Poetry
I want your skeleton to grow back what was once there
let rivers freeze and melt again
wash back time to that spring
when we stood in the library with hope on our tongues
and ink spilling from fingers
Read what I wish I could say at my best friend’s casket >
Cut the onions, make me cry.
I can taste it in the air,
you can taste it on my tears
when you kiss me.
Read Cut the Onions >
Glass shatters over the larynx
releasing unheard melodies
coalescing into harmony
to mingle with the petrichor rising
from the steam-rolled pavement—
—as my foot buries the brake pedal.
My tires are still unsatisfied,
unyielding, screaming—for what?
fig juice
drips down your chin
red encased in green
has always been growing
just
out of
reach
Read: Fig Juice >
thirty-ninth floor opens elevator like gift-box,
oh! inside is a woman, hips bent like a satyr learning to stumble
what lips are these,
crooked and oh, so red across her cheek?
brown lipstick smacks maquillage tile floor
the Man, waiting for her, reaches a glove for her ticket
out she pulls a padded slip, thin leather like one of her cheeks;
soft moist peeling
Some would say language is art that bridges ideas
split by invisible chasms. Only the skilled few can reveal
the connections between metaphor’s two parts.
Others would say language is manipulation that misleads
the humble tourists into the caves of the skilled few
who enslave them with their fake news and PC rules.
Read 10,000 Hours >
Spring rain skates
down
into weed beds we
pluck on pebble-stressed kneecaps,
airing out rain shoes in bare feet,
we whisper to bacopa flowers while
showering them; they’ve grown
comfortable in their nakedness.
Name five things you can see
I begged to view beauty
the moment I realized I could not create it.
Hidden amongst the ordinary are
breakfast tables, anecdotes,
bike rides, broken glass.
Highlights to hold close
as a shield against the unbearable.
Read Return to Ground >
In the backseat you bleed something blue,
and it tastes just like love: bittersweet.
But I am far away.
The tighter you hold me the deeper I go,
following a light I thought led above ground.
Here, the thrum of the Earth is buried.
It spirals upward
into sunlight streaming through glassless windows,
headstones whitening beneath the swirl of a sparrowhawk,
white hoods on slate-black mountains,
seaside cliffs that cut wind until it screams,