Tag: poetry

it hurt
but not as much
as memory;
not as much as looking back.
death reversed,
they called it.

and not as much as hearing it
on the bridge.
         I told you so
not as much as living long
enough to see you go and
slip and live frozen
underneath the giant
white sheaths of ice
where I leave you to unravel
in a dream.
where I leave
you
for the last time.

a spider said to
write it
that was rule number two.
you can call it the
act of taming things.
they’ll think it’s about you.
get them to read it out loud
and curse themselves.

when I danced with her night
 that night,
she whispered,
       say my name
    and you are mine
I woke up in silk
and horns and you were
flying: a bright, blue butterfly
right into my arms,
my web of lines.

“switched places”

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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”

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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”

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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”

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

“the photograph”

 

 

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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”

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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.

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