Tag: poetry

Capturing Campus: The Archway

EKArts Leave a comment

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

aSoSS 43 | Annoyance

a-spider-on-state-street Leave a comment

She used the word assure when she meant ensure. which is not a typo, it’s a language problem, which is a big deal! People type fast, whatever, it’s okay, but somebody wants to be a writer and they don’t understand the difference between assure and ensure?

Traverwood Library, 5:30PM, 1/14/2025

there are windows of opportunity and there are doors of regret, sometimes both, but never neither. you have blown into my life like a wayward leaf. where did you come from? darling, i was born in a hurricane. the windows are boarded but the door still swings off its hinges. you shake your head–whether in denial, or disbelief, or innocence, as if it would make a difference. Isabel Allende was right: two words is all it takes to change a person’s life. everyone could see the eyes of the puma soften as she steps towards him and takes his hand~

Back when I was in Livonia… the school district said kids can bring their phones to school and I remember being like “we’ve lost the war!”

Jerusalem Garden, 12:30PM, 2/1/2025

who gets to control the narrative? the caution tape flutters, a moth snared in a spiderweb. i am an ambulance chaser in every sense of the word. you tell me it is immoral, and i remind you that morality is a price to pay for your wellbeing. are we only in love because we love emergencies? sometimes we make bad decisions and they blossom into the undeserved fruits of our labor. other times they burrow into the belly, out of sight and out of mind. you are delicate in this life, just as i am delicate without you–mother nature plays such cruel tricks on her children! my stomach rumbles in agreement: there are no dormant volcanoes, only overdue ones.

…I didn’t even get my freaking cheese grits this morning!

Duderstadt Connector, 5:00PM, 2/4/2025

annoyance is worse than tragedy because it fools you into believing that your emotions are unjustified. we allow grief to permeate the barrier, unregulated, like a broken floodgate. this luxury does not extend to inconvenience without the eye of guilt, an ever-present watchman. the caterpillar and the butterfly, two sides of the same coin–what is a tragedy but an annoyance left unchecked? it is human nature to rot from the inside. even the phoenix dies from an ironclad heart: thinking of you turned me into ashes.

~Sappy Daze~ Day 15

Sappy Leave a comment 
The First of Many Love Poems 

We should make love in a bed 
of ticklish holly and narcissus; 
that way our child will be joyful
-ly lacking your lack of self-esteem.

I wish you could see how I see you, 
especially with my rosy forget-me-
not tinted irises. That way you’ll know 
our time together has & will always grow 
eternally, though our bodies age annually.

- Sappy

aSoSS 42 | Expletive

a-spider-on-state-street Leave a comment

That’s like people who put their socks over their pants. Ugh.

That’s horrendous!

Intramural Building, 3:30PM, 1/13/2025

the voice you are reading this with is not mine or yours, but a narrator present to your thoughts. first-person omniscience? an enzyme, breaking and rebuilding, a tornado of yarn tangling the threads separating memory from fiction. they are both the same, in a way; there is no way to prove the past, just as there is no way to prove your presence. your finger slips against the needle and you curse softly, a soap bubble of a word, floating out of your mouth and into the air.

Apparently her nickname at church was church slut. Yeah. I guess we’re just leaving it out there.

Palmer Commons, 5:00PM, 12/2/2024

ecstasy is paired with dread like a fine wine to a steak: one enhances the flavor of the other. you are frying shallots and mincing the skins, turning them into an autumn leafpile on the cutting board. i don’t ask what you plan to do with it–with what? the skins, the oil, the knife? a square of butter falls into the pan and begins to bubble in protest, a witch burned at the stake for predicting the future. a final chemical farewell–just like the scent of grass, a scream without sound–as you turn around and pour the scraps down the sink. my stomach drops with the oil, with a hiss. paired with dread, indeed.

What the [-] is wrong with you? You’re showing all of Ann Arbor my ass! Pull my draws up!

Blake Transit Center, 4:30PM, 1/27/2025

another theory: for each idea we nurture, ten more sink their roots in the soft flesh of the brain. antheia’s snakes, long and green and suffocating everything in sight. that’s not right. you’re confusing jack and the beanstalk with king midas. and wasn’t it medusa with the snakes? i wave you off. the vines tighten further. delirium is a delicious taste because it convinces you that nothing is impossible. everything, and everything still–don’t you see? the beginning is the end of the beginning. the stardust twinkles in your eyes, just to prove a point.