"oceanwater" poems
Scattered, splattered gold – like sunshine, once
It crashes into a dark place, a cave by the sea,
Where no one ever goes.
She can pick it up, let it slip and drip
Between her fingers, fingertips. But
She can’t put it back together again.
This girl, someone’s child, she dances
And reads books, and likes to ride her bike
To ride roller-coasters, to fall in love like
The famous people. Mickey Mouse.
She loves love.
Or she used to, she once did, not now.
When she was young, she would write poems
And she would know so, that they were poems.
But somewhere, the rhythm of her mind changed:
Syncopation, alliteration, became the sing-song
That helped her through the night.
*tonight
i don't belong here
my skin is not mine
hair like rope
up, i climb
to nowhere
tonight
pits where my eyes were
petals for lips
irises
we fall into blue
deep violet, violent blue
like oceanwater weight
i am, but not here
like kafka on the shore*
So now she stays, she lives in the dark place,
That same cave where the sea places
Her secrets, things that need to be saved.
And she’s wrist deep in what used to be
Something warm, and sweet, and really quiet –
Holding sundust, smeared
Willing it back into the sky.
Feb 28, 2012
Feb 28, 2012 at 8:38 PM UTC
Mildew clutched tight,
hollow-boned, manic thrusting,
marionette-faced, barrow-lunged,
nails bit to the bone-gristle,
lips raw with spit-polish,
redacted eyes, redacted eyes --
two palpable creatures,
transient drifters of soulspeck,
one unraveling the other constructing
one unraveling the other constructing
forever,
sallow truth would dissolve skin.
Lips read: founder a self.
Rusty copper
with adamantine eyes.
Steel core, unbroken by absence.
Drown in opposite directions,
oceanwater salve, yes
calloused tongues jostle,
ribbed in salt and rust.
Unlaced corset,
striped sweater,
grunged trainline veins
run on endless.
A clock,
abandoned in the middle,
I think once
it very much mattered.
Dec 12, 2013
Dec 12, 2013 at 11:27 PM UTC
(I. Summer ‘ 13)
Freckles clung
like manic-pixie stardust,
spackled whispers
an unfolding fractal
of brimming dresser drawers
old pictures and mix cds,
we could only ever do
what teenagers were supposed to.
Smushed crabapple handholds,
moxy and sadism hard-won,
no crash course in platonicness,
our stained glass eroded
into a beach
frozen in unsummer,
opiates dull senses,
a synesthetic void
exchanging echoes of echoes,
a cacophony of empty
distilling as it leaves
in whisks of 2 a.m.s,
honey-laced whiskey—
if the sky murmurs one
last love poem, it isn't
to us but our
moment of infinity,
of blind faith
irredeemably lost,
that forever of apex
where the line between
falling and flying
blurs.
(II. Fall ’13)
Spines and ribs
don’t do it justice
you raptured me
both ways to Sunday,
built me up to shatter jaws,
car windows—me
bar stool battered,
you my perfect carpenter,
smile with wooden teeth
(you made them yourself)
so stain me the color of
cherry trees
and unbliss my empty spine.
(III. Winter ’13)
Mildew clutched tight,
hollow-boned, manic thrusting,
marionette-faced, barrow-lunged,
nails to the bone-gristle,
lips raw with spit-polish,
redacted eyes, redacted eyes--
we are palpable creatures,
transient drifters of soulspeck,
one unraveling the other constructing,
sallow truth would dissolve skin.
founder a self, rusty copper
with adamantine eyes,
steel core unbroken by absence,
drown in opposite directions,
oceanwater salve, yes
calloused tongues jostle,
ribbed in salt and rust.
Unlaced corset,
striped sweater,
grunged trainline veins
run on endlessly,
a clock,
abandoned in the middle,
I think once
it very much mattered.
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 2:10 PM UTC
Everyday there's a growing
that stretches through the cracks of the ground
while my feet conscientiously step on them,
because if you step on a crack,
you'll break everyone's back.
This growing has blue eyes,
sapphireblue eyes,
oceanwater blue.
The Tempter. The serpent that
crawls freakishly across my feet.
Shall I smash his head against my heel?
No, his eyes. These sapphireblue eyes
oceanwater blue. They're
intruguing.
And if this sin is something that will break everyone's back.
I'm going to step on each one
until every hospital bed is full.
Nov 23, 2011
Nov 23, 2011 at 5:55 PM UTC
Even among a thousand wild plants and blooming trees
I could never be more at home
Than between the dying flowers in your window
And your collection of foreign coins
Taped to the wall like distant memories.
“They’re silly” you said
But when you told me
I saw more stars in your eyes
Than I’ve ever seen in the sky.
When I noticed your lips shake, you simply told me:
“I want your thoughts in my hands
So I can mould them and shape them like sunflowers”.
I wanted you to know everything about me.
The shape of my tongue.
The feel of my elbow.
The taste of my smile.
So I held you for hours while you tickled my past
with your presence and promised me
that the eternal sunshine in my eyes
Would never die.
In the morning I ate eggs and carrots
While watching cartoons.
You were naked in the kitchen
Trying to spare me the harm of watching you smile
You know that your smile
Would create a burning fire in my chest.
We danced to the sound of your kitchen radio.
I wanted to feel every molecule in your body
And every frequency in your voice.
I longed for your skin
Because it felt so warm the night before.
You smelled like oceanwater
But that’s because you shower in cold water.
I know that.
I know you.
I gave you my heart and soul
The day I met your lips beneath the icecold winter moon.
“One day you’ll fly and leave me” you said.
You knew I had searched years
For wings to carry the weight of my heavy thoughts
Your wings had carried all my hopes
And all my fears and all my knowledge
I had sewn them into the feathers
To make room for unfinished poems in my head.
You know that.
You know me.
My unforgivable love for your mind
For your fingers between my ribs and in my hair
Made it possible for you to lift me
And make me soar without any wings of my own.
“That’s okay” I said.
“My feet on the ground are what give me reason
to love someone who already soars”.
You then kissed me aggressively.
Wore my entire life story on your skin
And carried me to bed
My eyes were as vivid as your lips
And we were heavy and sweaty
And utterly exposed with naked feelings
Entirely and unnecessarily obsessed with each other.
Combined in endless kisses and moans
And that morning we created a world
Were you were the only truth I could have ever known.
You flowers died that morning
And so did your love of my missing wings
And my ribs and my hair
You only heard the sound of my thoughts cracking
With images of what would have happened
If you had lent me your wings.
Mar 5, 2015
Mar 5, 2015 at 4:24 AM UTC