Tag: creative writing

 

“And you’re still addicted to way back when instead of
coming back to life.”

—Buddy Wakefield

there once was Boulder
and the flatirons draped in
summer sun.

I always had popsicles and
 chapstick on hand,
a wet coral lipgloss,
tantrums and suggestive tones
that my brother would make it through,
funerals and weddings and cherry-
stacked Shirley Temples;
 a lot of  murmurs
 from a  painful
you declaring your love for me
in the middle of the night in
the middle of my hometown
while I was drunk on my former losses
and no cocktail to hold.
then there was despondent me
taking it all in
with a wilted corsage in my hair

that I wanted to wear the next day
 but couldn’t wait
so bought it three days early and

                 never mind the water
my date called and
without twenty four hours notice,
stood me up.

you stood in.

we attended the wedding the next day;
on the anniversary of our trip across country.
I wore a peach vintage dress and tied a
ribbon in my hair instead of
 the dehydrated orchid.
you brought me a headband and a bracelet to match,
said some dulcified things about my progress
and recovery, apologies about my brother
 and you hoped my mom would be ok,
a little postcard that said “Ghent”
 to remind where I came from
and a note on the back to remind me
where I’ve been.
to your credit,
I never said it,
            (mostly self seeking back then)
we had it.

I never appreciated much
until I moved here and was
left in a townhouse on the
edge of Lehigh
and these days,
I appreciate just a little bit of sun
through the mirror of clouds that frowns back
and the retreat of all the workers and corners
to their shelters somewhere barely safe,
a brief meditation on my mattress,
enough money for dinner and
if I’m lucky, a nap
 in the middle of the day where I lay
letting the thoughts of us
 running to the west and unlocking fingers
 to each discover it
in our own way
wash over me
to the sound of
          forgive the sudden bird chirps
mostly silent days.

and we had it
so I know it happens.

“liberation”

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one time I came to in my kitchen
holding a knife over my wrist and
a phone with an unsent text
to a girlfriend
asking for help,
telling her where I was at.

these things haunt you
when you do the dishes
sometimes.

“squall”

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but to you there’s no difference between
decimation and the resolve so you’re
palms out begging for it
and here comes the reaper
wearing your blood.

you are God-drawn,
celibate,
obsessively
testing yourself and
wrapping lovers in
protection.
what white eyes you have
even in blackness,
even in malice you take
the time to care:
line their wrists in violet,
mugwort, alyssum.
crown them in tourmaline,
rose quartz and apophyllite.
              it’s your gift we’re after
hear them clap.
become the madness for
them; deliver asylum and
I love you.
it is always me on the hearth
learning chants and you
tall, wickless and
unburned beside me
so I can’t see unless I
set myself on fire
and you remember the
bind you’re in.
what it’s all about.
I already said:
     it’s the titles you should
        be looking at.
“this unfolds reversing” or “in pyre”

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you can shake your fist at any
foaming coast but her
break remains unscathed,
her scorn in
waves,
her calm in
tides,
wet snarls pacified in
moon-swept stages
depending on the time of month,
the climate or the
stage.

you are barefoot:
some pedestrian gesture of
 worship.
shrine.
avoiding the shells and
ghost crabs that litter the beach
at gloaming.
you’re wild and roaming
 again seeking to slice wrists
with guilt and urgency,
pretension,
steal the scissors from his girlfriend’s
pocket.
                    what’s it like to be a hypnotist?
take a seat.
notice your veins rock,
glisten with munition.

life’s a seething blade
and you wear yours deep in your lungs.
the ways you have learned to assuage
are more permanent in placement
if you face it when you
say it.
write it on the page.
have them sing it with
vexation.
have them say it out loud and
curse themselves.
you watched your hands become tributes
to iniquity so you ask your feet
to become your fingers
now,
nothing from your mouth
going forward.

watch your toes curl in the sand
before you start wading.
you are practicing the dying art of
self-restraint.
you are practicing
prayer, overdo
amends.
you are seeking a quiet rest
inside of  yourself.

you are seeking the
 sudden wreck
that laid you.

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consult the oracle again.

wear what you want,
let these animals control themselves
my tiny ball of citrine says so
I put on my cat suit
and go for a walk
to catch tan in the new
big sun.   it was a long winter
of regression, needs unmet
and anchored in self by
a weighty repression,
lamps and the length of
my ire stretched, permanent,
coming undone on your pillow
where you wept in peace
until I charged back in
costumed in tank.

i’ve blown the tea lights out;
my presence is altar,
sit naked in the eyeline of the fan and
spools of smoke from bamboo incense
crown my head       I am showered,
manicured, my skirt is barely an inch of fabric
containing my pubic bone or
buttox so they’re stuck
to me like sweat hot salt  
sticks dripping down my skin.
I dab some tiger’s eye oil and jasmine
on my wrists,

brush their arms with
my nails, cut through centers,
stop absentmindedly to change song
 and let
their thighs press my thighs,
their forearms hit mine.
it’s the invitation I am waiting
for.    there are
ambulances wailing all over town
carrying victims of stroke
with blood rushing upward
forming an arrow,
the fletching pointing to their throat.
they feel the beat of wings
before they feel
my hands wrap their larynx
and the first thing they tell me:

you’re full of secrets.

“catcalls”

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rainstorm.

unscheduled and I had been
comfortable in shifting drought.
avoiding the wasps
hidden in the grass
with my clumsy, calloused toes
seasoned from walking too far
 and too hard in unpadded sandals
when the first sign of spring hits,
and my sky blue sundress seems a
sudden hindrance:

flimsy, strap always falling down and
blows up in breezes
so I have to keep watching the way I
carry myself around men.
I crouch and the hem crawls to
 expose my left thigh and the
garter you gave me:
not the daisies I wanted,
a ring of bruises
in the shape of your open mouth
still fresh with conquest;
lasting impact of
your parting breath that
said nothing and now
just hangs there and hurts
when I shower.
wait

I’m counting cicada shells
under the picnic table;
a gesture of presence.
someone told me to stop everything
and I needed a year to pass.
I scrubbed away the last of your fingernail
but I have to ride those
bite marks out.
blinked once and a ripple in the sky
 burst; liberated and aimless,
she shows just one day’s worth
 of self-containment uncondensed,
without tension, falling naked
she’s black and soft and
seamless        surfeit with mild
 violence, crackling and
completely cageless.

my feet are covered in mud
before I even notice the shadow
wash over my bangs.
wait.
drenched in flood my head
is dark red because you liked
“subtlety”
and I liked demonstrative movement;
a hint of auburn wasn’t enough to show
blood with just a little bush
so I adorn myself with ritual:
hair dye and cleanses,
little thorns,
little kills to draw your
attention.   my knees hurt and
all those cicadas are dead
so I stand to lift my face to the thunder;
a small gesture of inflorescence.
Wait.

open my arms purposefully
like petals of a rose exhaling
 in relief for the drink
her master brings.
parched from the work my dry words had done
undoing
as they roamed free all over
your front yard.
God makes pacts with penitents
and you barely have a face that isn’t
my reflection so I’m itching to be clean and
 fresh and start
again.
stretch my neck with pride to
to catch her drops on tongue,
 bold with my repentance
and ready to wash away
 the phantom jaws that bait me.
but suddenly charged,
the gray sky remembered
she held lightning.
and suddenly illuminated,
I remembered
      
 I am
 the dark thing
inside of me.

“prayer”

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I carry tempest in my
lungs :a cold black murmur
that hooks it hums
in earthworms and writhes
to surface after rains
 winding street lamps to
devour them like dirt cake.
I hit the corner as
you are walking up.


the light goes out
and somewhere near
a tire screeches drowned
by the sharp inhale
you take when
a cyclist scrapes his tire
on a criss-crossed track
and spins into a tumble
that splits his helmet
on a bumper and someone
screams: are you ok?
and rushes over.
an older man pauses,
turns to you scratching
his neck and
says: this city is full of
accident lately; is it another
retrograde? laughs absently
and stands still on
the flashing yellow.
your hands are clenched
in pockets waiting for
the red.


I am walking slowly,
wearing cotton sundress and
consenting saunter.
my hips are wide,
lips are pursed and
I am quiet, light and
diffusive but mired in
 insides.
there are twelve dogs
with meat in their eye
nearby choking on their
collars.

I am wearing a blue alyssum
in my hair but
you will know me either
by my touch
if in enough of a rush and
close proximity to brush
an elbow with a thumb,
or the sudden sun I permit:
open laughter near your
chin, grabbing you
with force,
 inordinate apology
for the accidental brush,
moist I’m sorry spills over
my freshly-done, pink
velvet lips as we collide
in front of everything,
wait for green or
similar direction.
there are sirens in the distance.

you?
you will know me by
my fang-toothed smile.

“morphic resonance”

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I am giant:
strong legs, flexed tonsils,
tight back from climbing your forearms
to get to your mouth.    my nails are
filed and
 scratching at your chest
on the way there to let your home
 know what I own.
I compromise but I am
never quiet.

I’m full of bargains:
one dollar books and yesterday’s makeup,
hair knotted with century old lesions and
 previous engagements so I
shave it off every chance I get.
try to forgive myself for
such large displays of
arrogance.
you want me to comfort you in
cadence and I obey it
deriving satisfaction with the way my voice
sounds as I practice inflection,
ending my prose in pointed questions
you will have to answer,
the pleasure of seeing my mask unfold
on screen        i’m paralyzed in heat
so I often freeze when confronted
but in between I leave
sweet, murmured ellipses
all over your body.

but know
I’m a noose so tight you try wearing me
like a loose fitting garment
or just one hard day’s night,
I might flinch and
boy, I might hang
you.

“Scorpio in South Node, natal”

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rafters lit with strobe lights,
smoke lines,
broken paneled reflections of
thirty years of bottled insights,
throttled insides.
the air is laced with metallic smiles,
a camaraderie that’s uninviting
and sporadic flickers
of someone else’s lighter.
I rock in the center absentmindedly.
I have no business stopping by.

you watch me with
staggered silence and
constantly,
smile wide and big and
sudden.
I’m impacted   in seconds,
sides of me are split,
flowing as I stand
idle.
your smirk some
blunted rifle.

you watch me mask my panic
 with ten plus years of
a bawling inner child,
unmanageable reflexes
that end in stifled violence,
milky looks and a muted
predatory hunger.
I am wearing
my best calf impression:

slow,
doe-eyed and anxious.
blue tights, black heeled boots that
scuff the floor as I
wander     as I daydream in public;
rub a soft elbow,
sip a virgin seltzer tonic with
cherries and some other
 light garnish.
                 stay as close to God as possible
watch you with marrow armor and
calculated patience and I am a spinning
blue black swirl of approachable
sainthood.
twirl somewhere nearby and deign to give you
open eyes for at least
twenty seconds at a time.

you crack a joke and
my laugh is deep,
loud,
brays right through you
 like a swaying knife.

you asked for it.

“first dances”

 

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