write ... this doesn’t really feel like it’s mine but i hope it means something to you all the same
149 · Nov 2017
Fatal Rebirth
sparklysnowflake Nov 2017
I know you
I know your sadness
The gleaming blue
          of your eyes melts
          washes into a snowy gray
          soft flurries float down
          and freeze your pale cheeks
          tightening your smile

I know your joy
The light ripples of your laugh
          brighten the very stars
          echo tones of purple
          through my hollow soul
          make the giggling brooks
          glare with envy

With one touch
          I would thaw the frozen fractals
                    in your pained smile
With one breath
          I would smile with you
                    and live in the frequency
                    of your angelic laughter forever

But now cold autumn winds of doubt
          freeze my smile too
          wash my eyes out with snow
          lock up the sparkling sprites
                    of laughter inside me
          as I realize
I don't know you anymore

I used to know
          your joy
          your sadness
they are as much a part of me as
          my living beating heart
but are you different now?
If I rip your eyes from my mind
          your laugh from my ears

will my heart stop too?
144 · Jan 2019
boiling over
sparklysnowflake Jan 2019
im always
boiling over

always at
            the b r     i       n            k
of somethin
                      g
on the verge

always breaking
tripping            wires
falling            over
shatte­r            ing
            some
                        thing

­everything
is
always             mo            vi            ng
time
            changes
         ­               things
stretches some            things
compresses
            other
things
no matter what
            things
you fill the minutes with
            like little microwave hot-pockets
even if you leave them
            em            p            ty

if they are
            cooking for
too long they
will boil
over

im always
boiling
over

always being
pushed up
            the mountain skyline
                        past heaven
where the linear flow of time
            morphs into
                        infinitesimal infinities
and the sky blackens
with thick
            st            ick            y
suspen
         ­     se

but im never
boil            ed
over
just always
boil            in
                        g

never brok            en
just perpetually
break            in
                           g

never fallen just falling
never shattered
only
ever
            shatter
                        i­
                                    n
                          ­                      g

i dont even wish for
whole-ness
anymore

static-ness
empti-ness

or to start over


i wish
for entropy

to finally
take over

for time to finally
change

me

for boiling

over

for my cracked spirit to finally
break all over

and to finally
turn

to dust
139 · Jul 2018
fracture
sparklysnowflake Jul 2018
nothing works
nothing moves
            and everything does

time lurches and jolts
            sprints across desert
                        kicking up the dust of today
and it wades in old rubber boots
            through the sticky muddy swamp of tomorrow

grey and lonely
            tissue paper mornings
crumple
and then let pressure
            compress
them into smooth river rocks
            skip across the lake
            until the water's weight
                        drags them down
                                    fractures –
                                    breaks the glassy mirrored plane
            deep
                        they don't
resist the grasp
or try to open their eyes
in the murky water

as they sink below
the realm
where time

reigns

cool night air doesn't soothe
            it stings
stars twinkle but they
            burn

and clouds are
trillions of pounds

heavy
138 · Oct 2020
Precarious Cosmic Calculus
sparklysnowflake Oct 2020
Embalmed in textured navy fabric space,
we float in vacuum silence, orbiting like stars.

With outstretched finger solar flares, we bridge
the space between us, puzzle over charts
and physics, piece together what we are–

in blazing convex eyes like mirrored spheres,
reflections question why they'd been afraid …

We curled up in our function’s minima,
derived the strongest force we'd ever seen
before. We hadn't considered, I'll admit,

because it seemed just so farfetched– absurd–
a conscious variable, god, or of the sort,

by whom our stellar glory was produced,
allowed, controlled. Because what universe–
inanimate and gloomy hunk of void–

destroys with prejudice, unless it minds
whose theories rest on hope and lovely lies?
i half wrote this already in my last one
but i had to write something in blank iambic pentameter for school
and well im too tired to have new ideas
136 · Aug 2018
self-destruction
sparklysnowflake Aug 2018
everything is breaking
not melting
            as the frozen pond
is relinquished by Winter
slowly the ice
            recedes
                        peacefully
no
I am
breaking
            not even like the shattering of a china doll
I wish it was
            that easy
I am breaking
            slowly
eyes melting into
            pitiful milky puddles
fragments forming and fissures widening

everything is lost
but you can't tell
only I can because
            I am the one who
                                                had to
            surgically remove
souls from bodies
            to protect them
you see a snapshot of their lifeless husks
            and you don't know
            you see me posing with them
                        boasting them
            painting myself
                                    a
                    ­                            w
                                   ­                         a
                                      ­                                  y
you don't realize
            that you can't take a picture
            of something so pure
so
I had to
break
everything

nothing is mine anymore
but still
nothing
            will ever
be
yours
135 · Dec 2017
Broken Silence
sparklysnowflake Dec 2017
We were having dinner together
            the three of us
It was silent
except for the clicking
            of our forks on our plates
and dark
except for the dim orange glow
            of five little candles on the table
I should have known
            because there was
something deafening about the silence
something blinding about the dark

My father's fork stopped clicking
and he looked up at me
there was
            something crazy in his eyes
his irises turned to ashes
            and fell like snow
            from his darkened face
and he stood slowly
my mother and I with him
            as if drawn up by a magnet

She said his name
            slowly
            careful not to break the delicate silence
but he yelled hers
            his eyes flaming now
            shattering the silence
                        like the brittle glass it was
and he hurled the shards at her
            a thousand at her heart
She
        f
           e
               l
                  l
            with a dull
            eerie
            thud.
Something screamed
            and told me
            to keep the silence
so I stood petrified and said
nothing

But it was already broken
He threw a thousand more
            and added a thousand
            tongues of fire from his eyes
at me
And I fell too
            next to her
I gripped her ****** hand
            as we died together

            killed
                        by the shards

            of broken

silence.
A mother and her teenage daughter were shot and killed this summer by her husband, who then killed himself. My thoughts and prayers are with their family, and I hope with all my heart that one day, there will be no more tragic and horrible stories of domestic violence.
135 · Feb 18
to my daughter
my baby girl:
both your mother and you are 22-year-old women
at some cinematic cosmic intersection in nonlinear time

brushing our teeth in public bathrooms,
falling asleep next to fat men in the 37th window seat on planes,
slowly calling home less and less often as we finally
learn to tell the difference between cooked and raw chicken,
wishing we were much younger or much older--
just please, God, not this messy, half-baked, 3am drunken monster in-between

I don't know who your father is,
but I may have an idea -- my boy is no
Hallmark movie star but he stayed with me
in my college one-bedroom for two weeks to
give me medicine and baths when I
couldn't breathe without pain,
he always calls and he always comes back, which is
much more than I can say for most men.
and I know that he'd do the same for you,
which is why I wouldn't be surprised if we married

anything borne of my being will certainly have
a sailor's mouth and a fire in her belly,
and I won't apologize for that, but I will apologize for the
men you scare away with the boy-cut, shoulder muscles, and 6-inch blade in your pant-pocket--
even with tails between their legs they make me crazy,
crazy because they tell me
the womb that will bear you makes me weak,
makes me a doll, a pretty little thing,
and I let them
convince me that you, the existence of you, is my failure to neuter myself numb,
to be great,
my white flag, my conviction and the disintegration of my
mask of competence

if you are reading this,
my daughter,
you must instead be my greatest victory,
proof of my strength and my sacrifice, my selflessness,
proof that the men in this world have no knowledge of us,
and every person that I have been in my life
is now for you, is part of you, and has loved you.
I love you with bearing grease underneath my fingernails,
mud in my mouth, and a 6-inch blade on my hip,
I love you with daisy chains on my wrists singing showtunes
at a bonfire by the lake.
I love you in heartbreak and in pain,
I love you in fury, and in comfort,
I love you in the safe embrace of the man who may later be your father
and I love you with the love my mother has for me

we will both be gone at some other intersection in time
but the love I have for you transcends our mortality,
and is already etched into something beautiful and beyond
134 · Nov 2017
Eternity
sparklysnowflake Nov 2017
Imagine
       sitting in the endless
       pitch-black void of space
              lit only by stars
                    and more stars
                    as far as you can see
              and Earth beneath you
       reading the daily newspaper
and drinking coffee
       in an itchy old lawn chair
             day
             after day
             after day
Oh hi God how are you?
             the same
Hey Mom how've you been?
             the same
       every day
       every day
no period at the end of the sentence
no cover at the end of the book
no "CUT" to signal it's over
       I'm trying to believe
             I want to know God
             I want to love God
             I don't want to be
       the center of the universe
             I want to believe
       in that library of books
       with all its ancient pages
            dancing lead figurines and
       shelves that stand miles high
all the knowledge in the world
      there must be a book somewhere
in some obscure shelf
      maybe halfway to the Andromeda galaxy
            that knows what is best for us
            that knows we cannot live
for eternity
130 · Oct 2017
The Day You Left Me
sparklysnowflake Oct 2017
Sharp stinging tears bleed from my eyes
Betrayal burns a hole in my heart.
You lied to me.
But the truth is suddenly too painful to bear.
I watched you turn into a monster.
I watched that innocent, familiar face
Morph into an ugly beast
With empty sinister eyes that
I don’t recognize.

What have you done to me?
What have I done?
My purple childhood fantasies
Have been stripped from my soul
And it is freezing in the dark blue ocean
Of guilt.

I hate you but now
I hate myself more
For missing you.
Every day I think maybe
You have grown up
Maybe my deep scars have healed
Maybe I will recognize your soul
Behind the smokey curtain of your dark eyes.

But it doesn’t matter anymore.
I stay away from you.
You are my past now.
You and your twisted lies
And your empty eyes
And your psychotic smirk
Stay only
With the day you left me.
127 · Nov 2017
Skyline
sparklysnowflake Nov 2017
thin, shaky pink finger
           points downward
solemnly accusing
            the vivid violet
            and brilliant tangerine ocean
                        boiling beneath
of the ****** ******
            of the sky
125 · Oct 2017
Debussy's Dream
sparklysnowflake Oct 2017
The vast ocean of a winter night
outside his frosty window

tattered maroon carpet
beneath aching wooden legs

thousands of worn pages
drowning the room
in a sea of delicate ink pearls

he sits at his tiny piano
shoes melting into the floor
puffing deep thought through

his kaolin pipe rubbed smooth
by the years
that have now become as hazy
as his gray smoke

he stares with tired eyes
like dying candles
across the musty room

Monet’s blurred pink lilies sinking,
bleeding into vivid purple ponds
kept alive only by an old wooden frame

he tries to find himself
but sees only Monet’s mud
in the mirror

the fuzzy residual memories
of a colorful dream

his eyes drift down to his own canvas
trembling at the familiar wrath of
his veiny, calloused hands
and he dreams once more
inspired by Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum by Debussy
117 · Oct 2018
candle
sparklysnowflake Oct 2018
i want to pick myself up
            head in pinched fingers
pull my tired body out of reality's
stone walls and
            blurry vision
aching steps
            and charred black worries

crumple me up
            melt me down
and pour me
into the tiny orange flame
of a tall white candle

let me hover over
life
crackle softly
rest peacefully
and
burn

slowly
sparklysnowflake Nov 2020
I know Father B came to our class more times than you can count, and
denounced all those mortal sins with a firm pointed finger and
one big bulging eye that glared at you in your stiff collared shirt and preppy plaid kilt while he spoke, as if
a white lie or one slice of pizza too many would
send a divine bolt of lightning straight through your chest or
a note home to your parents.

but I left the house once,
and there are some things no one else will tell you.

first of all,
when you tell a lie or eat too much pizza,
all you get is a nasty stomachache,
which feels a bit like a punishment, but you get another chance
and next time, you tell the truth and
eat just enough to fill your belly.

you don't lose any vision at all if you ******* and
people do it
a lot.

speaking of,
***
happens outside of marriage.

actually, I might be so bold as to say that MOST ***
happens
outside of marriage.

sometimes, people have ***
with people they don't love.

people marry people they don't love, too,
or grow into love or
fall out of it just as easily.

and sometimes people love people
they are not having *** with.

you can love someone so much that it physically hurts,
and you will put your tear-stained hand to your aching chest and understand exactly where the phrase "broken heart" comes from.

and sometimes you won't know
how you feel about other people or
about anything, really.

people aren't just bad or good like that –
there are some bad people,
and there are some good people, but
most people
are just lost and
lonely, and
looking for someone who will be the answer to the giant, crying
questions they have curved themselves into.
they read books and go to bars and get promotions and
wear framed glasses and make appointments and call their lawyers and buy apartments and make resumes and get married and divorced all like they know what they're doing, but
most of the time,
they are just taking shots in the dark, and
trying not to feel guilty about
the people they hurt
along the way...

you live under a rock now, and
one day suddenly it'll feel like you've exploded out and
into a hellhole, and honestly,
as far as I can tell,
there are no secrets to life carved into some mountain somewhere, or
arranged in the patterns of your veins, or
even written in a giant bible, but
the one redeeming quality of life is that we can
suffer together.

we're all tired and directionless, but
two warm calloused palms fit together so much better than you think,
and waffle fries taste like heaven at 1 in the morning with friends,
and staying up all night talking with someone and finding out they are just as tired and directionless as you are
makes you realize all of a sudden–– like
seeing the faraway glimmer of two little headlights
on a dark empty highway––
that it's okay.
and
you may be more lost than you can even tell, but
at least you know now
that you're not alone.
113 · Oct 2017
Impromptu in E-Flat
sparklysnowflake Oct 2017
Pearls twinkling                                                        ­  
Cascading waterfall
Drip drop                                                             ­                   
Higher, louder                                    
The pearls sparkle brighter                                          
Flowing faster                                                        
Dr­ip dropping down                      
Down                                                          
I­nto a box                                                              ­  
Lined with blue velvet                                    
Soft, delicate                                                
Intricat­e polished wood                    
Smooth crevices                                                    
Lock­ed                                                          
Click.                                                  
                                                                ­  
Suddenly I break                                    
From iridescent reverie
Eyes dart to the clock.
One hour.
Colors flood back
You're not
"dedicated enough"
"smart enough"
"good enough"
My hands sweat
My spine quivers as it
Sinks
To a tired hunch.

I shut my eyes
Clench my hot fists
Squeeze out a tear.
Fingers stretch back out
And I try to re-enter my dreamland.
Pearls
Hurled onto hard wood floor
Rough grey tattered cloth
Splintered black box.
My sweaty fingers slip off the keys
Shaky wrists locked tight.
Again.
And again.
My hands are hot and wet
My knees ache
My back shakes
And I slam down hard with angry red palms
The box of pearls
Shatters on the merciless floor
I curl upon the rock hard black bench
Bite my bony wrist
And cry
Tears like dusty pearls
Sweaty fingers track fog onto shiny black
I’ll never do it good enough.
Why did I ever think

I could play


An impromptu?
110 · Oct 6
september in texas
they have the same bird in texas,
the ones that sound like chalk in the driveway in the
late evenings in september,
like reading nancy drew from the public library on wooden porch benches,
like orange light on the counter from the kitchen window,
belgian block curbs and watching airplanes roar over
the sunken sun

instead it is me driving home to no one from work in clothes that look nothing like my father's but still remind me of his car pulling into our driveway in yorktown at 6pm in september,
cutting bell peppers and tomatoes in the kitchen the way my mother used to over the sound of air conditioning and oil popping,
and the smell of dinner when I let the steam from the shower flood the high hats in my tiny kitchen is nothing like it used to be but smells exactly like hers

and the birds that followed me to texas are in the trees outside my window in the late evenings in september,
hailing a different sinking sun and the end of days
that feel much shorter than they used to
108 · May 2020
run
sparklysnowflake May 2020
run
despite that the body of a poet is shaped like a question mark        

every poet has the answer to one question
            as if she were born with the words
                        already engraved into her forearms
                        crafted by an ineffable power
                                    – whether divinity or demon
                                    she does not know or particularly mind –

"why do you write?"

i guess
            my indecipherable forearms and
            the way that my fingers
                        then curl to match the curve of my spine
make me
            not a poet

just a fugitive
            running because it is the only thing i know how to do
            and because i wont survive the night if i dont
            
and yet
the further i go
and the more ive seen

the clearer it seems to me
            that everyone who writes
            is just running
106 · Jan 2018
Vegas
sparklysnowflake Jan 2018
I didn't pay too much attention
to those helpless girls in movies
            sinking like molasses
            melting into pitiful puddles
at the feet
            of their men.
Those delicate elegant girls
who were swept off the sidewalks
            and carried home
            over a shoulder
dripping in diamonds and pearls
and wearing
            that plastered red-lipstick grin.

Then I went to Vegas and saw
            for myself
those girls on the street
            decorated
                        like you would decorate something
            as worthless
            as a Christmas tree
wearing nothing but a few sparse
            sequins and jewels
and huge blue wings
            on their backs made out of feathers.
Those girls whose naked pictures
            were posted on little cards with a price
and scattered on the pavement and sidewalks
for the viewing pleasure
            of the smokers, gamblers, and drunks
            passing by
like they were furniture
you could just use
            and throw away
            with the rest of your garbage.

Even then I didn't pay too much attention
until I went back to my hotel
            for a shower
There were mirrors on every wall
            reflecting every curve and crevice
                        of my pale scrawny figure
but I didn't see my own body
I stared horrified at the mirror
and saw
            a helpless puddle of molasses
            eye-candy dripping in jewels and covered in lipstick
            a naked angel with feathered wings
            and my picture on
                        a ***** little card
                                    occasionally glanced at
                                    or swiped up and grinned at
                                    and trampled by busy feet
                        *on the streets
of Las Vegas.
104 · Jun 2018
Midnight Blue
sparklysnowflake Jun 2018
there are four blues
in every Crayola crayon set:
            Cornflower
            Wild Blue Yonder
            Periwinkle
                        and
Midnigh­t Blue –
            the deepest
            and the darkest

but still
not deep enough
            never dark enough

Midnight Blue
cannot engulf
            Cornflower Cinderella in bone-chilling dread
                        as she performs her mythical meltdown
                        bent over the Wild Blue Yonder fountain
            no Periwinkle constellations are reflected
                                    in her existential tears
                        and the Night is not saturated enough
                        with black depth
                                    to seep like molasses into the cracks of her pupils

because I’ve been awake at midnight–
            through the screen of my own foggy tears
I’ve gazed deep into the bitter, bloodthirsty
                        eyes of the Night
            swallowing my window

real Midnight Blue
            glows eerily at the touch of a Cotton White moon
            coats trespassers in crisp cold loneliness
                        but the wanderlust in a penetrative warmth
            boils in the throats of the lost
                        the wistful
                        and the guilty
            ebbs and flows
                        through the fissures
                        of the broken
            and gouges out the sweet innocent hearts

of the lifelong

dreamers
99 · Feb 2020
powerless
sparklysnowflake Feb 2020
and she came home from the sea
thinking about the balance of things

the way the palms of her feet
left mountains in the sand

and the way the sun hung
–unmoved by wind or waves–
suspended
in the sky
or sea

thinking about
the things she
heard
or spoke

gifted
or stole

forgave
or burned

and the fragile little life she acquired
somewhere
along the line

not even potent enough
for the sea to notice

nor long enough
to change its mind

the way she exists only
in the space between things

at the mercy of
everything

and reigning lord of
none
took a walk by the water today
98 · Oct 2017
I. RED
sparklysnowflake Oct 2017
Put your hand
here
Can you feel the rage in my soul?
The blood seeping under
the glass in my eye?

Do you see the sun's anguish
as she boils into nothing
beneath the merciless night sky?
She shoots her bloodcurdling scream
into the air before she surrenders;
it echoes behind her
a vengeful inferno on the horizon
whose smoking, dying embers,
with their last angry cries,
melt into the Earth
and cover all of us

The sun gave to us, her children
her rage
her fire
we burn
with the heat of her
wrathful flames.
Part of my work-in-progress collection about the colors that we inherit from nature
97 · Mar 2020
undeserved
sparklysnowflake Mar 2020
i woke up this morning
to an “I LOVE YOU”
text in all caps
sent at 2:29am

no “for...” or
“when...” or
“because...”

unwarranted
but unequivocal

in my foggy morning headspace i
searched through the events of yesterday
looking for things i might have done that you’re thanking me for—
i didn’t hold you while you cried or
feel your burning forehead or
fold your laundry—
there must be something i did recently
to prompt your adamant and abrupt declaration or
confession

an immediate reason
for loving me
because surely there must be
a reason or

you must have texted the wrong number
and this was meant for someone else
someone more
deserving
someone who does not have to work to warrant love—
especially the kind
that explodes like a firework out of the soul at 2:29 in the morning or

maybe you were drunk
you must have been
you love everyone when you’re wasted
i hope you were because

i can’t take your love if it isn’t conditional
that would mean that i
well that i’m good enough
and that everything i’ve suffered to
paint worth onto my teeth and tongue
never worked or ever meant anything
Is this... a *happy* poem???
90 · Apr 2018
Chains
sparklysnowflake Apr 2018
You know those
long days—
not the easy fleeting ones
that drift by more smoothly
than swift pencil dashes
marking
the path of a waxy crayon butterfly—

Not even the ones that chug
slowly
along the creaking moaning train tracks
burnt red with gravel and rust—

No––
They are the ones
you have wrap tightly with
heavy chains
sizzling from lying out in the grueling sun
to drag them along
yourself—
the hard metal digging divots
into your back
as you
P
U
S
H
onward
teeth clenched
sweat oozing from underneath your hair

but still
you
stake
your tiny
inconsequential
dusty sneaker
into the
ground
again
and
PULL

HARDER
Trying out those Emily Dickinson dashes!
86 · Feb 2018
my Poems are not about me
sparklysnowflake Feb 2018
my Poems are not about me
if I were sunshine
            my poetry shines brighter
if I were thunder
            my poetry rumbles louder
if I were rain
            my poetry weaves into thin films of gossamer
                        and glistens around my edges

my Poems are not about me
when I write
            I separate a sparkly heartstring
                        from the rest
            thread it carefully into my needle
and hurry to weave a story embroidered with colored confetti
            and shimmering sequins

before the glitter
            like snow
            drifts
and sticks
            to the remainder
of my dull
honest
heart.
in the words of my high school English teacher, "Don't mistake the poet for the speaker of his poem!"
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