Love the theme & title you have, this looks so intriguing! I love Richard Siken so I was excited to see a quote from him here. Can't wait to read your poems this month!
mama says the worst is over (i am 7 & i only know how to love)
april is taken with a grain of salt every year to cure my tongue of the devil's work, words slithering out & crawling out of their jar like the sides of a bottle of jam.
off-yellow carpets are only second to shared dumpsters & cigarette smoke with a wheel of fortune spinning every sunday, praying to the ceiling not to cave in.
i long for the comfort i felt hiding in walmart coat racks, sitting alone at lunch & recess.
our bodies were puppets for the sun; waxy flesh scorched by parking lots, hiding scraped knees to stay out of trouble, walking a tight rope between here & the sky.
absent prayer bloody palms worn-through tee shirts hanging from the door hook face on the wall staring biting nails chattering teeth chafed thighs covered eyebrows head in hands swivel chair tipped over now a body laying nude supine & half-dead half-hearted repentance verified by flagellation & empty-waiting-patience for a bruise that won't go away
i lay on the couch, humming a lullaby to myself & saying grace as i pick at dead skin; the smell of peeling & rotting flesh festers like a baked potato in the sun.
i pinch my nose & plunge into your notion of me: pitiful & pathetic, bare on the floor. i take turns attempting to make your waist fit mine, or mine yours.
there is nothing more sacred than you. all i want is to stay home & rebirth myself.
here i am, all freedom & misery; the lowest hanging linguistic fruit on the tree, squeezed until ecstasy, contracted, pained echoes from a life of reliving.
you burn like a kitchen knife scraping on hot asphalt, blistering sounds in early mornings, four a.m.-type loathing. each double-edged sword you know has two dull sides; together & apart, right now & back then.
"you make your whole life a poem, a notes app sob story, make real human connections into another layer to peel off. you know, the layers don't come back once you peel them. they're just gone."
the end is built into the beginning; i mistake the acoustics of your bedroom for hymns & the scars on your skin as bible verses.
dead air, carbon emissions escape my mouth into shared breathes with strangers.
the skyline approaches like a dog eating its tail, running out of time & clinging to any surface it can -- rest stops, park benches, car garages, a reservoir of spit spilling over.
thin ice forms on the ground. a lonesome city & its spotlight shines through tinted office buildings; box layout pattern, a grid imposed onto living conditions.
landlords snarl & side-eye passers-by, their chafed necks reddened by the cold. stray cats gnaw on bones to pass the time, fleas all over, withering away in the place they call home.
tongues are meant for licking & paws are meant for escape. i play tug of war with a belt & my neck; the city keeps the score.
you know, the layers don't come back once you peel them. they're just gone.
I love your poetry. It's so vivid and thoughtful; I could read them again and again and find new meaning each time.
If you ever want to talk, please feel free to PM me for any reason! ^^ Don't write because you're a writer; write because you have something to say. Orabella ~ Ora ~ Avenue ~ Aven She/her
this unwinding in my head lingers while i lay down, back bare to the ceiling. i count the days until one man closes our door & out comes another.
i am trapped in skin & i am cutting escape holes in couch cushions, tunneling my way out. i find misery everywhere i go; behind the warmest radiators, behind my mother, even behind god.
i know that the things i hate are right under my nose. i feel it in my bones so much that it overrides me.
there is this dream i have where my absent father wrings a cold, wet rag out in the sink & places it on my forehead. he will never break a mirror on purpose or take his kids to school.
