"checkered" poems
Minnehaha Park is hot in the summer
Even by the water
Who knew it would be so hot
Even down by the water?
But all of it is hot
And there are acorns everywhere
Scattered on the ground
Below our butts as we try to sit
And have a little picnic
On a brightly checkered blanket
Between two tall trees
That tower above us
And grant us shade
While pelting acorns down
Into our cheese and crackers
And fancy rosé wine
Whatever that means
I thought wine was wine
But I guess they have personalities
Like people
Like couples
Some things pair well together
Like my crisp pineapple and cheap fuckin' pizza
Or your stinky blue cheese and weird cookie-like *******
Like us
And the cheese sits on a green marble slab
Elegant as ****
Because that's just who you are
But that marble slab sits on top of a pizza box
Simple as ****
Because that's just who I am
And we pair well
On this hot *** summer day
While we drink rosé
And "I love you" is all we say
Because sometimes we don't have to say anything
We're okay without words
In the middle of a park
On a hot *** summer day
Aug 16, 2018
Aug 16, 2018 at 4:11 PM UTC
In tunnelled darks, pastes of reminisce
Outward disjoint points to irrelevance
Spooned and coned in cold mountaintops
The darks of sorrows and trails of struggles
Persistence patterns of self satire in gloom
Sunken in identity crisis of broad oceans
Stormy seas spotlighted by beatific stars
Trajectory of spilled ice in recurrent motions
A mere past cocooned by fears and tears
Clouded in thoughts that cruise and decline
Greyed white imprinted by sudden sadness
Madness echoes on arched ancient bricks
Checkered maniacs of fulfilled passions
Filed and iced in cased prolific memories
Cascades of sunshine tickles to warmth
Orchards of glow that bloom and grow
Picked, ticked and unpacked from boxes
Attacked, nurtured and stored in bliss
Eventful lessons unfolds in untold augury
A mission as the known permeates and fade
Windowed eyes all line up in parade
Mirrored lights digest the haunted haste
A stranger to self, an ally to another
A dance of bright entwine a twist of blur
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 11:48 AM UTC
Maybe someday we could have a picnic together.
Sunlight always makes your eyes shimmer like public swimming pools
with a little too much chlorine, and I’d love to see you dance
nervously when you discover a line of ants marching up your leg.
I’d like to kiss you with the taste of potato salad fresh on your lips
with a twist of lukewarm lemonade; you’d probably push me away
self consciously, but the fact of the matter is that your mouth
would excite me even after eating ten pounds of garlic.
The red checkered blanket would bring out the creamy tones
in your skin and I’d soon find myself devouring your beauty rather than
the pre-made peanut butter and jam sandwiches.
Your voice and its stories are sweeter than any strawberries
I’ve ever tasted, anyhow.
I could plan our lunches together for the rest of our lives,
but you’re not the kind of girl to settle down for a lunch
with someone like me, let alone for a lifetime.
So for some inexplicable reason I imagine myself at your door,
wicker basket in hand, with no answer.
As it would seem, picnics aren’t really your scene.
And neither am I.
Oct 13, 2013
Oct 13, 2013 at 7:28 PM UTC
When you go camping,
and the world lifts itself from your shoulders
and the problems back home seem silly and irrelevant
human life, and
what you may have been trying to achieve
in your leather black ergonomic chair
and your dark polished wood desk
seems silly and irrelevant
The world is here, in the wood-pecker’s tap-tap-taping in the trees
the checkered calculated lines of the water being pulled to shore by the wind,
viewed from above
like the birds that push themselves into the tide and float
back to shore then push themselves out again.
the world is here,
forgotten by the city, and the construction worker’s crack-crack-crack of the hammer
the calculated system of traffic guided by flashing lights, turning signs and abrasive horns
from behind the wheel
where the man sits in a satin black suit and smooth leather car seat
sipping at his morning coffee, purchased for $2.25 and cradled by spring-loaded cupholders,
until he reaches for the silver handle of his glass office door, and stops
looking down at his brown-leather shoes that cut into the rounded bone on the side of his ankle
and decides,
time to go camping
Jun 8, 2015
Jun 8, 2015 at 6:30 PM UTC
It's been a while.
Since I wrote a poem.
But not since I wrote about you.
I write about you all the time.
Every once in a while,
I forget why.
Then I remember why.
I remember you,
Or I see a picture.
I see your blond hair.
Your blue eyes.
You're the reason I have a type.
I think of your adventure,
And your shyness,
And your varying range of emotion.
I think of all these
Random memories,
Floating around in my head.
Like ping pong.
And capture the flag.
Like long flaring lights and computer bags.
Like fire escapes,
And hiding under tables,
Like missing you in winter with eyelashes like a fable.
Like long walks in the dark,
And hidden dark handkerchiefs with white polka dots.
Like plaid checkered jackets, even when it's hot.
Like cargo shorts and a white fedora.
Gathering under the arch like it's an agora.
Hiding that handkerchief between the flora.
God, I miss you more and more.
Months til I see you,
I'm down to only a few before.
I almost can't wait,
It makes me feel sad.
The fact that I'd leave,
Just like that.
Just so I could see you again.
It's Valentine's Day
And I'm here without you.
And I wish more than anything,
For that to not be true.
Feb 14, 2018
Feb 14, 2018 at 10:05 AM UTC
I had to play.
I had to play.
my stolen heart turned hard to *****
T’was me snubbed.
T’was me who snubbed.
And glittery diamonds to dirt, were clubbed.
But I had to play.
I had to play.
Cause he held all cards anyway.
I had tried to run.
I tried to run.
We were not there for love, but “fun”
And I HAD to play.
I YEARNED to play..
I was his
lonely.
desperate.
prey.
Now he's moved on..
He moves on.
leaves his
pathetic.
little.
pawns.
I'd had to play
I needed to play.
I didn’t want to get away..
He'd gotten bored
He gets bored.
He wiped away our checkered board.
Now he's not here.
He was never HERE...
And I'd do anything to feel him near.
Come play.
Come play.
Mar 28, 2022
Mar 28, 2022 at 5:24 PM UTC
Under silver wing
San Francisco's towers sprouting
thru thin gas clouds,
Tamalpais black-breasted above Pacific azure
Berkeley hills pine-covered below--
Dr Leary in his brown house scribing Independence
Declaration
typewriter at window
silver panorama in natural eyeball--
Sacramento valley rivercourse's Chinese
dragonflames licking green flats north-hazed
State Capitol metallic rubble, dry checkered fields
to Sierras- past Reno, Pyramid Lake's
blue Altar, pure water in Nevada sands'
brown wasteland scratched by tires
Jerry Rubin arrested! Beaten, jailed,
coccyx broken--
Leary out of action--"a public menace...
persons of tender years...immature
judgement...pyschiatric examination..."
i.e. Shut up or Else Loonybin or Slam
Leroi on *** gun rap, $7,000
lawyer fees, years' negotiations--
SPOCK GUILTY headlined temporary, Joan Baez'
paramour husband Dave Harris to Gaol
Dylan silent on politics, & safe--
having a baby, a man--
Cleaver shot at, jail'd, maddened, parole revoked,
Vietnam War flesh-heap grows higher,
blood splashing down the mountains of bodies
on to Cholon's sidewalks--
Blond boys in airplane seats fed technicolor
Murderers advance w/ Death-chords
Earplugs in, steak on plastic
served--Eyes up to the Image--
What do I have to lose if America falls?
my body? my neck? my personality?
June 19, 1968
4.5k
The dichotomy of purgatory is sprinkled with the delights and disciplines of a fretful uncertainty and steam locomotives can sound menacing when their pistons seek to establish torque on those rails of pursued destination with mesmerizing force.
I know that time is like a fondling excitement, where constellations of perceived energy fields become intellectually categorized into mechanical parts of a metaphysical ******
Universal parameters of death may generate mischievous laughter, which resound throughout the silent galaxies of cosmological meadows.
I have to say that geometrical co-ordinates automatically invoke thoughts of plain paper and hot chocolate – small figments of homosapien pastures where grazing is not a realistic occurrence.
As we perceive the eternal impressions of epistemological nihilism, let us play the game of religious patience on this checkered board of architectural bliss.
Dec 4, 2013
Dec 4, 2013 at 10:46 PM UTC
at age 8 i stopped wearing jeans because they were uncomfortable.
at age 14 i wore high heels, fish nets, and skirts to school and a man once asked my mother if she really let me leave the house looking like that.
i also wore checkered pajama pants and shirts with holes in them to class, i dressed up and down because everyone else seemed to dress in the middle.
i dressed however i wanted to because my mother told that guy to shut the **** up and mind his own business.
at age 16 i wore crop tops the size of sports bras and pants so tight i understood why they called them skin-ny jeans
my **** and *** would be flying all over the place,
but people with larger **** and larger bellies, people like me, weren't supposed to be wearing those sorts of things so i thought i must.
or so i thought.
at age 18 i started dressing in oversized shirts and formless dresses
i didn't believe my body needed to be objectified and put on display anymore,
i didn't need to prove that my waistline was small enough,
i didn't need to wear the spanx i wore every day at 16.
at age 20 i stopped wearing make up or a bra,
my **** sagged and eyes bagged but i wanted to show people that ***** aren't always perky even on twenty year olds.
i also stopped shaving my armpits
i thought they were cute.
at age 22 i stopped shaving my legs.
i didn't think they were cute.
but i realized not every decision i made about how i presented myself needed to be in order to make myself more beautiful.
and at age 24 i shaved my head.
a man once asked me,
as he looked at my college ring wrapping itself around my pointer finger,
if i always did things differently just to be different?
and if id always be doing things just because someone told me not to?
i should have looked at him and asked him
what has he ever been told he cannot do?
Jul 23, 2021
Jul 23, 2021 at 11:22 PM UTC
When news broke out that the glorious White Building
was to become dust to make way for a high rise
that would displace both bones and ghosts,
we were standing in a parking lot, my friends’ fists
clutched tight around their motorcycle handles,
their rapid Khmer lilting with each syllable
as they quickly planned a memorial service
for another shard of history that once did not have
blood dripping from where it had been broken.
My nickname was Country Girl, clueless and silly,
full of questions, songs and dances, a patched-up mess
with the face of a Vietnamese, the laugh of a Filipino,
and the pride of a maybe, sometimes, almost Khmer.
We left just as the city was starting to wake again.
In journalism school, they never taught us
how to grieve for ourselves, so we tried
in the best way we knew how -- a funeral procession
of worn rubber shoes and checkered polos,
in our backpacks the cameras that would write our eulogies for us.
I was the stranger whose connection to the deceased no one
understood, but still let in,
taught me a prayer,
offered some porridge.
That afternoon, I whispered a prayer.
White Building, who stares death in the face,
once a mother to the hands that had colored
their age gold, please welcome me.
Do not let your skeleton
collapse beneath the weight of this stranger.
Please, welcome me.
Aug 27, 2021
Aug 27, 2021 at 2:10 AM UTC
Waltzing into the blanket of dusk.
A pawn escaping across the checkered board,
Out and inwards to the green grassed yard.
A sleeting figure, past-and-future,
Gone the way of the fearless noble rook.
Down-acrossed squares of black and white.
Into the field of endless battle.
This game we play, has become a tournament.
White against black, two players locked;
Locked in a battle of constant wits.
Who shall win?
The noble too afraid to capture the evil queen or,
The darkness plauging the board.
Check and mate.
Oct 30, 2012
Oct 30, 2012 at 2:41 PM UTC
I berated her
But she was stronger than me
I put pressure on her
But she was always magnificent
I judged her harshly
But she was always right
I tried to control her
But we both wanted freedom
I made her weep
But she made me see
I kept her locked away
But she survives
I tried to quiet her
But she sang, she danced
I asked her to take the lead
She said there's none to take
I mistrusted her
She waited patiently
I wore my checkered suit
She wore nothing but jewels
I spoke to her timidly
And she answered eagerly
I invited her in
And we arrived.
Feb 28, 2021
Feb 28, 2021 at 5:32 AM UTC
I’m thinking of the faded checkered pattern that has been
smoothed away by time on the dark cloth seats of a Nissan Pathfinder
driving down Ryan Road on a hot day in June.
My mother, in the front seat, singing along to a Spice Girls cassette.
I’m thinking: red, plastic, crab-shaped sandbox and
McDonald’s Happy Meal toys.
I’m thinking: light princess pink, seafoam green, and robin’s egg blue.
I’m thinking of a framed cheetah cross stitch, hanging on the wall of what
used to be our bedroom at my grandparent’s house.
I’m thinking: Barbie doll houses and Hot Wheels and a cul-de-sac at
the end of the street.
The sweet smell of cigar smoke. The ice cold splash of the garden hose. The pop of a bubble. The sting of soap in the eye. Dreams by The Cranberries. As Long as You Love Me by The Backstreet Boys. A HelloKitty boombox slowly spitting out vapor when the deck builders hit a power line while digging. The deer in the backyard looking for corn. The faded wood of a playset that was never really played on.
My father: sitting alone on a splintered bench by the firepit at the edge of the woods, empty beer cans at his feet, chain smoking cigarettes, and humming along to a song that is stuck—forever stuck—on the tip of my tongue.
I do not know if this happened. I cannot ask him.
(I’m not sure if I would want to ask him.)
But I can make an educated inference that that line of
fiction is really nonfiction.
A memory that feels like a phantom limb.
Sounds like the sharp crinkle of static.
Covered in a gossamer, dreamlike haze.
There is a distinct otherness to this memory, to who
I think I was before the trauma.
We are two different people. A yin and a yang. A day and a night.
The hermit crab is soft beneath its hard shell.
The asbestos is not apparent within the insulation.
You cannot see the lead in the paint.
The mold inside the fruit.
May 5, 2021
May 5, 2021 at 2:46 AM UTC
Through halls of cloud his spirit soared
Through countless skies of gold
In windless corridors of air
Through vistas vast and bold.
Across the checkered fields of green
Above those mountains high
My friend would wing his aeroplane
Into an endless sky.
The windswept beauty reaching out
The world so far below
This freedom to spread out his wings
Would make my friend’s heart glow.
His spirit soaring like a bird
Into a sky of rain
The sunlight setting in the West
In shades of sweet refrain.
Alone, aloft in peacefulness
Is where he means to be,
To fly as one with eagles
High above a distant sea.
To reach up through the heaven’s gate
To be at one with God
To spiral round like feather down
And touch down on the sod.
With a heavy heart and weary hands
He shut his motor down
Forever more to be with us
Imprisoned on the ground.
A sunbeam I see yonder there
At play amongst the shrouds
And I fancy seeing Leon’s ghost
Flying up into those clouds.
Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
11th June 2008
Dedicated to my flying mate, the late Leon Denize.
Feb 1, 2010
Feb 1, 2010 at 8:31 PM UTC
Booming Rhetorics (Spoken Word- Freestyle-Dramatics)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
==Booming Rhetorics ==
by
Checkered Darks
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
(Copy the link below to your browser)
https://soundcloud.com/user-367453778/boomingrhetorics
Human nature itself is a smash of contractual responsibility. A splash of rights afloat as we sink in our psychological rooted moral panics. All I see is a cascading titanic of ventures our mislaid adventures one after another. The criss cross of chains, we bonded in tax measures, reserve treasures...... It's not my leisure I beg you don't make your pleasure.
I sink in pressure, resolving Karl Mark ideology of conflicted power. Is it our born nature or nurture to live in a world of social polarisation. A pole to pole, a tug of war. Each owning and holding a rope.Is it our task to cage in boxes, fencing notions of inequalities within our society. Is it our right this notion Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.
Help me out as as I wade in the swampy lowland. Treading through and through, head afloat, the submerging walk me to the shores..... Help me find my way through this dark tunnel. Help me see the light, let the sun ray penetrate my blight.
In our dichotomy of democracy we have made it right. A rolling ball of ........
1. Stock them high sell them cheap is the order of the day.
2. Social warehousing of merging demand and supply chain.
3. A disintegration of socialist entrepreneurship.
4. Re-distribution of Export Production Zones in marginalised countries.
5. A surge of capitalism on this patch we call the universe.
6.Conortions of monopoly colluding sustainability.
I pass this ball to you. As the industrial revolution fades and debates of "STEEL" revolves.
My Speech is a mere consideration, our contradiction. The contractual complications that we have grounded and granted ourselves as humanity. My voice is an exchange, my gift, a cloud of thoughts, an arousing hope our haunting costs.
Apr 4, 2016
Apr 4, 2016 at 6:19 AM UTC
Speculation proved
contagious,
misinterpretation
crept silently on patchwork soles
(odds n' sods messily stitched,
tittle tattle did no favours)
like a flu it spread,
hushed curiosities rested
outside ol' Hutch baker's door,
where even a freshly oven'd
batch might strain an ear
or five to net nearby tongue trading,
seeds straining on their brows.
Even those Mother hens
had a cluck or two left in them,
rumours about the
'Dust mite Martyr'
as she was dubbed,
“Does she have no shame,
sitting pretty in Matrimony's dress?”
one heaving checkered breast commented
titling her beak
to gain a better look -
At that shriveller slumped,
an examiner of the cobbles
with such a religious stare
her lids traced stones
within the darkness,
a traveller -
wanderer not to be trusted,
especially not
with bloodied lilies tangled
within her gleaming mop.
Oct 25, 2011
Oct 25, 2011 at 1:58 PM UTC
The violet sky stood bashful against the dimming horizon. Stark trees sprang from the ground, flourishing in dots midst the blushing stars.
Street lights flicker on, reminding me of how mom didn't have to yell for me to come home, the lights whispered it to me, carried in the caressing breeze.
I'm reminded in the spring, of the day me and my friend ran into the pelting rain and jumped through puddles, soaking our bodies in high pitched laughter and impending colds.
I'm always reminded in the summer months, how everyone including myself, preferred water from the hose over water from the tap. Or how we'd run rampant through the field behind my house, screaming against the heat.
The broken sidewalk reminds me of the time when we all thought we were cool for trying to smoke cigarettes we stole from our parents.
I fell in love with patches of clovers more than that of a boy's selfish smile. I was more in love with the act of collecting lady bugs as pets rather than holding a hand pushed into mud.
I preferred shallow swimming pools over the small voice of a boy asking me if i had other friends like them. Or how the beam of the sun was better than the beam of a slender, pale face with blue eyes.
Blind and innocent children, we fell in love with things we could touch or splash in. We fell in love with the beautiful colors and characters in our favorite Saturday morning cartoons. When we weren't playing cops and robbers, we were lost in a world of SEGA and Super Nintendo 64. We were infatuated with a world that never altered, but our vision cleared of.
We were saturated in a time where our only big worry was making sure we got our recess time. And when the smog cleared we realized our biggest worry was making our parents proud.
And it seems that it should be the other way. We should be proud of the kid our parents raised.
But ultimately, the monsters under our beds became the demons in our heads.
And the kid your parents raised
slowly became the kid you wish your parents never had.
There won't be a day in my life where i wish i could fall in love with the sound of an ice cream truck, or the animals at the end of my bed again.
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 5:51 PM UTC
Checkered choices rise some nights,
play chess with all my frightful failings.
Queen's Pawn to Rook 5.
Nail my footsteps
to the concrete season.
I'm losing pieces it seems.
I'm a sardonic grinner
and under these eyebrows, it's nuclear winter.
Wending my way through the last
three years, I find no release valve.
The pressure will build and place
its long arm along my shoulder,
pull me far from my friends.
One.
Two.
One.
Two.
Step
by step
by hammer blow step
a story is crafted, installed with a lock
in a circular book.
Queen's Pawn to Ryman Street
1:45 a.m.
simmering skin over ice armored innards,
the freezing rain sends up my curses
like steam
clouding off of my shoulders
and into the skyline.
I've castled my way out of checkmate questions.
Not my move to make,
so I won't life a finger.
Queen's Pawn to front doorstep,
then straight on to bed.
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 11:22 PM UTC
I don’t remember when I lost my tenderness
And hardened into a thick shelled adult
No more innocent, no more gullible
Like a snake, I have peeled away my old self
It was easy enough, but having shed it
I realize no spring can bring it back!
There was a time when my imagination
Was so fiercely fuelled by fairy tales
How I used to visit the magic realms
Traversing the path from wonder to wonder!
On fancy’s feathered wings, I flew
Dwelling with fairies, demons and vampires
Roaming through the gilded hallways of magic castles
Peering into wishing wells
Wandering into enchanted forests
I searched under pillows for tooth fairies
Lay awake in bed to hear a tap on the door
With the ringing plea, falling in my ears
‘Open the door, my princess dear
Open the door to thy true lover here’
Wondering if a slimy frog has leaped over to my bed
Many hours were lost in fearful suspense
Pondering if the hoodwinked Red Riding Hood
Would escape the claws of death in the woods
With bated breath I followed the three Billy goats
On their way to the meadows beyond the bridge
Cursing the wicked troll that lived under it
Scrubbed old lamps hoping a genie would crop up
To bring things, my little heart cherished,
Looked up to see Aladdin on his magic carpet
Whizzing past the clouds,
Once I left my homework undone
Thinking those helpful elves would do it
While I snored away in the dead of the night
Now bereft of all such queer fancies
My brain has gone into lazy slumber
My world once checkered with colorful patterns
Now lies damp, dull and laden with strife!
Jul 3, 2017
Jul 3, 2017 at 9:31 AM UTC
A well-rehearsed dance,
the waltzing waitress tosses The Times
on table 1 as if she’ll actually finish
the Sunday crossword this morning.
She won’t.
Grease lined lights flicker on one
by one.
Like spotlights on a stage.
It’s show time.
Twostepping while taking down chairs,
she flows to the rhythm of ritual,
across a worn checkered dancefloor.
No applause.
In a dining room of Astaire’s and Rogers
she is the coffee choreographer.
Pirouetting to the ***
then a sidestep, quick! Quick!
Slow.
Warming up now, she stretches.
Switching on the metal machinery.
It grinds and growls as if it prefers
decaf.
Rings from rusted bells
hanging from the door chime
to the beat. This is her
cue.
Oct 14, 2016
Oct 14, 2016 at 10:09 AM UTC
They number the benches
they, those who need to have order
and know the when and where
of all things
The sage of bench 33
doesn’t really ever see
the brass plate with its proud threes
he covers it with his frock
as if to sublimely mock
the “theys” who need to believe these
graphic creatures keep the world
from tilting too far on its throne
The sage of bench 33
was once a number watcher,
he too counting the ways and the days
to find their sacred sum
but now he only counts
what really counts…
the steps to his next meager meal
the coins in his blue chipped cup
and the stars he can see
from bench 33
on moonless nights,
amid the frenzied frights
of those “theys”
who number not only their days
and the checkered concrete ways
but also benches for the holy homeless
Jan 20, 2012
Jan 20, 2012 at 6:19 PM UTC
In the broken kitchen chair he sits
Weeping the tears of a killer
Face buried into the palms of his grisly hands
He sobs uncontrollably for he knows what these hands have done
He cries as a child might having seen his parents murdered
Gasping and struggling to draw in a full breath
Snot running from his nose, curling over the stubble of his upper lip
With a clenched fist he wipes this away
Rage building in his veins, hatred, and remorse
His face grows red as he shakes uncontrollably with anger
Unsure of what to do with himself he rises quickly to his feet
His chair crashing back to the floor behind him
He paces the kitchen back and forth
Feet padding monotonously over checkered linoleum
Suddenly, abruptly, he stops, his gaze drifting to the counter top
As he catches sight of the skinless corpse he screams
A blood curdling scream that chills to the bone
Unable to bare the sight of his disembodied victim any longer
He barrels out of the kitchen
Crashing through doors, splinters of wood marking his trail
In the bathroom he now stands
Sulking in shame before a ***** mirror, staring down at his bare feet
Slowly, he raises his head, eyes squeezed shut
Fearing to find what he might see when he opens them
He pauses here for several moments, collecting his thoughts
Breathing deeply, hoarsely, sporadically huffing
Mustering all of his courage, he makes this final leap, opening his eyes
In the mirror before him he sees all too clearly himself
Wearing a skin that is not his own
Face, hands, feet, all that are exposed
His own pale skin standing out in bold contradiction
To the beautifully bronzed hollow man that he wears
His pale and bony knuckles crash repeatedly into the face of the mirror
Over and over again the thud and the crunch
Broken skin and shattered glass
Blood now smeared across what little reflective surface remains
At last he can see himself no more
Slumping down into a ball on the floor
He sits alone and rocks
The mere shell of a man remains
With dripping hands he tears away a patch of flesh from his thigh
Groping the floor blindly his hand closes over a shard of glass
He is now far too numb to feel pain, dead inside
Gripping tightly to the broken glass this broken man begins to write
Carving his apology into his thigh
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 1:36 PM UTC
Do you remember my wool sweater:
How the fibers used to catch on your wristwatch
And tangle themselves in the buttons on your checkered shirt?
Those loose threads said what I was too afraid to—
Don't let go;
Stay just a little longer.
Fiber after fiber, they unraveled,
Until that old wool sweater was tattered and frayed and scattered—
Softly curled strings on shirt edges and neckties,
A memory begging not to be forgotten.
Even after all this time,
I'd bet you still find specks of red on your pillowcases
Or on your jacket as you ride the bus to work.
I hope you do.
Sep 14, 2015
Sep 14, 2015 at 2:16 AM UTC