August 2011
37 posts
12 tags
i didn't break her heart.
she tells me i didn’t break her heart. i didn’t break it, but rather i left her lying in the sands while i waded ankle deep into the sea. i stood with my arms spread out, glowing with freckled starlight, and i prayed to the moon, whispering for the tide. it came rushing in all at once and whisked me out to the middle of it all, where land was a mere speck in the sky and she was but...
6 tags
seeing you today
was like staring into the sun
with a whiskey hangover
it was too much, it was too soon
and i prayed my eyes would dilate
until the blacks of them filled my head
and i could sleep
just a little while longer
9 tags
i tell lies
i sprout lies
like a true poet would
my body’s growing roots
7 tags
an early winter
a strong wind shakes moths
from the branches of trees. they
tangle in my hair
8 tags
i paint with my fingers
and write with my tongue
on your canvas of blank skin
your veins read like poetry
in the right light
10 tags
this sounds worse than it is the cracking of bone against rock splinters like bullet shells lodged in your eardrums the incessant ringing and the beating of a unborn baby-heart how it fills a whole room while you watch the twitching of your bulging belly and the nurse, her twitching fingers keeping beat to a song you heard last night you can make out a vague shape on the monitor and blood rushes...
12 tags
you’ve made an ocean of me
salt tears, salt sweat
and i swell under your full-moon eyes
10 tags
i'm sorry i love you
what an awful thing
to be loved so deeply, when
you need to be free
9 tags
you would sing to me
all of my favorite songs
i wish i had bottled up your voice
but i was too lost in those moments
to think i’d need them in these ones
8 tags
you must have felt this way before
a bad day, coffee tremors,
words coagulating and sticking inside your throat
and only the thin little lies are able to pass over your tongue
i feel weak
my new dress doesn’t sit right on my hips
i’ve gone through every color on the light spectrum
and not one of them makes me happy
not one little smile
not one little smirk
10 tags
why should i love you?
you’re just a ghost anyhow
you’ve got no blood to keep me warm
10 tags
you don't want me sober
i’ve got myself more hangovers
since i put the bottle down
than i ever did before
and since my breath cleared up
blood levels went down
i see less and less of you
‘cause i guess the coors signs
glowing in the barroom windows
had me looking prettier
than the light from the moon
10 tags
like a midnight car crash
our bodies collided
leaving us bloodied and bruised
with shattered bones
and swollen lungs so we found it hard to breathe
utterly useless at the scene
and unable to decipher the raindrops against the headlights
from the stars hung in the sky
7 tags
you’re probably slow dancing with her
commenting on her honey-thick thighs
nibbling on her salty shoulders
while i sit here with honey whiskey
my eyelashes clinging together
like a teardrop cobweb
trying to shield me
from the glow of jupiter
when you kiss her
10 tags
our worth as writers
is measured only by the
likes and the reblogs
8 tags
warning
i remember love
the way it felt on my tongue
and how it died there
8 tags
there’s no use crying
over spilled ink that didn’t
quite say what you meant
10 tags
the innocent
if i were asked to paint a scene depicting innocence it would be this one.
there’s a little girl sitting quietly on a flowery afghan, surrounded by flowers, with flowers in her hair. she’s yards away from a pond, shaded by thick willow trees and the wings of uninterested bumble bees, in a public park that looks more like a garden this time of year. her skin is translucent but she...
8 tags
in a tortured armchair
with the stuffing piled up around your hips like tulle
you look too young to be mine
so i keep my head down, keep walking
14 tags
your coffee bean eyes
still give me a caffeine high
6 tags
some days
i want to get far, far away
from myself
so i sleep for hours
but i always haunt my own dreams
and wake with skin much tighter
than it was before
11 tags
lemon tree
when it was raining one night
i put too much sugar in your coffee,
not enough milk
i told you, ‘i take mine black,
i didn’t know’
and the next morning,
not enough lemon in your tea
and i told you ‘i take mine black,
i didn’t know’
and i said i’d bring you the whole lemon tree
straight from the root up
carry it in through the back door
of our...
12 tags
a pear
you bit into my heart
like a piece of soft fruit
left a hairline fracture there
with split end dead nerves
left the wound exposed
to the salt air
and the glass-shard sand picked up in the wind
i bled onto my bones
and was soon painted up
like the sunset
7 tags
anemic
you were a hangover
a worn road map
jewelry made from teardrops
tangled and dried vines
with rotten fruit
acid lining my stomach
rat traps by the door
you were here
once
and your scent lingered
in this house
sulfur and gasoline
lit my whole brain up
like a toothache
with the nerves hanging on
by a thread
think i might have left my blood
on your tongue when i spit at you mid-yawn
...
11 tags
given just a spark
of a moment alone with you
i’d attempt to breathe life
directly into the flame
of you and i
because though its warmth can’t be felt any longer
i know the embers still smolder
just behind the gold flecks of your eyes
10 tags
back alley artists
will paint with their own blood when
hope is drying out
9 tags
out to sea
the sea
polishes wood & stone,
brings messages of love ashore,
because children wish on moonbeams
and make its powers strong
so i wish on the planets
closest to us
glowing red in the night sky
hoping the tide will heave and pull
and return you to me
and i search every night
by starlight and the reflection from the diamond
i wear around my neck
but in the sands
among the smoothed...
6 tags
jack
i met a man
who said he was a Beat
some 70 years after the Beats
had hit the streets
his back was tattooed
with a thin black line
stretching over his skin
from the top of his neck
to the bottom of his spine
he said,
‘new york to california
it’s straight all the way’
and
‘jack would be proud,
i think, anyway’
and i looked at the line
perfectly straight
...
9 tags
the blocked writer
it’s sunday morning
the streets are vibrating with rain
and i awoke with a poem-brain
like a backwards drain, see
everything goes in but nothing comes out
at least not clearly
it’s all murky water-words
my spinal column, backed up, clogged
with the ideas i find in my friends
the artists, scholars, the creators or creation
with poetry pumping through their bodies
but sunday...
9 tags
it's how i can tell
listening to rap
and i could use a milkshake
i guess i miss you
8 tags
do you like freckles
on warm skin? one is heart shaped.
i’ll help you find it.
9 tags
poets are just liars with sharper tongues
and writers are just the bullets without a gun
9 tags
baby bee
you sting me with words
soothe me with your honey tongue
but the swelling stays
7 tags
good things come in three
dizzy from our love
we slept side by side by side
but which side does love choose
in the morning?
5 tags
love blister
we’re even now
you and i
we both got caught
with our hearts in our throats
and choked on our words
and split our skin
just to relieve the swelling
pain of living in it
8 tags
i miss your
sugar-lace skin
like moth wings
5 tags
what would you show me
if i asked you to show me
the things that you love?
