Capturing Campus: Alternative Transportation

Alternative Transportation 

As a child

colors dissolved

and speckles of magic 

emerged

I waited for something

to take me away from here

But nothing did

so I held up a mirror

and imagined I’d fallen in

to a world opposite this one

grass grew from the sky 

clouds like slippers

teary eyed turned upside

anger was to satisfy

a vendetta paid in full

My friend gifted me a book

empty pages and a burn building 

in a chest beating

for a richer life

where pain isn’t pleasure

where people mean what they mean

where I’m far away

but home

yes, home

Capturing Campus: The Right Way

The Right Way

I could tell myself 

I’m right

but there is no way to know

how I was meant 

to turn out

the beliefs  

the hurt 

a mind in mutiny

the inside suffering  

indoctrination until opinions

become ghosts

untouched and unfelt

preaching reason and absurd escape

packing the mind until stuffed and bursting 

with hard-to-hear thoughts 

was I meant to be this way

or did circumstance

bend me

into a familiar shape

Capturing Campus: Dichotomous Nothing

dichotomous nothing

the air bleeds 

honey cough syrup

stirred by a Southern wind

winding ribbons around the soul

symphonies around suffering

boxed up in pairs

sweet like pears

the taste of bitters on my tongue

lick the surface of starving minds 

tired bones buried 

deep

in the earth 

dormant dead and dusted 

dreaming of something better

than sallow skin 

bone marrow chipping in

to make days of dichotomous nothing

will there ever be something

Capturing Campus: I’ll meet you there

Content Warning: Mentions of suicide, abusive relationships

I’ll meet you there

I’ll climb down to hell

with its flat plains and dry heat

to reach you 

not to save you

but to die there with you

I’ll swallow what I’m drowning in

and find you at the bottom

a swollen face

apart from vitality

I’ll fill a bathtub to the lip

feed the wire three feet

into the socket

on the other side

of bubbles and brutal force

track my end in beats of five

on the railroad

until the engine begs

and I spill open

on the grass

I’ll kick my feet

to tighten the rope

a necklace just for you

a party favor

that never loosens

I’ll host the funeral service

an open casket

for all to see

a blackened pit

and the soul

you never took from me