I smell the wild on you.
How the snow is caked in your fur.
When the night falls, what does
It offer besides survival.
And the means to be something
besides human.
We're stuck here somewhere where
The earth has broken.
And the cold envelopes everything it
Touches.
You stand there in the snow
Teeth bared.
Not afraid to go at it once more.
I've grown tired, so very tired.
Your eyes burn the snow.
That fierce longing to stay alive.
What else does the night offer,
We've consumed pretty much
everything else except each other.
And I am tired of fighting.
Nothing pretty survives out here alone,
In the dark.
Together, you and I nestled in each other's warm.
When hunger subsides.
We'll find it in each other

never thought i was worth it until somebody told me so
he told me never to doubt myself or feel any insecurity
and now my hands are ****** and the rope is tight around my neck
and now i wonder if i ever love again must i have to forget?
every shattered promise clinging to my sleeve
but i am freezing now, can i come home?
or at least observe you watching television
with a coffee mug and imagine it was me you never stopped dreaming of.
outside the snow is creating blankets i must wrap myself around
cause the cold is my muse and i must never let her down.
unless you want to keep me warm,
keep me safe in someone’s locket
doesn’t have to be your own
the loners never let you know
until it’s too late.
i never want to be your burden—love me for your sake.
love me so the cold does not preserve me in her arms
and leave me someone you must deal with when you inevitably shovel the driveway.
can you walk me home in time for the dinner bell to ring?
will you stay if no one’s home
or will you leave me to my own devices,
watching every human that i have ever loved disintegrate in my cold ****** hands?
i’ll wipe the prints on every item,
never leave no evidence.
i will crawl until my knees bust open and the floor is wet
from my tears that i feared would always seal my fate.
can you take me home, hand in hand, coats on shoulders, giggly negative self-talk?
but maybe make a stop
and i’ll make a home in your bed
just enough room for me to remember to forget
that this love will never ever happen again
and no amount of begging
will produce the results the same.
you must lay me in the corner,
tell me “stay where you are made,
don’t cause a scene, don’t make me regret bringing you like some kind of dead
weight.”
i will listen; that’s the best thing that i could ever do,
let me think high of myself for one minute or a few.
i won’t chew the food you give me
i just want to be forgiven
want to live without a knife lodged deep into my rib cage
i’ve learned nothings fair in love and war
there is nothing poetic about it
you’ll be left by your best friends,
your enemies will never mourn you.
and if you win there’s no virtue
to uncover
you’ve taken something in your hands that wasn’t even yours to begin with.
let me stay until i’m warm again
until their fingernails don’t puncture skin,
their violence becomes normalcy,
so i will know when to hide from the cold that slowly creeps
and calls me its daughter like i ever belonged to it
i believe you, i believe it,
just didn’t want to believe
that you’d leave
me on the porch for some yellow tv screen.
i’ll be as quiet as you want, you know i should never reveal my presence
once i do, the men deem me too much of something—something that they must rid of.
and i’ll forget the torture, long as you forget the power
instilled into your bones as far as any time must go.
i have tried in vain to get you to love me,
or at least see my skeleton
as i was made,
i’m just a body,
just something you can’t offend.
i have defended all my reasons as they lie flat on the floor,
sat in grass outside your house and waited for
the door
to open
much to my surprise,
no one loves you when you’re dying
when the love you once thought could happen
starts crumbling like a sandcastle
and wind chill makes you contemplate the reason why you keep going.
you’ve never been worthwhile
you’re just a silhouette,
of someone stronger who sleeps in comforters
and the cold is not their hollow mother.
can you walk me home at midnight
but if i ever stop trying
what’s the point in telling anyone i feel like i’m dying?
will you lift my wobbly legs, walking drunk back from the station?
i’m so sick of being cold;
i just want to go to sleep.
never thought i was worth it until someone told me so;
he must have lied through his teeth the entire time.
how could someone love me when i’m giving into weather,
when my pulse feels more like a broken clock
rather than a living thing?
how could someone love me
when every house i’ve built has no heater,
no place to lull the wind to just a sound
that can never enter?
how could someone love me,
cold and broken,
alone, with nothing left?
outside your porch beckoning for the warm light through the window
will you carry me home?
i’m sorry,
i’ll forget i ever asked you in the morning.

(sonnet #MMMMMMMMCMXXXIV)


Cold, likeas ev'ry Winter knows to scale
Quite well, sifts through the hours where I'd fr'intents
Giv'n up on wearing knits and woolens, sense
Drowned in the heat of Summer whose detail
Has chased me nigh six months, til I'd bewail
And search for chill but find t'was mere pretense.
Now thet the heat's been off in sheer defense
For so long, boil up Ramen to avail.
Oh! How I see the snow beyond as t'were
These blinds, lying on the fields foresworn anew,
The chill which eats through aught famil'yar, poor
As freezing in October, where frost'd cue.
What am I seeking that this see-saw'd stir
But keen chagrin? Oh LORD, how I need You!

24Oct24

my cold hands hold eachother in the search of warmth
because i know, if i let the coldness consume my body
it will also consume my mind

I sit at my desk
The window’s open,
Or it's shut. I don't remember
But I feel cold
My hands wrapped around a pole at a skating rink,
trying to keep myself from slipping
On the cool, smooth surface.

I am walking on the freshly fallen snow,
I am thinking

I stare out the window,
Partially obscured by dark curtains.
They are caught on my plants;
Never fully closed,
Never open wide.
This is what makes me think
The inbetweeness that is what makes

nothing good or bad,
But I used to think there was.
I twisted the sheets of my perception until
The bed was unmakable and I gave up the fight
I sunk into the mattress
And closed my eyes

But this monotony is getting old;
A cut spoiling behind a worn bandaid.
I hated myself for caring
But I now I don’t.
That’s the point. I don’t care about anything anymore
I am trying to hold on to the things that once mattered
But the merry-go round is only going faster
Soon enough I’ll have to get off.

I am looking out the window
Because I can’t focus on anything anymore
I let my eyes glaze over
Because it's easy
Painless.
They don’t focus on anything.
Everything is white, white, white

Must have seen you in a field,
the trampled grass your bed,
your eyes fixed on the sky,
and the sky hanging on blooming fire
and leaves of ashes eloping with autumn–tainted summer.
You didn’t stir,
if not for the fence time drove into the paper soil in between us the song of chaos will probably sing it’s ominous song in my ears.
Not an inch, did you move.

Your thoughts might have been that of your mama, on her porch steps for the hundreds of dinner that waited cold for you that year.
Your papa must have passed a ball to a glove without a hand to hold it up.
Your dear Anna must have been trembling as her heart skipped a beat reading letters written open-endedly.
The hills around you stood mortally wounded, weeping for their trees, still you slept in between those pages while your home collected dust on the shelves that so few of us care to visit.

Still your eyes were fixed on the sky. Unmoved by clouds. Unperturbed by dying sunshine. Shards and shrapnel of ideas burrowing deeper. I knew your lips wanted to part and utter wilting words,perhaps the heaviest word to bear—goodbye.

War has always been indifferent to life.