Like Grandmama’s starter
on Saturday morning–
water, sugar, potato flakes.
The key to bubbling is warmth.
It takes time and knuckles
to knead for ten minutes.
I’m still learning to like this part.
Recipes don’t list hard work,
but I’m rising
and this week you can wave.
How do you measure a flutter?
Is hope enough?
One day I’ll believe you’re real
and still wonder how love made you.
My last few days,
I soak it in,
I stare at all the trees below,
I stop and smell the flowers,
I take in the blue, blue sky,
I look at all the people’s faces
And see the joy in their eyes,
I feel the pain in my feet,
See the freckles on my nose,
Touch the stinging sunburn on my cheeks,
I soak in this feeling
Because it will all be wrung out,
But I will still be damp with memories.
Guilty guilty guilty guilty
i guess this is it,
the synth track turning up
sun shine & sweat
bittered blood
bitten tongue
the amalgamation
of all i was
of who i was supposed to be
my mother won’t get any notecards
in the mail
my father won’t get a teary goodbye
i won’t get that deja vu feeling
that this was all it was for feeling
there won’t be scrapped knees
or twisted stomach aches
regret following me in twisted ways
shortcomings are banned from being
painted in my heart
this is it, summer
set free, everything,
of what i wanted to be
growing up from where
my soul was planted,
away from the totality
of what was wanted
for me
white-covered landscape
brighter in the rising moon
yet pale before it
I was alone in a place
where I understood nothing
could not expect the future
in my wedding gown
I’d gone where you went
taken your family as mine
forsaken my self
left everything to chance
with no sign of my passage
(after an untitled photograph of a bride in a snowy clearing from the book, “Wife During Quarantine,” by Chris Sorensen)
If I sung my hate to you, my discomfort. My sadness, my fear.
And the beat dropped with every stifled sob,
Could it reach your stomach, punching you in the gut the same way?
Would you bang your head to the sound
of the thrashing waters that shake my head in every moment?
If you could grind my hatred, roll my anger, wet your lips on the filtered end of my grief,
light the childlike love I once had,
Would you smoke it to fill that void you call a stomach?
You are not a bad man. You are simply no man at all.
You are a brother, a drinking buddy, a kick-ass uncle, the last to leave every fucking party.
You are a boy, a baby, a good soul at heart. You are guilt. You hurt.
You are a hungry hippo. You are the windchimes knotted together at your mother’s grave.
You do not change the flowers. You will not make the trip.
That small town died to you when she did. You died when she did.
Daddy I mourn you.
You may have not died, but you are reborn.
You are a teenage boy stuck in the flesh of this Man. This teenage boy did not know me.
I was not part of his plan for life. I am stuck between knowing you, loving you,
And being unknown by you. You are a wound I have patched all my life in
Temporary sensations. Empty loves. Starving art. Starving. Art.
lhmartin 2024
I’ve had a hard time regulating my emotions
Especially lately
A lot is going on
I’m estranged and worried about paranoia
I don’t understand
How
They still talk like
I’m not angry
How they breadcrumbed their way into comfort and
Had no remorse after I said
What happened
I walk around certain towns like an obstacle course
And I’m still not sure where
I’m supposed to be
But I’m content in this moment
In this right now
I’m becoming comfortable in knowing that maybe it’s okay to
Not know
To start over again
And to keep in mind that we all die off eventually and time is a tiny arrow that
Goes around the same way and with the same number system
Every
Single
day
I’m going to do whatever I want
My afternoon porch muddied with your FedEx envelope.
X-ray vision tells my tummy what happened – “You’ve been served”
Not a warrant or a bill collector,
but a feckless threat from a neckless father.
Day full of loading screens,
mouse clicks,
and hold songs.
No way to know if I’m dying or just hungry.
Pie charts showing what I owe and how far (not far) I’ve come.
Feline premonitions preempting anxiety attacks with headbutts and tail thumps.
Butcher paper slick with wax and vinegar – lunch meat satisfaction.
Restless feet overpower week knees and drag me outside.
Bakery bread made with the same chemicals as yoga mats,
as stars.
Burning for a father’s love – any father but mine.
Grateful for a too-warm sun which reminds me
that God sees me when Man refuses to look.
Love surrounds me and attacks without warning; I am hopeless against it.
Stormtroopers and Sith Lords lie terrified before me,
but showers are too cold these days if you forget to get hyped first.
Tumble weeds of ginger hair plucked with vanity or to scratch a deeper itch.
The deep peace of sharing a stranger’s smile.
My morning fortification of a Crayola breakfast.
Yielding to a mother with a stroller is no sacrifice.
New sneakers, crimson, all arch support and clean laces,
cushion my ever forward fall, until I land where I ought to be.
You cannot take this from me. You do not have anything I want.
I am.
Here you come again.
Dolly’s voice has whispered in my ear all day.
Shall we dance?
Will you spin my butt into its chair?
Prance my fingers across their keyboard?
Choreograph a pas de quatre with sight, smell, sound, and taste?
Encourage that magical waltz with heart and mind,
that catches words before they escape?
It’s June.
Another chance to trip the light fantastic.
