Tag: poetry

We should just become English and get double-decker buses.

Pierpont Commons, 11:30AM, 11/8/2024

there is a screech of sweaty palm on stainless steel. the paint is stripped away in degrees, each sheet plastered to a different person. to think that we grabbed the same railing, turned the same key, held our own hands in the absence of the other’s. i was young and i did not realize you were young too. the paint, strong and dazzling, untouched. the pain, flaring, like a static discharge through the heart. the same hands, once cupped and overflowing, are now scrabbling at the coffin–but from which side? bury me alive, if it means you will never see me dead.

This is a really weird Sunday. I feel like everybody who was already gonna be somewhere has already left.

Trader Joe’s, 12:30PM, 11/24/2024

you are stuck somewhere in a space without dimension, a page without definition. your hair trembles. if i blink, you wave, your wrist flapping back and forth, your smile stretched between ears. an apparition, childish at heart, perhaps the worst way to suffer eternity. scream! please scream! the soul never matures; it knows the mortality of the body cannot compensate for the factors of luck, the four-sixteen-sixtyfour-leaf clover tattooed on your back. you are stuck somewhere, going but not gone, and i am stuck with you, suffering in silence, praising the deity that granted passage.

the devil’s dichotomy: an underworld, or a world without you.

Thanksgiving! It’s about the food and the family. I’ve told you, it’s like Christmas without the capitalism!

Glen/Catherine Inbound, 9:30PM, 10/8/2024

it is hard to write fiction and recognize the elements of truth that are sewn into the words, baked into the structure, digested in conscience and spit out as thought. of course i am thankful, but to speak it aloud would shatter the reality, a stake driven into the timeline. the only way to speak is to write, to draw parallels, to squint at the stars and see a bear. we are a kaleidoscope of butterflies, each of our successes driven by the updraft of our companion’s wings. i thank the earth for spinning so that i may see the sun split the horizon every day. i thank the moon for shining so that i may read and cry and dream without judgement.

i thank you, dear reader, for listening so that i may share a slice of this fruitful life with those who enjoy it.

I don’t think any TV sold within the past six years has had any sort of DVD player in it…

Traverwood Library, 6:30PM, 9/11/2024

[an excerpt, or a cry for help]

there is small comfort in the whole truth, but there is no comfort in a half-truth, because your honesty is shielded by your shame. just because you can tell a story doesn’t mean it deserves to be heard. are you not shameful? we are growing old, novelty ripped out and replaced by convenience. perhaps i will write today, because there is also a small comfort in a whole lie, a brazenness mistaken for bravery. an undiagnosed feeling squirms in my stomach. it takes a lot of half-truths, a summation of sins and sorrows, to approach the mirror, speak the words–

You can drive for two or three days in Texas and not leave the state.

Yeah, it’s one of the biggest states.

Alaska is even bigger… look at that. Too big.

Pierpont Commons, 2:00PM, 10/31/2024

—it’s nothing, really, and it’s true, because nothingness–emptiness–inflames the mind and plagues the soul. i lick the envelope; it is empty for now, though it will carry the weight of a novel in its folds. i think of emily dickinson and susan gilbert, tongue and glue, attraction misattributed like an incorrect citation. the quote wasn’t theirs, did you know? it was written by carolyn forché. you are beaming. of course i knew, but i tell you otherwise because this is your moment, your gold nugget that you sifted from the crevices of memory. how would forché put it? tenderness is in the hands? that means–

But that’s just the way that I have to communicate with some of my relatives, just to let them know that hey, I’m still here!

Ann Arbor Thrift Shop, 1:00PM, 11/18/2024

–the heart is the toughest part of the body, though not for good reason. graphite needles puncture skin, drawing blood from vein to inkwell. you’re stationary–letters leaking, fingers bleeding, arms wound like a clock: forever crooked, never on time. the wire, peaked with clothespins, is slack and sagging. to allow for miracles, you say, even though you don’t believe in them. i believe in you, though. what does that make me?

to the right, the maxilla quivers. to the left, the mandible spins, closing the gap. hot breath, pulsing gums, the proof of life staring at you–do we make our own miracles?–as you stare back at the scythe, at the split decision–

midnight strikes. the gator’s mouth snaps shut. the clothesline pulls taut and the pins are falling, falling, gone.