Posts for June 24, 2021 (page 3)

a secret,

i didn’t see
her coming

sprout shoot
up and out

all sly behind
the founding stem,

poking hard sunward
paneward, ready

to bud up and blossom
while the first me dies and dies

so pretty and slow petaled on the sill. 

What defines 
our living

Metaphysical determination

Genes, heredity
Ancestry unspoken unthought 
Written in golden tintypes
Unsmiling brides and grooms
Given over to slight hints
of pleasure in faces
Then to those with champagne hands
big laughs

Where does inspiration return from
parents, siblings, children

there’s this tree at orchard’s edge
shiny-barked, with white blooms
which stood out earlier in the year,
before the locusts swallowed all,
leaves glossy green, fine-toothed,
alternate, with thorns, tiny fruits,
unique in its copse, and yet
it defies identification
as if to say, who are you to name me,
one who has turned earth and sun into
color, and height, and wood enough
to muster a mortality that will surpass
your own
my seeds will spread beneath blue sky,
always known here, known there
beyond the yard, and
beyond again, always known
never named

Splash of ice water,
comfort of a steaming bowl 
all sat on a leg. 

Figures.
Just days after
the untended garden
blossomed a poem
someone came by
with a mower
to cut it all down.
Beauty destroyed,
the queens were beheaded,
and the courts of butterflies
were scattered
into foreign kingdoms,
scattered
like the shreds
of leaf and petal,
scattered
like foolish hope
finally dashed
on reality’s stones.
Bleeds fear.

Will this be the fate
of all my other dreams,
to discover beauty
only when it’s on the verge
of being eradicated?
Did my unseen enemy
catch me listening
to all you had to say,
recognizing 
the power of your rainbows?
Did I doom you?
Should I now assume
that everything I could want
is already doomed?
People prove that true
all the damn time
and they came for you, too.

But it’s not like they knew
the damage they could do
through you
to the spirit of another
and that is its own truth.
People rarely set out
to hurt other people
and so much of the time
it’s part of a reaction
to their own hurts.

Life’s need to move on
creates victims.
Thus, how you fall.
Guess I was really just hoping
what beauty I had found
could have lasted
a little bit longer.

He doesn’t wait to hear “I love you.”
He greets grandparents,
great-aunt, great-great-aunt
with “Love you too!”

Heart still wide open, he rushes in,
unafraid, greets every dog, cat,
horse, butterfly, family member,
stranger. “Love you too!”

I have done
140 sudoku puzzles
in 30 days.
I know
because the book
numbers them
and I date them.
The last sudoku
that I did
was on the 21st.
The most I’ve done
is 8 in a single day.
I’m almost through
the mediums.
I carry the book,
which is losing pages,
in a little plastic
baggie which also
houses my wallet
and my anxiety 
medication.
I look at it every day.
But today I leave it
sitting on the floor
of the truck
to get lost
in the trash 
that always lives
there. Some things
you only love 
for a little while
and I guess
thats ok.

Spires…
Concrete pinnacle,
A game of chess
After the Caro-Kann opening.  

Bridges… Steel arched wide,
A span of progress
Gambit accepted & crossed.  

People…
Designs pushing,
Glimpsed years career,
Pawn promotion & position.  

Keep your great society.
Take it with you to the grave.
Checkmate.

exhaustion is the closing curtain
goodnight all and thanks for coming
it’s time
time to move forward and put something behind
not all, no never all but most of it
let’s be done and don’t bother to count
our losses or even our blessings, let’s just go
on the road, just over the speed limit until we reach
a resting place, temporary yet pleasant
when we are ready to begin again
we will

I think maybe

The reason it hurt so much

That you left when you did,

Is because the way

We spent the days

Leading up to our last moment

Was the way

I’ve spent my life

Idealizing what a perfect love

Would feel like.

We had our first kiss

In the pool in my backyard.

We fell asleep with our bodies

Knotted together,

While we watched a movie

In my bed.

You stayed up with me

Until 5 in the morning,

And kissed me at the door

Goodnight.

You played with my fingers,

While I played with your hair.

But if I would’ve known

That was the last time

I would twirl your locks

Around my fingers,

I would have ripped the hair

Right off of your scalp

For letting me be so vulnerable,

Just for you to walk away un-phased.

I tell myself

That you’re hurting too;

That you didnt mean

To abandon me like this.

But, I think constantly

Coming up with reasons

Why it was okay that you left

Is why I am sitting here

And I’m not okay at all.

You broke me

And as cliche as that sounds,

You turned me into a person

I did not know existed.

You ruined me.

You make crave you

When I feel happy.

I don’t allow myself to feel joy.

As soon as I feel my lips

Twitch into a smile,

I put on the playlist of songs

You sent to me,

And I cry

Every time.

I force myself to sleep

With my bed facing the nightlight

I keep in the hall,

Because even though

It stops me from sleeping,

That was the last light I saw

The last time I fell asleep

In your arms.

I refuse to dump the ashtray in my garage,

Because it’s the one that I bought you

As a souvenir,

And you never took it home.

Not only do I see your outline

In the ashes,

But your cigarette butts

Are still rotting

In the bottom of it.

How could I throw something away

That threw me away first?

How can I lock you away

In a box for good,

When you hid inside the one

In my ribcage long enough

That you had to knock away

Until it shattered

The rest of my organs?

How can I forget the one thing

That made me realize that

Maybe

I can feel

Again?

How can I toss aside the

Most raw part of me,

When the rest of me

Is not enough to

Make a whole?

I think the reason it hurt so bad,

Was because losing you

Lost everything

In me

Too