A day will come when you will surpass my flesh.
You’ll destroy the dam, and a flood will follow, and I will be helpless.
Is it best to sink into this knowing?
My time with you presses upon me,
threatening a hollowness I cannot overcome.
And when I can stand the feeling no longer, I’ll be forced to fill the hollow with your sounds and your touch.
I will know you in ways I never wanted,
and you will understand me in ways I never could.
Cold Feet
Toes are aching and
Planting, replanting
On linoleum, no soil here
Just “daylight” from
the glass
Above your head
And his
The light paints
Black in his creases
Releasing the night
Found in his iris
darkness spills
into your awaiting
gaze, which is
yawning,
gaping
And the ache
Is spreading like
The hands on your
Shoulders, then back
Your feet now grounded,
Stuck and
Soiled
like the lips
That taste you
Seven Poems From My Seventeenth Year
left as unedited as possible :')
I. The Girl Who Carried the Stars
The creature sulked
and slumped
and lurked.
Its voice was demonic and echoing
as if Its throat was an extensive, damp cave.
It bellowed the first command with lackluster.
It was in need of entertainment.
“Bring me the oceans.”
The girl had no choice but to venture into the desert
And then the forest
And then the jungle,
All barefoot,
Until she reached the vast waters.
With wavering strength she forced the water to travel across the lands.
The water would collapsed upon her
And the salt dried her up.
The sharks attempted to eat her,
They bit at her skin.
Nevertheless, she endured the oceans
And delivered it to the creature.
It laughed and howled
At the absurdity of her gift,
At the fact she’d actually done it.
The creature was hysterical.
It was instantly fascinated
With the girl and her subservience.
It bedeviled her.
“Bring me the mountains.”
“Bring me the jungles.”
“Bring me the waterfalls.”
“Bring me Europe.”
“Bring me the horizon.”
“Bring me the moon.”
“Bring me the stars.”
The stars were the worst of them all.
They were unbearable.
They branded her,
Ignited her flesh,
And left her skin black and smoldering.
But the stars had been
The most amusing
And the most pleasing gift of them all.
The creature laughed and clapped,
Invigorated and roused.
It offered the girl a sadistic praise
Before sending her off once more
To have her acquire for It the universe.
II. Getting Older
A vast wilderness now lies within me
the same way a crater sinks into the moon.
And there is this woman that wanders through it
Possessing a conviction I can’t understand.
I feel that she doesn’t want me to either,
But to simply let her roam as she pleases.
Somehow she knows this place better than I do.
I try to trail her, but I lose her every time.
And when I see her again, it is only because she decided to find me.
This woman is an asteroid, gone and lost in space,
Leaving behind a forested crater in my chest
that is possessed by her essence
For—seemingly—no reason at all.
All the time I find myself impulsively digging at it with my fingers.
III. Pseudo Ribs
Pseudo ribs protect this very real heart
Like a child protecting her mother.
These ribs are small, child-like fingers
Attempting to encase a mature heart,
a mothering muscle,
With youth and innocence.
What must be strong bone is still cartilage.
What must be full fledged is still immature.
These ribs falter, but they play their role.
These fingers are small, but they still cling
To their mother’s trembling hand - and tremble with her -
reassuringly
Like pseudo ribs
Around a defenseless heart.
IIII. Ruined Perfection
Heaven sends down an angel
Like an open mouth spilling sweet nothings.
The more I grow,
The more I envision
That same mouth overflowing,
Like Heaven sinking toward Earth.
But I know better than to ponder
Heaven spoiling
And overflowing mouths.
I know better than to ponder ruined perfection,
And there is perfection in the sculpted outline of those lips.
There is obvious perfection in those
cold, golden gates— Heaven’s lips.
What a perfect idea that angels
Come down to see us and help us
And spill sweet nothings,
But wouldn’t it be such a sight
Seeing them cry?
V. Sympathy
On Halloween I spent the night in my room.
I counted the wolves outside my window.
One, two, three,
Three vampires, now trying to find me.
Apparently my blood is a delicacy.
I counted the skeletons passing by:
One, two, three, four, five.
And yet I still don’t have a spine.
In the middle of night,
When I had finally passed out,
The vampires and wolves
They came into my house.
The skeletons were too late.
When they finally arrived,
I was already bitten and drained,
Torn to the bone,
But they stayed for a while.
Then, they gave me a spine of my own.
VI. Pain Exiting Flesh
Tear into me on a starry night.
Open my scars. Lay out my vulnerability.
It will be a red carpet for my soul
As it ascends to the heavens.
I’m assuming it’s true,
That God wants every single soul,
Tangled and warped by its own possessor.
Even if God ends up turning me away,
I beg of you,
Turn me inside out.
Expose my intimate sadness,
My blood and guts,
To that phenomenon with
unadulterated emptiness
so that my vain presence
disrupts its opulent indifference.
It doesn’t matter if nothing is out there,
Just don’t let me rest with that mess in me.
VII. The Butcher
November was a bloody month.
It was the end of me and the beginning of us.
The end of “mine” and the beginning of “ours”.
But instead of extending to one another,
reaching for each other’s essence,
I became a part of you.
And like the handle of a knife extending from my heart,
so murderous and final,
I am the extension of you: the butcher.
You sever pieces of me to replace the missing parts of you.
What part of me is your favorite? What part of me will you destroy?
Tankas from the Winter
I
A burning morsel
On a severed head’s cold tongue
All blue in nature
You await the dreadful day
When the head decides to bite
II
A call from the woods
A soft ringing from the birds
You, ringing along
Higher than the feathered beasts
Just to keep me off my feet
III
Beneath skin and bone
Resides a raw desire
A pursuit of peace
No spring I find fulfills it
No strength I have can hold it
GLASS HALF FULL
Your words keep me feeling underweight.
They pour into my heart with a soft trickle, leaving me only half empty.
I may need to learn how to cherish the bare windows of my soul. I may need to love the exposure.
There is something heavyweight about vulnerability, like a large, solid body on top of me.
I cannot roam past the feeling. I must let it have me. I must like it.
I do like the heavy feeling of you.
It cancels out the inadequate fill of your words. The way you speak leaves a half-hearted sensation in my chest.
I cannot escape it.
Promise of Man
He dismisses my skin, felled by the knife.
The simple foe an unwitting ally invading the warmth of me,
a tongue as sharp as his which invades the mouth of violence.
The intimacy’s a parasitic guest that he hosts in the crowded hall of his ribs.
His lungs sigh from the pressure.
His heart beats a frantic rhythm.
My Blood spills like water.
He makes good to break the dam of flesh,
and fulfill the promise of Death.
He savors the unforgiving Crimson holding the essence of me, of him,
everything we could be,
but nothing beyond our reach.
It is bold and undeniable in the sun. It winks back at the sky.
Thief
And once I leave, you’ll notice something is missing.
You’ll wake up earlier than usual as the sun makes its way across the earth and pulls a string of your heart with it.
And when the moon follows suit,
when your heart has unraveled,
a longing will fill you to burst.
And I wish you that numbing moonlight.
I wish you the empty whispers of the dark.
I wish you the cold hand of the wind ushering you back to the house
after a fruitless search
for something I stole when I left.
Spring Beneath The Ribs
The softness awakens in your chest
A bloom after a season of unrest
You gathered up what was left
And pushed it down into the soil of your heart
Its a choked muscle pumping spoiled blood
Coupled with a hard head that knows when enough is enough
But there’s just no trust
in what your body’s truly made of
No home to house your loneliness
No lover to guide a pitying kiss
Upon that sunken, sully cheek
Just an awkward bloom of gentleness
A cowardice spell of forgiveness
No more hate to quell
No more love to spill
Just a dying muscle, and a caving chest
Nothing else to do, but gather up what’s left
And seed it down within
And pray for another start
lost my mind
I am the body
of a severed head
A divine vessel
the core of the apple
caving into itself
To understand myself
I know not the feeling
only the head rolling
the soft rumble leading
my blind footing
I am a severed body wilting
a dying impression of what was
before the decapitation
Slim evidence of intimacy
between a mind and a beating heart
