Howl
The way he left bruises on the backside of my arms
The way he rolled a cigarette
That tongue, licking the paper just enough
Looking at me through his lids
Always half-closed
He disappeared for days at a time
Again
Distraught, I nosed through his papers
I was his Saint Bernard
Searching for his scent
In poetry, unspoken
Thoughts shared only to the grave
Woven in leather, and
Ivory tusks rolled smooth and thin
With fibers of reality reminding me
This too shall end.
Oh despair, hung obvious on a can-can girl’s thigh
I loved you too much.
Left behind in the shadow of the moon
With a stray cat and empty wallet
Do you remember me
And the way I made you howl.
Oh lover
The wave of beautiful light danced between the blinds and stood waiting for approval. She moved carefully through it, inhaling the taste of hope strung tangible. Time etched itself carefully in this shadow of day so as to slow the progress of age and grief and love too late beaded together to witness in held form.
And I feel you. All around. But you are gone removed from this conscious cloud of memories and dreams weaved holy in an iridescent dream that I beg to wake from. It is too close. Love. A real love that floats lovely above ground. A fog that soothes and holds comfort against damage. Hidden enough are the flaws of humanity and you and I—no different.
I rest my head upon your shoulder when I sleep and I have amnesia. Do you remember me? Because I remember the time that you looked so deep into me that I died and looked away. Your soul grew too enormous for my capacity and you felt like warm lava all over me like a mummy enveloped by what could be.
And you did. You walked into my life and I forget the rest. Love like ours dies hard just seconds after its first breath. And I’m here for it. Living large within your grasp, I have no regrets.
broken vow
This elixir runs smooth down flesh and blood. Swollen eyes searching far and beyond for reason unknown. A fingertip sound hell bent against a yellow light sounds heavy and morose. Tiptoed across the indicating and upon lead and coal and upon the tar foot—I can’t shake you. You are. Absorbed beneath my skin, I ingest you. Wholly. Your ghost walks alongside these streets gone vacant and long before sunrise, and I pull sidesaddle a woven clutch full of lost leather. My youth weeps. He told me that nothing was revealed. Words spat upon walls smelt with laquer. But I saw the truth.Ill-repute sitting stoic on good ole Adam’s lap. Time will come around again and you too will be there: I have no doubt.
Then she cried herself to sleep under satin.
When he fucked me, I saw God.
My mood is
indescribable.
A downspout of
misguided
rain freezing
overnight.
A complicated
mountain fold,
its peak
sheltered
by sensitivity
and fog.
Its hardened
crust evaporating
into
sadness.
My desolation
comforted
by his imagery
and love.
Pain is
romanticized
inside
my mind.
Literary connections
found
in pulsating
isolation.
Love me
back.
I am
disconnected
from the norm.
Relieving cuts
pour
blood onto
canvas.
Empty.
I offer
definition
unintelligibly through
matte abstraction.
I am
complexly
overwhelmed by
simple movement.
My mascara
smears like—
A whore.
My legs
spread
wide,
knees bent,
my aged hips
crack with
temporary
satiation.
Heavy
sighs are
my aphrodisiac
into
oblivion.
The warmth
of
the sun
on my face
is my
mother.
Nature
hugs me
with
its splintered
bark.
Gasping
with emotion,
the thought
of him
hurts.
Moved
to tears
when
Mozart's plays
tangible.
A grin
too wide and
too toothy
silently churns.
My stomach hurts
to the tone of
laughing
like a clown.
Names
spelled wrong
hang on
the air
make
me dizzy.
Contradicting
comfort found
in
metaphors
and equation
abandon me
ad infinitum.
Abhorrent
shock at
mass blindness
ruminates.
Raw.
Despair drops
into buckets
of mud
in my chest
when
I think
of you.
Despondency
covers
my shoulders,
my grandmother's
shawl,
when
the chill
of
loneliness comes.
Inner epiphanies
debate
over desire
and
reality.
I stand
still and
frozen in
my existential
existence.
I know
my bravery
exists
but I am
fucked
between
folded linen.
Stale.
And
the closet
is closed.
And my
heart
drops.
There is
no point
anymore.
I am sad
and
I am
grieving
indefinitely.
You are gone.
It is dark
The Blues of the Affair
Graham Greene portrayed it best—
The fine line between love and hate
The pendulum of ecstasy and pain
Swinging between freedom and desire
A glass monkey chandelier waiting to crash—
I realized I only loved him
Because he loved someone else.
In the safe space, that is
Rejection pro hac vice
She murmured the phrase over and over
For only during this season did she
Sub-into something foreign
Something not hers—
He rested his head on her shoulder
She stroked his hair, they rarely spoke.
Like two mimes moving in the dark
Slowly and clumsy
Their intention was palpable but vague
Open to interpretation, she digressed
Into a cocoon of familiarity, and
Solidarity stood stoic—
Chaperoning from aside
The moon and the spring night
Warm like memories afraid to stay too long
Youth stumbled behind her, stubbing its raw toes and
The calloused knees of her history
Marched inward toward her mind.
She pushed loved back. And need, and—
Through the lacquer of passion
He never left.
Despite her flailing and pushing, and
The disconnect between her words and
Her action, he spoke louder than all
She loved him, and she hated him.
She was disgusted and turned-on.
But his grace spoke grandeur, and
She was addicted to it all.
existential happy hour
I fell into the vacuum. I don’t care who is sitting alongside me at this faux wood table made to look like a redwood sliced mid-thought. It lay there dead, palms-up. Sad.
I eavesdrop on the conversation between an unlikely pair of men beside me. He, kids 4 and 8–wife stays at home. Him, dating two years—when she finishes graduate school, they’ll be together. Boring.
Across the room, not far enough away, a crowd of eight gather celebrating an engagement. They are hanging foil balloons and landfill paper signs: “She said “Yes!””
I, on the other hand, am gravely alone. Soothing an Amber because they don’t have anything darker this time of year. Checking and rechecking my pocket with the hole for my chip to a second.
The day grew morose early. Which made it long. And it is still going.
I am not lonely except during times when the thought that I should be encroaches upon me.
I will drive to the ocean this weekend. I focus on it. The future. The fact that there is one. Wishing my life away—
And in the meantime I stay busy. Busy with work and grossly interrupted sleep and, this bar.
There are at least 15 in the engagement party now. At least three generations. I try to look into their eyes to see when hope leaves. But several are familiar and the others are cutting cake so I give up and use my chip.
And just as I sit on the other side of the room, someone walks in and everyone else screams “Surprise!”
And I can’t get out of here fast enough.
Lovers pass drunk in the night
My breaking point. Singing in hymns. He texted me at midnight. And I was ready fast. Waiting. Wet. And thirsty. But I woke up the next day: I was sober and numb. I would travel the earth with you, she said, if our timelines had aligned. But they didn’t. And they won’t. Two minutes too late. And I sit here wondering what went wrong. Within me.
she bartender
I like that it looks like you just rolled out of bed. Your hair is kinda greasy, hanging dirty down your back. Your face is greasy, too—but I like it. Your basic clothes—that may be dirty or maybe you slept in them—are just right. And your cheap shoes, knockoff Keds, are perfect because they wear the streets you take to work Sometimes you don’t wear a bra. Ideal. Or when you do, it's not padded or a push up, it is cotton white and stained. I assume you have a male roommate who is overweight and games all night. And you can barely make rent. Maybe your Dodge doesnt turnover in the cold, and you have layers of childhood trauma. But you are confident. And you’re sexy. You are more woman than most women. You know who you are, and you own it. And I have a crush on you. From afar. And the way you mix my Manhattan, in my peacoat and privilege—I’d love to take you home, but I don‘t have the courage so I admire from my barstool instead.