Sonnet for Wonder
If the world is small, how is it also
Infinite? What whirls us round, throwing me
To you, for you? Every kiss, the world forgoes
Despair and turns again. What is to be
Flawed, is also divine. Logic dictates
That we are fleeting, and yet words linger
Through ages; we touch the souls, traverse straits
Of heroes thought (at world’s end), at fingers’
Touch we fall apart. Are we the stars’ dust,
Or the dust of bygone beauty? Why fall,
If all falls from us. We darest this, for just
Knowing you is proof of little at all,
And yet all is found in your star-filled eyes,
Turning on me, reflecting star-filled skies.
untitled.
my father carried me for nine months
high on his shoulders,
he still walks around pregnant with worries of me
fears of the men i’ll meet and the woman i’ll be.
my mother still can’t find herself in me,
although her courage mirrors itself in my eyes.
a forced connection through umbilical cords,
love tried its hardest to feel natural between us.
“i. the first time we made eye contact i almost ran to rinse out my eyes. ii. i want to paint on the surface of your skin the way michelangelo freed the angel from the stone so you can see all the beauty i know extends its wings within you, the way van gogh chiseled cracks into the rainclouds for the brightest slivers of light. iii. you are mostly made of water but your glow is so blinding parts of you must be acidic, and i keep exposing you to my most reactive parts trying to find the compound that will make you blow because i don't want to wait until cremation for someone to set my heart on fire. iv. you wondered why i said you were like a volcano-- they look just like regular mountains only there is something burning inside.”
—“three secrets and a metaphor you liked”Follow
Click the button. (Roll the dice.)
Perhaps your reasons were pure.
Perhaps they were calculated.
Perhaps you’ll get laid.
Perhaps you’ll find a friend.
Click the button. (Choose your own adventure.)
Perhaps you’ll find a real friend.
Perhaps you’ll engage competition.
Perhaps it will change your thinking.
Perhaps it will change your life.
Click the button. (A single round in the revolver.)
Perhaps you’ll feel envious.
Perhaps you’ll become obsessed.
Perhaps you’ll seethe, covet and loathe.
Perhaps you’ll unclick, and life will go on just the same.
Click the button. (Spin the cylinder.)
Perhaps you’ve tempted fate.
Perhaps you’re caught in the web of a predator.
Perhaps you’ve found a mirrored self.
Perhaps you’ll be captured; in thrall.
Click the button. (Aim it at your temple.)
Perhaps you are about to be inspired.
Perhaps you’ve found a bedfellow.
Perhaps you won’t feel a thing.
Perhaps you are about to be broken.
Click the button. (Deep breath, now.)
Perhaps you’ll laugh, flirt, and muse.
Perhaps you will stoically, silently admire.
Perhaps you will be kissed by loss.
Or perhaps, you will be strangled touched cursed blessed by love.
Click the button. (Fire.)
Can you not see the humor
In waking up, mirror, toothbrush,
shoes, gas station attendant,
broken lighter
Can you not see the humor
in the whole show, the ideas
shot through a crucifix
The outmoded dream
sequences of the boring
intellectuals that suck
on their oral balloons
while heaving at the sight
of internal diseases
Can you only stare through
your dirty filter and see nothing
save your contempt
and imagine that everyone
is serious about living life
and not just killing time
night sentence
the night is made up
of words—close up—
eyes to the ink
heart broken
in to syllables
lose sleep/dual meanings
your voice, I can
hear it though
every wall is sealed;
draw light, yeah, but
from where? neither blind
nor def nor lost nor
found
the night is made
of words; blackened tongues
speak to devils while
choking on Gods; false deity talk
yet the sun too
is made up
of words; so read
the verse, speak/think/one
and sing
with me; night is
words but light
is voice
Lately, I’ve been breathless.
I spend my time somewhere
between suffocation and
“This should suffice…”
My lungs are not quite full,
Yet not quite hollow, still
Contracting, still expanding,
Still trying, desperately,
to filter through the haze of
smoke and mirrors surrounding
my heart. Save me
from this spool of yarn,
knotted, twisted, unnatural,
before they stand in line
to tighten the noose
that I’ve placed upon my neck.
I simply forgot that jewelry
is seldom made of rope.
Technical Support
It’s 7:10 a.m I had
three hours of sleep
the internet is not working
I call the customer service of my ISP
and an automatic robot answers the phone
I’m speaking with the automatic robot on the phone
at 7:11 a.m
Hello I would like to get information regarding your internet services
My internet is not working
Technical Support
My city is x
Yes That is Correct.
Please wait a minute sir
[Ethnic music plays on the phone]
Yes I have tried to unplug and plug the cables
Yes the lights are blinking
My router model is DI-521
No I am not using a static IP address.
[Ethnic music plays on the phone]
[Music stops]
How are you
I am sorry sir I didn't understand that, could you repeat please
Are you lonely
Sir, if you want to go back to the main options menu, please say 'Menu'.
Tell me something about your life.
When did you have sex for the first time.
I am sorry sir, I didn't understand that, could you repeat please
What is your first memory
I am sorry sir
Are you happy with your life
I am sorry this is not on the list of understood voice commands
I am sorry
7:21
I am too.
Hanging up the phone I realize I am crying.
You can have my lazy afternoons,
My sips of tea,
The steam curling from my mug.
You can have a few laughs,
A hug that lasts
Longer than necessary,
A kiss
Or two
Or four.
Take my early mornings,
When I am still
Rubbing the sleep
From my eyes.
Lay with me on sun-burnt grass,
You can have those days
Where the sun is so bright
I think it will never set.
You can have my fingers
In your hair.
You can have my spine
In your hands.
Here, I will give you
The way I smile
With both sides of my mouth
When you make me
Especially happy.
You can have my mix-tapes,
The bucket of shells
I collected one summer
When I was young,
My favorite books
With the important parts highlighted.
You can have every song
I ever cried to,
Every star
I ever wished on,
Every daisy I ever
Wove into a bracelet
Around my wrist.
You can have me.
You can have almost
All of me.
But you can not have
My two AM’s,
My shaking nights,
My scary dreams.
Because, dear,
I am saving those
For someone
Who loves me back.
when phoenixes die, they're automatically reborn
Last night I tried to read your body in Morse code,
but the dashes and dots didn’t form any kind of coherent
message. See, I have been inside your room so often
that even watching you undress is something as familiar
as my own skin. Did you know that children who have been
separated from their parents are still able
to recognize their mother’s voice up to ten years later?
That’s the level of familiarity that connects me to you.
How often your grey t-shirts smell like you,
like bee stings, frappucinos, morning milk.
When I play that childhood game of tearing petals
off daisies, I take pride in being able to say
He loves me, he loves me, he loves me
for every petal instead of only every other.
I was saved that night I broke down on the bus,
panic attack, they called it later, and you held me
in your arms all the way home, rain lulling us
to sleep, like in the movie Blue Valentine.
When I kiss you, my mouth turns to ashes.
I’m always being reborn beneath your tongue,
a phoenix rising from the earth to burn again.
Except this time, I burn so brightly
that even twenty gallons of gasoline lit with a match
couldn’t outshine my love.
Terror
Terror, is the name of my daydreams,
lightening strikes and stampedes,
exponential growth and slow decay,
eternity spent in the darkest shade.
I surrender belief in return for hope,
I’ll listen and ponder atop thin ropes,
suspending between,
two states of being,
These are things that I’ve seen.
the battle is just today,
(you tell yourself).
but, it’s not.
there’s tomorrow and the next day
and the day after that
you know that one morning when you wake up and you think
everything is going to be great!
i can FEEL it.
today is going to be just perfect.
WRONG.
sometimes, that moment when the tips of your toes touch the floor,
poof!
that bubble of happy is G-O-N-E.
another battle.
another string of unexpected disasters
to either avert or endure.
at some point,
you have to ask yourself
what is it I’m supposed to master
with this endless string of futile chaos?
“today (and everyday)” by dubbleaa
What might happen
when I talk about my father’s
last days?
It will be a fiction of course,
but then again it might not be
too fugacious.
My father, when he died
was alone;
he was roshi.
What a happy accident it must have been,
him laughing like Charlie Parker did
just before the end
or like that stooge Shemp.
Who passed in a car
lighting a cigar
in Hollywood, 1955.
In that last moment,
when he was almost alive.
