"thrifted" poems
She was a thrifted sweater and denim and jersey knit sheets
Pizza breath and red wine and toothpaste
Alabaster skin and knotted hair and freckled shoulders
A tangible dream and my favorite good morning
She agreed to let me kiss her and I agreed to let her slip my shirt over my head before she became
Blood and tears
"I trusted you" and "I’m sorry"
Midnight poems and a drunk "I need you"
I’m afraid I loved you like the way I wrote
Feb 1, 2019
Feb 1, 2019 at 3:07 PM UTC
Sun slits in through slats
of kitchen window blinds
and she is alone.
The art major is cooking
spaghetti,
pretending her thrifted T-shirt
bearing a cotton copy
of Campbell's Soup Cans
is not stained with tears and blood.
Oh, but that's hysterics and
hyperbole;
art has a tendency of making its worshippers
melodramatic...no?
The blood is only tomato sauce
and the tears...
well, what are tears but
water and salt?
After all, dramatizing the
mundane is just one awkward shade
of artistic temperament.
Visualizing life through
a heavy silk screen.
The art major sighs and
stirs.
The spaghetti is redder and
redder as she cooks.
Just as
her paintings bleed more blood
as she dangles a brush over them -
the teary-eyed watercolours.
The art major has decided
that drawing out extremities
of colour
might transform
her own life into
a pop of a Warhol painting.
The art major sighs and
stirs.
She thinks, tries to
think
in technicolour.
Today's thought-pencilled thesis
concludes (like a brush stroke of uncertain finality) that
love is the red of tomato soup cans.
Anger is the boil, passion is
the gulp,
danger, caution, warning,
the hot breaths, fleeting warmths,
the burn and sweet and tang.
She looks down at the
scarlet of
Warhol's soup cans,
blooming in worn out cotton
on her chest.
It might as well be blood, she
thinks.
It is,
it is,
it is.
Blood red love -
tomato soup cans.
Sun sets in slits
through kitchen window blinds
and she is still alone.
The art major sighs and
stirs.
The spaghetti is ready.
Aug 2, 2015
Aug 2, 2015 at 6:41 AM UTC
She was made of Pearls
*Her skin a delicate graft
of Sapphire
Soul sophisticated emeralds
A most valuable treasure
in the world
He lit a fire in her heart
Bright flames Burning bright
Enough to burn galaxies
And reduce mountains to ash
A passion so masochistic
A desire so strong
Obsessive
It consumed her
Yet*
She was made of Pearls
*And all he wanted was
To dig treasure
And so he did
Carved the delicate sapphires
from her skin
Where deep Scars remain
Like giant pebbles in a river
Stole the precious emeralds
from her soul
As he broke her heart with his
soft spoken lies
Yet*
She was made of Pearls
*And he got none
He was a red herring
Which soon drifted away
She thrifted in the Pain of love
A black fantasy, a black hole
That punched a void in her chest
And rendered her heart stale
Yet*
She was made of Pearls
*And the pearls fell in her tears
And weaved down all the oceans
Until she was no more
Now he looks for her pearls
In the oysters of the oceans
More valuable than*
Her
May 13, 2017
May 13, 2017 at 4:28 PM UTC
Waiting on Haight, ********* the gold beading of a thrifted 80s shirt inside my purse,
I listen for the 71.
He tells me, from under a nose cherry-red and with a cantaloupe and a spoon resting in his lap,
of how when he was 25, he holed up with an 18 year-old girl.
One night she leaves for an ex-boyfriend's, saying she felt compelled to him, like there was a magnet between them. And he said he went to the closet, he smelled her sweater and knew what he wanted.
He got some cardboard and fashioned a fake magnet, the classic horseshoe shaped and silver-tipped kind, out of cardboard. He turned it into a necklace and waited for a day with some red roses for her to get back.
She came back and said she couldn't remember the last time someone got her flowers. And then she called her mother, and her mother asked him sternly if he was planning to marry her.
He was bewildered a little, but he said yes (this was the sixties).
And he finished the call to her mother and she was standing with her hands on her hips, "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Aren't you going to ask me to marry you?"
(I laughed at this point)
"Oh..."
. . .
"Will you marry me?"
"Yes!"
I asked what happened and he said they were together for three years. But it was a blissful three years.
He asked me if it was a good idea for a movie.
I said yes. But I probably wouldn't see that movie. I left that second part out.
Jul 21, 2013
Jul 21, 2013 at 3:54 AM UTC
It's not a bad day
It's raining outside after a night of loud thunder
It's not a bad day
I woke up in blood
It's not a bad day
I had to wash my sheets and scrub my mattress
It's not a bad day
I couldn't figure out what to wear
It's not a bad day
I couldn't look at my body without disgust
It's not a bad day
I struggled to find an outfit to make it bearable
It's not a bad day
My new thrifted necklace broke in two places
It's not a bad day
My ears started bleeding when I put in earrings
It's not a bad day
I ran out of time to do my chores before I had to leave
It's not a bad day
I have to go to the store after my college classes
It's not a bad day
The 20 dollar manicured nail polish are already chipping after 4 days
It's not a bad day
I promise
It's not a bad day
It can't be a bad day
Sep 26, 2023
Sep 26, 2023 at 11:02 AM UTC
I. Cotton candy streaks painting an indigo sky
Behind streetlights, sitting on a red sidewalk curb,
Next to paper bags of thrifted clothes
With your best friend
Outside a coffee shop
Her laugh on the ride home
Your favorite song on the radio
And she remembers the way back to your house
Without having to ask for your address
II. Eyes closed and
Your heart beating a little bit too fast while
You hope no one notices the way your hands are shaking
As you clench your fingertips down rosewood frets to 9 gauge strings
And pray you hit the right note
The drums behind you to the tap of your foot
Where you can feel the bass from beneath the floor
And the voices singing along
And you think to yourself
that maybe its not magic
But its the closest thing by far
III. Walking what feels like way too far to go to a grocery store
Because there’s nothing to do after school
With your friends
And your backpacks are too heavy and
The road stains your socks because your shoes hurt too much
believe me when I say a gas station sign can look like the gates to heaven
Safeway chicken tenders and boba over bio homework
Sitting on a metal table and waiting for the world to pass by
Or at least until you can drive
Jan 16, 2020
Jan 16, 2020 at 7:29 PM UTC
Her smile lays upon my glassed eyes
The replaced I was, I cried
She smiles with an evil grin
The fate of my sister she did spin
Now I am the second choice
She’s left to rot, echoes her voice
The next best thing to come to her
Guess I am just here for a leftover
Sep 22, 2024
Sep 22, 2024 at 2:22 AM UTC
i lose myself in the titter of your raindrops tonight
who listen to me more intimately
than any being ever could
for your dark a.m. streets breathe
a musky scent exactly like my broken love's lips
and a sip of you is fresh as your wry scarlet sunrise
which whispers secrets of espresso and brick
and aged thrice-thrifted books and the dim glow
of ***** neon signs who call to no one in particular;
during lonely nights when you drink me in, i melt
into a solace of wet pave and unlit alleys
and emerge among sinuous swirls of painted walls
and hazy lights, a blur of chilly comfort and
being perfectly lost between
you and the moon
Feb 21, 2016
Feb 21, 2016 at 7:45 PM UTC
**I put my guts to my glory so that everyone around me has a safety net thrifted into their detailed story
Where does that leave the seamstress at the end of the day, while sewing up tattered ***** wave and watch that memory fade to yesterday
The vice is the voice inside each borrowed choice, the dice thrown down, it's snake eyes now doing all the suffocating in my glass windowed town
I keep stitching up these frays and splits, and each time I know I'm choosing it. Something given to me so it wouldn't be right not to share, but like clockwork I turn and thread that needle with my hair
None of that matters it's neither here nor there. I'm stuck in torpor relishing your dark poison spears. Don't take your cries to the said man of the Sunday hour, the seamstress is here to patch your holes, frays, and splits, and then leave you for the vultures to devour the rest of your ****
Mar 28, 2013
Mar 28, 2013 at 1:08 PM UTC
my hair is smoked with diner eggs and bacon
because I was lucky enough to eat this morning
using the change I found in my pocket.
I have plenty of change on me
some of which I used to purchase
beautifying products
to conceal my blemishes-
imperfections that seem so trivial now
I am ashamed
passing by the Cherry Street Coin Begger
eyes casted in different directions, sitting upon a thrifted walker
it seems my compassion is faltering,
maybe it is these salt stained streets or self diagnoses or
layers of grime surfacing under melted snow
but her and I are no different,
trying to avoid the same soot puddles
like land mines hidden
under sidewalks of putty
Feb 16, 2013
Feb 16, 2013 at 12:37 AM UTC
What am I to her?
I am emotionally defective
and physically secondhand.
You deserve luxury and excess
not thrifted vintage.
Mar 27, 2021
Mar 27, 2021 at 3:30 PM UTC
You are the rose with fake petals
You are the diamonds worth less than lipsticks
You are the Converse with untied laces
You are the Svedka mixed with tears
You are the jacket that was thrifted,
You are the star with a light switch
You are the angel with foam wings,
You are the unseen thorn in the garden
You are the cigarette smoke that drifts
You are the needles in the dear sewing kit
You are the duchess of comfortable silence
You are the countess of disclusion
You are the sweetest pill in the box,
but the most bitter drink in the afternoon
Mar 17, 2016
Mar 17, 2016 at 10:24 PM UTC
I want to be beautiful
like that, a thrifted soprano
note, high above the choir
a dipping lilt that will
hush
hush
she blooms
Feb 5, 2013
Feb 5, 2013 at 10:17 PM UTC
in this thrifted sweater
and black and white floral skirt
in my soft and faded yellow
and on those pastel clouds
with my daydreaming eyes
i wanted a cheap ticket
you see,
i wanted a one way trip
to heaven
so i could stand protected
so i could stand behind
the holy gates,
bathing in gold light.
in my sweater,
wrapped in light
and safe.
little did i know i’d feel safer that day
that i’d taste some of heaven
in that sweater in late november
with your arm interlaced
in mine
like fate
had planned
for that to be
the moment our stars
aligned
you were a sunbeam
my sweater was security
and your arms beheld the stars
of the heavens
to me
and can i tell you something?
they were all
so
yellow
Dec 6, 2017
Dec 6, 2017 at 11:33 AM UTC
These days in budgeted decadence
You twist on your thrifted finery
And leave me to mine own
You are children marching the cobblestones
Like soldiers into lines that you know very
Little of, together and alone
Collective and individual struggles fought
Black coffee for the morning
Ethanol for some inky hour after twelve
None of your souls have been bought
Yet, and I hope they won't in the true dawning
From the cutting of the safety net, may you delve
Into futures sufficient and abundant,
All ye heirs apparent.
Oct 13, 2022
Oct 13, 2022 at 7:43 PM UTC
hi.
i don't know my name,
i've forgotten her again.
she's a stranger in an alleyway.
she's reaching for me.
and her soft, fragile hands;
with rose fingernails,
wrap around my throat and squeeze.
she's the young girl i used to be.
thick, dark eyelashes and a petite frame.
she wears cherry flavored lip gloss.
her long, blonde hair drowns me.
i cut my way free from the yellow rope.
her locks lay at my feet in chunks.
she wails in despair,
i dig my scissors into her gut,
and she bleeds pepto pink blood.
hi.
i don't know my name,
i've killed her again.
a ghost rises from her corpse.
he's reaching for me.
and his rough, calloused hands;
with scraped knuckles,
strokes my hair and hugs me tight.
he resembles my late father,
dark hair and scruff on his chin.
exhausted, sea-colored eyes.
he washes the blood from my hands.
he wraps the girl in a garbage bag,
douses her in gasoline,
and sets fire to the plastic.
hi.
i don't know my name,
but you can call me miles.
i'm tired of hiding and pretending.
i'm reaching for you,
and my shaking, ***** hands;
with scars and bruises,
i ask you to listen and understand.
i am transgender male.
homemade haircuts,
and thrifted boys' clothes.
i will never be a son to my mother,
and my house will never be a home.
but you all are my family,
and your support will keep me warm.
Oct 9, 2016
Oct 9, 2016 at 3:57 AM UTC
i.
i always find a space for myself
in small places:
ii.
in my mother's open wounds,
there i dance with salt and lime
and my father's misplaced angers.
iii.
in the scratched frames
under the nails of an angry girl.
in between cowering sunbeams
i lick the walls clean of dust.
iv.
in the fifth page of thrifted book,
back when i was in love with bukowski,
i look at the stains of a summer day sin
and see a five-feet
egyptian sarcophagus taped with figures;
what is the hieroglyph for pity,
so that hathor takes me back to the tight spaces of her womb?
what is the hieroglyph for homelessness?
what is the hieroglyph for misplaced?
v.
i always find a space for myself
in small places:
in the holes of a tire,
in between discolored knuckles,
in desperate places where a body gives up
and wastes away;
there's a space for one more.
vi.
i always find a space for myself
in small places — they wait with such quiet patience
like a father to a prodigal child —
i always find a space for myself
waiting in small places,
it calls hauntingly, like a well-loved, familiar ghost.
yet i cannot come back.
i am too huge with sorrows now —
too full with wistful human bones.
Aug 12, 2021
Aug 12, 2021 at 8:36 AM UTC
I can still taste your flesh on mine, as if my pores soaked in all of your pheromones and stored them in safekeeping for nights like this, nights when whiskey becomes the only sleeping medicine powerful enough to soothe my troubled mind.
The memories come in broken patterns, like a film strip played on a rusty wheel, or like the thrifted records we would buy in the dozens - scratched and dusty, but still recognizable.
A kiss. A hit. An I-love-you. A shudder. They were all the same at this point.
I didn't know who else to go to but my mother.
My speech was slurred, elisions that made my words condense into one. Still, she understood. She had been here before.
She told me that days would turn into weeks, and before I knew it those weeks would shift to months, years, eternities within themselves.
I told her I didn't like the prospects of this.
She told me it would be okay, that all I had to do was follow in her footsteps.
I found the bread crumbs easily.
Jack Daniels was the only witness I had as I pulled the trigger
and I smiled in spite of the fact that until tonight, I had never believed in ghosts.
Jul 13, 2013
Jul 13, 2013 at 2:15 AM UTC
she is gorgeous and lovely and so ridiculously good
she's a banjo playing on a front porch
she's cinnamon and sweetness and all things kind
old books and antique stores, pretty rocks
she's piles of bright fallen leaves on a cold autumn day
thrifted sweaters, men's jeans, and denim overalls
she's niche spotify playlists filled with hozier's love songs;
brushing hands with your crush and blushing hard
she's old letters and coffee stains and gifted knick-knacks
the pleasant chatter and laughter of a long drive
she's all things worth romanticizing
Nov 9, 2023
Nov 9, 2023 at 6:44 PM UTC
It was a Wild West kind of love
he had more bullets.
She shot better.
A beauty mirage.
She was nectar to the eyes
dripping with elegance from
the tip of her brain to the toes
she hates.
Coffee shop dates,
charity shop raids and
childish outings we thrifted
from month to month living our
mad men lifestyle.
I was a worrier, a machine fed
‘what if’ kind of guy, dangle the
peach and I’ll bite the fruit with
a honey sweet tooth for loving
you.
Money racketeering, Wall Street
envisions success in our buy low
sell high pyramid scheme race to
the bottom.
I lost the race…or was it you?
All I know is that I’m still crazy
and in love with you.
Jan 24, 2019
Jan 24, 2019 at 7:27 PM UTC
I lit the world on fire,
watched it go up in smoke,
smelled the scent of ashen rose,
passion decomposed,
and dared to question the purity of the oxygen,
but I swallowed my tongue,
secrets like cigarettes,
one puff and I’d choke.
This pyromaniac who stole a match,
he set my heart ablaze,
but he didn’t have water to put out the flames,
so I burned and burned,
he didn’t say a word.
I never liked to destroy,
rather create with my mind,
but I had a habit of falling for ne’er-do-wells,
putting myself through hell,
all for fulfilling an aching void where my heart once resided,
so I took his things that he left in the wake of the flame.
His favorite shirt,
photographs that harbored painful memories,
a thrifted teddy bear left in the dirt,
and all the poems I wrote―
doused in kerosene,
lit on fire,
and I watched it go up in smoke.
Meet the pyromaniac’s demise,
I am the water putting him out,
keeping the embers dancing about for myself,
leaving him to die in a scorching wasteland,
now he understands when I said that I was just as capable of destruction,
just because I didn’t hurt people the way he did,
I had my own ways of making my presence known,
in the aftermath of this warfare,
I walk out of it alone,
watching from the mountains as our world goes up in smoke.
Jan 30, 2018
Jan 30, 2018 at 9:24 AM UTC
dismember
the smell of the books you hide
roughed into basement boxes amongst
the most casual of junk
the most bare note book
gifted and thrifted and costumed
your little girl words tea stain wounded
marooned and mould afflicted
dismember the words you mooned after near hearts
and the great white unrequited
the fluting of ****** fuel the fumes of their history
badly stored and water damaged
clumped 'mongst uni flyers and old never paid bills
May 20, 2025
May 20, 2025 at 9:27 AM UTC