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
Thread of connections
Weaving your thoughts for display,
What are you saying?
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
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
Hummingbird
what must it be like to know someone?
not their favorite color or where they went to high school or where they want to retire or how they like their scrambled eggs on any given Sunday
but the texture of their skin
the patterns on their fingertips
born in the womb of their mother
the webbing and weaving
are they high-strung or laid back?
with skin that sags around soft eyes
and peach fuzz
molded lips that taste of
dark-roasted coffee
and the beating in their chest like a hummingbird
when I press my ribs against, hip bone against theirs
we make a sculpture that breathes and pours
with sweat and some saccharine
pleasure in the moment
a pulsing and pressure
the roughness of legs
shaved two days ago
the bowing of their side and the curve of their arms
bracing and borrowing glances
eyes closed, mouth wide
taking honeysuckle and morning dew
speaking only of cardamom and chamomile
whispering of rapture
to be enchanted in a body
to feel, to know
The Archway
my great-grandmother had a house
she’s gone
but the house breathes
its strange breaths
strange faces
strange furniture
strange footsteps
imprinted by foreign feet
I remember the house
and it’s frightening to think that someday I won’t
that nobody will
that the memory will die with me
you’re getting so tall
she said before we left
beneath the archway in her living room
neither she nor I will ever stand beneath it
again, I am frightened that the memories
won’t be memories anymore
not that they will be conflagration-charred
cataclysmically-consumed
made holed and holy by a marksman’s arsenal
but that they will dry up and fade
wet footprints on concrete
during the fourth of July
when the weather was warm as the parade marched by
I sat inside a home I might never see
again, I am frightened
that anyone and everything is only mine
for a little while
that life is only for a little while
