April Madness 2016

1. Today I gave blood because someone didn't want to

Today I gave blood for the first time
and my friends didn't stay
but I like to feel old and mature.
My heart spilled, was armed with want
and from lungs the breath had stilled
(but I felt only a sharp sting
as the needle passed).

Today my lungs breathed and time was still
as the needle and I passed
like old friends and I didn't only feel mature,
but had felt the blood spilled from my heart to arm,
for I gave with a sharp want
(but the first sting stayed).

Today my mature heart was stilled
and I gave lungs
and blood spilled (as from the arm)
but the needle didn't sting
for I had passed.
My friends feel with time but only want
the first to stay sharp like a breath
and I felt old.

Today I gave blood because someone didn't want to

I Fed the Fish

I let the ocean rock me
against it's coral reefs
drown and dead, sunken
for all my air was stolen
by the sharks
and the feeder fish
swarming around me
nibbling at my flesh.

It was my most useful moment yet!

Now I sink, skull without eyes
chin without tongue
finger-less so they'll never know me

I have a hard time believing that
if my fingerprints were taken,
I could be identified for real.
No one has a record of them
with the nicks and scars of life
etching through my natural swirls.

No, they'd come up with someone else.
Search me, and they'd see my successful self
a writer, well loved, respected, alive.
They wouldn't know my DNA
my sister owns that.

If I die here, let go of my skeletal mass
and evaporate like ink in the vast ocean
I am not a murder victim, I am gone.
Right now? I'm okay with that.
And so I loosen my hold to the coral
and with each crash of the waves
my parts pull away
tumbling to the ocean floor
to chip into sand.

I Don't Think You Know What That Word Means

Bluntly, life is slapping a penguin with a sausage;
senseless, violent, bizarre. Zookeepers run forward
like an army charging into battle, though
this one is wide-eyed, their screaming more frustration
than anger.

You are a citizen in a state of laws,
and the sirens of their administrators are the edge of your hearing
and you have the impression they're coming for you.
You've broken a rule, somewhere in the pages of paperwork
signed without your permission by people who aren't yourself
in the signature you were too young to develop,
but you aren't sure which one.

However, you know they've come for a reason
and somewhere in the infinite bumbling of infinity
you'd made a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
So you ponder what led to this point,
the turn of events acting as the rising conflict
to your surely imminent demise.
You come up empty handed,
save for the many little errors you've made today
which you never noticed until now.

But, since you have a scapegoat,
you're hitting yourself on the head with your spare hand,
detracting points as you point out each mistake
with an unflinching and sausage-smelling finger
and wondering how someone
could be so cluelessly stupid.
Of course, you do it anyway; it's more logical
than what you've dragged yourself into,
as only hindsight and sound reasoning are 20/20
when dealing with past mistakes, not present ones.

As it happens, penguins are not as cute
nor as cuddly as you'd previously imagined,
especially not when they've discovered
that they love the taste of sausage,
not to mention the fleshy, bone-covered substance
that's grasping it.
While the zookeepers are frantically arguing
over whether to call for an ambulance or a vet
(though they're leaning towards the latter),
you've delved into that mass of pink and gray matter
in hopes of drowning out the memory
with a sea of memories.

Naturally, you think, as you comment
on the way that your shoes landed on that carpet stain
that, while fresh, could not be identified,
you'd rather not tell your grandchildren
the story of the attack of the killer penguin.
Their childhoods are already ruined enough,
mostly as they've had to stare at your grizzled face
scrunching up and exhaling foul words
and comments about your dentures,
not to mention why the newspaper isn't as good
as it used to be.

Your reverie is cut short
by a taser to the face,
thanks to a confused officer
who now has the urge
to slap the penguin herself.

if you think twice

if you think twice about
coming to my grave
holding onto the flowers you once promised
to give me, tears still in your eyes and
that poisonous smile you drew on your face

if you think twice about
the love we shared
under the starry skies in your grandpa's old truck and
when you said i love you
i thought we had a chance

if you think twice about
how i was the dream you wished and
then realized that dreams like me
are nightmares in disguise

and if you think twice about
me in your arms at night
and how your heartbeat was the drum,
beating away the pain

if you think twice about
coming to my grave
your eyes red and lips quivering
don't break the moon
and cause the stars to fall

Life isn't so ironic.

We're spending the majority of the time
at the Distracted Drivers lesson
texting and talking because, secretly,
we don't care if a pole is the last thing
we're gonna see in life.

It's a Friday in April and the juxtaposition
throughout the crowd is overwhelming.
Half of them will be participating
in underage drinking, a quarter will be
going to the movies, and the rest
are no-names in the category 'Miscellaneous'.

The speaker gives a constant reminder
on how we can all die if we don't treat
"our bodies correctly". Everybody falls silent.

Not because of the reality alert,
but the U.S. has just bombed a third world
country. We all got text messages about it.

I stare at the mouth of the speaker,
the tongue hiding in the back of his throat
emphasizing how shocking it was
that we're all distracted.

I pay attention to how his face wrinkles
when says Ridiculous!.
After a minute of yelling, I pick up my book
and leave the library.

"When you drink and drive tonight
and you hit that car, your life will flash
in front of your eyes and you'll be reminded
that I was right all along!"


Life isn't going to flash in front of my eyes,
instead it'll be an epilepsy warning written in strobe lights
letting me know that what isn't meant to kill you
will end up disappointing you in the end.

i.

Morning chill
placid lake and scenic mountain grandeur
the snapping of a twig
skipping stones and sliding silt
filtered sunshine
green leaves
and golden.

Montana rocks like candy rock mountain remnants or jewels sparkling like something commonplace never does. Rainbow pebbles and silver slender fish darting toward a fisherman’s lure, knowing they must be thrown back.

Autumn memories or maybe the ghost of fall not driven out yet by spring’s exuberance.

ii.
The way the soil smells in the afternoon
and the buds peeking through,
wondering at a silent threat of snow
and the way no one quite believes that it is actually warm
(They have their coats draped over thier forearms).
But spring is screaming with her usual vibrancy:
Petaled frills and windy chills
and a woodchipped cusion for a sleep
in the fledgling sunshine.

iii.
Light filters through the leaves again
rich with sweet shine
as laze hangs heavy
over the leather couches
as we talk in familiar patterns,
comfortable, a blanket of words.
A spring breeze sways flyaway hairs
that were missed by the rubberband.
Gooseflesh finally absorbed
with softly billowing fresh linen curtains
and the residue of steam
from a recent hot shower.
The greying spring evening sun,
not quite golden yet,
creates a soft sunwake on maple floors
as the stonework of the cool fireplace
nestles together,
creating a silence never noticed.

thirty minutes forty miles

you announce yourself
with a creak of denim against hot leather—
sup?—
and sink into the seat.

yo, so can i...?
that's my drink you're reaching for,
your morning pill couched in your hand.

sure, go ahead.
like I haven't been sitting here for an hour
waiting on you to get out of bed.

but you won't take pills dry
and you won't set alarms
but you'll step up on your pedestal
and weep tears of joy for the survivors

but you'll step up on your crumbling pillar
and weep tears of blood for the tumble you'll take

so, uh—
like you don't have words to say.

we're just as broken, you and I, but any crack on you
is filled with sterling silver
molded to your shape, to your
explicit needs
to what you
want

my fingers clench around the steering wheel
with a creak of anger against worn resin—
just let me drive—
and I do my best to disappear on the horizon.

01

The fine lines that colour my skin have long since sunk in
and I am a partial print of another time
repeating against itself every moment I move.
I say this because (there are more reasons besides but this is key).
Fabric wearies but I cannot fade.
Lightning sparks cluster on my hips, beneath my belly,
kinetic energy trying to escape.
The pattern seeps again and again
trying to breathe.

look at that boy

look at that boy,
the one with the spectacles
grinning in merriment.
don’t conclude—don’t judge;
you’re yet to know him.

he jumps from one table
to another, to see his classmates
and talk to them.

they shoo him away,
telling him to mind his business.
he frowns; he is trying to care
and it seems he doesn’t know how.

but that’s only because
no one teaches him how
in the first place.

he draws on sketching paper—
creating lines to shape characters,
splashing colours to make them alive
with fiery passion that would blind you.

they praise his drawing,
so colourful and refined
but they are never there
to motivate him to continue.

after a while, he stops doing
something he loves. it doesn’t matter—
it’s just a hobby anyway.

look at that boy,
the one with misty spectacles,
shedding tears in silence.
don’t conclude—don’t judge;
just try to understand.

#4
fault lines run underneath this city
tracing from your aunt’s house on a hill
through the parking lot of her favorite restaurant downtown
unheeded by that which stands on top
because three times a lifetime
isn’t reminder enough
that mother nature’s mean streak
doesn’t care about your karma.