"aortas" poems
she sat next to me near the window
at starbucks on
41st and madison with a journal
covered in pastel lines and a black backdrop.
on the top center read “2011 was the year i screamed
**** life’ and **** me”
as a running header. she ran
through my head, tilting this little snippet
of her brain
towards me and i swear that she looked at me
but all i could do was make the sign of the cross
hoping god heard my muffled voice, drowned out by
the sounds of yellow taxis on the crosswalk and
whispers of angels on the corners asking for my pockets.
i’ve never tasted sixty miles
per hour but i can imagine it’s the same
as when she writes “your shirt looks like my thoughts”;
i’m falling in love too easily.
i want to read every inch of your body; your arms
have the bible etched in your veins and a fifth of my poems
are scribbled on your aortas; my mother’s wedding vows
are in my right eye and my father,
my father just takes care of himself. i don’t think my eyesight is
getting any better, you slid the note two spaces down
and i think i shed a tear but i can’t remember whether
you were smiling for joy or the fact you missed my hand.
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 11:54 PM UTC
'Come to the water,'
he said.
The water will save her,
he thought.
The waves will surround her,
they would.
Enveloped by catharis,
was it an option?
She would have ended up drowning,
in a river of emotions.
She realized that as she backed away,
filled with fear.
The rushing of the water,
wasn't something she wanted to hear.
And she dried up in the sun,
like a leaf, fallen.
And he added his tears to the brook,
sobbing for his desert lover.
Aug 14, 2013
Aug 14, 2013 at 12:57 AM UTC
Intertwine our pulmonaries
Pull tight, tie together our coronaries
My superior vena cava resting near yours
Hear that, the sound of opening ventricle doors
Beautiful looking aortas fixed
Winding together as a double helix
This heart of mine will skip a beat
Just so my arrhythmia and yours might meet
This ticker will only continue to tick
If next to yours it may stick
Not a murmur because of bad health
A murmuring of loves bountiful wealth
Atrium to atrium, heart to heart:
Blood's continual pumping, so long as our valves never part.
Dec 24, 2012
Dec 24, 2012 at 6:44 PM UTC
Stars pulled from their suspends,
I watched the night bleed onto me.
The moon is just as dangerous to your
naked body,
as it still is to my naked heart;
a misfit artist perched softly in starlight,
reeling in hearts with faulty chambers.
Two aortas and the taste of your neck.
Two empty bottles of red wine
and the dark smothering something
I was never taught could shine.
Dec 23, 2014
Dec 23, 2014 at 5:50 PM UTC
I will make a fangle of mechanisms,
a creature with iron snouts
and concrete aortas.
Its fevered howl will wake the duplexes
perched on sloped land,
built from collected tins and bottle caps.
Boys sooted in grief will balk like ravens,
chew sweet dip, and spit,
but never reach the foreman’s gate.
They’ll crave a tavern with antlers as chandeliers
where a black flame burns
on the brim of a zinfandel.
But tonight they’ll gristle through streets
to a stale room
where fluorescent lights blanch a young widow’s skin.
Basic cable ministries will flick and dim
in the homes of the wigged ladies who wait for them—
the howl keeps them
breathless, each of them fearing
the slow swallow from a snake’s mouth
to its furnace.
Sep 8, 2013
Sep 8, 2013 at 12:39 PM UTC
electricity in these aortas
that illumine the thunder storms
of the jazz pianist in my brain
echoing finger taps up
and down the spinal column
triggering solar flares
in the sclera
puffs of thought drip
through these neurons
and seep into my soul
blackening the happenstance
of our existence
walking through the night skies
in my toenails
i can't seem to find you
what
where
who
how
zip
zap
tip
tap
constellations of brain cells
deadened by life
are seen in the pools of
my ear cavities
auratic sniffs of the spirit
leads down the path of
slavery
chained to those words
eternity doesn't care
today, tomorrow, yesterday
one big nebulous
freedom is you
and your senses
but all gone, Mister-Death-
stolen.
eat it while you can.
Dec 21, 2013
Dec 21, 2013 at 2:22 AM UTC
Some blades sting
as they slice through skin;
laced with backhanded
compliments, a withering glance,
and the steady hand of
an executioner, they aim
to demolish, stick by stick
of explosive hatred.
Some blades have poisoned tips,
dipped in a brew so wicked
that it lurks from vein to vein
and blacks you out, strikes you
from existence by hijacking your senses
and drowning them with intense,
heady emotions like loneliness, and fear,
and fiery anger.
Some blades are disguised as a handshake,
one that grips and cracks your bones into splinters,
shards of what once was dignity
and pride. A grip that convinces you
to admit that you are nothing, that you are
less than, that you are inferior.
And then there is the blade,
tipped like a pen,
upon which I ****** myself. This
blade, unlike the others,
is choice and stupidity and release.
It is a forfeit, a crushing defeat
that the writers succumb to. It is this
blade, ink pouring from our pumping aortas
to our gnarled, stained fingertips
that dance across a page, that charm
our own minds with the drowsy lullabies
and delusions of omnipotence so that
we can spill the deepest, blackest pits
of our shriveled peach hearts
and spit them out into the universe.
A million voices collide and create the void
where we all end, where we all begin, and
forge the path of self-destruction it takes
to fish out a handful of temperate words,
biblical verses, even historic epics
to release ourselves of our woes
and of every singular thought.
Some blades are caused by the average,
the ones who would not ****** a dagger
through their chest, not even
for the truth.
But our blade, the wicked fiend,
sweeps through every bone and ligament
until she reaps what is due;
the words you're reading,
my thoughts scattered out
for you.
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 9:45 PM UTC
These capsules of marrow and red blood cells
are useless against you
The protectors of my heart have deteriorated
What pathetic ribs I have
They shatter beneath the unsteady beat
When our eyes meet
And my heart plunders into the bowels below my feet
My knee caps collapse
At the sound of your voice
A sad excuse; my patellas
My neurons refuse to function
In your presence
Every nerve ending ceases to exist
My brain doesn't register the actions
or the words
That escape my mouth
Blabbering
Lastly
The ***** that fails me
Overwhelms me
and controls me
Aortas and ventricles seeping crimson emotion
Constantly pumping false happiness
through my capillaries
My veins returning depression
My body makes me sick
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 4:18 AM UTC
Missing you; it came as a shock.
I was knocked onto the sofa, out of the
Conversation, down with the drops of confetti,
Stepped over and under before the screams started.
But I should have seen this coming.
Before, it had always been you
Letting me down, standing me up,
Calling me closer, beckoning with your
Finger by your lips and then
Shoving my head down right where you wanted it.
This time, it was me.
I told myself that there was a chance.
I knocked myself from the world.
Expectations had wound themselves inside of
My pockets and I couldn’t shake them off,
And there was no friendly boy with eyes glued to mine
That could come slip them out of my jeans.
I was alone and unprepared, without adequate supplies,
Without the veracity to watch myself unwind.
And so I was the one that lit the match,
Unbeknownst to even my own mind, wanting to
Rekindle our past, but only burning
Down and down; - I tried to drown it out,
Until the alcohol added fight to the flame.
Water was not on my radar and I was
Lonely and lost, fenced off from a savior.
I disembarked. I was the captain that does not
Sink with the ship. I left myself in a pile of ashes
And was briefly resurrected on a blank kitchen tile.
This is my fault, and I will not be rescued.
This was my fault, and I am the only one who can go back
To salvage the pieces of my shoulder, liver, aortas,
That I left behind. I will stitch myself unto myself
And I will leave you out
(This time)
Apr 11, 2013
Apr 11, 2013 at 3:39 PM UTC
Exits the friendly
From sun circled centre
Where no wispy 'membrance,
though 'tis what we're made of,
dost tangle in beaches or camp grounds.
Forgetting is lonely
in mustard seed corners
though lonely has purpose,
if purpose is stardom,
when taken in two over doses.
Chopping aortas
from hair raisèd partners
and sewing mine own onto
maddery night times
where blood is awaited and tha-thumping rythms exchange their romances thu-thampingly.
Grasping at cries,
and at nights overlapping.
Jun 12, 2015
Jun 12, 2015 at 11:09 PM UTC
It is May again;
And this means you are coming back.
You have registered once more for your territory in my aortas
As if you never left,
As if there was never a five-month ache
Before the last beat
Was heard again.
You’re back just in time to celebrate
The anniversary of our high school hookup
That you expected me to find my way
Out of
On my own.
Part of me likes you because you are
In no way condescending.
The other part wonders how you could
Possibly think that my skin,
That you touched, that I thought you knew,
Could ever be malleable enough
To be full one moment and empty the next.
The hole you opened inside of me waxed and waned
For months,
And I found someone else to slow it,
To fill it until it was still.
But here you are again,
Back as an echo,
Reverberating throughout me,
And here I am divided.
Still alone; because it is May again,
And this means that I wait until you decide
You want to be back.
You always do, but only in
Bits and pieces,
And you stack our memories together as stones,
3 piles high all around me,
Dulling the edges so that
I will not remember being made your
Sacrifice the last time.
I wonder if I should be worried that I
Already want to talk to you every day again.
I shouldn’t feel so lonely
After six hours back with your words
Not wrapped around me.
I shouldn’t wear our conversations like
Tattoos, and feel off-center when I cannot
Touch what you told me.
But it is May again,
And no one is surprised.
I am still alone, but
Hope whispered that you told her
You were on your way home.
Jun 13, 2013
Jun 13, 2013 at 12:00 AM UTC
and there's the etch a sketch again,
dragging the metal 'round her wrists,
just to feel,
and heroically I fight to be her champion,
waging wars against the depression of her breaths,
and I remember her pain,
it hurt more then mine,
and I stood beside her
and we paired mutilated aortas,
with decaying hearts,
and I thought this would be different,
that some how the story would change,
because it was us,
us against them,
us against the lust,
and all we wanted was time to be together,
time bleeds love into,
us against crumbling trust,
us against us.
I thought this story was different but in the end,
we speak not,
we trust not,
and we forget and forgive not,
and all we bring to the table of life is left rotten,
desires and dreams untended,
all we are and all we are not is shadows now,
and we are stuck waiting for a train that may never come.
Dec 18, 2012
Dec 18, 2012 at 9:33 PM UTC
No, I've never touched you in the ways of lovers
Or in the ways that awe stricken girls might
Yearn to be pressed against your hands
But if it makes them let you next to me
I will say that your fingers dug into my rib cage
And rolled around my aortas until I was screaming
Softly as if someone had tested the noises
I could make in that moment when my adrenaline
Pulses through my veins and you pinch
My blood until it would clot under your nails.
I will happily say that my legs wrapped
Around your waist and my lips held yours
I will tell them about your hands behind your head
And mine gripping at your wrists.
If it would mean I could have you again,
I would lie and say that my fingers
Grasped at your core until you smiled like
I imagine you would and your eyes would
Close under my soul that you would have
Tugged out by threads found in my folds
Regarding my mind, I mean,
But if they would be okay with that lie
I would not mean the folds of my mind,
Rather the folds of my being.
They said I was lying to someone and that
They hoped it was you, but the lies I say would
Happily be for them if you got to touch me
In a lovers way years from now when
It wouldn't even matter, because you have
Touched my soul in a way a lover never could
And my heart is waiting to be warmed by
Your soft and inviting hands.
J. C.
Jan 20, 2014
Jan 20, 2014 at 3:23 PM UTC
twigs dangling from their medium.
bodies tearing,
aortas stretching.
smoke doin' the tango with the esophagus.
salination forming in the crusts of receptors.
i have no concept of time
other than it soars.
i am a bald eagle,
soarin' high till i am shot down,
left on the ground.
love don't live here.
embrace me till the sun rises.
i wanna stay down
'cuz it feels alright.
i am at the bottom.
and I kinda like it
struggle for me.
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 7:03 PM UTC
she sings
in the summer rain.
hear the lyrics
within her amethyst heartbeat
as she reaches
for your lavender locks.
the rhythms
within your rhapsodic bones
stand a little straighter
with every stroke, every strum.
the chords of crystal chrysanthemums
cascade through your veins
as her delicate songs
draw dimples into your amygdala.
her melodic nostalgia
mesmerizes the matutinal lights,
her battles inspire instrumentals
into your branches.
you'll find twisted tempos
at the foot of her talents
and come to admire
the a cappella hegemonies
that hum into her aortas.
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 12:24 AM UTC
The windmills swallowed
Don Quixote,
Ocean spat out Atlantis.
Nothing will surprise their hearts
Captured by stony aortas.
The boy from family portrait on the shelf,
Dag his bitten nails into remains of rotten orange
(which left the trail in colour of the burning hearth
across the sky),
And probably not even then,
Not once, has he wondered
What are the trenches on his mother’s face
Channelling salty water
From two black amulets.
Sister’s arms grew wings and scattered
Toward the hanging tree,
Row and untouched by loneliness,
The dog was staring
At the dry terracotta peel,
Only the father,
Smiling and handsome in a black suit,
Resisted the tide of the scorched sunset.
Jul 18, 2020
Jul 18, 2020 at 11:09 PM UTC