Tag: poem

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

(Boulder, Colorado, Fall 2013)

where I am laying currently as this
is happening
 my chest is a bright, blue door
standing slightly ajar.

I felt like I was floating:
not on a lake or an ocean,
or a stream or my beloved mountain creek but
just lying on top of a big puddle of water in the air
 that existed for no explicable reason, much like
 all the grief  that took me by the tendrils
 and dipped me
 in the center of the canyon-deep flood that took place
 in the core of a six year old girl
who grew up to be giant and made of tinted glass
 and a grand total of
no one.

I looked up to see a white flower billowing
 above and for once in my life,
I appreciated it’s grace and splendor choosing
 to pass by it without disturbance.
I wanted to leave it right where it was;
an illusion of life and growth and flying flora in the sky.
when she touched my heart, I felt a green electrical charge
 shoot through my spine
 and then,
I became a swaddled baby rocking
 on a river of God.

it was the vision that mattered and
some parts I had forgotten, I don’t
write everything down:
 I was standing under the moon near a lake and some trees
and miles and miles of stars–he and I both.
suddenly a large white bird fell from the sky, swooped fast to stand and
then lay like it’s prey, floundering on solid sand
just praying to die.  
I looked at life through those bird’s eyes
 and saw a family before me:
a husband, a woman and child: all me and mine.
I felt myself age; withering skin that turned into tiny wells
 of wisdom cut deep in my cheeks,
brows and crown of gray storms, and lips that
 kissed only dusty picture frames and hard candy,
 and saw myself mourn my own passing.
I was clothed in all white with lilies in my hair
 before I sank to the bottom of a lake.
everything was blue.
everything was silent.
everything was moving away from me.
 I used to be a sound;
a loud wailing of a door
slamming shut with every one of
my yelps
until I fell back into myself,
until I remembered this vision
and it’s bright, blue current of
wild and divine help:

the bird suddenly came
back to life and flew away
and out came dozens of
blue birds.

“reiki” or “death reversed”
and

“The Woman Who Saw Her Own Death”

Part 1:

2

there you are.

Saturdays and the 1 pm alarm clock
on snooze,
the bare-faced evenings
in throw blankets;
languid, but there is still
a rabid tongue
between fits of sudden inspiration,
moved
from sheets to
cushions to sheets
to type it down,
to shower
once a week
if you’ll allow yourself to feel warmth
graze your chin, scalp,
untouched thighs.
open your chapped lips to the sky,
feel the water rush your neck and
trickle down your navel
to soak your unseen toenails.
do not question anything
for those three whole seconds;
it is the closest thing to orgasm
you can manage.

it has been a tough change in seasons:
tights and boots and an expansive
blankness that still drives your body around
after work to get soy milk,
make polenta for lunch,
take out the compost,
take out the trash,
finish something you once started
when it was
skirts and cherry blossoms,
some organic laughter and a patient optimism
that seems unvisited but should be
worked out by now.
sometimes it is actually raining.

it is harder than that too:
cold and cramps and no tissues
or pads and an anniversary coming
 that stings
 and does not let go.
and you do hear from them
but with expectations.
you have wrapped yourself tightly
in some binding perseverations
so you constrict yourself,
restrict your errands, and bleed openly
on the carpet.
and sure, there is hunger,
but it’s quick and
you succeed in a relatively
docile surrender.
so what is there outside?
sometimes it is a blizzard.

then it’s flowers and unexpected showers
but it is day longer, sun higher,
you are not mired in the date of departure
anymore, and you forgive the monsoons.
your sensualizing emotions present themselves:
the gloss and black tips,
hips in sheer nylon,
a gentle sway.
sometimes it is unseasonably warm
and you have to hold your cardigan in your hand
but you have managed a smile
and some sense of buoyancy
and dragged someone along
 with the sleeves of
your unworn sweater.
you get lucky:
they want to take the
long way and you have a tendency to
suddenly rush things.

you are both broken
doe and the trap laid
for their arrival.

“ambush” or “8th house”

 

8.

 

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

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