#55
See a doctor.
Tell him the cough wakes you
three, four times a night.
Betrayal, really,
a man-sized obstruction
in the chest.
Joke about childbirth,
pelvic floors
like sodden cardboard.
Smile when he smiles
as if he knows
destruction from within.
Take the inhaler.
Say nothing
of cold sheets.
Atomize rage
Breathe easier
without him.
Apr 16
Apr 16, 2026 at 3:09 PM UTC
Wisdom arrives too quickly.
It fears what does not heal.
Truth comes raw,
a broken bone laid bare
before hands rush in
to dress and justify it.
Let it sting
until it speaks.
Sit nearer
to the sheeted edge
of the dying world.
No platitudes.
Beauty, if it comes,
comes uninvited
and leaves without warning.
Mar 1
Mar 1, 2026 at 2:33 PM UTC
When I die,
live.
Sell the coat,
the bent crown.
Let crows split the coin
on stone.
Rake the letters,
the ash of my voice.
Buy cord, coarse cloth.
Raise a flag,
gray as bone,
edged with morning,
a marker for the lost,
straining in the wind,
a witness
torn, unsparing,
bright in its ruin.
Mar 1
Mar 1, 2026 at 1:55 PM UTC
I lap from puddles,
tasting of blistered bark,
teeth green from the moss
deer abandoned.
Fed the fire with Walden,
Its spine snapped
like a rabbit’s neck.
Ash branded my palms
with unread philosophy.
Soon it will be winter.
I’ll freeze stiff: a fallen carcass.
Unless poems hatch inside me,
larvae splitting bone from within.
Sep 14, 2025
Sep 14, 2025 at 6:42 PM UTC
The day we moved in,
the shingles dulled,
floorboards groaned,
whispers began.
Visions came true-
James Dean dying in twisted german steel.
Then I saw my own death.
At dinner, I told my mother.
Her gaze roamed walls, tile,
the rusted sink dripping darkly-
as if the watching house might answer first.
Finally:
“I know.”
Aug 7, 2025
Aug 7, 2025 at 10:25 PM UTC
Living half in memory
stitched with fragile thread.
Waiting on replies
to pledges never said.
Held the hands of storms,
drunk on joy and fear.
Kissed through rain,
like lovestruck fools
when endings felt too near.
left some names behind,
held a few too close,
one who lit the match,
one who loved us most.
Jul 24, 2025
Jul 24, 2025 at 2:04 PM UTC
The tractor coughed diesel,
choking on enlistment.
Pappaw watched,
relieved he won, without the fight.
I dug potatoes.
Hated gnats, the stooping,
dirt worked into my soul.
“We can’t eat what you don’t find.”
I carry his voice,
like gravel.
When I’ve had enough of soft things,
I take it out,
to hold my ground.
Jul 23, 2025
Jul 23, 2025 at 1:56 PM UTC
I am ten crows, twenty-three starlings,
one tree, a world of racket, every dusk that ever was.
I am a holy heart four angels defend,
other times I am nothing but flesh and fingertips.
There are four seasons, three necessities,
two sides to the moon.
The window has eight panes;
I am in them all.
Jul 23, 2025
Jul 23, 2025 at 6:23 AM UTC
You asked me to leave
So I did
I'll never get to know
If you noticed
That I left
May 10, 2019
May 10, 2019 at 3:55 AM UTC