"rerouted" poems
I'd like to tell you a story
It begins in 1492
When dear old Christopher Columbus
Sailed the ocean blue
He landed on what he thought
To be the country of India
He stumbled upon a group of people
Who appeared to be indigenous
Because these native people
Happened to be where he thought he was
He called them all "Indians"
&& somehow that name stuck
They welcomed his group with open arms
Even offered them their feast
Unaware that deep inside
They were but wolves, dressed as sheep
Columbus && his crew
Soon ravaged the land
They took what they saw
Then they took full command
Of the people they found
On the land where they landed
They felt they should rule
So they stepped in, heavy handed
They murdered the people
Who had taken them in
Set fire to their villages
While the victims watched with their kin
Flash forward to the future
It's now 2016
It's been over 500 years
Since the overtaking by the regime
Future settlers decided
To let the survivors live on
They designated them small areas
Of what had not yet been robbed
These Native Americans,
Generally keep to themselves
They get by living off their land
But now they need your help
The Sioux of Standing Rock
Are being horribly mistreated
The state of North Dakota
Is poisoning them without reason
A pipeline has been built
That runs through this Native territory
When Bismarck residents didn't want it
It was rerouted, how discriminatory
People from all over the country
Are seeming to agree
They are making the commute
To protest peacefully
In defense of an oppressed people
Who only want to live
But the government is stepping in
Even blowing off some limbs
"Let them die, they're not like us"
the message the administration is sending
It seems that after all this time
The battle is never-ending
What exactly does it take
For people to see eye-to-eye?
In the end we're all just human
We kiss, we laugh, we cry
So if you have a heart at all
If you know that this is wrong
Please join the Sioux in their mission
By coming together, we can be strong
Dec 2, 2016
Dec 2, 2016 at 11:30 PM UTC
In Đà Nẵng my friends cradled me like a child.
We screamed Taylor bridges,
tequila-toasted in bars until the lights blurred.
A single candle in the bathroom
danced warm sighs through open windows,
and all felt calm.
I grew new muscles balancing on a motorcycle,
sometimes gripping Harry’s jacket,
sometimes throwing my weight into the wind.
The city flared neon and gasoline in stuttered traffic,
but along the coast
he drove so fast the vibrations in my chest harmonized.
I pictured my bones becoming butterflies if I let go.
I had entered the Year of the Dragon on a futon,
swayed to half-sleep by a hundred chanting voices
from the temple next door.
I did not dream of dragons.
I only learned to breathe fire.
At midnight Bailey stood at an ancestral altar,
kumquat branches, apricot blossoms, red envelopes, wine,
burning full sticks of incense,
and smoking half a pack of Esse Lights.
This is how the year turns over safely.
Tết is not about faith; it’s about continuity.
The Year of the Snake slid in with new bones and old habits.
It hissed that suffering could be scripture
until letters slithered free from the page
and coiled like cold jewelry around my wrist.
I didn’t make it for Tết that year
no silk áo dài, blood orange, too big
for a body that learned shrinking
before it learned staying.
That was the shedding.
Salt water peeling old skin away,
songs shouted so loud they drowned the ache,
poems that did not start tragic,
nights when my body finally kept time with the moon.
At home the water did not move.
At home the dog’s teeth found my hope.
A terrified mouth rerouted rivers
through my soft parts.
A jewel carved from my nose.
Six punctures blooming across my arms like altars.
In Vietnamese stories the snake waits beneath the water
to claim whoever dares the bank.
I wonder if I was chosen the moment
I opened my mouth in those bars,
when I leaned into the bike’s curve
as if danger could be a swan song.
Now I lie awake at hours unnamed,
tracing scars that hiss answers back.
Something from Vietnam keeps breathing through me,
the candle’s heat, the coast’s long nerve,
voices braided into salt and night,
and I cannot tell if they are echoes
or fangs testing the dark.
They say snakes shed to grow,
but no one warns you how thin the new skin feels,
how everything burns against it,
how you mistake survival for prophecy.
I touch the scar and wonder
if I am still that girl clinging to the bike,
or if the snake has already swallowed me,
patient, sleepless,
feeding on my own venom.
Sep 11, 2025
Sep 11, 2025 at 1:24 PM UTC
the glitterball in space
wrapped in wormholes
caressed by distant quasars
peak at optimum speed
before floating falling
toward the muted aromas
of space age earth
the bile of industry
smears the planet in neon
one giant shinning marble
city lights stretch
in the haze from pole to pole
whatever hemisphere
whatever timezone
whatever continent
aqua is the precious mineral
few places exist where
hope springs life eternal
rivers were rerouted years ago
run by power corporations
who package it in sachets
with dehydrated memory
a planet of consumption
tectonic plates stitched
stapled, bridged and woven
the fabric of the world
we unzip to consume
revel in the electronic tune
that breeds our contempt
for the the lost seasons
our reason dilluted, polluted
by the tune that remains the same;
beautiful stranger
dream a dream for me
because now all we have
between us
is acid rain.
May 13, 2013
May 13, 2013 at 8:29 AM UTC
*Glass missions shut down
Window panes panged by enlarged stones
Thrown away Creep away*
**The last feeling I will ever have
The last movement I will ever take
The last time I close my eyes**
The last breath will be my dying respire
*The last time I hold you in my arms
The last movement in the wrong direction
The last feeling that will ever be taken*
**The last course of action is to be broken
The last amendment to testify
The last strike I take will be my end
The last bout will place me on a cold ****** slab
The last words I utter under my gasp of air**
The last time I look onward over the land of mishap
*The last words I write for all to recite
The last bout with anyone will be taken at nightfall
The last strike I set forth with, I will go away quietly
The last amendment read at my funeral
The last course I set out upon*
**The last eye opener will be a tear jerker
The last recourse of time will be split into many pieces
The last steps I take will be down an avenue of misguided youth
The last judgment will be passed, declaring my insanity
The last pardon from anyone given to my every whim**
The last given right will strike me in a peculiar way
*The last pardon from any courtship round table
The last judgment will over rule my pride and prejudice
The last steps I take will be my first steps rerouted
The last recourse spread upon the land that holds me dear
The last eye opener will be shutting the light onto this empty life*
**The last time I throw stones at glass palaces to see if it will shatter
The last shattering moment was my first mistake unlearnt from
The last time I go off the deep end without a life jacket**
*Never tread the waters alone
Understand you are never alone
Trust those who fill your heart
Believe in you came into this alone, no reason to go out on your own*
Jul 13, 2010
Jul 13, 2010 at 6:26 AM UTC
I saw you between buildings
working in sun
network of light
letting liberty reconnect.
Wires buzzed
high voltage streamed inside them
darkness questioned its own shades
sparks dripped into night's gulf.
Fervent as LIGHTNING
lathering rooftops
sizzling bolts spying timber
smothering scars.
I saw you tunnel down
infinite pure light
shattered by solitude
entering bold, courageous
down into dark mines
soldier who never stumbles
suspending notes caressed in silence
protecting seeds, engaged by yearning
I watched you grow
twisting up
gnawed by roots and rocks
begging for water
circling wider than galaxies
melting skin, taking down drapes
promising to visit me
in tombed up places
dizzy as smoke
curled up by desire
amnesia searching for identity
drafted by absolute fire
changless architect
rerouting for change
vicious as dawn rising in Saturn
gentle as mist leaking from
her melted eyes
swallowing his compassion
vanquished revenge to steam
her savage attack whirled
in amorous sheets.
I felt you unveil arousing
every heartsick wish
blasted down by wailing wills
puddles of December gathering
reflecting on above
while drowning below
who is it speaking kindness
after rippling screams uprooted trees
volley my soul
back and forth
between worlds
consume this spark
encircle your breath
with goading light
dancing inbetween
two ruined buildings
I listened to rocks slurring for mountain
I heard trees lust for water
I felt the cries of troubled voices
flare across two highways
rerouted by dark and light.
Dec 9, 2018
Dec 9, 2018 at 7:47 PM UTC
Cold summer afternoon, the sun falls through my half opened blinds and
I wonder...
Wait.
Think.
Patiently stop and ask myself...
"Why" in the midst of conversing do I constantly think about you?
Or how when a female walks by
my mind wanders into this deep, deep oblivion
of sunshine and...whatever your favorite flower is.
I see her smile all the while I say nothing
for fear of you never smiling at me again.
With this pen
I will write you every love letter you have never gotten
Gone, but I'll sign the bottom with...
L O V E
Is a thing that you have never known to little of.
Your unmarked face of beauty, girl they're not even close when they call you a cutie.
From your freckles to your perfect eyes as they smile.
Let me be your wondering crocodile,
swimming back and forth keeping you from harm
Your protector.
The projector of a love that demands a voice
Make your final choice
These lands have I scouted far and wide
Lest I should be doubted
I could find you in a room that was crowed
Clouded was my judgment about you
Sprouted has my love for you
Rerouted are my thoughts because they only think of you
You're my super glue.
The one I will always hold on to.
You will be my mother bird and I will be your nest.
You will be my queen and I will show you who's best.
I have never found someone like you
someone where I
Stop patiently, think...wait and wonder about this girl
whose thumb I'm under.
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 6:38 PM UTC
I was blinded at first,
I don't know how I found you.
Could not see, but could feel,
so I, raveled, unwound you:
Aurora unreal,
wrapped in ribbons and crowned,
you made blessings of curses
I'd ignored looking downward.
Plot holes and thought games
were ploys of the passionate
who'd answer his question
before even asking it.
Knowing the cost
of the dignity lost,
and so clear that the price would be paid,
I would still play that game
all **** day.
When your magnetic field
rerouted the map,
the shift was a gift
fallen into my lap.
Your voice constant hums
what I could not be told:
*Turn the corner ahead
and the streets are all gold.*
May 26, 2015
May 26, 2015 at 11:44 PM UTC
Hound-dog swallowing poly-coated pills, filling up, bloated, falling off stage, and into a more permanent and lasting Graceland, to be surrounded by another’s verse.
I only enjoy what comes from my own head, a modern Samuel Johnson, no matter what happenstance brought about to be said, a cage free Bronson. Hearing false verse through a syllable count, hoisted onto adverbs easy to mount. Congratulate a lesser mind, reaching commonalities most could find. Ease in creation, opens floodgate doors, distributing specs of grace through misworded spores. Life, love, and the pursuit of vanity, leaves simplified lumps of prosperous thought riddled with anonymity. The invention of despair overwhelms those ungifted, and leaves them erecting stale forgeries they grifted.
In the wee small hours of escaping light, a crooner steadies his hands as he falsifies his originality, reading off the music from another’s sheet.
A change in topic is something to hold as worthy, though in a modern context of prosaic prose, such good fortune can be exceptionally elusive. Broken hearted symptoms shared through a hash-tag, rerouted and worded, to fit an illiterate youth’s lesser diction, reposted to approach validity, only to be called forth as an original soul, one to revere, and hold as an entitled fraction of logic.
The piano man knocks out a tune, hit in stride with vocal conduct, inspired and laid in pen by a lesser man propelled by better wording, given up for another’s career.
Market’s over-saturated with teenage sonnets, weeping over cut wrists, ended (Victorian inspired) trysts, refreshed and brought back around until sentimentality vomits. Themes used to run rampant with fresh ingenuity, made extinct, occurred in a blink; now every poem has some congruency.
The grapevine got entangled, getting involved with a troublemaker, providing the soundtrack, using another’s words.
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 5:43 PM UTC
Every year
the same deal
treats
obtained too early
under the
seasonally seductive
store lights
nestled next
to the fake fall foliage
become mysteriously
rerouted
from their final destination
as intense inspections
conducted
under the guise of
quality control
these pilfered provisions
perform a vanishing act
visions of sad
costumed tots
at the doorway
with empty bags
hurry a return visit
for rapid replacements
tragedy narrowly
averted
once
again
Nov 10, 2014
Nov 10, 2014 at 1:30 AM UTC
6 months without you feels like forever
You are a burning ship, destined for drowning
Watch as you take the ones i love along with you
Trying to shout my way through the trance of your voice
The messages you keep leaving remained unopened,
Ive rerouted my veins, changed my direction,
But the thought of you clouds all my conversations
Its been so long since my blood has held you like a child,
Since your embrace has wrapped itself around my heart,
Some burning fever has left me with petty thoughts
Is it the bits of you that remain?
Or the knowing that this fight will and has always been
A back and forth between the rights and wrongs of my conscience
Jan 19, 2016
Jan 19, 2016 at 10:39 PM UTC
inspired by TC Tolbert's poem, ""Dear Melissa"
~~~
joined skin cells shed and shredded,
two bodies, a compositoy,
an experiment in the temporary,
now, lost under lock and key, at a secure depository,
remote, undisclosed location,
kept unheated in a dark cool place
to preserve their combinatory
slow, half-life decaying oratory
the body is never an accident,
even though we mostly are,
accidental tourists, two collision-prone comets,
lark, rambling rambunctious adventurers,
on a half-day tour only,
leaving behind commingling blinking dust vapor trails,
emissions of a tour bus journey rerouted
while under orbit sail
some cells, microscopic, preserved digitally,
aged to imperfection, thrash my eyes,
making me speak in tongues I do not recognize,
but fluently possess, no wonder there,
the memory place fairly empty,
room aplenty for passerby's and the imagery
of the vaguest of dearly departed
skin is not the only mot shed,
sloughing of woeful words, shelled
~~~
Dear Melissa
TC Tolbert
a curve billed thrasher
is cleaning its beak on the ground—
we are closer now than ever—sitting
in shadow—I never want to scare
anyone—not really—I have a friend
who loves people who come out
suddenly—in the dark—
pleasure
is the same distance as pain from here—
that’s my skin on your sweater—both hands
stripped now—I know I am someone
to you I am entirely—practicing
Spanish on the computer—gesturing to
the neighbor instead of speaking—
to sharpen
the body is never an accident— someone
I know I am not—letters are inseparable
from loss—moving what can be still
moved—one is sweeping the mouth—
what ever isn’t skin—take it off—
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 5:39 PM UTC
Me - “My Mum’s getting worried” skinny
You - “God I want you right now” beautiful
Us - “Are they hanging a painting up?” loud
It’s release kindled with belief
that you could find that corresponding jigsaw piece
and I’m a corner piece - easy
and you are an outdoor cat - hardly tame
in that pair of black workout pants
and that flowing dark hair
You are like Spanish
beautiful, strange thing I can’t get my tongue around
I’m like somebody lmaoing on a chat room
efficient with my lack of substance
laying on the bed watching you get dressed
I drag on my imaginary post-coital
because I know you hate the smell of the real thing
unless its staleness is imprinted deep in my clothes
this disease has no known cure
the way the images slideshow their way behind my eyes
the way my blood is rerouted
every time I catch a smell of your sweat
or a memory of your taste
like faces on passing trains -
eyes locked momentarily
I went from student to drop out to student to lover of life
if life were a metaphor for the way you move those hips
you said you don’t know how to dance
well your tongue must’ve been taking night classes
maybe one day I’ll ask your last name
maybe one night you’ll say mine like a confession
but until then, special little stranger, keep bringing that *** over to my place
Mar 28, 2014
Mar 28, 2014 at 3:18 PM UTC
Her eyes were the gateway into her soul,
And the soul I was unable to captivate.
Intangible was the body that lay before me,
Her heart was more than just resting beneath the rib taken from me!
My eyes affixed upon such a creature so fair,
Nor the aspects and vertexes rerouted my gaze.
My vision secured to my soul held within,
A creature of beauty much more than her ways!
Handcrafted by beauty, for beauty, in beauty thy name,
One eye laid upon thee for one in the same.
So a body I've seen, but it's just in the way,
An essence is there I could stare at all day!
"I couldn't stop looking at her, not any part of her, just her!
Even while I write this, it is not her that I see,
These words forever paint a canvas of who she is to me!"
Oct 23, 2011
Oct 23, 2011 at 8:57 PM UTC
Words carefully gathered
And placed upon lines
Creative fitful thoughts
Tighter than rhymes
Emotional words
Rerouted, relived
More than just feelings
These Poetical Gift
...
Mar 2, 2017
Mar 2, 2017 at 8:15 AM UTC
I told the stars to shut up.
They weren’t witnesses. They were worse.
They kept spelling your name,
blinking slow, like pity,
glinting gallant-
like that ever saved anyone.
I walked past the summer we called ours
like I wasn’t still stalking it.
Like I didn’t prowl on purpose,
like I didn’t rehearse your alibi,
like I didn’t pray
(for prey.)
I was fine with the trees, the oil stains,
the way the sun pretended nothing happened.
I could go days without hearing an ice cream truck,
or seeing a sun-burnt stranger
and thinking: maybe the universe
rerouted you into someone
I could almost survive.
You once said I was dangerous.
And by once I mean
I wrote it down
and heard it forever.
It’s in my lymph nodes,
in the poems you pretend not to read.
It’s in the version of me
you kept almost loving
but never quite chose.
You called us perilous.
Or maybe I did.
It’s hard to tell, since
I’ve been writing you
with your mouth shut
for months.
I keep checking the margins
for your voice.
All I got were
the noises people make
when they’re trying not to drown,
but pretending to wave.
Why is your name still more siren
than sentence?
Still more blood than bruise?
I made your absence
a body I slept beside,
because I kept waking up
guilty.
I never served,
but I wrote the ending.
Put my hand on a Bible,
bit my tongue so hard
the truth still tastes like you.
Wore borrowed pearls,
and swore to God
I never loved you more
than the day you didn’t show up.
I would’ve done time for you.
I would’ve confessed to a crime
that didn’t exist
just to hold your hand once
on the courthouse steps.
You said I was dangerous.
You were right.
But not in the way you thought.
I told the whole truth-
just not out loud.
You didn’t get convicted.
But I still can’t go back
to that summer
without thinking the tan lines
were warning signs,
without getting subpoenaed
by the sky.
Some nights,
your name still tries to get in
like a burglar.
I play dead,
tell the stars to shut up.
But they unlock the window anyway.
They spell you out in light
like they want me to remember
how it felt
to be the crime scene.
Jun 15, 2025
Jun 15, 2025 at 9:12 AM UTC
Nobody is behind me.
Nobody is behind me.
Nobody is behind me.
I double check
I feel my muscles relax
Giving into it
The pressure is rerouted
The valve is momentarily relieved
Feb 26, 2018
Feb 26, 2018 at 12:22 PM UTC
..consequently, I do not see
the human in
Humanity.
Before I. saw what I no longer see
my mind uncluttered
my thoughts running free,
before the birth of humankind when
man and his plan
destroyed the trees,
wiped out the bees
polluted,
rerouted the ocean tides.
I no longer see the desolation,
desperation, or
see children play.
I wait for the day
I wait for the day when
I no longer hear
when the sound of the fear fades away
and when Goliaths would fall, I
won't hear them at all.
I won't hear
I won't see the
human in
Humanity.
Mar 11, 2015
Mar 11, 2015 at 5:32 AM UTC
I was born broken
synapses misconnected
only rerouted by the additives
from chemicals sometimes misspoken
Now I'm shattered
and the only one who can fault is that face in my mirror
I say it was the man who's namesake took on Goliath
like Goliath, he ravaged me and made me question
question who every one else saw in the mirror
but it's not his fault that I've changed
I let him start the film
the rated R film in my brain that won't leave me be
in day and in night
I scream you idiot, idiot, idiot
why? why? why?
every time I let it happen and wonder after
panting and crying what happened
what happened to Disney Movies, and Saturday shows
to happy sing-a-longs and family scriptures
traveling across the ocean to my hawa'ii to find my ohana
thinking to capture back
old lost spirits
idiot, idiot, idiot
why?why? why?
I look up at Him
I'm weak
your Mary has become a beggar
sainthood is gone
an angel has fallen and
wings have shattered
now to the next day
will I ask again, why did I do it again?
or am I free to live again?
Sep 4, 2018
Sep 4, 2018 at 4:54 AM UTC
Undirected.
Redirected.
Rerouted.
New direction.
Same destination?
How far to Nirvana?
Sep 30, 2017
Sep 30, 2017 at 4:13 PM UTC
I aspired to draw a line in the sand
but I ended up carving a square.
It birthed a perimeter that wasn’t planned,
enclosing the emptiness of what was there.
If I could find the will to move my legs
I’d still plant my feet on either side,
but they’re dangling off each limb that drags,
dead weight bumping and bouncing along with the ride.
Stagnantly cushioning careless decisions
and finding loose lint among the remains,
stitching is falling behind the constant incisions
but surprised the pleasures match with the pains.
I’ll be going over, while falling under,
come run Red Rover, abstain or plunder.
I noticed the devolution of my skin,
in the irregular margins I jotted scribbled notes.
We could cut the cost with aluminum foil versus tin,
it could mimic barriers like our winter coats.
See my mouth refuse to further consume
my teeth are made solely to crunch numbers,
checking every inch within each room,
I can’t comprehend the routine this encumbers.
You supply the war
and I’ll supply the headlines.
We’ll follow the same pattern as before,
but now watch out for land mines
I poured the tears into stale water
and traced my hand upon the sun,
burnt fingertips but I thought it would be hotter,
and the brightness could blind if not stun.
Walk off the wounds from imagination
and get in the ring to face reality’s wrath,
I’ll take comfort in knowledge of my destination,
I never rerouted my destined path.
Feb 2, 2020
Feb 2, 2020 at 4:46 AM UTC
The envelope
unopened
addressed
to himself
Inside
unspoken
old hopes
and dreams
Lost
and rerouted
the stamp was
foreign
Its port of entry
still
—unforeseen
(Dreamsleep: November, 2024)
Nov 10, 2023
Nov 10, 2023 at 10:27 AM UTC