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A(nother) letter to myself.You have grown.A(nother) letter to myself.5 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
You are not ten years
old and silent.
You've found the words
and you have made them
your sword and your shield,
your battering ram against
the walls you built when you
were too afraid to live.
And I know that some days
you feel like letting go,
like falling.
That you wonder if it might
feel like flying if you spread your arms
and close your eyes and pretend you
aren't doing this to die.
You have stood on the edges
of rooftops and bridges
(To follow her, I know,
but you were not born to go this way.)
and you have climbed back down.
You will make it, my girl,
by the skin of your teet
WyattWhite-knuckled as waterWyatt4 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
hemlock hanging
onto Queen Anne's
lace perception,
you waver like a screen door, rusty
springs all choked, twisted
inside you. Roughhewn son
of bluegrass summer, flutter forth
on rotten wood heels. Eye
the thin-thin creek so nervous,
while poison wires you
ripe to run.
I Only KnowThere are at leastI Only Know4 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
thirty-seven thousand ways
to get from here to there.
here,
where your body fits
next to my body, your breaths
match my breaths; your
escape-
paradise, sanctuary, utopia-
surrounds my escape.
there,
where you and I are not
the same; where your edges
break against my smooth,
your rises coalesce with
my falls, your
d i s t a n c e s
clatter against my presence.
thirty-seven thousand ways
at least,
but I only know one.
I only know the way the thumping
of your heart leads to the pressing
of our lips-
I only know the here and there that
pales, insignificant
to
the you and me.
Depression.To be depressed isDepression.5 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
to carry every unwashed thing
in your life in your
arms.
The dishes you
couldn't clean pile
up with your innards,
jostling for space
amongst the lungs you've
smoked black and the
heart you've loved
thin.
Your unwashed sheets
hang around your shoulders,
gathering dead skin cells and
catching hair you habitually
tear from your skull, a
nervous twitch you never
quite shook.
You wake up one morning
and find that your hands are
still stained with dirt
from that time you buried
your lover in the backyard,
wanting to let go
but discovering that letting
go feels a lot like
giving up and
you're not rea
The Pied Piper of Zolpidem.I've got a hole in myThe Pied Piper of Zolpidem.5 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
middle where I've torn at my own
insecurities, looking
for a way out of this skin.
I feel like I'm splitting
down the middle and tearing at
the seams, like I'm too small
to keep the nightmares
at bay (away, away).
And my blood's whistling
a tune I've heard too many times
before, the pied piper
of zolpidem twisting through
my veins.
Headlights on the hillside,
don't leave me this way.
A holy place.His mouth is the Church bellA holy place.3 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
felling me to my knees to worship.
we marchwe march;we march3 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
hailing from cavities filled with determination
and fruitless dreams shaken, not stirred
into our very own resilient rhythm,
comes our transformation from insignificant individuals
to "virtuous, momentous" society.
we march,
thriving with courage and dead chivalry, pike-eyed;
we live in servitude, fortitude for every day
is a new day, a new sun rising,
a virgin horizon to conquer
and put to test the palpable promise of our familial ties
we march
and, as we sizzle in sweltering heat,
we stay busy keeping course,
bearing in mind that our fertile goddesses labor
alongside us, before us, for us;
birthing and binding almost ever
Together.At night my thoughts wander,Together.3 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
and they used to travel miles and miles
to find you sleeping in your
own bed.
(Where you were missing me
as I was missing you.)
Now they whisper across
the pillow we share most nights
and your hair collects them
carefully,
eggshell hopes for
always.
Hands don't have to hurt, you know.There have been handsHands don't have to hurt, you know.3 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
in my bed at night again,
only I let them in
this time.
smoking meditationlight upsmoking meditation4 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
the nicotine hearth.
hold it like a prayer.
balanced between fingers, is
suicide burning
warms you deep,
the smoke jacket
covering once pink,
naïve lungs
from which now comes a cough
clawing up a blistered throat;
a deafening interruption
bursting black
inside a star numb night;
in a life wholly uneventful,
the tracing wisps captivate -
these soft, pale reminders
of a soul slipping out.
Frictiona whisper in dense woodsFriction6 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
that scurries upon the bark of gnarled, twisted trees
and weaves its way into timid piles of dead leaves
lies have become my truth
the friction in my tired bones
and the humming in my throat dies,
as you come to call
and refuse your sin tonight
travelersthis silvertongued landtravelers4 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
is fit for strange adventures
so we will roam as the city
sleeps, and the soft
hushclick
of the camera shutter will lull the crickets
to silence.
we will leave our trail
in incandescent flashes--
the negatives seared and crackling on
closed eyes--
and drag our hearts on
moonshine wisps behind us--
gathering fog and scents and
strains of music
carried in on night-thin air.
Pen and Rasashe met an ink-stained boyPen and Rasa2 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
stories sunk in his skin
e-y-e-s above constantly
popped knuckles, an anchor
on his cheek, small thing weighed
heavy below his half-closed lids
loud is an angry dog barked [with I'll be gone as a collar along
over his heart tense rapscallion neck]
her illustrated man was strumming a guitar
in a quiet parking lot, she toured (with hands clasped behind her body
this living museum, his colorful past leaning forward)
she studied his graffiti-self from a distance
Feet up on the dashboard.We're driving and I don't know where.Feet up on the dashboard.3 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
I know that once upon a time
beauty and terror happened to me all at once
and since that night I haven't been able
to tell the two apart,
and I know that your left hand is
more beautiful than your right, but your
right knows how to touch me best.
You said,
"every mouth I've ever kissed
was practice for you,"
and I said,
"darling I don't care,
I've kissed them too."
And you know that what I mean is
I've kissed the ashes of their memory from
your lips and shovelled them from between
your teeth with my tongue,
that I'd pry
them from the back of your throat if
I thought you'd try to hide them
back there
Birthday celebrations.Twenty-three cigarettesBirthday celebrations.3 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
at midnight in honour of
the years you might have
lived,
but chose not to.
Midwestern Roadmapsi.Midwestern Roadmaps3 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
wine-fed confessions
are what brought us together;
with a stir of paint chips and skin,
we made clumsy love on the concrete
of a condemned factory,
moving in the shadows of machinery
that loomed like winter trees
or judgmental Gods
who still stopped to smell the alcohol
in our pores.
ii.
"will you pass me a cigarette
and along with that sign your lust
on the paper that will gray in a flicker,
bitter acrid and addictive
like the first high of tobacco—
a euphoric quiver
that lasted only a minute,
gone when you inhaled your second
seeking the same."
iii.
indiana is the land of crossroads,
where the wind blows
to find a better des
a town i don't want to call mineon the right of the turquoise green signa town i don't want to call mine3 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
that welcomes you to columbia,
there are two gas stations and a church.
on the left side, there’s a morgue.
when i was five years old, my father pulled over
and stopped on the side of the road while black car
after black car passed us, going the other way.
“did we know them?” i asked.
“no,” he said, putting the car in drive. “but someone did.”
at seven, mr. jimmy down at the ice cream shop
let me have free samples of all the new flavors he made
before he put them out to the public.
a favor, he called it, for his little henry.
(years later i would realize t
Haunted.The nightmares are backHaunted.3 months ago in Free Verse More Like This
and they end with your face;
always asking why I didn't follow
when you left.
Breaking BurdensThe unspoken rules of society:Breaking Burdens3 months ago in Visual & Found Poetry More Like This
when your hands can mimic birds
at 4 am,
tell me your stories
and defy the sky.
It only lasts a little while.
beaut(if)ulYou exist in thebeaut(if)ul4 months ago in Haiku & Eastern More Like This
space where beautiful is a
question unanswered.
Sta.sh
