"unknotting" poems
Light's patterns freeze:
Frost on our faces.
Light's pollen sifts
Through the lids of our eyes ...
Light sinks and rusts
In water; is broken
By glass ... rests
On deserted dust.
Light lies like torn
Paper in corners:
A rock-pool's pledge
Of the sea's return.
Light, wrenched at the edges
By wind, looks down
At itself in wrinkled
Mirrors from bridges.
Light thinly unweaves
Itself through darkness
Like foam's unknotting
Strings in waves ...
Now light is again
Accumulated
Swords against us ...
Now it is gone.
2.8k
I saw you
As you stared at me
Two deers caught in each other headlights
As brief as a flash, blinked, and you’d miss it
I am only reminded of my heaviness when you are there
Standing – Floating – Watching
As ghostly as any ghost, then
Gone – Vanished – Nothing
I am alone, again, cursed to remain here
I tried to follow in your footsteps
Untangling, unknotting, unravelling
Myself from a generation of debt and duty
These twisted roots of familiar obligations
How did you escape such a similar situation?
I wasn’t born light, like you.
I was born heavy, brother.
I will have to earn my lightness.
Sometimes on rainy days
when the weighty pain becomes unmanageable
I find myself slipping into the tangible delusion
Of ascribing meaning to everything
That maybe you think of me as much as I think of you
That you see my pain and want to help
But it’s just too much for you right now
When you’re ready, you’ll come back to me
You’ll come back.
Sometimes the little lies we tell ourselves
Can be enough to get us through this life
But not tonight.
Dec 2, 2021
Dec 2, 2021 at 8:47 PM UTC
Tonight he leaves you with a pile of his favorite CDs;
you dream of loading them onto Noah’s Ark before the flood,
along with his 3 A.M. texts and prescription glasses;
he will talk to you when she is not around,
look directly into your eyes, until your heart cracks
and spills into his palms like a weak egg yolk
ready for the frying pan. Do not wait for his little green Facebook
symbol to light up or you will be up all night.
He will kiss her in front of you, a kiss so deep
it could cut straight to the bone like an interrogator
slowly removing a suspect’s finger with a carving knife.
Shield your eyes and turn away;
pretend you are casually studying the poster on the wall.
You will wonder if her body leaves an outline in his bed
the same way a crime scene is taped off
around the chalked-in edges of the victim,
and still he will call you twenty minutes before midnight
wanting to go out for ice cream
when you end up comparing the best 90’s music
over his kitchen table instead. When he looks at you
across this very same table, stare directly back.
Do not flinch. Do not turn away this time.
Let the tidal wave of his stare wash over you
until it drenches your hair
and he wants to comb out the sadness with his fingers:
let him. Let him.
It will take a while to work through the tangles
but savor this last moment with his fingers
unknotting you like needles, before tomorrow,
when he will go back to her again, bouncing
between the two of you like a yo-yo,
the kind that returns to the owner
then moves on to another when it grows bored.
Feb 19, 2015
Feb 19, 2015 at 7:06 AM UTC
My nose, it just bled numbers--
Bled for years on years unnumbered
'Til I lost my youthful hunger
For anything but numbers
And coagulating blood
But with figures cold and clotting
And with innards now unknotting
I clear the corridors of blotting
And begin to finally breathe
Know pens belong on pages
In your pockets, in your hands
Not in lives, or heads or veins
Most certainly not in plans.
Oct 26, 2012
Oct 26, 2012 at 7:08 PM UTC
Do you feel how broken we are ,
Both of us miserably broken .
Yet one is trying to hold the other ,
And the other is trying to figure out his own .
How unfair this love has become .
You just whispered to me you love me ,
And I've made you my soul .
I didn't want this kind of love .
Where you'll push me , stab me with silence everyday .
And whenever you want to love me you'll pull me closer .
But have you even realise every single behavior of yours was a slap on my face .
I could see where the cracks and how my love for you is seeping through my fingers.
I wish you were here to give me hand to hold that love .
You're were so much to me , how much was i for you ? Don't say .
I was knitting this beautiful love around you but when I look back i saw you unknotting .
I was giving effort and it bacame effortless to you .
I love so easily i just can't get over that easily .
I will never forgive you for loving me and making me feel unloved .
I will never forgive you thinking that I will get settled with someone else easily .
I will never forgive you for thinking that I will unlove you easily
I will never forgive you for thinking I will move on easily .
I will never forgive you for thinking that I can replace you with someone else .
I will forgive everything that hurt me , how loving you hurt me , i will forgive everything about you. I just can't forgive your thinking .
I love you but I can't go back where respect does not dwell .
May 12, 2020
May 12, 2020 at 12:05 PM UTC
knots.
made of
knowing not
why not.
all i did not,
all i do not.
out of not
unknotting
what was not
knotted,
no, it was not.
so linear.
just
let it be
and move on.
or not.
Feb 18, 2016
Feb 18, 2016 at 6:02 AM UTC
Unravel yourself you said
you said I have been bound up soo tightly
it is hard to even begin unknotting
it is hard to for anyone to decode the arithmetic's in my mind
you said I never let myself feel what I have never felt instead
you said I lay dormant awaiting a match
But I know of these foreign blazes that come and consume like a flame
sometimes I want to be immersed in their heat
it is what I crave
but I feel like the more I run towards burning fire
the more the smoke begins to suffocate
Jul 8, 2019
Jul 8, 2019 at 5:14 AM UTC
I’m unknotting myself
To knit myself new
Unpicking rows with too much tension
others that are too loose.
What else can I do
in this lockdown time
but search the lines for a new
pace and time
rhythm and rhyme.
To find a style of pearl and plain
And hope we can knit together again
Hear the needles click in an untick time
warming the heart
in a different way, awake to the day
What else can we do but
discover a pattern we can knit together
uncover our hearts to something new
and maybe true
Me and you
To get us through.
May 10, 2020
May 10, 2020 at 4:57 PM UTC