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  Jun 2014 Taru Marcellus
Tom Leveille
while september cicadas
were singing my neighbors to sleep
i was up walking holes in my shoes
over love once lost
so many poems ago
that the only thing i remember
about the house at 38th & bluestone
is that it reeked of alcohol and is
as i'm sure of it
still saturated in perfume
and abandoned laughter
but that's not the point
give me a minute
what i'm trying to say
is i always thought god
enjoyed watching things leave me
it makes me wonder
what was on his mind
that night in september
when i stooped to cough
or tie my shoelaces
i no longer remember why
but i recall their trajectory
the way gravity cradled my hands
and brought them crashing back to earth like a 747
they landed inches away
from a scrap of crumpled loose leaf
folded in half like the smiles
of my relatives on a holiday truce
you see, lately i've been looking for scars in the newspaper
i find myself checking the obituary
for my former selves since the day i found your suicide letter
maybe that's why i can never explain my obsession with history
maybe archeology is just a funeral
in reverse
maybe hell is just rewinding home movies
or watching confetti
turn back into photographs
i never told anyone
the reason the doors to the gun cabinet in my family's house are locked not because they are afraid
i will take my life
but because sometimes
i sing them birthday songs
on the day you died
it makes me think
of how rooms only echo
when they are empty

*you know
i never echoed until you died
We all have the right to write.
We aren't obliged to write right.

You have the right to flaunt your ugly, hatefilled heart,
You have the right to sneer, and leer.

Hide behind those concepts and techniques.
If it makes a few people laugh, who cares about the ones that cry?
They don't get it, they don't get you,
You're too clever for them.

You have the right, you have the right,
I agree, we are all free,
Some will laugh, some will cry,
Some stay silent, sitting by.

I'll admit that you have wit,
You're still a total, utter ***.
Taru Marcellus Jun 2014
moist moist  moist  moist MoiSt mOisT moIsT MOIST
now stop reading it, say it
                                                           moist
it's a weird word
------------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------

a storm is coming
  and I can smell it, feel it
     MOIST
on my skin- slick
it wisps into my mouth
  dirt patches aren't meant to be stoic

the storm approaches from the north, northwest
I am headed that way- north, northwest- approaching it
we have not yet converged but I can feel it
    moist
it tastes of dry dirt
not local
       nomadic

the clouds are foreshadowing --- foreboding
  parting only to show more grey
we have yet to converge but I can feel it
the grey
           the parting
                          the moistness
I am not yet there but I can feel it
  wisping through me
     I am not meant to be stoic
       nomadic

the first d
                r
              o
                 p

                     refreshing
I can feel it. really feel it.
moist on my skin. weird.
the clouds are parting
lightening [effect]       thunder [effect]       convergence [effect]
I am the storm; its core
  moist
            grey
                    parting
       ­                          wisping
can you feel me
                            approaching...
  May 2014 Taru Marcellus
Tom Leveille
kissing you was like swerving into oncoming traffic

i can never tell if i am more haunted by empty picture frames or the ashes of their contents

you taught me that the saying "pick your battles" meant not answering when love was at the door

sometimes when i drink whiskey i swear i can hear your voice in the creases of my bedsheets & i sleep on the floor

i still catch myself running my hands over things you touched the most, looking for the echoes of your fingertips

i practice things i'll never say to you

i remember the day you told me you didn't like poetry, how "everything's already been said" & how "nothing meaningful can be captured without being cliche" you know, i don't miss you like the sun and moon, i do not miss you like tide bent waves crashing on the shoreline, i miss you like a chernobyl  swingset misses children

rumor has it that drowning is a lot like coming home, that drinking bleach can **** the butterflies in your stomach

for your love of cigarettes, i would have been an ashtray

this halloween i want to dress up as the you when you loved yourself and show up on your doorstep

i never understood what you meant when you said i was an instrument, back when you would cup your hands around my chest and breathe through the holes in my heart, i still wonder if the sounds i made remind you of wind chimes

i never paid much attention to abandoned buildings until i became one

in my dreams all the flowers smell like your perfume

i am the only person who has ever wished for the same snowflake to fall twice

if i could go back, and rewrite the definition of audacity, it would be how when we lost the bet of love, you said "we never shook on it"

i love you, if the feeling is not mutual, please pretend this was a poem

the only apology i want from you, is to have you repeat the names of children we will never have in your parents living room until they *****

we are the same person if you find yourself up at 4am dry heaving promises, or if you are kept awake by the laughter of those who've abandoned you

nobody ever told you that goodbyes taste like the back of stamps

sometimes i'm convinced that the only reason we hug, is so you can check my back for exit wounds
  May 2014 Taru Marcellus
Jon Tobias
If god were real
When he’d appear

It would be out of nowhere
In mysterious ways

God would be dressed as a clown
His front top teeth are missing
And he slurs like a drunk
Sometimes you can’t understand him

He does this on purpose
God was never cryptic
He just had trouble enunciating

DON’T BE MEAN TO PEOPLE
JESUS CHRIST

You have trouble looking at his face
It is hard to take the message of a clown seriously

So you look down at the globes of the tip of his shoes
Red shiny bulbs

Inside the reflection
You are ant sized
You feel small in that moment

God says something but you are busy looking down
You see other ant sized people walking behind you
Towards work
To get food
To go to school

God makes you a halo
Out of balloons
It is white because he ran out of yellow

Before he puts it on your head
Turned sideways
It looks like dangling handcuffs

He makes you a sword and belt too

You have just been turned into an angel
A human angel armed with the necessary tools to fight on his behalf

You don’t feel strong in that moment
You still feel like an ant
God gives you a holy water balloon
Just in case things get hairy

You decide you might be able to surprise baptize someone with it

Then god walks a way
But you totally feel better because he just gave you a halo and a sword

You cry that night
Because you have never felt so small and helpless in your entire life

You never felt so silly
Wielding you faith as firm as a balloon sword
Wearing your blow up halo as a badge

So you throw them away

Not your faith

Just the balloons

DON’T HURT ANYBODY
God says
His tongue pressed to his gums to prevent lisps

Then he begins to pump up another balloon
He honks his horn
And you are so confused
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