"grouted" poems
I planted flowers
Fixed the floor
Worked for hours
Painted the door
Re-grouted the tile
Sowed some seeds
Rested a while
Then pulled the weeds
Painted the halls
The carpet is new
Washed the walls
And baseboards too
Removed the clutter
granite counters were bought
Replaced the gutter
'Cause the old ones were shot
I stand back and see
the results of our work
mumbling softly, Gee
You're a stupid ****
Shiny and new
The house is a show
Prepared for a view
By people we don't know
Our home's at it's best
And everyone can tell it
So now we can rest
And the realtor can sell it!
May 23, 2013
May 23, 2013 at 1:56 AM UTC
elephants stomping on my head
laugh as they draw blood
fragmented ideals scatter in the wind
as trampled dreams mix with dust
cemented in 'supposed to'
hiding behind other people's 'shoulds'
jackhammer disappointment
crushes bones with broken boundaries
play me a song
to make it look pretty
and I'll pretend to dance
with you in foggy yesterday's
karaoke soundtracks
to a stranger's tears
that leave the heart blind
tripping acid just to see in forgotten colors
breathing bacteria
from the soles of shoes
wiped on my forehead
as they said, 'hello'
a mosaic of skull puzzles
grouted in the remnants of the ****
left behind as everyone
just walks away
shadows smell clean in dark corners
where colors are left to die
in clouds of expectation
leaving truth buried in the ruble
...of who they thought I was
Feb 23, 2018
Feb 23, 2018 at 6:30 PM UTC
I can sleep with you,
but I can’t be asleep with you.
I can drive you mad
bent over the headboard
of your expectations,
but I can’t meet them.
What you are looking for
does not hide between my legs
panting for salvation;
it hides trembling in the bend of an elbow,
tucked away in tracks that mark the spot.
Treasure coves lie in the hollowness
of my sunken eyes
and under the thickness
of my bitten tongue
until the only thing I can taste is
the bitterness of my laughter
like a hangover
from too much sweet talk the night before.
Some nights,
the holes in our conversations
"with the lights on"
leave me crucified between
two lines I should have never crossed to begin with.
Other nights,
I am stretched out across the entire room
and your eyes touch nothing
but the bathroom floor we grouted together
with our spines.
The backbone for this poem
isn’t your unattached vertebrate,
but the committed soft spot
behind my promising kneecaps
that give out each time
you ask me
when I’m coming to bed
because a mattress
may be the sole platform for this love,
but your sheets
can’t cover the indifference in my touch.
Mar 4, 2017
Mar 4, 2017 at 1:14 PM UTC
i am planting seeds between tiles on the bathroom floor.
fingers bloodied,
ceramic grouted dust caked under nails
as I dig inch-deep holes
into the cracks and place,
oh so gently,
small dark seeds into the soil of
this apartment's skin.
i am on my knees
praying,
i am on my knees
planting,
i am just
on my knees.
I use toothpaste to bury them,
i caulk them into place with
my own ingredients.
i take a shower
water puddles under my feet
and i imagine the seeds drinking it up,
gorging themselves on my
***** water.
***** because i haven't showered in days,
***** because i sweat,
***** because i am me, and it has touched my skin.
and i imagine that one day
i will walk into the bathroom
to find a field of blue mums,
marigolds, lavender, daisies, and
clover
bursting up through the seams in the ceramic,
staining the walls, reflecting light back onto
my skin and i'd feel-
god, i don't know-
i think i'd feel alive.
Oct 31, 2020
Oct 31, 2020 at 11:01 AM UTC
life fends its ache in a solid state of lumber
stretches grouted brawn
and sets its stresses on duty
gaseous pollution meets the daylight
a warming flatulence of the productivity byproduct
labour
orb
parching an arc over the brow
and easing an erase into the eve
then to
the night solution
a fluid of festivity
*** excite in arts and the conduct
a canvas of tincture
to suspend our culture
in-bedded
the witching hour is only a blink
a jiff and a wink
a humour in the plasma state
break
the process is reignited
and for that brief movement
cleaned out of heads
we are simple
guided
Jun 2, 2021
Jun 2, 2021 at 2:11 PM UTC