Stitching the veins of one hand to the other
I am all tied up, too tangled to tap out-
cat's cradles and stretched rubber bands
I wrote prayers in needlepoint
looping letters to God.
I haven't waited long enough at one address
to receive an answer
past stamped postmarks and pre-paid envelopes
God pays it forward...
Leaving my answers leaning on others' doorframes
perched inside their mailboxes, a bill inked: past due.
National Poetry Month - Day 8
National Poetry Month - Day 7
Every brick has a history;
a century of ghosts live inside each column
I have marked the growth of my footprints next to the floor lines
the deep scratches of years before I arrived here. Months before I leave
or stay; growing use to my fingers trailing across these brick walls,
the creak of these floorboards beneath my hesitant footsteps.
I keep moving because moving has kept me alive.
National Poetry Month - Day 6
You are frozen as this photograph of you
an imagination
bend yourself to fit my memory;
your memory is quite different, because you see reality in hindsight:
20/20
a dream that changes each time
what could have been, but actually never was. Unfreeze!
Everyone shuffles, makes poses to exemplify their lives
the pretend-believe of it all.
This is who you thought you were three years ago...
Who you are now fails all expectations. Breaks
all rules.
You always did...you never really could help it.
National Poetry Month - Day 4
And I hope your heart is insured
or stocked up on bandages, because I aim to break it;
hold it while it hopes for me
and I give you less.
Today this isn't working out. I kept thinking about the first line. I'd actually been thinking about it for a week now but couldn't figure how to work with it. I think this is my worse effort thus far, but who knows later it may work into something successful, just not today...
National Poetry Month - Day 3
Walking the valley of metallic trees
iron trunks and copper-coated branches;
the air heavy with electrons, bouncing
the frenzied whirl of loose atoms.
They are quiet in their excursion picking
their way through the thickest part this night
both shoulder backpacks and weeks of burdens
heading without direction towards: escape.
Weaving moonlight in their footsteps,there are no maps in their strides
only purpose and a plan directed towards daybreak.
National Poetry Month - Day 2
Shadows sleep awkwardly across his face
timid of daylight or another day breaking
silently; he shelters himself in polos and chucks
uses his backpack as a shield.
His peers are dragons
and he is no St. George; not fireproof or tested.
His skin is paper and they watch him crumbling
fraying at the edges, transparent in the center.
So I can say that I wrote this because all the headlines right now about bullying...
National Poetry Month - Day 1
papier-mache lion you roar in crumbling notes
un-fearsome
unfathomably you matchstick the roads you've already traveled,
trailblazing. You comet flame
burning an ideal long past it's lifetime. You burn at half-light
I burn on a daily basis, end to end
a furnace brimming with ashes.
Submerged
The decisiveness I lack I make up in dreaming
the ability of my off-sync heart to unscrew your hinges.
I see you better than you see yourself
and I always see me the same: a little abstract
like a pointillist painting from a distance;
the colors are all bleeding together,
into something that could be beautiful if it tried.
I’ve never been known to try
too hard.
I can’t tell you where I’ll be in five years
or five months or five minutes, but I know my heart is nothing
if not potential
like I am waiting to be sprung kinetic
like I am waiting for you to realize I am 75% water; you can drown in me.
Too Soon or Too Late
That night “we” were a nameless entity. Friends? Too simplistic for our complexities. Lovers? The connotation too tangled without tangled sheets. Abbreviated story: I already have a girlfriend; or rather until recently I had one. She is waiting alone in our apartment, for me; mind spinning wildly with imaginary scenarios of what we’re doing. The truth? We are watching TV innocently; she is chewing supermarket sushi, I too nervous to eat, keep thwacking her with her own pillows. I am a five-year-old boy, this is how I say: “I like you” “Do you like me?” “Check yes, please…this story I’m living hurts too much for me to finish it.” Saying, “Maybe you could resuscitate me…”
She turns knowing eyes my way, startling in their ability to pick me apart. “It’s time to go back…” She whispers, we both have finals in the morning; this is a moment of fantasy, it cannot last.
Idling her borrowed Honda outside my lit apartment we are motionless with what could be, but I’m too afraid of what already is to move forward. What is waiting for me behind these red brick walls? What is waiting for me in the weighted silence of this car? A smile that reaches her eyes…A kiss that comes too late? Another fist pressed lovingly against my throat?
