"teethmarks" poems
just sat inside for the lack of light;
night kept on for weeks. several coat-
pockets later, something choked up.
something let out. here, you
were a shell imprinted into the cliffs,
watching over darkened and still waters.
waiting to fall. clasped in tender hands:
dirt, glass shards, rust filings, discarded
seaweed on wire hook. there, you
were sediment compounding under your
footmarks. slipping towards faith, first shivering
the second you put down fingerprints in the shade.
the sun trickled soft through pine needles,
you'll always be as beautiful as that light;
some half-hour distant, you'll find out.
so, as salt-spray wears teethmarks into
your sleeping motions, i sit upon
the shoreline and collect handfuls of
pebbles, full of hope your curvatures
will curl out of these coagulated beds,
these hollows i lay awake in.
Oct 17, 2014
Oct 17, 2014 at 10:28 PM UTC
We were flowers, twisted ‘round each other in red thread
speaking soft words under soft rains – hard park benches
pretending we didn’t love what was in the other’s head.
We were flowers, one flower, ‘round and ‘round in red
lipstick that stained and teethmarks from words left unsaid
We were pacing old trodden paths digging old sodden trenches
We were flowers, cut at the stem bleeding love bleeding red
Speaking cold words in floods, sitting on lonely park benches.
Apr 10, 2017
Apr 10, 2017 at 2:47 PM UTC
on top of a mountain, dressed
in purple and frozen in December air,
we were flying through western Oregon
with our shoes in New England and our
hearts in the forest.
you would shake when I saw your skin,
turner both softer and more rugged as I reached your bedrock,
eroding like sea glass when you showed me what
makes you tug tighter in the dark and
sob at sunrises.
your tears were velvet garden shears-
I don't remember how much blood there actually was,
just that it poured out of both of our bones
with a symmetry that my eyes never spoke of,
and that it still stains the skin of myself
and everyone I've talked to in the last eight months.
you are a ghost under lampshades,
like a florescent fairy in love with tying
the night sky into nooses.
you are libraries,
volumes filling viles with memories of moments when
the darkness left your bones,
only if for the flicker of a flashlight in the backyard or
of a match,
giving me minute fractions of eternity
to see your disposition light the sky larger than stars.
you are teethmarks in my skin,
scrubbing with salt and white
body wash and oatmeal without sugar,
warming our endlessly evanescent December.
******
filling the ceiling with blue whales and
mountain ranges,
i am a stain on the map in your backseat,
buried under used napkins and neglect,
while your wings take you back
to Oregon.
Aug 14, 2016
Aug 14, 2016 at 5:15 PM UTC
She wrote a line
about drawing a line
an inch from his shoulder blades.
She wrote a line
about stepping over
the teethmarks her father made.
She wrote a line
that said **** lines
and broke them with a comma.
She wrote a line
that said blood
and nothing besides.
Sep 17, 2013
Sep 17, 2013 at 1:49 AM UTC
once bitten, twice shy.
makes perfect sense
but i'm pressing the teethmarks
she left on my chest
and i've missed this tender aching.
i've missed the misery that
summarises me when we're apart.
infatuated.
cross my masticated beating heart
stick a needle in my eye
once bitten, twice shy
i'll try to fall in love once
before i die.
Sep 18, 2017
Sep 18, 2017 at 6:55 AM UTC
My skin keeps raising in a certain spot,
the surrounding veins looking like orange juice pulp. I think
about my boyfriend in Florida, how he ****** my
calf right where the spider bite will return
again and again, and maybe he has sent his teethmarks
in the papery flesh of grocery store containers.
In that case, twisty-ties on bread bags are fangs I can finger.
He says I have the look of white chocolate everywhere
but so do zits, teeth, and milk, if we want
to use logic. He tries to make me seem beautiful but
it mostly falls flat, not until last week did I believe in bruises
as a method of communication or appreciation.
Now it would make me happiest
to mix our blood and call this relationship romantic.
There is this disease my friends complain about
called a “food baby,” how after eating it feels like small feet
create rocking chairs from the dull edge of my ribs. I
feign labor and birth nine months later:
she’s yours, congratulations. It stopped being cute
after the first time I made my boyfriend’s face spark up in
confusion and fantasy, it makes more sense to
say there are maggots getting married
under an arch made pale by my intestinal track. I say so now.
I miss my boyfriend in Florida very much,
although I only have to lift my thigh up and he is here.
He leaves scars on me from insects that need to escape their
venom, I am the Golden Gate Bridge
that they climb merely to jump off from, to die.
He would probably say they are just strawberries on my
hips and hands, white chocolate that would not melt for him.
Jun 20, 2013
Jun 20, 2013 at 9:09 PM UTC
coyote
tried to take
a girl
sunk his teeth
in to that girlflesh
and ran
shot dead
by the cops
in less than a day
strange
that we are
judge
jury
executioner
lawmaking
legislating
binding
animals to our humanity
when they know
nothing
of our lives
the girl lived
bearing the mark of teeth
forever
the coyote perished
for human vanity
revenge
reciprocity
Nov 20, 2018
Nov 20, 2018 at 11:21 AM UTC
It's said that it takes seven years for your body to replace its cells.
Memories die.
They wither away;
become unexplained hints of familiarity in a stranger's face.
Scars are replaced by renewed skin. Bruises disappear, erased as though by magic.
My body is a eulogy for your touch.
You were a merciless lover. You scratched your name into my skin. Your teethmarks are still imprinted on my tongue. The bruises, around my throat.
"Here lies he who commands my breath".
My lungs are still learning to forgive you. My muscles are still learning to forget you.
It's been four months and two weeks. I can feel the ghost of you restless, haunting my flesh. It wails at night and I still cry myself to sleep,
longing for dead things to remain dead.
Jan 24, 2018
Jan 24, 2018 at 5:43 PM UTC
perhaps it was his love for
the salt and the sea
perhaps upon the desert of waves
he awaited a vision to awaken his dreaming heart
some beautiful illusion
spoken aloud by a drunken bard
let loose his devilishly smooth voice
in the small hours of night...
she was there too
with her loose skin revealed...
she will be tainted by his warm breath
she will bear its teethmarks with voiceless pride
till the end of her days
it was his hot blooded passion spilling its
cruel seed upon her
and she smiled like a young nymph
displayed her shameful state like a peacock strutting
like a wild animal rutting...
except in the night where she held it near her lonely heart
a single dim light in her dark world
she is his love of life incarnate
she is his lust uncluttered by romance
all hot hands groping for pleasures given and received
she is a lean warm soft creature of night
that slips away to sleep
and yet dream still
of his warmth upon her shoulder
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 2:09 PM UTC
With your sinful smirk that the devil would envy
Cunning eyes, brimmed with your lies
Burning fires in those iris'
All you saw was that ****** devil's red
Grace my thighs with your wicked hands
Bet your bitter self was once bitten
So bite me now with you ******* ways
A bundle of teethmarks and undiluted desires
May 23, 2015
May 23, 2015 at 4:50 PM UTC
To laugh in falsetto
And bribe with toothy smiles
To flatter men
And politely degrade myself for minimum wage
To ignore the lacework of frown lines pooling around each of our eyes
To etch teethmarks deep across my tongue
From every almost slip
To remember the script
To save 15%
To say “Thank you very much”
May 31, 2019
May 31, 2019 at 2:55 PM UTC