my poetry blog

like the roads i drive

cutting through lush green scenery

i know no direction

only swamps, farmland and

breaking down in crowded cities

like the infrastructure system has

written me off, overlooked me

the soil was fertile where i was built

now buried beneath gravel

and asphalt that rips throughout

as if it were paper or glass

and crumbles beneath my tires

the roads don’t know

that they don’t belong

but we both have no clue

with a yellow roof and flowers up the sides

and my gramma is sitting next to me

on stained green shag carpet

and 3 years has never felt so young

or i am 6

white walls and foreign language signs

as airplanes roar beyond the glass

my gramma stands just outside the gate

and it’s all in slow motion, memory says

as she kneels and stretches her arms out

and i run and run to her with

the cold air conditioning reddening

the tips of my ears

11 and riding down country highways

buried in my phone to pass the time

because as soon as it’s up

i will be by the lake with my grandparents

18 and practically living there

as grampa began his decline

and 20, visiting gramma’s facility daily

it’s on my way to campus

knowing, but hoping blindly regardless

i remember all of these moments

just as i remember you now through

the pictures you hung in your house

two faces so familiar,

it’s as if you never left

but the pictures are the only way

i can see your faces now

as i pick them out to set up

at the memorial this afternoon

i only wish i could see your faces again

laughing, wide open, full

as if your dyed orange curl tips

were plumes of flame

framing your face and

burning through me

the sight of your eyes

bright and crisp and ever mischievous

(“mischievious,” i’d say aloud,

just to watch your smug smirk

to hear your voice correct me.)

a refreshing step into the most

crystalline

woodland springs

feeling it soak through my hair

bathing myself in your light

the very view of you is

divine? godlike? extraterrestrial, even?

all these adjectives come to mind

but fail to rattle around my skull

for it has been stuffed so full

of your brains and your blood

and my favorite polaroids of

as you soared among them

and as you pointed to the stars,

the black in your eyes as big as the moon,

i could only look at you

as the silver moonlight illuminated

the freckles on your cheeks,

your eyes filled with wonder

grinning ear to ear, flushed

laughter that bounces between tall fences

on your couch that night,

though i was tired and overwhelmed,

you drew for me what the sky looked like

through the full moons in your eyes

i didn’t quite understand-

how could i?

but if i could draw, i’d have drawn you

raving on about what i have only known

as affliction, rather than ascension

with all the lights out on your porch,

you were stunning

the silk streams of moonlight

colliding with neon signs across the street

to color you green and silver

to me, though, you shined like gold

i could have sworn you were the sun

illuminating the night, blinding

cars as they pass by

blinding me to the world,

11 days before our three year anniversary

the court of all courts

is going to decide if we should have one

at all

after years of my whole mother’s side

telling me that we should keep it quiet,

“a domestic partnership,”

they suggested,

“better for taxes,”

they said,

we’ll finally move out in december

but will there still be a farm for us, one day

in central texas, where my grandparents

used to live?

every god knows i’ll get him a ring

and we’ll grow old together

but when i wilt away, years from now,

will my obituary call me

his loving husband?

will i be laid in a grave

beside his, as i was meant to,

or will i be in a corner

of my family plot?

i would move across state lines,

should our state reject us.

i would flee the country with him

if it did too.

and if the world around decided

that our marriage was not in the stars

i’d build us both a rocket

with nails in our hands, spread out

for the world to see

blood will run down our palms

never to scar

and the crowns we weaved of daisies

will grow thorns

suspended, our bodies will waste away

our ribs will show

and every quiet moment will be lost

the worship and prayer we offered

will not be known

by the jeering crowd, as they hurl

our own shame back at us,

slipping down our backs

but when our brothers and sisters

and the children we once were

carry our fragile bodies across the grass

we will be laid together,

in the very same tomb

to be dug up and eaten

by wild dogs, not unlike

those we brought into our home

and as the worms and buzzards and dogs

feed upon what little meat will be left

on our bones

they will taste the quiet moments

overwhelmed with religious fervor

as the very words we whispered

fill their minds and stomachs

and they become dizzy with visions

of us laughing alone in your room,

become drunk on the tenderness

of my legs tangled in yours,

for that moment we will not be martyrs

or sacrifices to the bureaucratic gods

rather, we will be the feast

in the back of your father’s car

peering around,

lost in my neighborhood

just as i often was.

you saw me first

in round glasses that didn’t quite

match my face

not even 17, just as you were

standing in the driveway

that would and had become the scene of

so many late night escapes

and early morning pickups

and attempted runaways

the first night with you was bliss

in and out of quiet rest

listening to you snore

and when i got home, i prayed and prayed

to anybody that would listen

that you never would see me,

never as i was,

but only as i pretended to be

the mask that i painted

with a sideways, long-practiced smile

greenish eyes and plucked brows

was meant to be your portrait of me

yet, with all the violence of

an eyelash picked up by a fingertip,

you tore it away

as it shattered at my feet,

my brown eyes

overflowing with water

i only mourned a moment

for the man i tried so desperately

to sculpt from clay

was small and weak

when compared to the man

that i grew into

all because you saw him

how my hospital room spun and swayed

choking down the ink, 3 or 4 cups

eyes as big and dark as the sky

tongue stained black

i remember the apologies, the pounding

how the ink fell out in words

a million a minute

wake up from the fastest dream

spit up the ocean at night

and my mother’s tears, the relief

that i’d live, that i’d live,

as my head kept pounding

and i swore it’d never happen again

keeping promises, but wishing even now

that the racetrack dreamscapes

had ceased, even then

wish i’d felt the pounding as it slowed

slower and slower still

until the fast car in my veins

that i wasn’t yet old enough to drive

skidded, slowed

Before you had to get on your flight home

I thank you for being a friend to me

Even on the days i’ve been alone

Hugo said to love another is as

To stare into the glowing face of god

The songs i recommend to you are jazz

Thank you for never seeing me as odd

The poetry you write sits in my soul

Your jokes stay in my troubled mind for days

And in my shriveled lungs, as black as coal

I see you even through my smoky haze

My affection for you will never bend

on the curve of my chest

in the couch in your room

and he meows at me.

he reminds me of you,

like he always does,

with his big green eyes

and half-smirk

and soothing voice

that rings out in all of our phone calls

there is a white spot on his nose

and though you don’t have one to match

i kiss you where yours might be

if you did

and as the door downstairs

scares him away

his claws dig into the skin of my shoulders

but i can’t stand to mind,

to stay mad at him would be

to stay mad at you

are moving up and away now

jessie got engaged

and julia is a teacher

and eve is moving out

and my heart swells so full

of my love for them all

that it feels it could burst

shatter

break

into a thousand pieces

each softer and more tender than the last

for i am still here,

with my grandfather gone,

running with the same crowds

and running from the same things

i am the same boy,

though maybe less angry,

and maybe more sad.

i am the same man,

though maybe less lazy,

and maybe more lost.

i never thought i’d say this

but i almost wish i could go back

to feel the frigid school AC

on my wrists once more

and wear a flannel in the summertime

as if that would help

as if it would hide.

but i almost wish i could go back

to do one last musical

with the same people who hate me now

and feel the warm stage lights

on my now-tanned cheeks

but i felt my soft, tender heart wrenching

throughout the whole ordeal

pathetic drama that rages, rages, rages

deep within my very being

no, i do not wish i could go back

for i am the same boy

the same man

with half of an associate’s degree now

and less boldness, surely,

but all the fervor

For the eruption of stems and leaves from the soil

Soothes my wicked soul

Yes, God may never forgive me

But the grass is soft beneath my feet

And the shrubs that grow along my fence line

Will always show me mercy,

Never thorny, never strangling, no,

I needn’t plead with the treetops to absolve me of my sins

Sins that slip down my sore throat like warm honey

The vines do not judge me,

For they know it is not their place,

And instead offer me grapes

Ripe and plump and understanding

Perhaps it is the red devil that speaks in my ear

Condemning me to a field of ash

But I will find meadows of jade,

and the frogs will happily hop into my hands

No, I will not have to catch them

I will not have to catch them,

and how it used to soothe my stomachaches

and how i,

young and reckless as i was

would have picked up any one

off the side of the street

or in one of my school classrooms

and oh, how we must have stunk

like my smoke and your fire

the very embers that we crushed

and the ashes that fell from our lips

and after all the convincing,

i can see you now

in your drivers seat with more spirit in your eyes

was not born in his prison

however, he survived there for years

as he paced in minos’ tower

lost in the dark, believing

that he would die there with his father

and yet he knew love

he knew it intimately

as he stared through the cracks in the ceiling

sunlight streaming through

yes, he knew love

so as icarus soared above the clouds

closer and closer to the sun

i wonder if he extended his arms

and begged for sweet release

i wonder if he was drenched in sweat

by the time he finally fell

or if the wind against his cheeks

made him feel cool, made him feel alive

that your Lord Dionysus

has driven people mad

and how i wonder if our Goddesses convene

as they have as long as time

guiding us to one another

and bringing silver light to our nighttimes

should they find our bodies

buried in ash, beneath a canopy of rubble,

petrified until Atlas’ back gives way,

statues of what we were,

i believe they will find us curled up on your couch

legs entangled in knots

arms gripping each other’s backs

foreheads against each other

and after centuries of petrification,

under the big bridge

an hour from my house,

and around the schoolyard

where i used to play.

i have seen a great many oceans

tumultuous and dark,

brown and foamy,

or as clear and glassy as the sky’s blue.

there used to be snow,

that buried my kindergarten home,

up to the doorknob

and i would sled

down the hill

down the road.

all of these shiny homes and

shiny travels i’ve had,

they seem but tawdry

when i compare them to the ethereal,

nay, godlike

view of your weary head resting

on my lap