Was
He was the kind of love that pulls you apart from the inside.
Feral and ravaging.
Crashing and teeming.
Skin ripping from the pressure building.
He was my fingers dug into my palms to form crescent, blood moons.
He was my breath too heavy to catch.
My bones splintering from the weight of my blood rushing.
He was my eyes closed tight and my head tipped back and my chest full of melancholy and ache.
He was the kind of love that is breaking.
A war determined to eat me from my body.
Myself, torn in shreds.
He was my tongue wetting my lips and my skin warmed and aching.
The creep of longing that tumbled across my neck and back.
The bruises smarting against whispered touches.
He was the light that breaks through when you come out of the shadows.
He was the darkness that pulled me in deeper.
He was a frenetic up and down, drain circling, tantrum.
He was the angst that I craved.
He was words pouring out of me all at once.
And he was the throbbing in my hysteric heart.
The pulsing torment that’s deconstructed my being.
And the insomnia that continues to keep my eyes tired and my mouth starving.
My destroyed.
My raw.
My devoured.
My tormented.
My gritty.
My careening.
My burnt.
My blistered.
My wrecked.
My fiery.
My raging.
My tortured.
My drowned.
My lonely, deadly, can’t hold it together.
My never ending.
Ending.
ravaged
He laid her down in the backseat, coat off and on the floor in the middle of winter. And I wish I could tell you that the sunroof was open, that she saw stars flying by on their drive. I wish I could tell you that everything was alright. She sees dark until she comes to, bright lights of a parking garage sting her eyes. She thinks of sun and the beach, anything to warm her up. His hands are in her hair, on her face, pulling at her mouth as she pulls away. And I wish I could tell you that everything was alright. She doesn’t open her eyes again until morning, but she is crying before she wakes up. Tears cloud her vision as he hovers over her. Words won’t form, but as she pulls her dress over her head she chokes out “why”. A car is out front, he doesn’t even bother to put his clothes back on. She lays down in the backseat, but the driver doesn’t seem to mind. Opens her mouth in a silent scream. And I wish I could tell you that everything was alright.
E471
“Now serving E468, at station number 5.”
Male pattern baldness in unbuttoned
red, mindfully picking his nose.
Blond, stickish, twitchy boy, filled
with juice like a grasshopper, breaks
free of bickered carpool spats.
Fitful child & sleep-withheld mother, nodding
like tongues of a grandfather clock. Silence
is slow to fill the space of tears. Green tea,
an absence of cellophane—her number is up.
Manila & thumbs scrolling, there is an anxious
odor rising from the shuffling ranks. Here
we all sit in grotesque drudgery; us
ticket-holding, DMV Americans.
& last in line is the disheveled burnout.
Gold, 1999 Tacoma man, expired license
& tags. Expired man, overdue mind, burnt
as alder ash or a lesser cord: Loblolly.
3 hours, he poems away in the back, thinking
“I see the world for what it is.” But they’ve
got the poet pegged. “Now serving E471.”
Getting Shit Done
Middle America
under a bomb cyclone, Carolina slews
of morning clouds make their
early exit.
A bluebird came chittering
down the Gatling
I opened the metal door
& an hour later, it flew out.
I asked you a favor
let’s burn my Ikea bed-frame
in the field, I’m sure
my affluent neighbors will sympathize.
I have a home to keep while
you have a house to build; 1 Lowes
100ft extension cord, 3-5
tarps, the day’s grey figure.
These middling American
days—romance nests in the emptied mailbox. Our anxious lion, waiting
for the flag to drop.
