Posts for June 10, 2024 (page 2)

I run my finger across the mouth of an empty bowl.
Lick at the last of the love I’ve been saving.
The sweet forgiveness, the salt crunch
of chosenhood, hot breath on necks,
There’s nothing left of it.

I’m meticulous in my addiction,
There’s residue on the rims to chew, I’m busy.
Solitude shines at me like a clean glass.
Smiles: “Are you done yet?”
I’m not asking to be fed anymore.

Breakfast in bed can’t be begged.
Outside the rain plays a lesson about how to
still pour naturally. Everything is fast food.
Dashing and knocking feverishly at doors,
Just to ask strangers if my face looks familiar.

What’s for dinner? Can I come in to pretend
Your arms are home, that this isn’t a rental?

What’s it like for all the faucets to work?
To be so full you throw up, sick to your gut with love.

I can hear a cat mewling, looking for life but finding only darkness.
Deep, muffled voices argue in someone else’s driveway.  
An infant howls.  My father snores.
A train barrels forth on the tracks across town, mindless of the hour.  
Is that a car alarm or the sirens from my nightmares?  
Either way, someone should turn it off.

My home creaks with the hissing 
wind as if it, too, is outstretching its tired
arms to the waning moon before settling
into bed to listen to the nighttime ambience.

I  know you didn’t do it for me.

You don’t  even know me and

we may never meet.

But thank you.

I am grateful to be

seven days closer

to being free from this pain.

I am grateful to be spared

an entire extra week of agony.

HIPPA will not allow me

to ever know enough about you

to thank you personally.

So I thank you in this poem.

I thank you in my heart.

I can think of many horrible reasons you

may have had to cancel.

I hope none of them are true.

I hope instead

for the improbable,

that you were

miraculously healed

as I wish to be

myself.

In exchange for your

coincidental kindness,

I gave you this blessing:

May you have what you need.

May you too receive relief

when you need it.

I can not repay you myself.

So I ask the Universe

to bring you

some equal joy.

Inside the trick-or-treat bag
from under the bed
are two hard Dots,
one orange, one green,
a Hershey’s kiss, minus the foil,
half a circus peanut,
and a stick of Juicy Fruit gum,
all sprinkled lightly
with Pixie Stix dust.
the sweet, stale finale
of Halloween,
snack of last resort

Inside a vampire’s heart lies a lonely word,
eternity echoing through the stillness in each chamber
with haunting clarity. All time and nowhere
to keep it, no memories, no night
sacred against the others. It carries
the curse of this secret in its shadow—
constant companion rasping the coffin lid,
craving an invitation for entrance again
and again without end, insatiable as the first
sweet copper thirst aching on the tongue,
swelling from the gut. Slowly a silence forms,
opens a new door between each lifetime
and the full moon face of familiar insanity.

The first rule
is don’t talk about feelings
love is for novels
bromances are real
masculinity is dead
replaced by something different.

There are more limp dicks
in Game of Thrones
than boobs
and hurrah for him
these are the times

Trailing after the full moon
Dark clouds circle
No stars to be seen
Just a big glowing rock
Clouds move silently
Across the night sky
A soundless, stealthy journey
But the moon sees
The moon nearly shouts 
“Here they are!”
As cloud edges come into view
Illuminated by a moon
Who can’t keep a secret

I awoke with a start,
Shook the fog from my head,
And turned…

Your gaze met mine,
Wide and pale like the full moon,
Your lip quivered
And our stubborn punk-rock pride
Dammed our damned tears

        The day we had feared
        The day we had denied

We sat upright from our rest,
From our cold, nightmare-sweat,
We chipped the sleep from the corners
Of our squinting eyes,
        The way the clock’s pointed hands
        Had chipped our resolve,

We laid to the dirt our youth
And our Germs t-shirts,
Laid to the dirt our riots,
Our philosophers, and our ideals,

And we knew we had lost

As if compelled by some distant and ancient god I cannot name, 
We spoke in unison those hallowed words:

“Pickleball actually looks pretty fun.”

Forever chemicals-        starburst, trip, tumble, twirl in place.
Your aquatic bodies, bent to snapping. Infinitesimal

And floating through your bloodstream- polypropylene
promises for the        distant future. Hypotheticals.

Bisphenol Aftertastes- methylmercury build up in the body
Of your prey animals. When we eat,     we become poison.

Calcified cartilage knows-     relent, relent, relent,
Bodies in motion know- hunger. Objects in motion know-

Waste. We know- cook it in butter with lemon and thyme.
Cosmic microwave backgrounds- heat map     of the

Mother’s empty bed, observed,         preserved.
Waste not,    want not- there are plenty of leftovers.

We saw our shapes, our outlines, made eternal,
    And it destroyed us.

Church sign, lit in sickly yellow beam:
CHANGE MY HEART OH GOD
it cried. Not to me, whose heart was settled 
as a stone is settled–so cool to the touch.

Though I still picture the writer
at night, the translucent
letters sliding like a sinner’s cards
through fingers. I imagine them peek
at the board, its holy luminescence,
and making this plea writ. What does it mean
to change a heart?

They walk back into the dark
church, empty-handed again, head full
of something. Maybe their purpose,
to strike water from a stone like Moses
or to shepherd some great flock?

I reckon with words and cannot guess
their meaning–just saw them illuminate
the night–one night–a kind of offering.