Poems, Written Portraits, and Such
In the 20-teens, I took a break from fiction and returned to an old love: poetry. As a way to say to people I love: I see you. As a way of seeing myself.
I've reached a point where I feel like I've a) said all I have to say and b) begun repeating myself.
Despite this, I'm still doing some "written portraits" for people, when the mood moves me, and though I don't plan on publishing another volume of poetry any time soon, I'd like to leave a few verses here.
Poems listed from oldest to most recent.
To T
After Lazarusanything but reborn
ship without rudder
I spin
directionless
each warm scent
in my bed
another broken compass
spinning
directionless
I have swollen like
a camel carcass
surrendered in the sun
refracting light
no feeling
heat absorption
forehead burning
the tips of my nicotine eyelashes
crystalline fingertips
color-coordinated to make me
feel human
& all the buxom-blondes sing
"Who will save your soul
if you won't save your own?"
Anyone got a light
& a banjo
& fifty eggs
I'll get right on that
For D
I am an un-watchedkettle
a slow boil
watch me scald fingertips
shocked lips
it's easy to become
what you hate
cage match the him
in me
every day
kaleidoscope of my
bloodspace
I am no basket
no head
no charity case
Tomorrow is a roadmap
of hazel veins
I could go both ways
Plant one boot
in front of the other
track scent down
back roads
striver's row
street cred-cemented
steel bars
Allegheny swallowed
trailer park yards
I am old man sober
lived it all
now I come
to the end of myself
the ruse of childhood
some unfortunate faery tale
handed out at bedtime
must've missed me in line
I grow another day older
waiting
for an answer
finally figure this out
cause right now
Tomorrow is a roadmap of
hazel veins
spinning kaleidoscope in
my blood space
I just don't know
I could go both ways
I look for you
in leaves
in a trailer masked
as yesterday
back road
no center line
tongue ring
and
Scooby Doo boxers
bangs grazed brown
your molasses smile
baritone in cemetery
sound
You are the
ride home I
never took
It would've been
an explosion
a head-on
collision
You
would most
certainly
have wrecked
me
gate⧭⥅kee⧭per
gate⧭⥅kee ⧭per 1. One who guards/what needs to be protected/who needs control/to be in control/when all else fails/you’re still standing. 2. Vermillion & Gray/Aries & Venus/commanding the skies at dusk/the churning sea/sailor’s warning 3. Jazz band at midnight/swagger in Creole streets/mask that gray/make them forget the vermillion/or be sorry AF they mentioned it 4. Eager to leave behind whatever/disappointment boyhood handed you/own that tower/your swagger/gatekeeper/still standing.
town⧭⥅ie
town⧭⥅ie 1. The embodiment of “from around here”/but with an Oracle’s eye/pencil strokes/speaking in tongues/behind the mask/a paradox 2. Horse ranch bravado/hands grease-stained from car engines/leather jacket hair & James Dean jeans 3. Hella subtext behind that “Yes Mam”/like you’ve already learned twenty-seven names for yesses/in fifty different shades/except for the one/you’ve yet to get/and are still looking for.
bro⧭⥅man⧭cer
bro⧭⥅man⧭cer 1. A catalyst/all the ass I wanna grab/without asking for permission 2.everywhere/but the no-no square/in public/otherwise off-limits with/bodies we/were never taught to be/ashamed of 3.I piss him off/and don’t have to say sorry/for him to get over it/he just knows it 4.being his bitch-boy/is ironic/proud to own it/never earned my trust just/to shit on it/let him know me in a way/she never will/the mirror/the facet/my chemical bromance.
All Hallow's Eve/a Cento poem
[F]rom the sweet deep throats of the night flower
grappling with a luminous doom
because I come from the earth’s inside
behaving as the wind behaves
the moon is leavened with water
as deep as it will go.
It was drawn between two lungs
a deep echo in me
what them little girls understand
aqua, seafoam shame
where my ribs crack[,] where your wheels wind
[where] people like us float
World was on fire and no one
could save me but you
I can feel myself growing colder
I can’t think of anyone anyone else
I can’t hear the echo of my footsteps or
remember the sounds of my own name
I want to find you, tear out all of your tenderness
I’d really love to break your heart
I can take you higher
I know you know
I’ll take you to where the grass grows green,
by the banks of the salt salt sea
Have you forgotten your angel
you, me, and a rainbow
their leaves and petals interlock[ing]
caging me for you beastangel
but nothing ever stops you leaving
crimson & clover, over & over
there must be something here
New York City will fall before we are done,
so hold me
let me crawl inside your veins
kiss me until I can’t speak
choke on my tears til finally
there is nothing left
Don’t go where I can’t follow
do not leave me in this abyss
where I cannot find you.
touch me, trust me
lead them to the naked and
vicious woods
and run
[Sylvia Plath, Mary Oliver, Audre Lorde, Louise Erdich, Florence & the Machine, Melanie de Baisio, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Anne Sexton, Fever Ray, Chris Issak, Mazzy Star, Julien Baker, Bob Dylan, Florence & the Machine, Tears for Fears, Bruce Springsteen, Melanie de Baisio, Joan Baez, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Miles Hodges, Robert Hayden, Tommy James, Tori Amos, Anne Sexton, Billie Eilish, Tori Amos, J.R.R. Tolkein, Emily Bronte, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Ego Likeness]
Black Nails
You sat beside her in the study hall she snuck into. Chair pulled alongside you, your bodies two opposing question marks, bent over notebooks. Joined without touching, a broken infinity. Her with her black nails, Kool-aid kaleidoscope halo, her presence a repressed scream in the Apocalypse. Your emo helmet dyed black, flannel armour and fuck-you black nails, one combat-booted foot linked across her bare ankle. Once, she told me she broke up with the boy who looked like the actor from The Fault Within Our Stars because he “loved her too much” and, after you, I don’t think she knew how to handle that much honesty, that much softness. Once, you told me you and your ex (that harpy) did drugs on the floor of a Walmart, tore Legos out of a box and got yourselves kicked out. You said it with pride. Almost as much gusto as later, when you spat into Love’s face over that party she went to without you, that boy she texted while ignoring you, the final nail in your couple’s coffin. You may have been hung up over that "adult" break-up but, imo, it was her & your bruised young heart that defined you.
I’m not sure if it took you seventeen years to remember what she did to you, or seventeen years to tell me. I do know for sure that when you were about three years old, and we were driving home from your babysitter’s, you asked Mom what we were having for dinner, and when she said hot dogs, you slapped her. Then she slapped you back, and you both cried, and I was at a loss because you were (and are) the most non-violent person I know. No one knew your babysitter’s daughter took you to her bedroom when her overworked mother wasn’t looking, the horror of that closed door. Some boys collect arrowheads and baseball cards; you collected syringes, sewing needles, anything you could use to draw out those nightmares from your veins like venom from a wound. I didn’t know how to help you. I was afraid honesty would end you. I kept your secrets lodged in the back corner pocket of my heart while I painted your nails black, lent you my Nirvana & Pearl Jam CD’s and let you scratch them up. Bought new ones. Prayed you’d live long enough to hear them.
My attire was a sure-fire signal to all the feathered-hair sporting, tambourine jingling, denim-jumper wearing, Republican, Zionist, Fundamentalist classmates & congregants that **I** was having none of it. And if you’d asked, I was probably more devout than you—but in a way that didn’t make it about me vs. them or us vs. them or however you painted that corner of your ivory tower, that didn’t make me a worshiper of rules, that didn’t imbibe me with a gavel and a noose. I did not make enough noise at your man-made altar to warrant your approval. Didn’t kneel enough. Didn’t wail enough. Didn’t forsake the quiet of my sanctuary for the rattle of your wagon. Twenty-some years later, some of you are on probation, your second marriage, your third religion, your not-so-strange addiction, and I wish you would’ve listened when I said, it’s not a religion, it’s a relationship. When I prayed quietly and loved loudly and felt less judged by the girls who built borders with Ouija Boards & the guys who painted their nails blacker than you, my supposed community, but you never knew me; makes sense, you never knew Him either.
When you met me, you tried so damn hard to know me. You looked at me like my face was a revelation. Could not go two minutes without a glance, a question, a beckon, a reason to have my undivided attention. And, like a fool, I thought so much effort equated to your seeing me as a worthwhile human being; your adoration a longing for connection. And Lord knows, I cherish enough loved ones that the load sometimes takes more courage than my heart can carry, I am not on a quest for kindred spirits, but you seemed to need me so earnestly. Once again (like I couldn’t remember my twenties?), I chide myself for crossed-wires, for my small, unveiled sincerity, my authenticity, for wanting that connection too & deluding myself that you were someone worth knowing. But: I will never condemn myself for the open I offered you in spite of the falsity of your smile and the whispers behind my back; I am–awake. I’ve hammered the final, black nail in our coffin. I am hip to your bullshit.
from All the Guys I Didn't Date
Bobby–
The biggest mistake I never made/that older man appeal/ ten years my senior/blond, blue-eyed boy charm/electric guitar vibes/and a demo CD to go with it/classic sob story/I am a/beautiful man/with a beautiful body/who makes beautiful metal/between the fog/and strobe lights/I’d like to/with you/on the tabletop at Chocolate Park/behind the chained-metal gates/that’s what I imagine/you meant when/I said Sue was/commenting on/how you’d only come/to me at work/and you said/I bet she knows/all the things/I’d like to do/you gave me/a guitar pick/from that Disturbed concert/you went to/and it’s true/you’d only come/to me at work/& even though I/never touched you or/even gave the impression/I wanted to I/thought about that leather jacket/of yours from/time to time when/things got tough and/the way my gut/coiled when I/ran into you in/public how/ingenuine we were/when I was twenty/and stupid.
Curty–
Lana singing/you can be my full time daddy/white and gold/reminds me of/your arms bigger than/my body and/how you told me you even/tattooed that sensitive/part I/didn’t warm to you/until it seemed like you/didn’t give me a choice seemed/like it was important to/you that I liked you/teaching me to/play that game where flirting is safe/when the boundaries are/so solid I thought/we both understood/nothing was going to happen/if you let me/play the tease braid/my hair in pigtails like the/Lolita you wanted me to/be in your private screenplay/Once/your friend came in to/cash his check and/said Don’t let/Curty bamboozle you/so maybe it was only/a game to me/I was just a kid/who didn’t know the rules/men play who are/old enough to be/my dad/oops/sorry for that/stupid kid that I was/didn’t equate being happy to see you/with come at me bro/or a smile in response to/your dimples to/I want to run away/with you/those were your/inferences not/mine I was/never silly enough to/be anybody’s baby thanks/for sleeping with/your secretary you/fact-checked that illusion/real good.
Anomaly of the Five
I am weary of goodbyes
lived too long in this
transience between the swell
of my heartstrings and the precipice
of the Empty relearn the symphony
without his electric presence without
her eternal sunshine (with you, my love),
I learn & unlearn, learn & unlearn the
futility of waving when all the lifeboats
are docked but this doesn’t quite
feel like drowning anymore more
like Artax relenting to the swamps
more a receiving of the shadows I
can’t outrun because they aren’t my
Jungian underbelly they are gaslit
inheritance, a pirouette on broken
toes, sloppy and sad and beautiful
like
my heart
Sloppy: When you held me you
pressed heavy against my ribs as
if you could’ve pinned my lungs like
butterflies as if you could’ve erased
his indent with sardonic text
messages, rubber bands shot
at my forehead, insistence thrumming
from all the four-letter words you
spewed like seawater and the
one you were too proud to tell
me, it was not enough that I loved
you with the sunshine of a spring morning
because you made pulse beats easy,
that hallowed ground in me was never a
pissing contest & neither of you
should have made it that way,
I couldn’t tell you it was
never a choice for me that
he tread those depths
but you, walking away, was.
Sad: I was a hart crossed-path on the
equinox, pursued with the blood-
tinged frenzy of a Stag Run, on and
on you pushed me til my knees buckled
beneath that carmine til I relented to
the teeth in my neck til you showed
me claw-retracted feathers, the brilliant
unashamed kind, & I thought what the
hell–why not slit a little vein
for my soft side you seem to want so bad
but now you say, “you know
I’m leaving, right?” and what I want
is lips gone blue, to offhand a well, wow,
I guess if you can turn & walk you were
never really here to begin with so
whatever, but the
masochist in me whispers,
“stay”.
Beautiful: You have gone
from me so many times my insides
glisten with Kintsugi sutures but
you are the soul I cannot live
without, in eloquence I begged
leave me or f*cking deal with
it because I. can’t .quit. you.
so you remain, blood and guts
entrenched, the most exquisite
torture, loving you, leaping
on these broken toes, crawling
on glass-embedded palms, for
you I’d brave any shadow
especially the ones you
run from.
But I am weary of goodbyes
of the echo reverberating in
abandoned places, caving
against the inward curvature
of clipped wings, of plucked
feathers, of thick skin and this
elastic heart, sick of the
bullshit, most of all, that each
of you were
worth it.
ACCEPTANCE-reclamation of Self
Self,
you thought you could
keep this alive
the oldest of women's
lies:
if I just
love enough
accept enough
endure enough
bleed enough
am enough
AM enough
then, maybe
you'd have his
relationship
friendship
any vessel
***actively afloat
not family
no, that was fever dream
but someone
worthy
of common decency
of hearing
of not being
ignored
ghosted
as if his silence
was *your* failure mistook
as if it was a measure
of your worth,
your value,
your ability
to love
Goddess, you, have
ascended to divine
levels, traversed depths
breathed your lungs
blue in hopes that his
chest would rise, his
winds would turn towards
home that he would
remember the heartspace
he gave you cannot be
unnamed
unclaimed
or that vacant is just
another word for
gone
another name for
hollow
a track for
tears
Soul, remember
You
before him
you are all that you
gave him and infinite
more
the love he
withholds
from you
was only ever
a
reflection of
your light
***Too long
you've held pain
like it was love and
scraps of love like
the mirage of what
used to be what
will never be
again*** and that
was *never* YOUR choice
so stop fighting like
it's a battle
you can win
Heavy from the
echo chamber
of all this one-
sided waving,
flailing, screaming
from the shoreline
accept
the overdue
possibility that
you
will *never* get him
back
breathe the long
terrible breath of
this letting go that
feels like the saddest
kind of
>>freedom<<
Freedom to say:
I am bone tired of
running after you
I am fed up with
begging for the
*smallest semblance*
of your love
I will not make of
you this graven image
this echo chamber
this searing at the edges
of an unhealed wound
tell me that your mind
doesn't still shift to me a
stupid amount of times a day
like mine does to you
tell me that missing me
doesn't ambush your
insides like grief when you
least expect it, tell me you
don't find yourself in that
moment where you're living
your life and wish I was somewhere in it
tell me you don't remember the last
time you held me and didn't hold back
tell me you're not still holding back
If you won't love me
let me go
if that's not what you want
ffs--return a text
make a phone call
write a poem
affirm my worth, my value
to you---
Act like it.
Soldier Up
>He's filled his life w people he loves a hell of a lot more than you. You are a memory. You are irrelevant.
You are forgotten.
Let him go.
> He goes and he comes back and it's been eight years of this bullshit. He rebuilds your trust & then ghosts you.The cycle will not break. You will always lose him.
It's bullshit.
You and him are bullshit.
Let him go.
>You've always wanted him, needed him, like blood, like family. From the beginning. You thought it was mutual, but that is not what he wants. It never was.
You will never be his family.
Let him go.
>You have shamelessly bore your soul to him, for years girl, and his response is almost, always silence. If he feels anything for you, even a fraction of what you felt, still feel, he will never say it. Just as he will never tell you why it's been so easy to drop you, again & again.
There was never any making this easier.
He is a coward when it comes to you. Always has been.
Let him go.
>When you get like this, this hole is your chest aching in dusty breaths, you crawl back to fck knows what, as if YOU were the ghost, the silence, the one who marched away. You wave your drowning arms and expect gold threads, jellyfish tendrils, through those fractured heart tissues.
Baby, what are you crawling back to? A memory? A ghost?
The person you loved is gone. No one's gonna mend that muscle.
You stood on your own two fucking feet and thrust this monkey wrench into the wheel of your soul wound, round and round and round, broken record spinning. You faced the truth: yours was the only love left to be lost.
That love is a trail of moldy bread leading nowhere.
Remember, when you get like this. There is only yourself left to save.
And let him go
I Lost My Voice Text Partner
If our souls are
composed of those
we tether to tightly
enough to bear a mark
will I
eventually become the
shelled forest
a constellation of voids
left by the ones I've lost
Will there be any part
of my heart
that matters
that is not
Empty?
And who will
understand this
now that you
are gone?
I finally said: Enough
It hurts
how much
I still love you
So damn much
So much pain
in this void
only you
could ever
fill
Thanks a whole
effing lot.
when my
soul is this soft
when all I can
see or feel is
loss
to think of you
eight years ago
my shrine worshipper
my blood brother
& to forget
the lie that
you've
become
to forget
going back
what's lost is lost
Was it
always
a lie?
your "love"
and
if not
where the fuck
are you