"terminals" poems
Who draws strength
from watching the passage of time
after dark
blur against the windows
of a moving train bound
for ends uncertain.
Who walks most balanced
on the beams of empty tracks.
In the shuffle of strangers
at a crosswalk, who finds
direction.
Who sees
clearer through rain.
Who finds their place
in the limbo of airport terminals,
on delayed flights
between chapters,
over open roads that branch
into tales of cities unseen,
in the turn of pages unwritten.
Who can keep track of time
during the improvised chaos of jazz,
catching notes scattered
in the winds of horns.
Who understands
that wind moves
fastest through dark places like tunnels,
during storms in late August.
Who finds their center
hurled in flight,
always coming and going.
Sep 7, 2018
Sep 7, 2018 at 8:34 AM UTC
the hustle and bustle
of the morning shuffle
it's just enough
to keep you up
the stations and terminals
are coated
with sleep walkers
and sleep talkers
waiting for the inspiration
to come to life
that they always find
at the bottom
of empty coffee mugs
and tea cups
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 3:24 PM UTC
1. Kissing is not boring.
Something I had never known.
2. ***** are just ***** but you like mine because they're mine.
3. You are a camel.
You drink water in large and spread-out doses
Just like you drink in my affection
Stocking up on love because you're not sure when you'll get your next fix.
4. I'm happy to give and give so that you never forget how it feels.
5. You can never be too close to someone.
Eyes flitting back and forth
Fingers tracing
Bodies crushing in a stedfast attempt to defy the laws of physics
And melt into one.
6. Sing-alongs do not have to be on-key to be entertaining.
7. Kissing is not boring.
Something I had never known.
Never understood how one person could
Spend hours with another's lips.
8. You called me a *****
And
I might be good at something I'd never done before.
9. Secrets can be magical and torturous.
10. Hand-holding can become an addiction
And "too comfortable" an understatement.
11. Love is, in fact, blind to distance.
Terminals and metal detectors
Are water off Love's wings
And
Baggage claim can be an utterly thrilling place.
12. You don't know what loneliness is until someone leaves you
Exposed
In the middle of a bed made for two
For a bathroom break.
13. Kissing is not boring.
Something I had never known.
Never understood how one person could
Spend hours with another's lips
Tongue-tied in the dim light,
Until I had it all to myself;
Until you were there to prove it to me.
Sep 29, 2014
Sep 29, 2014 at 4:08 PM UTC
Wandering under
woodland leaves,
my mind confined
to winding suture lines.
Paths of pink nerve tissue
cherry blossom trees,
dendrite branches wave
in a heavy breeze.
Myline bark, an axon stump,
rooted contents of my skull
continuously growing,
a tangled plexus of
neural connections.
Twisting, turning,
a knotted blockage.
Pathways, rippled in roots,
a crossing synaptic stoppage.
A suffocating strangle,
choking corpus callosum
decaying mangle.
Branches atrophy,
shrivel and scar.
Root terminals suffer
hormonal harm.
Forest trails quick fainting
when lost in overthinking.
Feb 17, 2019
Feb 17, 2019 at 11:29 PM UTC
In the vacuum of that kiss,
Those hugs
At all the terminals
Of farewells.
In that void
What you be to me,
Lost in traducción,
Is transformed
In adiós.
Our bond
Of foods
And looks.
Smiles and rubs.
Is gone.
You're not in my day,
I don't wait for you on Sundays
I don't think of you
Dancing
At the rink,
At the club,
In my arms.
Entre emociones
Divididas
No te hagas responsable
De las mías,
Demasiada empatía
Es peligrosa.
Aug 5, 2022
Aug 5, 2022 at 4:08 PM UTC
I have been pacing enamorately,
standing in airport terminals
not looking for your arrival.
But my eyes began to respectfully
look elsewhere as you came.
My words seem lackluster as we spoke
but I'm just captivated.
I want to write to you,
but i am unable to.
The departure time fast approaches,
and my destination awaits,
can we have just one more conversation,
so that I can listen to you.
Jan 23, 2010
Jan 23, 2010 at 10:49 AM UTC
*12.30 a.m
the town drenched with
the never-ending fall of rain
still horribly soaking with
sinners and saints looking for love in
cold sheets;
dark winding alleys;
telephone lines;
and every where in between
this solitude is becoming
more a safe haven
if anything
5 a.m
city lights on the river
and it takes me back to
the familiar print of checkered blue shirt
draped on her arm
and how it complimented
her pale skin and red lips
ash blue hair in the summer breeze
voice like the dawn of spring
everything i'm not and never will be
yesterday's cup of sad americano
on a lonely table for two
on a wintry october night
growing colder and colder
by the second
6 a.m
the now bright sky still cries
with me
the blinding lights of terminals
bustling with hellos and goodbyes
mock me
black knit sweater black ripped jeans
and heart now stained black as i remember
your eyes forming phases of the moon
round curious, crescents bright
the you who can't hide it
the warmth of the sun seep through my clothes
a mark of a new day, another chance to wonder
whether today is another to
ponder upon what ifs what could've beens and should've beens
10.55 a.m
i'm ready to leave the pretend love
who had already left me first*
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 4:24 AM UTC
I once knew a girl,
back when my posture was good,
we wore matching shirts,
jeans and shoes.
She kept her hair long,
to hide jealous shoulders.
All the loud voices
didn't have a thing to say.
They didn't resonate,
hammering on doors,
denting ear drums,
enunciating mispronunciations.
I played football in times square,
passing glances and stairs,
had rock climbing races
to higher elevations.
My badly tuned feet couldn't run,
ankle bones off key.
There's a saltwater film
frosting my eyelashes,
clinging to my tongue,
holding down my yells
to the quiet machines
that toss boiled eggs in the air.
Up to their knees
in the dark left behind by streetlights,
they rolled up their pants for wading.
They lingered in docking terminals,
standing still,
becoming dust collectors.
Somehow we're all just wanderers,
citing passages we herd
in front of us like mountain goats.
Ambling across empty intersections,
walking in handstand through cul de sacs,
picking up litter from busy streets.
Books for readers wear little letters,
use big words with four syllables.
They showed me how to fence with trains,
ride red wagons down hills,
win marmalade coated cricket matches.
I never judged the typos to be out of place
(I accepted the bits they forgot to erase)
Jul 13, 2013
Jul 13, 2013 at 3:47 AM UTC
You are an unrelenting hurricane,
vaporizing everything in your path.
You are as fluent and necessary as water,
and as viscous as honey at room temperature,
always taking the path of most resistance.
But once you are warm you flow as freely as the sea,
and just as violent too.
And that is why you require a broadened cliff
for your unbridled waves to beat against,
a sturdy bomb shelter for your B-52 flybys;
an eye at the center of your storm,
perfectly peaceful and okay with all that you are.
Because you are the current within veins,
sending action potentials down axons and dendrites,
flooding presynaptic terminals with pieces of yourself.
And you will be someone else’s,
because you deserve all of this and more,
and these are all the things
I could never be for you.
Jul 10, 2013
Jul 10, 2013 at 9:46 PM UTC
Caustic doorway blues
The fog sets in,
and the moon doesn't glow
when brick structures crumble
Rats in worn carpeting, writhing
The screaming from pensive terminals
and insects live on dead wood
trees felled in hollow rounds
This is the end of something warm
These are days of hydrogen loneliness
and grey skies applaud the tarmac
Pornographers snap pictures
of silhouettes in garages
and the playground hears no love
when gunshots deafen the trees
and the old mattress is sodden
Stale alcohol pungency
near the alleyway, dormant today
But the lights are still glowing
in the house by the canal
where somebody's memories still linger
Nov 17, 2013
Nov 17, 2013 at 4:34 PM UTC
Bonjour, mon Cheri, mon petit Chou!
The doorbell rings with a solemn telegram:
- this just in -
I am exactly like most girls - in civilizations lost, or civilizations in other civilizations, Italy hiding in Toronto and a government hiding in a shameful self-promotion, and 20 seconds later I'm a poly-sci major (incorrigible!)
- 911! 911! 911! 911!
What's my emergency? What's YOUR emergency? But really, what is my emergency? And when it comes to that, What's in an emergency - an aristocracy in high-waisted shorts, an ice cream social (media) scream - lets back the car out and park and loop and inevitably end up in a straight line caterpillars away from
(The truth) - (but more of that later)
Cross-continental cigarette and now I'm running out of material to trade it for. I am lonely, can't you see? A fair trade, for a night with me-
**** me so hard I can't walk, **** me over so bad I can't detour a one-track mind)
I am not the one Hemingway prepared you for, I will not blow smoke rings in Spain or wander the streets of Paris, I will sit right here lounging in a plaid vinyl sinkhole and carry myself with delusions of grandeur
(Beyond novels unread - yet sadly written - by the unwashed and falsely educated masses)
Life as an existential film, life as woe is me in backwards bus terminals. Life as when you marry someone you hate and life as cold tempura on a booze-stained tablecloth. Pass the peas, please.
Oct 1, 2013
Oct 1, 2013 at 11:38 PM UTC
I never feel like anyone in my blood family
ever listens..
I've thought of running away from time to time..
But if I did...Where would I go?
How would I survive?
I don't want to wait until I am eighteen years of age
to move from this place they call home..
But what I call the dungeon...
I want to be free like a bird..
With a world coming to it's war-filled and natural disaster ends,
It's the only thing I can do..
I can contemplate that everyone thinks I'm giving up on everything..
Waiting until my not tragic, but proud end that starts a new line..
Life and Death sort of remind me of Neurons..
The dendrites receive the message...
From there it goes through the axons and axon terminals...
There really isn't an end..
Because the end has already ended...
This is aggravation..
Living craziness...
With no deadly end..
No poison to make us leave this world..
This aggravation..
I can't control...
Maybe everyone is right..
Maybe I am running away..
Maybe I am giving up.
But what am I giving up on?
What am I running away from?
Am I running to something?
All these questions..
Remain unanswered..
While I sit in solemn silence...
To purify this..
Aggravation.
Mar 26, 2011
Mar 26, 2011 at 7:33 PM UTC
there is a bed that you haven't slept in twice. i should have asked you who taught you to
lace up your shoes in an instinct
that feels just like a memory,
your luggage is always packed.
you love out of a suitcase, always
ready to pick up and move. your hands are stained with their last
names you have boarding flights tattooed
on your palms because you're so used to
leaving, there is never a good-bye it is
always departure gates and terminals, and i'm writing this in on connecting flight over the ocean because close to nowhere is
the closest we've been in months
just to tell your passport that i understand
how you cannot love me. i could
taste it in your gas-station coffee breath i could
feel it in the hesitance of your fingertips
you are always close to the highway you are always waiting to hitch a ride with a new girl who will write poetry about how badly you feel like permanence and i
am always trying to unpack you, begging
you to stay one more night.
i understand how you cannot love me, i stay on the ground and you buy plane tickets with spare cash, with a turbulence that makes me
want to fasten my seatbelt.
there is a bed that you haven't slept in twice and i whisper to the sheets
"i thought i could've made you stay."
your face is always towards the
humming of the window and
i like to imagine you can hear
me if you can hear me, you can leave all you
want. you can travel across the world and exchange your
heart for currency, you can walk through
security and stuff your belongings into the closets of cheap
hotels. i understand how you cannot stay because you're always too busy leaving,
but there will always be a place for you to
unpack in my chest.
there is a home that remains unoccupied.
there is a bed that
you haven't slept in twice, i keep it unmade in case you
ever feel like coming back.
Apr 10, 2017
Apr 10, 2017 at 8:00 AM UTC
Sarcastic smirks at the corner of your left cheek,
exaggerating the importance of each day and week,
Making me nod even when I don't agree,
Just to tell yourself...."I told him what to seek!"
The veins of my wrist pop out ever moment,
My ears get a spoon full of torment!
But fortunately I've got two of them so two ends,
Open at the terminals to shove everything out!
Pretentious eyes...I've got... but something lies behind them,
This massive walnut of conspiracies is what gives instructions all the time then,
You see what I show you and inside I'm a blank face,
Who wins without even putting a step in this never ending rogue race!
Thousands of efforts you can make and yet you'll only see what I want,
I am the generous soul of the priest who avenges the night till haunt!
Stop me if you can...cuz you know you cannot, but still show me what you've got which will at last die and rot,
So stop me if you can cuz I will be the same which never have I been,
Something that never have you seen so come forward and lean,
To witness red coming from green.
Stop me if you can!
Sep 30, 2018
Sep 30, 2018 at 2:14 PM UTC
there is a numbed feeling
one of exclusivity
that suggests
a solitary reconnaissance
one of orientated purposes
where moods are reflectively animated
in individual focus
in order to infiltrate
a non sharing experience
but the feeling abruptly stops
it is a synchronized wound
it is the assassination
of the distant and complex
terminals of the human mind
i am irretrievably shocked
poeple live
but there are really no survivors
Apr 20, 2013
Apr 20, 2013 at 1:32 AM UTC
They put her in a
Curtained cubicle
Surrounded by
Beeping machines
And all types of
Wires and terminals
A trashcan and
A dripping faucet
When they rolled her in
They gave her
Morphine
Sodium chloride
And a pat on the head
"She's lucky"
The nurse said
As he lowered the gurney
"A lot of people have
No one show up"
And he left the room
Pulled the curtain closed
We were left with the
Tranquil beeping of
Faceless terminals
And the dripping faucet
Another nurse came in
With a clipboard
And started asking us
Questions
Apologizing for
The beeping
"It's like Chinese
Water torture"
Then she left
Pulled the curtain closed
And when the
Heart monitor
Started beeping
We pushed the
Silence button like
They showed us
We were left with
The sterile squeaking
Of the soles of sneakers
And hollow whispers
In the hallway
And the dripping faucet
Jul 18, 2016
Jul 18, 2016 at 11:30 AM UTC
we all have our stories.
stored in cafes, empty beer bottles,
soaked clothes, tattered floppy disks.
old film cameras, b/w reels.
we keep these memories with us,
and displace them as well.
their cytotoxicity travels
throught terminals of life's airport.
eventually new souls come and go.
terminals change, destinations flicker
on digital screens.
we delay our feelings, fall in love
with the impossibility of circumstance.
we all have our stories,
maybe in poems like these, or
photographs like the screenshot i would take to share this poem.
we all have our stories,
and not all stories are as happy
as the plants kept beside me while
i sit and write this poem down.
Aug 26, 2023
Aug 26, 2023 at 7:57 AM UTC
I hardly know what I'm doing
As I ask the clerk for a pack of naturals behind the counter.
My make-up from yesterday's shift preserved nicely,
So the exchange followed suit.
I'm not good at this.
Naturally.
Fifteen minutes before walking into the convenient store
I paced the empty terminals of a car wash
Rehearsing my demeanor and forced eye contact.
I hate eye contact.
Stand tall and look confident.
But not too confident.
Be charming,
But not desperate.
Don't try to be ****
(You're not ****
I'm four foot ten
And twenty years old.
Buying a pack of cigarettes for an addiction I don't carry
Shouldn't be this hard.
I'm not damaged,
I'm not drunk.
I'm not struggling,
And I'm certainly not a cigarette smoker.
But I'm here,
In Boston,
Stuck in-between the fibers of a girl
Who writes bad poetry and
Hardly knows what she's doing with much of anything.
Naturally.
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 1:09 AM UTC
I was frightened by familiarity.
I assumed that a hometown was just a cage to be broken out of.
The freeways burned like veins into my forearms.
The lights of distant cities lighting up my being.
I ran
from your open arms and wide eyes
to find nothing but empty bus terminals and books that held no solace for me any longer.
My resolution was to run harder and father away
from those who knew me best
because they had also seen my vulnerability.
From there I initiated fresh starts
but I built false foundations in every new beginning.
I kept chasing that horizon which had long marked the boundaries of my existence.
I was running from the possibility of familiarity
of settling,
of the prospect of someone knowing every detail about me.
I was frightened that once they knew,
they would run to the opposite horizon.
I was mistaken.
I never felt the dawn of your eyes until I felt the dusk of missing them.
I found that there is a difference between cage-bars and open arms
and that I couldn't run any longer.
May 4, 2011
May 4, 2011 at 5:38 PM UTC
there is a feeling
one of exclusivity
that suggests
a solitary reconnaissance
of self orientated purposes
moods reflectively animated
in individual focus
in order to infiltrate
a non sharing experience
but the feeling abruptly stops
it is a synchronized cyber wound
it is the assassination
of the distant and complex
terminals of my mind
i am irretrievably shocked
there are no survivors
Feb 26, 2013
Feb 26, 2013 at 6:31 PM UTC
There's an entity behind my eyes
that folds my thoughts into airplanes
my ears are the terminals to the sky
There's mud on the runway
but they're begging to go outside
he moves the blocks, they take flight
the planes turn to envelopes
just harmless little notes
entering through someones eyes
and exiting through their throats
sprouting into fishing boats
floating on air with the current
reaching places only the birds go
my thoughts turn to weeping willows
covered in white insect pillows
that filter out negative tones
the tips of the limbs call the grassy ground home
and this is how we know
we best leave nature alone
my thoughts turn to snowflakes
that splatter on the window of an airplane
flying through the thunder that makes the boat shake
and when the clouds cry, the willow is made
Oct 5, 2013
Oct 5, 2013 at 2:47 AM UTC
Early morning have to wake up
better not be late
the sun is rising, clouds are shining,
birds are humming again
well I know I will be alright
Clock is ticking, Should be ready
it's a brand new day
The bus is waiting, I should be going
I know I wont be late
Coz' I know I will be alright
One step closer
I have to face the fact
that tomorrow will never be the same again
But today, I have to move on
No turning back..
I'm ready to face the new day
The sun is setting, time is passing
another day has gone
The world is changing, we all need something
just remember one thing
Tomorrow we will be alright
One step closer
I have to face the fact
that tomorrow will never be the same again
But today, I have to move on
No turning back..
I'm ready to face the new day...
Nov 21, 2013
Nov 21, 2013 at 3:48 AM UTC
i exist in everything
but i am more saturated
in different settings
in airports
but people are always in a rush
for their check-in time
and i end up taken for granted
in sea ports
but people are sea sick
and i end up being disregarded
in bus terminals
but people are too busy
checking for the next bus
to come, they don't think
i'm there
i think the only place
i would be happy
is in a green meadow
but it's useless being alone
no one notices,
not even stone
you can't even see me
sometimes it hurts
when you breathe,
but i'm here because
you need me the most
--love, air.
May 2, 2013
May 2, 2013 at 12:20 PM UTC
the maze
inside the rules of the car
you promise me that no matter what
insane or compromising thought might
have arisen from either our mouths,
there would always be the maze to keep us as friends- naked friends. ******* friends. hot, **** blonde and brown haired beasts summoning our human equity to arouse and arraign each other, each's other:
say,
drowning in internacional shipping bombings, lost at terminals, aboard flights.
noting our beasts
the minimalist pianissimo of black and white keys, the growing spirits of a Richter violin filling us up
with anti-matter, inside this hours black tideless extremes. this place's mooring soporific tinders. You placed this cart of humanness too close to the life you live
even say,
rules i wanted to know but
never have to practise in your absence
nowness self-less and losing to the light, losing to the ocean, each ounce of life is now vastly different
inside of me
where dead worms
cannot crawl
i continue to die beside your sprawl
where heavy night brings memories of
your skin affixed n entwined
each of your twelve unspoken names
each of these hours that won't be mine
and as this box of earth resigns
its peace, i wish never to have known
this haunting sea, where quaffing like
the enigma of misery
my secret voice cannot be free
my eyes cannot bare their sight to see
if ever chance should be
May 25, 2017
May 25, 2017 at 4:02 AM UTC
Spending good money on theater tickets for a fright when the six o'clock news plays for free each night ? Pay top dollar for " Spring water " bottled in plastic choking the oceans ? Sugar free sodas are nothing more than a cumulative poison just like all the others ! Marijuana is taboo , but fast food is cool ? Twenty years for selling it ! Perfectly fine to feed your kids rat poison with a toy stuck in it ! Pay no attention to a refreshing drink that cleans the terminals on car batteries ? Processed flour with roach droppings in it ? Antibiotics , genetically modified produce , earthquakes in Oklahoma from fracking ! Leveling trees in metro Atlanta to build substandard housing !
Oct 14, 2015
Oct 14, 2015 at 4:36 PM UTC