in complete despair
and under unsatisfactory life
circumstances
I hold onto a rejection
of being replaced and ignored
I find the details out later, but in the
moment there is a knowing
its hovering in my hollow gut
mistaking them for butterflies
trying to understand
why they kind of feel like butterflies
the Lights above are fluorescent
zoom back to me staring
at the pink and green mascaras
a group of kids walk by
discussing who is the strongest
and who hasn’t cried
because of a death
journal
a short story
I seemed to have lost the magic along the way. Perhaps it was stuffed in an old green backpack, lost somewhere in upstate New York and covered in leaves from several years ago. It doesn’t really matter when your in a new place or in mountain town. I’m making friends with the people I have known in a different lifetime. But still I feel like I lost something along the way.
Everyone is on a journey to a different country. I’m in a new place but still looking for that new country. Experience, yes, that is what I have acquired. Observation helps, like the observation I made of a temporary lover. That’s all I did actually. I watched him. I watched him as I let him into my house. He would tornado around my room and kitchen and then ask to use my bathroom. Announcing profound romance but not looking at me in the eye. I would watch the blood stains on his shirts. What’s crazy is the amount of effort he would put in to hide a major part of himself. The worst part, the addictive manipulative part. He wanted to keep that close. Let it shine. Let some air in. He’s cornered in the bathroom holding onto the thing that he has grown accustomed to and the ritual he would die for.
dog on the floor
I’m sitting with the
dog on the kitchen floor
the walls in this house
are sand timers
slow moving honey
it stops for a second
as I look at the reflection
of me and the dog
in the background is
yelling, screaming,
singing out of joy
it’s hard to tell
but its heavy and delusional
moans and groans
a heavy head
a heavy chest through
the wall
paralysis on both ends
lines …I’ll make lines
and pretend
that I’m showering
lines and
we both pretend he’s showering
make lines
tie the belt real tight
the shower water is running
#30
That day at the
end of September
I look at you and
understand why the
waves do what they do
I then also understand the
silence among the mountains
the leaves
on the brink of decay
it was years ago now
but I still compare
the two color schemes
the oranges and pinks
at eye level
and the dark blues
behind us
yellowbirds/blue sky
the sky here is
more like a screen
draping against the edge
of the world
while riding my
bike I like
to stand on the pedals
and stretch my neck towards it
open my mouth as wide
as I can and try to
consume the blue
whole
I pass a mailbox with
two taxidermied
yellow birds sitting on
top , frozen in verb
stance
I pass the mango tree
that was once so ripe
a few weeks ago
the fruit hung heavy
abundant and tumbling
towards the canal
rainbow reflecting
in the water
linear
I am two feet
in front of myself
in sync with the
movements
my skin is a dark purple
and there is a hole
perfect and
circular
in my chest
I look outside and
see the sun shine
in two places
illuminating
the sparkle
and dust
a dark blue
remember what it
felt like to feel it
all at once
heart pulsing
through thick
warm honey
don’t lose the
feeling
walking in ny
A creaky heart
with each inhale and exhale
is a twig holding the
full
red belly of a
little bird that travels nocturnally
Walking past the bar that looks
like a 1920’s gathering
with its yellow round bulbs
decorative and dark borders
The trash on the sidewalk
seems to have come together
through serendipity
for the pleasure of
the moonlight, the streetlight
and the rain from earlier
Treasure from this angle
