Friday, July 28, 2017

The Funny Man

if news could take a figure
it would crack me at the throat
split the dam like a dagger
cuts the jugular
scratch the blood out of me
till it spills in liters
a shattered faucet
i clutch to what stays of me
to the sweat that curdles
at my eyes
and my constipated heart

a voice cracks
on the phone splitting time
with its minutes of death
bolting me to this gravel
and maggot filled earth
with its icy command:
Stay and listen and listen and listen
to the cracks on the phone
the cracks as the body cremates

"Your Grandfather is dead."

and I can feel my head
tilting tilting tilting
off its neck



Wednesday, May 10, 2017

First Draft: I wonder....

I sit in bed and wonder who I am, and wonder and wonder
I can hear the thoughts of millions, the stories that aren't mine but that I so badly want to tell like a over excited child I track mud in and take before I think, dirty the jewels that someone else has so carefully polished
I am moved by that which sparkles but when someone tells me to find my own jewels I can only see mud.
Paw prints on the wall, a musty scent of week old odor.
I wonder who I am
Wonder like a child trying to find it's mom, who is going to hold my hand?
I don't really believe it when I see all those famous people doing famous things without holding someone's hand.
But they must be right?
Maybe the hand is hidden, cut out from the camera or maybe they forgot to tell it in their stories.
I'm starting to realize that I'm only as special as my mom thinks I am.
I can't do special things, just get pushed into special places.
I work well under pressure because my mom always has me under pressure, like her cabbage stew.
Or is it the other way around?
Her cabbage stew cabbage stew is always under pressure because it's always under pressure like me.
That sounds right and yet not quite, like sound of an empty house where everyone is gone except for one little girl or a desert rock at sunset that looks like a grinning face.
My mom is the special one and yet I'm the carrier of dreams. Everything went so well it's wrong and I am scared at night of expecting too much or being expected of anything. I don't want to break any dreams.

Friday, May 5, 2017

Something More Then Friends

I told him yes, but
it never came from the heart.
I told him I love you, but
it never meant anything to me.
When we broke, he couldn’t understand why.
I’m cruel to have him by my side.
I’m a monster to let him go.
I can’t find peace in myself,
just fear and frustration
and the want to run away.
From what?
From him?
No, he is not scary, but his hand is
 when it reaches around my shoulder,
A silent declare that I am his.
When he kisses it’s like a brand,
 I instinctively squeeze my lips
 to not let anything in and when
I’m done I wipe the kiss away.
No, he doesn’t scare me, but
being something more then friends does.