Posts for 2025 (page 3)

I looked around the table of my chosen family
They’ve seen my lows and been proud of me at my highest
Maybe I can’t leave them 
Maybe I’m where I’m meant to be finally
I’m doing the biggest thing in my career next week 
I’m doing something I’d never thought possible next week
 Isn’t this what being 22 is about
Doing things that scare you
Meeting people who change your perspective
And make you fall in love with the simple thingsI was thinking about taking the next step in more ways than one
The thought of my life changing in a matter of weeks overwhelms me
The thought of my life not being what it was a year ago relieves me
The thought of doing this for the person I love the most drives me
I’m finally in the age of becoming
I’m finally okay with the art of becoming 
Is that what being 22 is about

after Hieronymus Bosch

God offers us a lover’s open palm,
a cat mouths a mouse, a bird swallows a frog. 
We take sin for its pleasures,
unaware of the loss. 

How foolishly we drool for forbidden fruit
dripping down our chins, sticky on our chests.
We mistake sin for home, crawl within a peach
to suckle the sweetness from one another’s breasts.

Our yearning mouths open wider
to eat from a feeding bird’s beak.
We sit with the duck, finch, and owl
as they mother us in all that pleasure seeks.

Craving more, we pick flowers and force 
the bouquets inside one another,
dress ourselves in petals,
and pretend it’s innocence clothing us.

Our earthly delights rot and sour,
devour us within the hour. 
We hide our sins beneath our skin,
and lie in the ruin we so welcomed in.

My parents used to say
fair only comes to town once a year. 
Our county fair set up
in peak July Kentucky heat.
You bumped through a field
to park and walked from there. 
The loudspeaker blared,
announcing horse shows, show cows, 
even a greased pig for kids to chase. 
Friday night’s attraction, the demolition derby. 
Cars patched up, souped up
Only to be crushed again. 

A bin of reject photos
from the local newspaper
set up to sort through, 
to see if you could find yourself. 

After dark, the rides lit up.
Grease hung in the air
from funnel cakes you wore
more than you ate.
Fair workers shouted 
over the clacking of the rides.

Everyone took home at least
one mostly dead goldfish 
won by bouncing ping pong balls
into tiny fish bowls.

I heard the county sold the fairgrounds. 
I guess fair
doesn’t come to Boyle County any more.

at dawn a girl stood transfixed
listening for cadence
life’s rhythm
abuzz

Your heartbeat

like a drum in my ear,

keeping pace with the music

Thud, skip, skip, thud

or maybe it’s your breath

I hear

in rhythm with the songs

a slight crackle of the new vinyl

against the needle

playing in tandem with the rain

that splatters 

the sidewalk outside

crossed legs with loose spines

watermelon, dripping from our chins

sticky fingers from purple ube stains

moments of whimsy

I don’t normally know,

but with you

each moment a glimmer

of magic,

though some days

I still have sadness from that lost in my past

lingering thoughts 

that sometimes skip into my mind

If only a moment 

does it make me lose the sparkle 

in my eye 

but a gentle sweetness fills my days

with you

Brooklyn looms between us
like some sort of paradise out of reach.
My imagery reminiscent of the Titanic;
yours probably akin to Atlantis
    – mythology, whether or not you see it.
It was bubbly with potential and dizzyingly bright
back when we were
That dewy sheen is as evanescent
    as any fledgling romance.
Something solid needs to form beneath
to support it.
If it can’t evolve, cradle a growing ecosystem,
it might as well sink into the sea
become a watery museum of sorts,
    nostalgia shimmery and hard to bring into focus.

You’re remembering a fairy tale
Yearning for what never was
While I pitch lost treasures overboard
one
by
one

When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll
I only have two memories of my grandaddy, but by all accounts he was a tender man

Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, It is well, it is well, with my soul
snapping beans with him, while the Michigan winter raged outside

It is well with my soul
and wrapping my tiny arms around his neck as cancer raged inside his body

It is well with my soul
his death, a baptism in grief, a baptism into my life as a bearer of all that is unlanguagable 

I’m more than ready for an adventure 
You in the driver’s seat 
Me, always riding shotgun 
Just an open road with slitted sundress 
Your hand on my thigh
Where the wind gave the slit invitation 

With the south giving way
A natural calling of the heart
Give me all the neon glow 
The smell of the salty sea air
We will leave these Appalachian hills
If only for a short while 
Ride the wave of the horizon 
Reminded of our yester years
While we karaoke an 80s soundtrack 
Billboard worthy all the way 

Hitting the concrete, stuck in humidity like jam.
Wondering if I made the right decision to take
this troubled route, but then I see it on the horizon.

If only I take a few more steps here and a few more
steps there. The summer sun will begin to rise in the
distance. Mileage only counts in these hours.

When the only people I can spot are running and
running to a goal larger than life. Steps that lead
to something that won’t happen until years later.

I set up the mornings with mileage. Building and
building until I’m afraid I can’t anymore. Until I’m
afraid I’ll collapse on the pavement from exhaustion.

It’s a different kind of feeling to be the only one out
there. There isn’t anyone to rescue me except for mind
games pouring in and out of my brain. Games for miles.

By the end of the work day, my body is crying out for
help and the only relief I can offer is a meager amount
of sleep. Before I return in the morning for more.

Blisters come and go offering me warnings that I’ll
keep ignoring. At the end of the day, it’s the only
reminder that those runs in the mornings were real.

Those runs in the mornings at five and eventually
four as my mileage grew and grew. Until I ran for
hours and waited until I’d be able to have a chance.

A chance to run alongside my peers instead of
struggling against the wind alone. A chance to prove
that I was where I was meant to be all along.

The summer sun will begin to set in the distance,
bringing the breeze of autumn to my front yard.
Where I’ll lace my worn down shoes once again.

Distant in a field of English lavender,
tethered to nothing but the sensation of heat,
I lapse into the blue noon, glimmering.
A cicada spins out, nosedives into the hollow 
between my collarbones. Stunned, it lays
against my skin, a broach, a brief adornment.
I only cut the wildflowers that will dry well,
I leave the rest for the fauna. I slip away
just in time for the darkening clouds riding in.
Not that I mind the rain. I’ve always enjoyed
to stand still amidst the chaos of it, witnessing.