Tag: poem

Solo in a Hotel

I spent the night alone in a hotel

Deleting pictures of my ex

I looked for meaning in their face

But all I could see was a mess

And all I could hear were the shitty

Little things they had to say

About my friends and all my work

It’s better it turned out this way

I never knew my heart could break

From someone’s personality

But I decided it was best to be 

The image that they made of me

You’re too intense it’s not enough

When all I wanted was good morning

I guess a text was just too much

Or else I’d get their scorning

And they were way too blind

Too ignorant

Said I broke up without warning

But if they paid attention they would have known

By just my face that morning

It sucks to think they won’t be loved

In the way that I could give

But no one comes between my friends

And tells me how I’m supposed to live

When we hung up that night

I didn’t know what would come next

But goddamn it felt really good 

To say my worth with my whole chest

Green Thumb

Green Thumb

Should have walked away when
we started comparing scars,
when you told me time and again
about the same one on your knee.
When we ran out of things to say
and you never liked small talk anyway
but our candles still burned
and you turned your wick away from me.
Should have stopped when you said
I was too intense, not a compliment
but a challenge to make me small.
Should have thought again when
I asked you to be happy for me
and you said it would take away
From all you wanted to do for you.
Unresolved and sad.
I still fell in love.
Could blame it on the stars and say
it’s because I’m a scorpio.
But it’s because I like to garden
and watch things grow.
I guess I always fall in love with potential.

Love is a verb

Love is a verb

Love is not an action based on convenience.

It does not hold to suit the suitor 

at earliest or latest hour.

The flowers do not choose rain

or sun,

or what kills them. 

Let love maim or heal, but heal first.

Broken love is worse than death –

Heavy dragging hands. Long labored breaths. 

Love for one and none for all. No matter the cost

it is always too great for some.

To give love away only to those deemed worthy.

Reach in your pockets and produce 

lint. Maybe gold. 

Offer both or not at all. Lint for a fire 

to warm someone’s soul 

or gold for a meal to enjoy between 

eyes and hands. 

Reach into your chest and pull out your heart. 

Give it away in its infinite replenish,

for our hearts are the only thing that grows 

when we share. 

Throw Down in the Old Leather Chair

Throw Down in the Old Leather Chair

Thrown down in the old leather chair,

in the learning fields,

rattling of love and nature’s bones. 

And the seeds are strewn around.

Dust and mud, the path is clear and messy

Wishes sent to the clouds, feet stuck in the ground. 

Skeletons of endless Springs wrapped in winter’s hold,

nails dug into foundations worn and familiar. 

Fingerprints lost.

Listen, listen to her sing. 

On a bare mattress

warmed only by breath,

the steady thrum of hearts, fingers playing spines. 

I have to go. 

I have to go.

The King Tree

The King Tree

The king tree blossoms over

his deep rough scars

and under eternity –

Beauty that will collapse slowly

at the hand of gravity 

and the endless blues of god.

Fruit to bear and tumble down 

to rot, a mess that feeds the mother –

His offerings will leave him bare

and gray.

But he will never stop,

even with rushing river below

that licks his roots patiently,

loving,

a constant chime of the inevitable.

The king tree continues to bear his fruit. 

He drops in symphony,

bright red-orange hue,

delicately to death.

Continue on and pay no mind to the river –

the river always wins.

Meeting my Soul

She carries me, my soul.
My aching, tired bones wrapped in weathered skin 
that sheds and thins and fades like pages torn.

She will carry me along the curvature of the earth
until there is nothing left but my spine.
An infant in her infinite arms,
she swaddles me like the mother
I knew.

I am her, my soul, but I don’t know her, not entirely.
She has been bare breast and firm chest
with traits of Eve and Adam.

She has sailed over thousands of seas.
She killed and was killed and watched die,
so many.
She is both Lilith and Virgin Mother.

The apple and the worm,
to eat the sweetness of life and consume its sugars until rotten,
feeds the dirt only to return again, same soul.

I have only a time to learn her ways,
to reach out my hand and touch her face.
I will sail seas and die to become her.
My soul, my mother, me.

Deep Black Green

I cannonball into the deep black green

suspended.

No noises like my dreams, nothing to be seen.

I listen only to the water to drown out my head,

the cool kisses of salty brine surrounding me.

Below, the sticky tar-like silt waits

for the final bubbles to leave my lungs –

Please gasp.

Please try to breathe.

But I breach the surface once more, the black green

rolls over me and parts again for reality.

Just a moment’s peace. Just some time in the nothing.

My eyes wander the skies to find my bearings,

some familiarity.

They stop upon the oak tree,

waving.

Dearly departed

Yelling out,

Where are you,

doesn’t make the dead return.

Yet you convince yourself

that the tingle on the back of your neck in the black

is more than just the ceiling fan.

You want to tell yourself that they returned through the steel veiled doors

but remember, you and yours,

When you’re kneeling –

Screaming –

Pleading –

On all fours –

They left in September and they’ve never left,

Always in the urn.

Funeral Flowers

She was dead long before she stopped breathing.

Her sunken, empty eyes

held no hope as she sat idly

on the deck or face-down on the beach as the sun

breathed her in.

She seized her moments of clarity around their necks

and submerged them, whining in ether.

She starved her body of loving embrace

and recoiled to touch like she was toxic

and contagious.

And when her eyes fused shut when life burnt out,

she reached towards the ceiling for God to hold her.

Open-Ended

I often wonder what moment

for you was the pistol

and what moment

was the decision to pull

the trigger.

It’s usually a split

decision that moves like

an indiscernible 

brush stroke, uniform – 

An obvious beginning

and end but no sign

of the climax.

I often wonder what life

you would have led

if you didn’t stay – 

If you didn’t say yes 

to a rock that was below

your worth – 

If you didn’t measure 

your life in poorly 

assembled dominoes –

A uniformity doomed from the moment

you began self-medicating.

You were never meant to fall straight.

Would you have 

remained

in the Native Land

with red clay to call

home and ground yourself

to ancient beings who never fell from the sky?

Who would you have become

if you stopped

holding on so hard?

I may have never been

but I speculate the sacrifice 

would have been worth you knowing 

old age.