Tag: love poem

I’m a martyr
so I like my last lines to
linger     chill you;
bring you back here
to finish me.

I’m hanging over your bed at night
 like a decaying canopy
causing some coughs,
some fits of temperature,
a rotten synopsis of my
irrationalization;
my constant adieu in drama and boot heels
clicking further from you.
my lips in the rearview:
red as fresh hell,
soft like fresh pain,
your new lover is plain

wrapped in old sheets where I used to explode,
an improvised painting:
billowing carnality drawn open to reveal
a euphonious home, soldier heart;
sparked and smoldered from the start,
glossy eyes and reaching fingers and I’m
cracking at the edges when I hear
your name.
a broken backbone replete with
your ex lover’s stain,
unnatural twist,
unnatural bow towards your new lover’s
place.

unslept, unkept, unkempt bangs and sweat,
breasts heave, fall, beg for response
and your lips once returned the question mark with a
declaration, a finality,
laconic exclamation mark and charged fuzz
 nesting on my lap.
          can she feel the lake I was for you?
you, a sly river stone, sinking to the the bottom of
the nearest wet bed.
I’m dry now but
slippery like a seraphic harpoon
catching you on good days;
Saturdays in the park watching the clouds rewrite the sky
and her and I’m stuck
 to your dick,
grip you hard and lit like a cosmic albatross
shadowing you nightly.
Sunday night when you’re resting with loss,
American Spirits and a cat who can’t cut it,
I’m hovering     all week
you’re brainstorming ways to save the world at work,
and I’m in your coffee mug.
you’re choking on my suitor’s dried intentions:
guzmenias, spider plants, handful of daisies,
calendula, roses from the uninspired,
whatever I ask for.
watered down apologies, post it notes reminding me
where they will be
(forever haunting beds)
and shrinking cocks recoiling at the sight of such
rehearsed malignance.
I want my parting to be
harder than us:

a seizure in your stomach,
a rift in your lungs
where I used to rest my hands to feel the songs
you had for me
but your honeyed lips too thick with
other people’s crusted blood
 to talk about it;
about us.
a zephyr in your hair that tickles,
sticks to your crown and moans loudly;
the way I sound when I come:
a saint dying at your altar tongue.
a parade on your timeline,
the last firework,
the first thunderstorm,
the first time someone hints at
love
 and the interminable door slams
shut.

me, I’m self effacing only in lines,
only in verse.
humbled by stark correction,
a closed fist perhaps,
a silent light that sets you on fire,
drowning in self,
an ocean as well,
insides rocking
tidal laments that implode in quiet, wild
violence,
stalking the world’s line,
biding mine with letters
and blades      my time;
stifled, I’m waiting
 for that envelope
you promised
reminding me I was
right about time and
space is the price.

“space”

0

show me how to be an angel,
sky, I think I’ve been there
 before        before I found
what my hands can do
when they’re not pressed together
anymore:

bring donuts for the office.
offer silence in embrace,
holding space or advice
if they say help me get through
it with action.
paint houses, mend fences.
pull the nails from my true love’s feet:

I placed them everywhere he
dances and I .
smile openly at strangers,
hold the door and inner weeping.
stop repeating anecdotes that expose the
 dark recesses  I’m engulfed in so I can
stop
passing this on     so I can
save face, space for
longing, mystery, idleness.
it’s the surprise that I can’t take.

I invite them to dinner:
ask them to bring a favorite song,
one dish and
a defect they love.
I like strings and female wailing;
chords that are long, surfeit with
 unrequited love.
I want it to sound like a heart that’s starving
 for admission but will take it slowly
 with a snare drum.
I apologize profusely for how bright my
 apartment is these days.
I know you expected something darker,
I say,
 but I prefer a blinding scripture to the days I
waded in shade and open constriction.
they understand the situation,
my indifference and malignance.
they offer me some gifts to assuage
me and I waste the night
with demands, scrutiny,
verbal inspection.
show me all the books you love.
recite your favorite lines.
I think the world is crawling with caged geniuses
 that got lost along the way;
are you a lonely prodigy or
do you only appear to shine with
mine?
I need to see your insides;
 palms up to show
 you aren’t hiding anything.
are you the predator or prey?
do you believe in martyrs,
more importantly,
 do you believe that the devil vets the saints?
 I’m no killer, I promise, but I’m not the easy way.
do you believe in chance?
I once watched my fate unfold across my eyelids:
 two parties coming together in black and white,
a future that was possible but someone whispered:
 it is better to ruin this thing.
I believe in lessons.
I believe in dormancy.
there is no such thing as a mistake.

they show me teeth, piano, films:
Begotten.
I laugh, I’ve seen it:
I show them the drugs I bought,
my darkest cackle and matching garter.
show them a dozen ways to trample gardens
with a notepad.
do you see how I can write the future?
 look, I planted bombs everywhere.
 I show them demolition.
 I show them scribes can craft the wicked.
I show them altars, smitten
eyes and a tongue that’s wound around
the Earth.
I show them what my insides look like:
wounds and trillion year old dirt and
I light three candles,
wear them like a rope.

have you ever let a thought just pass?
one interrupts as I dangle over his
crown.
let me down.
and I repeat to them what I meant to say
 the first time we met to explain the danger
 of restriction.

it is nothing,
time    a longing
and I wait.

“ricochet”

0

the boys I rescued
 and turned to saints;
their features outlined in
filthy thoughts    I

let them touch me with
rinsed fingertips,
watch them take great pleasure
in stroking the arches of my bare feet;
my callouses holding proof
of the miles I have walked
to hug the west.
better than my own docile traces
of lust pressed against them;
my own famished touch
as I dip into my cleft and whimper
because I can’t come big enough.
that sweaty heart of male violence,
male wants,
eroticized guns,
learn the art of being
enthroned in your
sex.
those biceped tongues,
those blue black nights where I fuck to get the
battle out so they don’t
 accidentally drown a garden
they were supposed to love.


other nights I do it hard,
grip the keys and shout sometimes;
let the room fill with copper, lick myself
from the chain,
taste my own
domination;
my submission to myself and
let you understand the dangers of
eroticized pain;
the art of being bled
for your sex.

smudged lip gloss
on their bare cheeks,
hosts
my undoing.
       teach me how to love like war
my persistent
bleating
inner child,
hands out and
crawling to you,
barely fed, swallowed by
red     lonesome and
under you,
next to you,
over you,
overdone,
over the moon

but yet still a shadow
at your nightstand
waning in your rising
sun.

“the martyr”

0

one dangling finger pointing
to her skin to remind you
how she feels
at night;
smooth like soft-shelled
murder.

“the photograph”

 

 

0

when I was a kid
my dad played this game:
he would ball his fists and
 stick his arms in front
of us

start turning them over;
one over the other in a circular
motion like a machine; the way
gears turn round
and round and he would repeat
the phrase
perpetual motion.
we would start to laugh;  
those secret games
only family gets.

he would say go ahead, Sarah,
you can’t stop it;
it’s perpetual motion,
go ahead, go ahead
in his thick New Jersey accent;
Wild Irish Rose on his breath,
and a pack of Merits nearby
one burning in the ashtray.
my brother pinching or
poking me to distract me.
I was so small.
I would reach for his arms but
he used his might and
kept turning them like
he was churning something.
the dog was usually howling
and I would be overcome by a fit
of giggling listening to Matt’s
sarcastic comments, watch the smoke
drift from the table and my
mom somewhere near smiling
and he was right:
I couldn’t stop it.
I was  too young
and weak.
he would just roll his arms,
his hands clenched and say
perpetual motion
perpetual motion
sarah sarah it’s perpetual
motion.
I would scream and
jump on top of his forearms
to prove him wrong
but everyone agreed that was cheating.

it was the emptiness
I couldn’t take;
the space from the post to
my side and the absence of
words between that.
and also the unbridled
mood swings.
the way no one saw me
or heard me or checked
in.
  I would spend hours
pacing the small corridor, the
tiny living room and saying things
out loud to myself:
I can make it
it’s fine
I can make it here
or I would turn it up
as loud as it would go and
vacillate between the pacing and
jumping up and down, twisting
a necklace or straw
 in my hand
and I would picture only one thing:

breakfast or dinner
with a man   it wasn’t
the man, it was the nourishment
I craved, the nutrition
I lacked and the double security
of food and laughter.
it always took place over a meal.
I reached for it every time I felt
anxious, every time I had a
major transition–the savior returned;
the reverie of an unconditional
ear, someone placing their hand on
the small of my back,
handing me water,
congratulating me on completing
a piece and asking me
the question.
I rarely pictured the warmth
in sex   that wasn’t what
I lacked.   it was the question I wanted.
he always held space for
the long version.
taking a bite with my fork,
it was cooked or take out
or restaurant, it didn’t matter.
it was warm and filling
and good.

 he would say
tell me again
and I would begin the story
where it began:
January 5, 2014,
I arrived in
Kensington to awake
from the middle of a
perpetual daydream.
no, the thing
about your brother
“Sarah,” she paused, getting my attention again.
“You were going to tell me more
about your brother,”
my therapist repeated.
it’s Thursday, I’m between worlds
again and we are finally
opening it. 

“synchronicity”

0

you want to ask about inspiration
without asking what’s become of
the ones before you
and I want to get to the bottom
of it.

imagine me
walking
in perfect rhythm
with the moon:
industrial moods unsteady like
my block; a concrete cell lined with
glock teeth,
warehouses lined with
broken windows thirsting like plants
for a peek of the sun
and I’m bouncing with the
tremors of the train I  barely caught
while I pause to fix my brow, bun
lips and the
other ones;
mud on my boots,
snow on my tongue,
those white whispers
like tiny quivers of attrition
eating me alive.
slurp the finality of requited love.
my voracious stomach is
prowling to the vibration of
your brawn, breaking chest
opening in some quiet place
to let me,
your hungry little ghost,
back in and then
right back out.

the lines of my veins
are blue-red and
flushed
with other people’s
last thoughts,
last heads on pillows,
shared stories, tea, beds,
and the repeated
click
of a door unabashedly
slamming shut
in my face instead
of an invitation.
my spasmodic heart
hurriedly smooths
the creases in her butcher skirt.

you want to know and I can’t
anymore:
the fastest way to get
between two points
 is a straight lie but
forgive me and try to
imagine me alive,
walking in perfect rhythm
to the cracks I made
 in us searching for
some light.

9.

0

i’m draped in wide fluorescent lighting,
slightly mollifying.

I come to myself
and collapse
on top of the thing playing
footstool
before he stretches out his back like a
bored house cat
and licks the cream from an inner thigh.
my unpolished toes curl
in revulsion.

chairs squeak;
someone coughs and adjusts the lights,
I blot my mouth and cheeks with an
 embroidered handkerchief that’s initials
aren’t mine.
find my heels.
pull my blouse over my tender chest,
try not to look in any mirrors
on the way out
and notice the exit sign

shimmering,
 more red
than usual.

“how we meet”

0

I should walk out
big as Venus,
arms uncrossed,
if I was ever honest.

my arms are wrapped
in a purple peacoat and
my hair is curled with an iron to
add ebullience to errands.
suddenly gather every strand with
self importance in
 tiny felt bundles.
that week I had even painted my nails a
 bright color; a conversation starter,
 but I’m
truly as vapid as possible.
            remain as sunny as possible.
insipid and careful,
rip it all out later
privately
as if beauty even matters
when I’m on the floor in tangles
trying to untangle
words I can’t commit to;
making the motions of crying   stopping
to cough politely
to no one in the room.

I listen to AM radio today.
grasp the magnitude of crooners’ legacies,
of death reverberating against each window,
understand how most lives are wasted shirking
the embarrassment of a simple
I love you
when we could have said nothing,
just hugged more or looked at
each other. .
but I put distance between myself  
and those I run to.

i’ve been dying  drying to drown
 myself again
 in three consecutive hours of
smuggled moonshine and
 a quick spin around the block,
no seatbelt,
knees up and the airbag on
climbing that ladder to the sun,
 project my inner warmth all over pedestrians
 in middling dust
and they’ll say

                 oo I feel like I was gently touched.

or locked in a necklace that bruises my clavicle when
I’m not careful
 and I suddenly have to
run from it all.
I want to be fetal in silver and sapphire
grabbing his charred pinky to hold on,
hugging his hard heart and I still can’t call home
 with any urgency and there are
people always seeking me.

storm clouds form on the side-view,
settle and condense.
the glass is  dotted with a thousand tiny reflections
of  survivor’s guilt
anthropomorphized.
this decade feels like elastic chaos,
one overwrought vignette that stretches
continentally and I can’t
get a break and the light rain
 from a gray cloud
can’t flood this whole thing.
did God intend to rip this from my insides
this way?     I hurdle myself
headfirst into a  mirror
in an effort to memorialize
fresh heart all over the closest floor
without a towel or a
polite giggle
or a posed frown.
no monologue or saccharine coat
or any real motive
except it was true:
i wanted teeth too.

lit a cigarette and choked.
take another drag,
i’m composed.
watch the smoke cut designs into the ceiling.
you liked this    don’t forget the feeling
of the first inhale;
the first time you rolled the stick
between your fingers
your thumb smelled like
the kitchen window.

the first time you saw your brother
 smoke behind the garage
and he sneered;
you had spray painted your name into it first.
before you learned to paint the worms,
he taught you how to shake the can.
he taught you how to tag the shed.
he taught you how to lie to dad
about the missing colors.
he taught you how to
curl up into a ball and drift
back into your insides
whenever you hear the rattle
like baby’s teeth
being tossed left to right
inside the
 bottle.

“anniversary”

 

5

keys,
a shuffle,
my half smile directed at a
 windowsill and a forced
dulcet pause to
wrap a throw around bare shoulders,
strapless bra     i’m mussed enough
 to form new creases,
stretch my tousled jaw
into a long yawn.

I can see your long trail of spit
glisten lightly like snow,
still,
from elbow to the scar
above my wrist when I was
really hitting the wine.
I wipe it on the pillowcase.
my lips are sand dry,
knuckles crack a bit when they reach and
my toes are curled for a different reason
this time,     I am emptied.
your shadow’s growing larger:
an elongated feeling that stretched and stretched
 and stopped right before
it got to mine,
bit back,
ran.
toss a look over brawn shoulder.
i’m no feast, you know,
but you wait like March hunger
for ful lspring, so close
yet still light blizzard,
still heavy rain.
you want that
hot spot to hit the ground
but snow lingers   you want
that drizzle then moist
and green,  some sunflowers,
a tomato plant and bees
offer their honey from the bottoms of their
black bellies and you take all you can get.
sniff a tulip,
feast on cool breezes of
me
when I’ll have it.

I cough or sneeze
and no make no motion to ever
be haunted;
to ever be eaten,
to ever grow something from the arm
you licked that used to hold little butter knives
threateningly
towards him, towards me,
us     hold scissors and
 think about it,
hold shot glasses to not;
where I used to force myself to hug my brother
at Christmas
and nights, nowadays
any holiday,
I etch his name everywhere it fits;
where you watched the sun
shadowplay with branches on my olive skin
and you mistook them for
fingers to grab,
hold,
swallow;
where I stretched myself,
a bored tiger and lifted my once
impaled bones, my once river bones,
            (wet for it every time)
up, held my hand up,
nails long and dry,
held your gaze,
waved without change in
expression and
your back is to the door.

i’m sitting up in a fetal position.
my profile is reflected in the
dusty whites of your eyes.
I have developed a new shade:
smudged green eyeliner and
the rest some kind of
lovely barren.

“beds”

0

slugs salted on the patio,
 cicada shells clinging to the moldering
legs of my childhood picnic bench,
hundreds of unclaimed Easter eggs
rotting under rusty swing sets,
a mouse writhing on a glue trap
that was just SHOVED
in a garbage bag
and me
just staring–
just
freshly out of love.

6.

my wings tip towards
the sun and I’m triumphant
in my emptiness,
my patient nihilism I
chew when the void becomes
the only measurable thing
in my life   I don’t

notice the oncoming car.
grasshopper never notices
the magnifying glass
 or pesticide gun.
dog with the mange and glaucoma
blithely to cage.
drunk blindly to rage
then car
then grave.
snail to salt,
cricket to web,
temple to gun
and you say
what I never notice is
us.

“love”

 

2

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