Can't Write; Fighting Bears

I have never felt as small as when I sat at the end of the dock with my feet in the lake and watched the storm roll in over the waters. When the thunder spoke, I was afraid. When the lightning came, I was cowed, convinced that my hard-held fate was, like me, tiny, clouded, surrounded by unkind currents. Until then, I had never felt so small that I could not stand on my own, static-pulled and proudly tall. But I sat there, on the dock, and as each successive wave threatened to erode my fragile perch and submerge my ever-shrinking road to shore, I thought of you, and I thought of home, and I thought of all the things I would leave behind, convinced that my little boat full of knotted dreams and woven worries was, like me, unmoored, mastless, easily capsized. And I learned that I have never felt as small— and I have never felt as whole— as when I have given up completely.

When I die, do not bury me in who I used to be. He doesn't fit me anymore, all patched and threadbare and secondhand and coming apart at the shoulders from carrying too much for too long. Please, do me this one lasting favor and send me off in something new. Something that suits me, honest and tailormade, that brings out the colors in what used to be my eyes. And if it does not match the latest fashions, buy it anyway— neither did I, when I was still living.

I did not relish the thought of going out today. Strangers I could meet with mask taped in place, coworkers and acquaintances would laugh at volleyed jokes, but my gut retched black bile when I thought of those of you whose gazes I could not meet and whose smiles I could not match.

My first open mic! Read a new poem, a proper spoken word poem instead of my typical style. After the event was over, the organizer walked over to me and asked if I’d be one of their featured poets. So I’m gonna be the featured poet for August at the Poetry Den event in South Bend, IN. Super excited and I hope to have more vids to share in the future!

Chairs stood uneven on blistered carpet, three legs walking crooked in the evening sun that glinted in spots all over the floor. That peculiar reflective shine that cheap, worn carpets seem to grow. My seat aimed to keep me tilted backwards so that the backs of our chairs would rest together and your hair would brush my shoulders as our heads clicked lightly against each other's. I leaned uncomfortably forward instead, fighting the uneven ridges in the folded floor with muscles tensed and head held in hands. We sat, silent, for months in the orange light. "I can't keep watching you do this to yourself," you said to me. And then you left, chair barely moved from the spot where it sat conspicuously close to mine, like a middle schooler slowly inching her hand towards her crush's and praying to God that they see. I got up and knocked the chairs to the ground. They fell, untouching and untethered, as I crossed the room to the window where curtains hung meathook haphazard. I shut them, cutting short the last breath of evening. In the dark, I could no longer see the curtains the chairs the shining ridges of carpet. Today, I rose from my bed, my bare feet enjoying the soft caress of shag from the untarnished carpet. My chair is new, too, sitting in the corner near the desk. I strode away from it with drowsy purpose and into the kitchen to put the kettle on. Standing there, I stared out the porthole window at the open expanse of morning and the ever-hopeful light that shone through, unbidden, unburdened by curtains. I hadn't thought of you in years. But I thought of you then, as I caught my reflection in the window and kept watching me do this to myself. My chair is new, sitting in the corner. It is comfortable, upright, level, and empty.

Amethyst and plaster,  alabaster, lavender, and ink that spilled all over your side of the table. I reached across and wiped it up with my sleeve, and I breathed out your name and breathed in your portrait as I settled back into my seat. You smiled, effervescent and inchoate, chamomile, with ink welling up in the corners of your eyes. I could not hold your gaze. I expect too little and love too much. I looked aside and as my arms came into focus I noticed that a smeared smudge of ichor black on soiled sleeve was in the shape of a heart. "How appropriate," I thought. 

Truly, my finest work.

They robbed our names off gravestones,  gouging out flakes of stone and etching the letters, thick and crude, into mewling flesh and chipped bone. Quiet letters, screaming letters. We ate and drank and grew into them, wove strands of code to coats, to covers worn and tattered and judged. But we ourselves refrain from judgment lest we be met in kind and join those nameless owners, rotting and former, underneath the loamy ground. 

You ache in places I don't know how to reach. The wind cuts holes in your coat for the cold to patch with tight-packed ice. The path is lost, buried in frost, and the snow shows no signs of stopping, and you are so far away. Forgive me, my friend. I cannot leave into such a chill. But I will light a candle and I will stay awake for you. It is small, and it may flicker and dim, but I promise you— the wind will never blow it out.

I do not write for her. I do not write for me. I write her words in quotes and colors, in shapes and solid sounds, so I never have to make it again.

But you are mine, my fickle fucktoy, and when I hold you once again I will sting your flesh with striking teeth. They will be long, and warm, and homesick.”

If I am a hatchet carving shards off your heart then you are an axe severing circulation in mine, chopping off legs and arms and stray branches. But if I’m forced to firewood, I would gladly ask to chip from you some kindling and use you for the spark that sets me ablaze.

Bystanders scream. Maybe they were always screaming. Or maybe those are sirens. I can never tell. Either way, I stay off the street. Stick to sidewalks and alleyways when I have to leave the house. It's not often. I stay inside most days. A pillow helps block out the noise. A rusty desk fan scatters the air. A stranger-shared bed makes a warm distraction. I lie awake. I'm pretending to sleep. I hope that no one was screaming for me.

Since this poem had such a good spoken-word-y vibe to it I thought I’d record me reading it! Maybe I’ll do it at an open mic or something one of these days.

We had to resuscitate ourselves, thrown from the burnt bridges of broken childhoods, with skulls shattered, spines severed, and limbs gangly with dislocation. We stumbled into adulthood suture kit-stapled together, stemming the bleeding with the scraps and tatters of our Field Medic merit badges. Our self-talk was whispered with the beside manner of a Mack truck. And we wielded our self-esteem like scalpels— not without compassion, but utterly unforgiving.

She sank her fingers into the soft plush of his heart, stained green from the silver coating on his imitation backbone. The sky was clotted thick with midnight tension, star-speckled with salt and slick with the sheen of sweat. He longed to shake her tax from his breathing, each shuddered gasp growing shallow and shallower still, but she held him in her iron sights, locked them tight with iron key, twisted her fingers around arteries and veins and squeezed. He spun and squirmed like he was hooked and out of water. An auto-da-fé, audience of one. "Why not?", she asked. He opened up his mouth to respond—