Tag: poetry

Ammunition

Decades of hiding in mirrors,

diving into deep ends

and drowning in drink one,

two, six, eight

I don’t know who I am

Do you hear me?

I never had the chance

When there is never silence

you create it

You swallow your tears and your dreams

and let everyone speak for you

You spend every waking hour trying to piece together

why you are now made of ammunition

explosive and cold

All you want is to be held

but you rip into your own flesh

until you’re unrecognizable

and you force them to tell you

what you already know

Then you lie down

and hope you never find the strength

to stand up

02-07-21

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Steel Shingles

Sometimes I think it’s either Vice President or driving off a cliff

Chapped nipples and overqualified at the front desk

Or pantsuit and laureate

Glass ceilings shatter and

shake the steel shingles above them,

Still the world screams

“See! She did it! She is amazing!”

Yes she is

They are

They always have been

Passed over for a white man

With his trust funds and his racism and his allegations

They’ve all sacrificed their dreams for the good of family, society, self

Preservation

But you never see it

You toast a drink when they’re behind the podium

She swells with pride

Then she drowns in the pillow

1/21/21

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Rough Drafts

The impetuous screeching of cicadas,

suffocating Ohio summers with

their cries for attention

every seventeen years

like teenage hyenas at Head Row

desperately seeking prey

in the shadows

of disheveled baseball diamonds,

dust-ridden and ravenous

 

We like to believe

we can timestamp

high noon,

radiant and thick

with promise

 

But we are all bugs

buzzing with life

only to wane at first frost,

leaving crumpled carcasses

and rough drafts

rather than legacies

 

7-20-20

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Rest Now

Mouth running like mascara,

hair tucked securely in the past,

she reaches for me with dewdrop skin

though it’s still not safe

 

Rest now

 

He shifts in bed until his feet,

now thick with summer heat,

hang just out of reach like forgiveness

 

I plant his brittle spine

into a nest of pillows

like a baby bird and he squawks

 

Rest now

 

Wiping the lunch from his face,

I think of how we are all children

taking leaps of faith

even after science shows us

that clouds aren’t beds of cotton

 

Rest now

 

Fly later

 

 

7-9-20

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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George Floyd

can you plead with a knee

when there is no heart above it?

 

there was a heart below it,

that loved

that lived

that wept

as the world watched

another white man

steal a black man’s life

 

5-27-2020

 

 

 

 

 

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If

It is no longer when

but if

I’ll ever see you again

 

Nothing is guaranteed

so I cuddle the dog

and stare at the pregnant neighbor

as I wash the dishes

 

I wonder what it’s like

to bring new life into a dying world

She rakes the soil

to prepare for spring

and waits

for the birth of a new chapter

 

On gray days,

I think of the sun laden afternoons

in Yellow Creek

before I jumped ship

and learned to love a new town

and every man who would let me

 

The uncertainty was thrilling,

but this time it’s different

 

it’s grief-soaked and lonely

and infinite and screams if

until I forget there ever was a when

 

All I know today is I love you

If and when and always

 

4-23-20

1

Crumbling

Our thighs graze on the couch and I reach for your arm

The senator speaks through a lens and my eyes well

The world is crumbling and so am I,

and here is someone who says it’s ok to crumble,

just not to give up

 

Later, we pop a bottle of Eight Barrel Syrah

and dance to Billy Joel in our sweatpants

And I think of all the times we’ve crumbed

but haven’t given up

And of all the beauty we would miss

if we were so focused on ourselves

 

The world is weeping together now

maybe something will change

 

4-9-20

1

Patience

Dodging passersby like bullets,

my feet clap against the concrete

and leave invisible prints,

a timestamp of sweat,

 

I was here

 

But so were you

You linger in the breeze like pollen

 

Everything is shared now, even apart

Sometimes we hold our breath

because the air can kill us

 

We fill our lungs with patience

to keep them from collapsing

and make a wish,

even though there are no candles

and we can’t exhale

 

4-6-20

1

Shortness of breath

four walls

one breath

circulating endlessly

 

I can’t catch it,

even in good health

 

maybe it’s knowing

that you will die

that I will die

that someone I know will die

 

maybe it’s the rent

or utilities

or hard rain falling

on the bedroom window

when I’m nearly asleep

 

maybe it’s knowing

that we have no way out

 

you pace in circles

until the vinyl is worn

 

you wallow in nostalgia

until your cheeks are wet

and you tell me you texted her

because you worry

 

but you don’t worry about PPE

or the local nursing home

or the diabetic who raised me

 

you worry about her,

and ask “how is business?”

while she’s on a date,

vacationing in another state

 

as if there was never a virus

and we were never a factor

 

then you ask me why I’m quiet

and I say the oxygen is thin

(I want to share it, not fight for it)

 

3-29-20

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Once was

Cells pumping in veins

like Texas oil,

thick and black as night,

red as waning sunlight

 

then the peace of disappearing hope

and the stagnant warmth of stillness

 

It hangs on me like dead skin–

an extra layer of once was,

the dichotomy of rain and rust,

and everything that should be

but isn’t

 

and everything that will be

but shouldn’t

 

01-30-20

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