"ziploc" poems
Can I trust the eyes seeking mine?
I want to
Because they look like home
Through sepia tones
A bittersweet nostalgia before
We learned how easily people break
I want to trust your arms
They look just big enough to hold me
When I know the only way I feel safe
Is in the shape of a ball
And if you were any more beautiful
I’d be ********
Much like the ten beers I should’a
Said no to
Before you
And they
Had me sycophantic and stumbling
And already
just a little bit
********
I want the smell of you to linger on my clothes
The same way fire does
After a book burning
Just a little bit shameful
I want you to stop my stammering
With a kiss
To preoccupy my mouth
Long enough to subdue my stupid
I want to let go
Of the fever that makes my back sweat
When I see you
And the worry
That your eyes might lose their shine someday
I want you
In all the ways that
I am probably not supposed to want you
But I do
I want our wrinkles to one day fit
Like ****** up Ziploc bags
It’s that bad
So kiss me
Before I tell you that
And maybe
keep your eyes closed
Until I can trust them
Because I want to
Nov 9, 2011
Nov 9, 2011 at 10:34 PM UTC
"Everyone wants to be a little anorexic" she says
"You know, like, in a glamorous way, like fashion friendly anorexic"
I bite my cheek and nod, pretend to agree
All I can think of is waking up to stars dancing on the ceiling
Pale skin with bruises of unknown origins
And battered feet on and off the scale
Almonds in Ziploc baggies
Bite marks on fingers
Hair down the drain
Measuring crunches by the marks they leave on your spine
And battered feet on and off the scale
Enough water to turn organs into boats
Eating an apple with a fork and knife
Desperate hands grasping for ribs
And battered feet on and off the scale
Standing and the world going dark
Coughing around shots of apple cider vinegar
Carrying an emergency rice cake for weak spells
And battered feet on and off the scale
Enough green tea to drown organs
Sugar free gum to mask the smell of decaying organs
Whatever nail polish covers yellow and purple
And battered feet on and off the scale
How many calories are in toothpaste
Thinspo blogs
Pillows squeezed between thighs
And battered feet on and off the scale
Is today the day my heart gives out
Waking every day in a new body
Fingers clasped around wrists
And battered feet on and off the scale
Notebooks filled with numbers
Purple crescents under eyes
Fingers clasped around forearms
And battered feet on and off the scale
Elbows knocking into hipbones
Being scared of your own reflection
Lies to get out of dinner
And battered feet on and off the scale
The stench of *****
Oxygen that tastes of Splenda
Fingers clasped around biceps
And bleeding feet on and off the scale
If this is your idea of glamour
Then you can have it
Nov 27, 2018
Nov 27, 2018 at 12:48 PM UTC
mom betrays us.
headlights into the night
& up the breakneck boulevard bluff overlooking town and terminus.
she brings his heart in a ziploc bag,
an offering
to that old burnt-out oak.
[husband\father\corpse]
front porch blood trails forever. she
claims self-defense and the camera-eyes caramelize her
fame & fortune & stepdaddies & book deals & ziploc pb&js & dead dog omens.
when did the heartache begin?
heir\son\brother\body
racing car ****** and fluxed up the boulevard in a ritual reach for daddy and the oak.
the girls are waiting. one two three, seeds.
brakes sabotaged. he
bursts into death, a molten ball of mazda.
father and son laugh there on the brim of here and hereafter.
apparitions uncoiled.
[home movies]
where mercury avenue ends
the woods begin.
& those woods are evil, an eldritch place, she laughs.
even the indians wouldn’t bury their dead there.
america.
caught between the whir of spokes and windshields reflecting
sky and skin, the blue hue
of television flickering on the hands of a family.
grandsons conjure grandmaster demons
on the ply of their treefort high.
the heart of grandma in a ziploc bag.
jupiter and saturn are in conjunction,
twelve past midnight on a tuesday in september.
a school night.
[the babysitter brings over an unlabeled video tape, says its scary]
the children watch.
slumber party screams and pb&js.
ghouls blunted by pungent neighborhood inertia.
son, a ghost returned in rhythm and electronics,
hungry for pizza and pure vengeance.
Oct 26, 2015
Oct 26, 2015 at 12:32 AM UTC
1:12:25 9:20am nyc
Exactly, how far is it to you?
this is more than mere question,
or a rhetorical poem title discard,
consider it an interrogatory of
the first order, a debate raging
with every word successfully
affixed from brain to fingertips,
from my breathing to your heart,
how far is it exactly, pray tell me,
how these cords of words find you,
are your lips bending up in a smile,
need me a weather report, air quality,
wind gusts vitals vital to yo! estimate
how fast & conditions they’ll require survive/arrive in your eyesight well
and be friended
feed me the data, Heart Rate, Blood Pressure,
SpO2, so I’ll know what condition your
condition is in, adjust my words accordingly,
send to this distance back to me awaiting,
the necessary facts & figures to provide the finger stroke directional, do you need whispers or emboldened bold face to arouse the a spirit flagging, a shoulder shaking, a dozen red lipped chords of
kisses and sweet everthings, that do not
dissolve, dissipate or disappear instantly,
but can be stored in a Ziploc bag, refrigerated,
ready for gorging and disgorging, repeatedly,
as needed, synchronized slow or hard, fast
or soft, wet or dry. sweet or salty, savory
or a blended mixture, an adjustable concoction depending
on distance, time of day,
tell me,
the stuff that you accept
with open willingness,
or just begrudgingly
all adjustable
all shaped to
your individuality
elastic flexible
but the schedule
filling up fast
so we can mutual
squeeze into each others
empire of empty
so,
***Exactly, how far is it to you,
to where you are being***?
Jan 12, 2025
Jan 12, 2025 at 2:48 PM UTC
Watching milk pour into little
ziploc bags with bananas and
Cheerios and fights over which
fruit better invokes the feeling
of sunrise, of home and
morning eye crust and blown
curtains in summer breeze.
Strawberries don't stain dresses
as much as blackberries from
a friend's farm in upstate
New York or Eastern Washington
or some ranch in coastal Venezuela
with coffee and sugar smells
stuck on sticky skin and licking
juice from sweet fingertips
right before it starts to rain.
When February sun peeks
through cumulus clouds after
a five-day downpour, you turn
your face to mine and proclaim
that the world may be beautiful and youthful, after all.
Sep 3, 2013
Sep 3, 2013 at 12:58 PM UTC
Sometimes on the way out of Giant,
I'll spend some time freeing change
from the receipt-paper
bindle in my coat pocket
for one two-twist mystery prize
from a Folz machine.
Two quarters:
Enough for a sapphire ring and a cheap
laugh while I juggle coffee-cream cartons,
a sack of December oranges, Certs,
cinnamon mouthwash, a dented can
of green beans 'cause it's cheaper,
red toothpicks, Ziploc bags, a barbecue
chicken TV dinner, Noxzema, a 32-case
of Poland Spring water, a Valentine's
Hallmark card and envelope, a bottle
of pink grapefruit Perrier,
two quick picks for Cash 5,
gluten-free potato chips, garlic salt,
some cumin for $2.82, and a copy
of Vogue.
I strap my groceries in the passenger seat,
and see them sitting straight up as I had,
childishly marveling at the lush
maple leaves washing the windshield
edges in green, leaving helicopters
and dew trails.
She and I watched slug trails
beneath mustard streetlights glisten
like Berger Lake.
Bright as the last cigarette my grandma snuffed out in a smokeless ash tray.
Bright as the first line of road flares that separated me from a burning Taurus.
Bright as the quarter my grandpa gave me for the Folz machine in the Sylvania.
And bright as the emerald ring I showed him.
Feb 1, 2015
Feb 1, 2015 at 3:27 PM UTC
Shout at the glass doors!
Shatter them in their perfect frames
Grind bones to dust with your voice
Gather the sand in ziploc bags
Proposition the black hole souls of school children
Who smoke tailpipes in the night
Shine the light for those who are blinded
Minds melted by magnified microwaves
Bodies controlled by the corporate implants
Little colored pills whisper commanding sweet nothings in ears
Hearts hang heavy with deep-fried dreams
Lungs crack, blackened with street tar rolled in tire rubber
Muscles wither in front of the mind-numbing Tel-Lie-Vision
Eyes milky, cloudy, blinded by federally funded sludge
Distributed, rained onto the people; the end all, cure all
Shrouding sight so the frightful seems pleasant
So I write visions on pages they'll never read
Burn them alive
and send smoke signals they'll never see
but will always be able to smell
Dec 1, 2010
Dec 1, 2010 at 5:54 PM UTC
She brought cookies, in a
Ziploc bag, to my door.
I tugged on Mom’s
Carpet-textured sweater.
We swung on a swing
And she showed me
Her loose tooth. I pointed
At the Band-Aid on my knee.
The color of honey,
Inside a plastic
Bear, is what
Her hair looked like.
Red, black, neon yellow;
Caterpillars flooded
Our shared cigar box.
Then the tree-leaves fell.
We stomped our Sketchers
Behind her mom
And mine. They filled
Baskets with glue sticks.
Yellow buses opened
Their tall doors. They mouthed
At us to grow. The caterpillars
Laughed. So I grabbed her fingers.
Apr 1, 2012
Apr 1, 2012 at 10:46 PM UTC
.
F
r r e r
e s h e
s F r s
h e h
F s h F
r F r r
e e s e
s h F s
h r e h
h
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 5:20 AM UTC
Call me your *****
And I'll call you my muse,
Rip the seams off my flesh,
So I be free from the rules,
Human limitations are all milk and honey,
A pig mask latch on a car crash dummy,
And I'm thrashing thoughts,
Because of you I'm a mess,
The pyres of loves,
Sparked a lot of buzz,
In a bag of tattered memories,
Gnawed upon by Louisiana bugs,
I'm a would be killer with a open book of matches,
But will I draw the first flame,
To turn these pictures into ashes?
Or will I still be that lover,
That nailed a stop sign on his chest,
Hanged himself on every question mark,
That you sent to me direct,
See I'm no blind fruit rooting from your garden,
I'm just that dummy who believed you never leave me hollow hearted,
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 8:29 PM UTC
I wonder if you notice that your eyes wander, even when I'm in the room. I can see them look right through me as if I were ziploc bag.
I don't remember the last time you chased me.
I am a woman who wants to be needed.
Maybe that's why I entertain people who show me desire,
Let me know they're up for a challenge.
Maybe if I felt a little more passion,
I wouldn't seek infatuation from men who's hands I do not know.
You never show me off anymore.
Why are you even still around?
Jun 30, 2015
Jun 30, 2015 at 11:56 PM UTC
Water flows
In places which pardon
Ziploc bags full of apologies
Floating upriver
Downstream
Under bridges
The ocean swells
Like the cold midnight air
Entering a pair of lungs
So I take
Another breath
Sep 8, 2016
Sep 8, 2016 at 11:24 PM UTC
he puts his incomplete thoughts
in Ziploc bags
and eats them at midnight.
Dec 15, 2016
Dec 15, 2016 at 1:06 AM UTC
Yesterday you came to my door, took the blade from my shaking hands and closed the wine I had been drowning in.
You held me and cried with me and for an eternity we made no sounds at all because there were no words that could fix me. Your words were the first to cut through the quiet. "You are so good," you said. You are so good. You are so good. I let the words bounce around in my soul and tried to hold on to them but they felt to heavy to contain. We said nothing else and you kept your arms wrapped around me until the sun was peeking over the darkest night and heavy eyes gave in to sleep.
We woke up and you cleaned me up and tried to sweep up all my broken pieces, still knowing that no one else but me would be able to recreate the shattered glass puzzle. You sealed the sharp jagged edges and shards of my shattered soul in a plastic ziploc bag, paying close attention not to leave a single piece behind. You placed me gently next to you in the passenger seat of your car with the busted radio, shifted into gear, and tried to drive me away from the bad.
We drove to New Jersey, to the cold, eerie, but peaceful January beach. We walked barefoot, side by side, me finding solace that I was still here and I could see my footprints stretch behind me on the shore, and you still clutching my bag of broken pieces and letting it swing slowly by your side with each stride.
I stood with my feet in the crashing waves and breathed in the salt air, letting it fill up my lungs with each purposeful breath. I tried to exhale the pollution and toxins of the past year, and felt the waves softening my sharp edges each time they pulled back to the ocean abyss.
On the walk back, my foot prints had already been washed away by the soothing salt water. But, for the time being, I was still here. I would keep going, keep making new foot prints, and keep trying to piece myself back together. Still, I found serenity knowing that if I was unable to solve the puzzle, my broken soul could someday become a part of the ocean, and be smoothed down by the currents into something beautiful. Perhaps by next year, the sharp pieces of my soul would be softened by the artist of the ocean and scattered across the shoreline like a beautiful sea glass mosaic, waiting to be picked up by a curious beach goer.
Even broken can become beautiful.
It will be okay.
Happy New Year.
Time to go home.
Oct 17, 2016
Oct 17, 2016 at 3:49 PM UTC
dark red hits me as i step inside
the smell, wet floor, and sun shining through the window
makes it appear in my mind
old shows, fluffy ears, full smiles
make it redder and redder
warm and smiley
red, red, red
dark, like blood
but warm
makes me feel as though i am supposed to be here
supposed to belong, even though i don't
as i bid one last goodbye
and step into the darkness
the yellow light, ripped carpet and chip mix
sets orange back
single muffins left in large ziploc bags
empty lunch boxes
and unswept floors, allows orange back into my head
fake wood
orange
old bananas
orange
uncut hair
orange
tv loud
orange
all is orange
and it digs from inside of me
ready to burst from within my soul
orange...
Mar 6, 2015
Mar 6, 2015 at 11:57 PM UTC
There you are,
lonely and broken
and colourless.
In those pictures,
in the film,
in my mind.
You stood,
colourless but proud,
over a place that wasn't yours,
And it didn't look yours,
because it was never meant to be,
we both knew.
You stood,
lonely and cold,
and fragile
despite all that desired magnificence.
Because we both knew,
they would turn you into dust
someday...
Now you stay,
fragments of your dust in a ziploc bag
No name,
just faded blue and pink
and yellow
and memories
of a time that never came.
Your clock,
the bridge,
those arrows always
on the same time,
why were they always on the same time
the time of end,
Twelve' o clock,
a faded dragon...
I've been there:
your roof,
those burgundy doors.
Is this a real place,
or not...?
This colourless land
of a time that never came
yet time, give it time...
"TEN YEARS!"
- they said, yelled.
Then nothing came,
and lonely you stood.
And I'm sorry,
that I couldn't save you
not even a last goodbye
I loved you.
I'm sorry.
And now nothing stays
of a time
that never came.
I'm sorry,
my Wonderland.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 2:04 PM UTC
*Ziploc powder keg
Open, emptied on the glass
Snorting through the wick*
Jun 6, 2016
Jun 6, 2016 at 9:25 AM UTC
Long walks and promised collaborations,
An outlook you've kept to yourself.
You watch that web-series I referenced,
And, of course you have, it's just like you.
I had vivid dreams about the apocalypse,
(In the biz, we call this foreshadowing.)
And looking back now, I wish that I could --
Wish that I had never met you. (I can't.)
Unfortunately, you're intrinsic to the human experience.
Like the red flag that tempts the bull,
You've caused all this motion in me,
but this was never meant to be more than humorous.
Long walks and written songs,
Upon receiving time and effort
locked away in a ziploc bag,
we talk about meeting parents properly.
And we don't know that the end is near.
And we don't know you're friends with the devil,
You won't stay by his side, but you find a way
To hand his sins to me, pretending they're mine.
---
And I wasn't perfect,
But do you ever think about what he did?
Did your two-faced thespian ever tell you
that I never once lied?
Did he stroke your ego ?
Did he tell you how he used to curse your name,
Just for the chance of what you had ?
And did the devil, master of his craft,
Ever reveal the cracks in his story?
Did you learn too late?
Did you learn at all?
---
Four years have passed.
Do you still try to convince yourself?
---
When someone comes to you,
Helpless and alone,
Begging for someone to hear them,
Does my name taste bitter on your tongue?
When you hear the statistics,
When you know who it is,
Do you ever think about me?
It's been four years,
And you are happy.
And I, in all my disgust,
know that one day I'll forgive you.
---
And deep down, I know
You care not for what was done.
But I don't want you,
I want the floor.
Jan 29, 2024
Jan 29, 2024 at 6:00 AM UTC
there is something i must say before i can say anything else--
i have lost touch.
i have lost touch with myself. words fall dead from my lips,
dry rotted, caked in filth,
the conversation ended years ago.
it is too late to talk now.
i see a body. i see a body sparkling by the light of the tv, feet planted firmly on the carpet. i see it sticking to the couch, the boundaries between skin and upholstery merging, the face morphing, becoming unrecognizable. i see a brown carpet, spilled milk from 2018 that never got cleaned. a sully figurine on the shelf looks down at me. i see a hand, lifeless, ***** fingernails itching.
a light turns on upstairs.
i see a mother crying. i feel a father's guilt like a pill stuck in my throat.
i see the body now, again, sparkling under fluorescence on a metal table. a pair of white lips, the snaggletooth he always hated. i see them scraping dirt with their scalpels, cleaning puke with bleach and peroxide. i want to weep but i can’t blame them. it’s human nature to be rough with things that cannot feel.
there is nothing to be said anymore. he is never truly gone, he is in everything. he's in your ****** soundcloud playlists, in the mini ziploc baggies you never threw away from freshman year. he's in the mulch at beech park, the oil stains in parking lots, the writing on your shoes. you can still talk to him whenever. he won't respond, but he never said much of anything anyway. not when you wanted him to. so it's really not that different, is it? will it ever really be that different?
let me say this again--
i have lost touch.
i am craving an unattainable high, i am chasing it with everything left in me. if i thought poetry would get me any closer, i would write more.
i see a body, again, but for real this time. i see it lying in front of me, unrecognizable. i see this sadistic tradition for what it is, animated corpses parading around an excuse for them to cry and rage at anything else but themselves. i tremble like a leaf, i leave the voyeurs where they stand and i sit in the back.
your funeral is at the same church we went in to fill our **** in 2018. they're ******* playing "you raise me up" by josh groban. a woman i don’t know tells me i’m too pretty to cry, and probably thinks she’s a saint for doing so.
i see you sitting next to me, you're not a body anymore. you're holding my hand and laughing, laughing, laughing at it all.
Sep 25, 2021
Sep 25, 2021 at 4:25 PM UTC
I used to live in paradise—a long,
low ranch house,
sheltered by the tangle of cottonwood trees
that lined the creek. But as with every Eden
We believed in the magic of that world down in the creek,
where the greenbrier curled
around trees and scratched
our legs and the water oak tipped lazily
over the stream as if in a constant half-state
between dreaming and awake.
We believed so fervently,
so completely,
that the trash tossed down
from the nearby overpass
became heavenly gifts—oil cans,
garbage bags,
tires,
empty cups,
all hidden among the scrubby willow oak.
We collected them like greedy misers.
pieces of glass in a discarded Ziploc bag,
and they shone so brightly
that we believed them
to be tiny pieces of falling star.
And in our desperate belief,
we made our paradise.
Dec 14, 2019
Dec 14, 2019 at 4:15 AM UTC
Luck led me to his mother,
A goddess who
kept him in a Ziploc bag,
"He's the Special One" she sighed
And reached in to rub his star-spangled head.
Visits on Thursdays,
My boy prince,
My young king,
wintry-eyed with hair
caressing his neck like a black snake,
His mouth thinned
from hours of runic recitation,
his eyes weary with remembering
forbidden knowledge
of an older time.
With my muse
and an old bloodhound
We'll tour the world
in an authentic 60's Volkswagen minivan
we stole from a hippy's backyard.
When night falls
and the fireflies stab the dark with flashing points of light,
We'll conjure archways dripping with roses
Our ********** rapturous
on sleeping bags stashed in the back.
Honey mead will flow as we solve riddles
and listen to the sounds of ol' Terra
creaking on her eternal foundation...
Jun 8, 2022
Jun 8, 2022 at 10:27 AM UTC
I remember an old man, wheelchair bound
His body crudely sewn together
with bolts and screws.
You see,
his bones wouldn't stop growing
and breaking within his tiny, feeble frame.
He offered me a metal plate from his shoulder
after his next surgery; I pictured ****** flesh in Ziploc
But alas, I never saw him again.
On the visiting ward of the hospital
I ask my mother one day how someone so blithe, despite their condition
could end up in a place such as this.
She said depression doesn't discriminate;
The constant nagging, piercing pain he lived with daily
was enough reason to search for an end to it all.
My mother was right: depression stealthily maneuvers
its great tentacles, its black, feathered extremities
across the minds of the unknowing, the unsuspecting, and the undeserving.
It is a black sludge sickness, spreading from generation to generation
And somewhere along that genetic timeline, her and I,
cursed.
Sitting across from her at scheduled visiting hour
I am reminded how our roles were reversed here
just years earlier.
They say time stops for nobody,
neither does this beast.
Apr 26, 2020
Apr 26, 2020 at 10:19 PM UTC