Tell me this - Ask me this
Tell me this love,
what’s the point
of freedom when
you hide behind
cages made from
your own bones?
With just a
gentle nudge
of your breath,
you can pry-open
the barred-horizon
holding you in
(I don’t know)
Ask me this love,
what’s the point
of freedom when
it is not sentient
to your own heart?
(I don’t know)
I embrace darkness
for my own, instead
of a fake light
most eyes share
bearing false hope
(Fake?)
None of this is
fake— you
see the Sun?
(No)
perpetually, it shines
even against clouded
skies, bathing beauty
to everything its rays
touch— even in
darkness, light finds
it way to illuminate the
deep black
(That’s the point)
(Pardon?)
I refuse to let the
light bathe my scars;
these wounds that cracked
open my chest, only
pain pushing down against
more pain— I refuse
to see beauty, for
its existence is oblivious.
(Sighs)
The light bears no hope
to hide the truth
Evidently, the darkness
bears no hope to shed
truth too.
(You are beautiful)
(No, I am not)
I am telling you now
just gently breath
out and nudge your
cage open—
let the Sun and Moon
remind you the beauty
you naturally posses.
I am asking you now
to leave me alone
and let me think
in my space of shadow—
in my own void.
(No, I will not)
Ask me this love,
what if you’re wrong?
Tell me this love,
what if I’m right?
Let us find out together shall we?
Mate.
You always-
tend to tear me down;
you always-
tend to rip me apart.
Some days,
you pierce
your finger nails
into my
greasy lungs.
Other days,
you screw
your blunt bones
into my eyes.
Last night-
you forced
your fist
into my chest.
You-
dent
my heart,
you-
blister
my soul;
you diminish
every part
of me-
little by little;
day by day.
You always-
tend to tear me down;
you always-
tend to rip me apart.
(Yet, you-
are the one
who stitches
me back
to life again.)
(Every.
single.
time.)
You-
are the one.
Not Done Yet
You might be wondering
why
all these words are spilling
clumsily
out of my mouth
like a thousand scattered marbles
scrawling
across a hardwood floor,
but the truth is
I’ve just never had
a place
to spill my thoughts
It’s as though
I am speaking
all these little scribbles
in my head
from pen to paper
and paper to screen
for the very first time
I realize now,
I really do have
so very much
to say
I remember
the night when
you engraved
your promises
on my back
with your finger tips
& watered them
to grow into
a vineyard
wrapped around
my ribs.
Yesterday,
you broke
your promises
to bits & pieces-
traumatizing my
(v)
(e)
(r)
(t)
(e)
(b)
(r)
(a)
(e)
But
your vineyard—-
still continues to breathe;
feeding
my dry lungs
back
to
life.
(You’ll always be a part of me-
growing,
breathing,
stinging.)
Tumbling Down
He is a funeral pyre
for the lies I am burning away,
my mind shedding decrepit skin
for the painful comfort of new down
and spotless, blissful amnesia
He is a vulture picking
my veins clean, denting my bones
and skinning my knees with the
rumbling drum beats emanating
from his decaying heart,
watching as all tumbles down
crowns shattering hereafter
I am poison and he is water,
and his touch stings in
worse ways than mine
flawful (your fissures = your own glorious inventions)
you are sugar diffusing down your concentration gradient
to where you’re less scarce.
you are two in a crowd of three / you are a seven-pointed star /
you are electric pink sherbert pouring through a slit in the clouds.
the rough side of velvet is smoothed under the fingertips of your voice—
you are smoother + you are more believable + you are a bug
that could haunt a million pieces of sky but flies straight for my mouth.
you are a chessboard viewed sideways on
& you are better / you are harsher / you are too many straight lines
to make the number 2 or the letter S
you are fictional & you don’t know it yet and
you are breaking my heart
& i couldn’t care less.
fishing line & turpentine
piece by piece, bit by bit
i’ve stitched this body back
together. i’m as much
fishing line & turpentine
as i am flesh & bone.
look at me: marred by scars—
riddles in raised and sunken
skin— this is the body of a broken
woman, sewn and strung into
a silhouette, a shadow in a room
pitched to black. no doors, no
windows. no prayer to escape
the past. there’s a canary in my
rib cage, but i can’t seem to swallow
the key. fishing line & turpentine
cannot save what’s left of me. mind
maimed by memories— a minefield
set inside my skull— an old pickup
backfires, a feather falls from
the canary’s breast as i choke
on exhaust fumes.
pale gymnasium
she quit doubting
stopped believing
in time
when a lifetime
of worn hardship
stretched wide
enough to cloak her
rest came
she bathed
in scalding exhaustion
prone she soaked
into her own
soothing
well-rested
she slept at great depths
emerging
awoke dreamy
in a world
inflated
with clarity
so much empty
air to breathe
she knew the sound
of her footsteps
on the surfaces
of a looming empty room
hollowed out on the floor
weighted steady sharp
clack-slaps punctuating
the smooth hard cold of
the place before she entered
the door to find
the answering
voice
where are we
she asked
the future
it answered
before you start planning it
then her identity blew
truth
filled up the room
with even more space
trust flooded every dimension
of her senses
she swooned
waltzed out
exhalant
a substantial
cloud of colorful
nothing invisible
surrounds her
experience constructed
through breath
upon waking
her empty vision
tracked and flagged
dragged and tagged
along with her
slick floating
respiration
Darkness is Relative
I can feel the light leaving my life
As it fades from your eyes.
I’ve said it before-
There are things poetry can’t describe.
Your skin is parchment
Your eyes are crystal balls
That need to tell of the future.
I need your skin to stop feeling like your last words
Etched under my grasping fingertips
I cannot brush down the lids, love.
The ceiling fan is your breath
The creaking cabinet is the sound
Of your bones letting out their final sighs
The seat belt isn’t strapped.
The seat belt isn’t strapped.
You once told me
Birds are angels in disguise-
All I can do is look towards the skies.
The sun is shining
But you are gone.
No. 33
landlocked
lost at sea
i’m drowning
i’m drowning
no words
i have not the
power to be
heard. i have
no breath to
form the syllables
that would
re-inflate
these lungs
lead weight
they pull me down
to the bottom. drift
—a feather.
it’s dark
it’s dark
rescue me
— God —
someone
rescue me
from the
twisted tides
of this mind
Reading in Transit
I read books on the train;
poetry
&
fiction
at most,
while listening
to silent whispers
my mind speaks,
muffled by music
the headset plays.
I read books on the train;
hundreds of last pages
read along the tracks,
along electric rails—
of death,
pain,
joy,
bliss,
confusion,
trouble,
hysteria,
freedom,
sex,
pleasure.
I read books on the train;
that my mind whispers to me
telling my eyes to stray away
from the cancer
of sorrowful eyes
anonymous to my own—
an panorama of blank stares
praying for this day to end.
I read books on the train;
for there I know,
the sadness I read
is just fiction.
Unlike the world outside
of these pages.
My twenty minute escape
from everything in transit,
from everything in between.
