Great, veined ear of a green elephant. Lined palm lifted in prayer.
Hand-washed laundry hung out to dry. Silk permeated by sun.
Lily pad for a flying frog. Eventual pock-marked parachute.
Lost scale of a giant fish. Mysterious scroll unrolled.
Fissured heart strung up high. Parchment paper valentine.
tw: sexual assault mention
I still remember that night you invited me to sleep in the same bed as you
For years I beat myself up over being too scared to do it
I imagined how you would kiss me
Gentle, tender love
Fueled my delusions with more of the same
Believing the lie that you loved me
Repeated by you so frequently that I had no reason not to trust you
The reality of the situation hit me like a brick six years after
If I would’ve opened that door, you would’ve hurt me
I can see it so clearly, playing on repeat
I see myself opening the door to a dim room illuminated by a single lamp
You look up from your phone, your smirk looks like a villain in a kid’s movie
It’s obvious
Everyone knows you’re leading the lamb to slaughter
Except the lamb, of course
I move the blankets back so that I can get into the bed
Willingly taking part in my own destruction
Hands exploring places no one had ever touched
I never was able to tell you no
You were never able to see my discomfort
You fall asleep with your arm wrapped around my waist
I lay there
Wide-eyed
Wide awake
And I would wish I never opened that door
“If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love…If you yearn…that is a door.”
(since his offering on the 7th, gregory friedman’s blank space with a ? has scratched away at my last two braincells)
clown car circuit aquaduct
clobbering cache chaingang
canolli charcuterie chin-up
chiggerbite clickbait charleston chew
courage clawback cease and desist
clawful cyclone clickity-clack
cakepop cranberry sauce chicago style crust
cottagecore caroline reaper cankersore
clippership cooter brown collapse
clot scism clothesline
courtesy cabinet confessional
cotillion chimney coif
in these pages, dusty controversies,
mendicants versus clergy, disputes
long forgotten. But for Henri of Ghent,
Richard Knapwell, Gerard of Abbeville,
the great Aquinas, Bonaventure—they were as
contested as our culture wars today,
though couched in Sententie that march
in noble Latin through these penned notes,
a later scholar dutifully comparing
what seven centuries past was hot debate.
What wisdom can I learn from his staid
calligraphy, black-inked from broad nib,
strolling gracefully on each page?
Here Bonaventure asks, “Are irrational
creatures to be loved ex caritate?
and how Assisi’s Saint
was seen to be a man
of “great fervor and tenderness”
toward them:
“swallows obey
and are silent”
at his sermons—
what any preacher
might hope for.
Brute force, southpaw, takes
no true woman by the hand,
nor will win the day,
for it is a truth well known
ladies need little such play.
Yo, I’ll let you know,
I see like a beagle, see?
You’re the best in town,
and ever since I seen you
it’s been great, absolutely.
What tricks and cold schemes
are these you present to me?
Have you not a wife?
Is she not your everything,
you are her only love, yes?
Do you want to go
skating on the ice in town?
it’s the best time yo—
oh, I won’t let you fall down!
Get a cheesesteak, lots of fun!
You deflect sir, stop.
See the lady Adrian—
her name parts the clouds!
For shame at your age, be tamed!
And what fools you make of maids!
I feel like a bum.
We’re in a fight, she’s tired
and told me to quit
mixing with boxers, training,
and take my shots here at home.
Is it a crime sir,
to hold duties of estate,
with beast, child, and wife?
She received those blows with you,
those you took. O sore battle!
Jesus! Oh god. Mick
said I was a tomato
past my prime and blind!
She was right too! She always
was so good to me, oh god!
Self pity, fighter,
release it like a fire!
She stands with you now,
believed in all things, chose hell
with you, and would die I fear!
Well. I suppose Jane,
if I don’t get up, take hits,
read her book of love,
youse say I’m big time stupid—
I don’t have to be this ways.
This gentle accord
sits smiling in my pen’s verse.
Rocky Balboa,
you’ve well slipped a monster jab—
now stand, moving forward—on!
Even though you have made me
such a broken little thing
it was your hands
that molded me from the dirt
picked the pieces apart
pushed me into the sunlight
forged something new
Rebirthed me
Are we muses or mere fuses?
I feel like you took a scoop out of my ribs.
I feel like you’ve been sucking me like ice.
I feel like you won’t admit you stole.
Fascinator or fear, I’m still under your skin,
I know the lie under your tongue.
I spit and carry on like a haunting.
I don’t wish anything for you except to crack
Open and puddle out like warm honey.
I don’t wish you love, I wish you forgiveness.
The type you’ve been looking for in every
dark feature of every contour
of every good woman in Kentucky.
I wish for all your hollow caves to converge.
That the soft wait ends your stalactite pride,
bumps as it must against your
stubborn stalagmite stoicism.
That they meet like cold patient fingers and
lock into gripped hands.
By this, I mean I wish you safe rest
inside love longer than a naps worth.
That late in the day type of sleep
where you wake up okay and defenseless,
with afternoon gooey sun eyes
and tell someone who looks like me
how you finally met me
in a memory
for the first time
you learned how to pronounce
my real name.
Who am I
To think that I have new words
To state the old truths:
That love endures
And faith and trust are the bedfellows of hope.
Approaching each breath, each strike of key with the arrogance of a poet in spring, assured in
the ramblings of the heart.
How silly to have wasted syllable and sway
when all I had to say was
“Hello”.
