"lockjaw" poems
i miss you so much it hurts my whole body.
do you remember when we talked about going to seattle?
you said you liked the rain
and the fact that no one there would know you,
i just wanted to be wherever you were.
i was never afraid of the dark
when you talked about yours.
i still don't have words for what i felt
when you told me the only other number
you had saved in your phone apart from your mother's was mine.
i keep telling myself you're not allowed
to just exit and re-enter my life as you please,
but i leave the door unlocked,
so what does that make me?
the last "i love you" from the last time we spoke,
is still stuck to the roof of my mouth.
other lovers have tried to pry it out of me,
but the memory of you is like lockjaw.
i miss you so much it hurts my whole body.
do you remember the lizard you caught last summer?
you let me name him forrest.
if life is a box of chocolates,
there are pieces missing,
and whatever is left has gone stale.
i can't smoke cigarettes in my backyard anymore
without wondering where you are
or if you're smoking too.
i hope you're not drinking,
i know you hate what it does to you.
your secrets are still tucked between my ribs,
i will hold them safe and repeat them back to you
if you ever lose your way home.
i miss you so much it hurts my whole body.
do you remember when you told me
about the person you were afraid of becoming,
i said i wasn't scared,
and i told you i was proud of you?
i'm still proud of you.
i hope you're in school or at least keeping busy.
i hope you still make yourself laugh.
i miss you so much it hurts my whole body.
do you remember what movie we were watching
the night you got arrested?
i still can't finish it.
i am holding the place.
can we pick up where we left off?
can we stand up and wipe the dust off?
i never got to tell you why i only write in pen,
or why i can't sleep with socks on,
or about the day i caught god with his hands in a public fountain
fishing for change.
i'm not mad at you for disappearing, but i'm lonely.
the only reason i haven't called
is because i'm afraid of being sent straight to voicemail,
but if i ever find myself in indiana again,
you'll be the first to know.
- m.f.
Dec 21, 2014
Dec 21, 2014 at 11:04 AM UTC
I have never been without it
The scent of regret surrounds me
Every mistake I ever made
Is the stench that so confounds me
Soaring heights of anxiety
I have never been without it
Not your garden variety
Plaguing much of society
How I long to be free of it
Unrelenting regret believed
I have never been without it
Dry heaving nightmares unrelieved
Trichinosis, lockjaw strangles
My regret knows all about it
Like Joe Btfsplk’s* cloud dangles
I have never been without it
Mar 10, 2017
Mar 10, 2017 at 10:24 AM UTC
remember when you told me sleep was just practice? remember how when i asked what for, all you could manage was sea-foaming at the mouth and tired eyes?
funny how i see in black and white now. funny how i can still see sea-foam-blue.
one of the many things you taught me was to always keep eulogies tucked between my ribs in hopes of memorizing them by heart. i never knew heart break until words i can't remember writing—or, maybe, wont remember writing came spilling out of my mouth like reverse lockjaw.
but i remember the way you choked up and coughed out apologies as if you were fighting tides of pride; words getting caught in your throat—a foreshadowing of salt the water in your lungs.
i know i tend to ramble, and i know you tend to hate that but i swear god this had a point. i guess what i'm trying to say is, i never meant to be your anchor. i never wanted to drag you down.
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 5:32 PM UTC
Falling hard for someone I hardly know
I think of him and then my heart clenches
The way I feel for him , I want to show
But when I'm close, I stop within inches
I don't want to hold it in much longer
If I do I'll explode from head to toe
Maybe I'll say something to be stronger
It's not as if he'll hate me, be a foe
I step closer to him, voice calling out
My mouth snaps shut, my legs frozen in place
I have lockjaw, what is this all about
I can't step closer, my heart starts to race
I will wait for him to step toward me
What if he won't come, then we'll never be
Nov 18, 2012
Nov 18, 2012 at 12:53 PM UTC
.
*A story is brothers with a poem.
That's all this is, family.*
~~~
Your soul couldn't get any bigger,
twilight crept over your toes, and
before you knew it---
it was gliding along your throat.
Cliffs aren't made of bones,
they rock and gleam like armor gnashing
twin dragon scales. The earth growls and lashes, dominance is its domain.
Bellow my legs I view the darkness pleading~
I've never witnessed a starving sea,
it begged to swallow every inch of
my crippled heart of wine.
I'm hanging by the wires we call gallows,
tendrils thinning like my silver lining.
Soon I'll feel the tides swallowing at my spine.
When I fall,
I'll do so
bliss-
ful-
y
This cliff has lockjaw,
the stones morphing into fangs of a Greek legend.
You're staring at me,
Saturn now makes its home in your auburn depths.
How I'll miss the misty mountains,
because you named them
after me.
A whisper louder than thunder,
lonesome ashes staining venom on my tongue.
Coughing up my regrets as if
I had lung cancer.
I'm a hanging nightmare.
That's ready to drown.
No wonder they call you daughter of old man winter, you're practically frozen in place.
I've seen the universe, but I think I'll swing by hell for a change.
"Ahkira....Ahkira look at me."
Why must your voice be so drippy? I thought you were a frost flower.
Since when did you melt when it sleeted?
"Yes?"
"Don't let go....Don't let go please...I'm coming."
"It's no use. I'm going to die,
Cinder."
Oh but darling,
you should've stayed glued to glass.
"Don't say that! I-"
With a lurch the mottled sky pinned you down,
senselessly, you crashed to the floor, 6 feet away from my hourglass body.
"Give me your hand!"
You reached, but I couldn't hold the wire.
Slip-
ping
ne-
ver
felt
so
****
wick-
ed,
But I was wrong.
Your soul multiplied.
It expanded.
But before I fell into the hug of oblivion, I tugged at your heartstrings my very last time.
I brushed the surface of your being and my words stung perfectly in your ear.
"Close your eyes."
.
Jun 6, 2015
Jun 6, 2015 at 12:14 AM UTC
Broke as hell
Blue light eyes
Pity be pity see
Pushing till they pull
Color coded notes on fire
Scholar of all that is okayish
Handicapped lockjaw zombie
Swimmers in the styrian river of Dante’s Inferno
A stop sign growing in the middle of the street
Thousand yard letter grade stare
12 missed assignments
Experienced Naivete
Dementia in progress
Last year’s Amnesia
Crossing busy streets
Vegetative
Dec 8, 2021
Dec 8, 2021 at 4:00 AM UTC
a pink spit shine in your suprasternal notch,
split lip stamping your skin with red,
lipstick kissmarks or ****** scabs. this is how it goes,
this is how you learn to spell your name,
letters to fill your mouth. rituals leave stains on your sheets.
you washed them in the river and the fish all rose to meet you, belly-up.
you eating porcelain, ignoring your bleeding gums, stronger than a doll. id rather be scared than lonely you said
as if they were mutually exclusive,
as if it was a choice. pressing your fingers in the saviors wounds cause you dont believe in holy
but you believe in gore. scales like stars littered in the grass.
you in the streets screaming HIT ME at indifferent cars,
begging dead wolves to eat you too, one last meal, one last **** before you go,
one more sin cant **** you too much, right? right?
death like a bloodletting, draining a wound.
at the riverside you sort the viscera from the flesh,
leave the eyes for birds. fill your hollows with something warm,
something liquid and soft,
for a moment you feel whole - until it leaks in rivulets,
soaking your skin, you felt whole.
*bring me the head of god,
big enough to build a home inside, bring me the heart of god,
big enough to feed a kingdom.*
your head is full of meat, raw and red, juices dripping from the ears,
your head is so, so, full, so full, bring me the liver of god,
clogged with human sin, bring me a poison that could **** the stars.
he brought them down, dragged them from the sky to bless the world, bright like angels,
purity burns. bleach in your fresh-pierced hands. you were warding off lockjaw,
killing the flesh.my limbs are not mine,
corpse parts,
scars as seams at the joining-place. you say my hands hurt,
you say i feel like my knuckles are splitting, you say can we stop?
you do this every time. keep digging. i feel deathly. i feel deadly.
your feet in soft dirt as the shovel hits wood. i know what you know. i know what you know. i know your name and i know the soft spots on your skull. i know the breakline on your rib, the place where it's almost healed. knowledge of your ****** parts,
the soft parts where the teeth go in. im ready to die,
im waiting to die, put your tongue in my mouth and ill bite it off. put your hand in mine and ill break your wrist.
Jun 5, 2015
Jun 5, 2015 at 3:32 PM UTC
A hole for the whole;
Clarion lacuna.
The cheval glass so immaculate, coeval.
You will find yourself when you sever the sound.
But even some trees reach for the ground.
Inadequate, a voluntarily tethered thrall.
Catatonic canvas;
Goblin shark lockjaw.
Dec 1, 2012
Dec 1, 2012 at 5:18 PM UTC
Tear it to shreds little man,
This is all you have left to do.
All other empathic direction taken and blinded like lockjaw,
taken and railed into The rusted side of a wall radiator.
Of course the floors creek,
Of course the walls tear up like paper
Nerves, exploding,to the eye to eye feeling,
The missing aperture,
Four tracks laid down have grown into nails by a stretch of ability;
And a second sun in glasses to tie it all up in.
If you couldn't breathe you would flail around just the same way.
Degrade truth
as all hope-full people should do.
Mar 31, 2010
Mar 31, 2010 at 5:38 PM UTC
He enters. A stiff morning jowl
can be heard clicking.
And, in early grievance,
the second man’s clock speeds its ticking.
He lies lulling himself (lamenting)
while lockjaw bends down,
knees cracking.
Behind the fold that blinds the floored man
a “D” engrained from cigarette ads,
After smell of the first’s wafts over.
An emphysemic growl is left ringing
on the ground; tumultuous hacking
kicks in like the cops that reside down in Brixton.
Wheeze, hack, and cough, and cough. And cough.
(Silence) bearing down from the **** erectus
leads Remington to the Clark of the floored man’s
pounding chest.
Rest, rest; he tries to protest, but the cavalry
can’t hear his signs of duress.
And now slitting wrists, from inside the veins;
the invisible smoker never could be restrained.
Jul 17, 2013
Jul 17, 2013 at 11:41 AM UTC
The band
Of
Runaways
Ran
To new land
New clan
The Rebels
Sought refuge
Grew
Fought
A standoff
Against power
Whose
Afraid
Of a grenade
From a renegade
With nothing
To lose?
An outnumbered
Underdog
Already abused
Walks
Into the pit
Locked in
Pitted
Against a pit
With a lockjaw
That bit
And held
With the grip
Of the law
The loser
Still wins
Though
A life lost
The price costs
Hope
Spreads
Like the words
Of a martyr
Read in red
Here’s a toast
To the living dead
Anyone
That gave their life
In a fight
That couldn’t be won
Stood
Against the giants
And tyrants
Of the era
Erased terror
With blood shed
And a carved
Signature
That signifies
The nature
Of a man
With true power
Sep 30, 2010
Sep 30, 2010 at 12:33 AM UTC
Let's go with two exclamation points
Rip the air from my lungs
Shriveled and lonely and pink inside
The flesh dancing the salsa for a breath
Atrophied arms reaching out
Locked like my mouth
(Screaming for a kind word)
Feb 24, 2014
Feb 24, 2014 at 7:53 PM UTC
With aphids and cherubs barking up the wrong tree
A November with rain on its mind
clicks a heel in the underbrush, where all things creep
in the ether floss of our lost tendrils of Time
emergent in luminous twine
every stitch, a rivet in a concrete swamp.
tethering a plight.
II
Christmas lights lockjaw hamlets with crepe frost
glistening earthbound color wheels in the jagged blanket
of a crisp 3 AM. a covert Decembering as such a night
is want to do.
then the gray weeps
as window panes
tell you
Why?
Sep 2, 2022
Sep 2, 2022 at 11:30 PM UTC
dying of young age, your brother nurses at the breast of the stage hand’s version of a mother. the stage hand is off arguing with a lamp on the impossibility of attracting moths. beside a tall cake, a groom with lockjaw and a stiff neck has to take life’s high point on faith. if you remember, brother made for the groom a bible so light it could be held by a cobweb. and then it was.
Aug 29, 2013
Aug 29, 2013 at 2:00 PM UTC
Lockjaw and gaze into a vastness that even I can't comprehend
I can't speak
It's like I always spawn an idea that sends me spiraling into chaos
But somehow that forever seems so empty
When the space between your eyes when I stare at your face becomes my safe place
I'm hiding inside my own skin the way it stretches around flesh to hold in every **** thought I've ever concealed from you
I wrote you an apology letter when you ravaged my soul and I think I truly believed that sincerity would save you
Now all I have is a notepad with your name etched between every line and sore hands and tired eyes
Some things won't ever change
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 3:29 PM UTC
Have you ever gotten lockjaw?
At least, that's what I think it is
when my mouth stretches
to let in a yawn, or out a sigh.
My tongue recedes
for the muscles underneath pull taut.
It hurts to keep open,
and it hurts to try and close.
I cannot speak
yet I cannot seem to keep silent.
But this is only for a moment,
one that I long for,
as silly as that sounds.
It reminds me of talking to you
Feb 13, 2018
Feb 13, 2018 at 4:25 AM UTC
Manipulating grief, ***** hands -
open the lid,
release imagos. Eyes are blank.
You unravel the last of roses.
Surface tension wavers. An imbecile
sky pours the eyes, nose and ears.
Courtyard fills again, morphed resurrection.
I am persona non grata
in my own home. The moon does not cry.
Mystical lights. Headstones not legible.
Lockjaw. Waiting for morning-glory.
Stars are blinking.
Still I am stupid, courting my failures.
Cushion of thorns, I am weary of heavens.
Me, this earth, I do not die.
Mar 7, 2017
Mar 7, 2017 at 11:00 PM UTC
i keep telling myself people are not allowed to just exit and re-enter my life as they please, but i leave the door unlocked, so what does that make me? every "i love you" i never got to say is still stuck to the roof of my mouth, others have tried to pry it out of me, but the memory of you is like lockjaw. and you know i'm too weak to ignore you. i learned how to translate your texts from a drunken mess back into english. i am fluent in apology, but i don't want to hear them anymore. stuck between i love you's and that not being good enough for either of us, what do we do now? Where do we go from here? Do we even do anything? As if simply loving someone was ever enough for anyone. I miss you so much, i never wanted to be anywhere you were not.
Jan 17, 2015
Jan 17, 2015 at 7:50 PM UTC
his molars
grind my bones,
but it reminds him
to release his jaw
and let air seep in.
so i guess i don’t mind,
at least he stays alive.
Mar 25, 2020
Mar 25, 2020 at 5:55 PM UTC