“
If I was allowed to choose my way out, preferably
I’d be smitten
My last breath,
Would be smoke perfuming from my own skin
Like fog
Under god’s indiscriminate light
I used to spend weeks at my grandfather’s house
On the beach
My brother caught hermit crabs by the dozens
They were like timid spiders
And I was only ever brave enough to cradle them
In my own palm
When he placed them there, shell down
I want to end in irony, in juxtaposition
I want my clothes to stick to my skin
My arms crossed to defend myself against
Against the cold, as a habit, not from self-preservation
Then I’ll raise my hands above my head
I’ll be a beacon
I used to spend summers at my grandfather’s house
On his boat
We could count the lighthouses
Until we ran out of fingers
I think he must have built his house to close to shore
It had a structure of loss
That took him with it
My family has a legacy of losing things
To unrequited affection
Somewhere at sea, there’s a storm
And no one in its audience
Will know how or why it’s happening
I never want to hear the thunder
I never wanted to be anything
Except the thunder
Thunderstorm at a Beach House
“
I die every time I fuck
Spoon feeding necrophilia
Into the people I care most for
I shell myself, to let them live inside
But they are never small enough to fit
I love giants, I like being enclosed inside their palms
Knowing full well that they could crush me
Or just forget I’m there
I love to find crevices, nooks, and crannies
Inside their overcasting lives
But I’m never enough to fill the cracks
You fuck every time you die
And I am the one digging up your grave
I’d work all night,
if you’d kiss the blisters away
“Penthesilea”
Soil, Soil
My feet fall hard on the hardwood floors as I pace around the downstairs of my house. I walk from room to room, making beelines to any reflective surface within ten feet of me. My heart is hitting firmer than my steps, and quicker. I can feel oceans in my eardrums and static in my fingertips. I wonder if I’ll be able to speak or if the second I open up my mouth, it’ll just be my own tell-tale heart on display.
I try to indiscreetly wait by the window, and upstairs I can hear my brothers playing video games with the volume on full. It’s not so late, but the sky is already dark and clear. Stars like pinholes in a smothering sheet of vacancy. When I see headlights, my brain suddenly goes blank. I’m in disbelief that she actually came, despite the fact she said she would. My anxiety, the only prominent emotion of the moment, forces me to be over-cautious. I head back upstairs, grabbing a laundry basket.
“Do you guys have any clothes for me to wash?” I poke my head in their room. My response is a shake of the head, eyes locked on the screen. I’m suddenly smiling while I race back down the staircase, ditching the basket as soon as I’m out of view. The basement is cold, built with thick stones and old, extinct wood. I lace my limbs in aversion to spider webs and old insulation as I make my way to the rarely used back door.
When the cold air hits me, it gets beaten back by her warmth, arms gripped around my neck, and lips directly in front of mine. I thank her in full kisses, linking my arms around her waist. Her scent is something strange and familiar to me, all at once. Deep, like the woods or damp soil; I want to be able to root myself inside her.
If people are rooms, I left myself unlocked when I met her. What thrills me more, is how complicated it is to find her keys. Some days I think she’s let me in, only for me to find I’ve only walked a few more times around the surface. What drives me crazier is how everyone else seems to delve right inside, while I’m still fumbling for a spare at the welcome mat. If people are rooms, I sometimes think her walls are bare, except for faint outlines of where the sun bleached the corners of something vague. I can tell there are some places where she used to be filled, where now she’s empty. I’m skeptical to whether or not I can fill those gaps.
In those few rare moments when I get a breath of honesty from her, it’s compromised and debilitating. At those times, I know she’s chosen wrong when deciding to be with me and I know that I’m not enough for her. So in the winter chill, I hold on tighter, trying to let myself have what’s not rightfully mine. She’s like soil, because she falls right through my fingers. Because like soil, she’s frozen beneath the snow, and I can hardly scratch the surface.
I shiver; she takes notice, and starts to unzip her jacket.
“No, don’t” I laugh hard and forced, “I’m not going to make you stand outside, c’mon.” I take her back down into the basement, my fingers still locked in hers. We duck our heads under the heavy constraints of old framework.
“Is anyone home?” She asks, wary eyes searching around the room. I lean her against the white metal of the washing machine.
“My mom went out for the night, and my brothers are upstairs,” I try to act confident, but it wavers when my eyes scatter in tension. Her hands wander around my hips, while mine habitually comb through her yellow hair. I move it away from her face, studying her bold features. She was beautiful in a way that was masked under her uncertainty of self. At the roots, I see dark brown defiantly coming through. She tries to steady her eyes into mine and I try to steady my body into hers.
My movements are more curious and lingering, while hers are full of knowledge. I let my fingers trace her lips and my lips trace her fingertips. Her palm finds the small of my back, her leg fills the gap between my thighs. In this moment, I’m so acutely aware of how temporary we are. She is something contagious and ablaze, while I’m slack and steady, like pond water. She could evaporate me all together, unwittingly, underneath my new stagnancy of sudden discovery. Or rather, if she got too close to me, I could put her out - soak her to bare bones with timidity.
“I’m so glad you came” I sigh into her neck, and I can see her in my peripheral sight, smiling.
“Are you kidding?” I feel her vocal chords chiming on my chest, “This is the kind of teenage rebellion I live for, what makes these years so great. I’m a sucker for clichés.”
As if on cue, a door slams above us. I jump a bit, and she moves herself defensively. I try to shrug it off. “It’s probably just my brothers,” I denote passively “But my mom might be coming home soon”
“I wish I could stay the night, with you.”
“I wish you could too.”
“But I’ll head out.”
“I’ll walk you to your car,” I offer up, regretting the implication she should leave.
“No, Jesus, you’re wearing short sleeves, you’ll freeze.”
“I’ll survive.”
“You can walk me to the door,” She smiles, and I want so badly to believe her concern is authentic. At the back door, I kiss her again, longingly. And as I watch her walk away into the dark, the scent of earth still lingers on my clothes.
“
She asked me if it was possible
To love two people at the same time
I said, of course
You should always love someone
Who makes you love yourself
There are too many destructive times
When you love someone more than yourself
Or love yourself more than who you’re with
But I knew what she meant
When she asked if it was possible to love
Two people at the same time
And I said, of course
It just makes me wonder if she’s capable
Of loving herself at all
Cheating
“
1
Write a love poem about how
Your skin peels off in the sun
About the layer of new self underneath
And how renewal is enduringly beautiful
And perseverance of self is fuckable
If anyone calls you vain
Thank them
2
Only tell people you love them
When you’re both naked, and vulnerable
And no matter how adoringly
You string those words
They’ll sound like a threat
To someone not ready to hear them
2
Don’t try to kiss boys, they’re too easy
And smell like chemicals
Real bravery,
Is sleeping with soil
And to only smile, when spiders crawl
Over your lips
3
Only tell yourself acceptance
When you are naked,
And you are ugly
Say it with an honesty that breaks bones
That breaks physical barriers
The first time you say it, you’ll recoil in fear
The last time you say it,
You’ll recoil with ecstasy
“
(When stars die, they turn into supernovas)
I could only ever watch the fireworks from a distance
When I wanted to be the fire that lit them
I can’t think of a more volatile and temporary
Way to be displayed
I wanted to be there when you erupted
(Then they turn into black holes)
After the finale,
My voice seemed to lose its range
And I had to strain my eyes
To see against the rawness of night
Everyone went home, to sit in the quiet
I’m still trying to pick up your ashes
(Black holes, aren’t actually holes
Just dense matter
That doesn’t allow any light
To escape)
“
I leave my window open in the summer,
And I wake up cold, with dew in my hair
Finding bug bites along my body,
That I could trace into constellations
No one wants to lie in tall grass anymore
Because the ants will cling onto your body hair
And bees like the scent of your shampoo
And you confuse ticks for freckles
You don’t want to know what it’s like
To be tethered to the earth, because
You can’t sacrifice your clean cotton
To the dirt it grew from
You stay in the shallow water
Where you can see the bottom,
And move your feet around
The hermit crabs
When you brush your knee against
Brine,
Your body defends itself
In the summer, I keep my window closed
To keep the A/C in,
my sheets are like ice
Against a sunburn that I don’t have
(It’s important to preserve yourself)
On Being A Landmark
“
1
I’ve been writing poems like apologies
I am an atheist with “Only god can judge me”
Tattooed on my chest,
Because it was the cheapest ink
I could soak into my skin.
2
I’ve been writing poems like apologies
Everything that my lungs ever gave birth to
Was a lie or an excuse
To anyone to would give me a chance to
Tell them how much I care
3
I’ve been writing poems like apologies
My mom told me swearing isn’t ladylike
But it breaks barriers with the ladies I like
4
I’ve been writing poems like apologies
I’m afraid of echoes
Because they’re empty responses
And you’re a cave, hollow and dark
(I can never get all the way through you)
So I don’t know how to expect anything else
5
I am a believer with “Jesus is a cunt”
On the back of my shirt for shock value
I’ve been writing apologies like poems
I’m Sorry
“
1
we planted the seeds, over
decomposition
but the affect was more infective
than therapeutic
2
locking the gate
was futile.
dandelions always
seem to use the wind to their
advantage
3
ambivalence is the name,
of the bud
that came up from the soil
we sowed into
dust
4
pollination barely polluted
our cheeks
before our petals opened
forced and crooked
from curiosity
3/7/13
So close to creation, I feel like death
(Lucidity is evaporation for
The sheen on my chest)
This procession is possession
I can feel your ghost escape in sighs
My breath leaving in peace with sin
And the holiness between thighs
So close to creation, god is obsolete
And I am the hedonist that lives
Beneath blessed defeat
