burning green like a rhomboid sun

"I dig my atmosphere machine

Space baby, you been so far

Unknown face on an unknown star

The time is now my life's begun

I'm burnin' green like a rhomboid sun

I've never seen a flower grow

It's a mystery to me just how my being came

To be and why it came here

Maybe I'm not even human but I know

There's lots of room infinity

There's got to be a time and place

For me to cease this endless search"

NaPo '24: casually cruel in the name of being honest

Table of Contents:

Pre-NaPo:
- space girl pt 1(?)
- black hole hearts
- stargazing with strangers
- home
- missouri misery
- our secret language is flowers
NaPo:
- it's raining on the first day of april (01/04/25)
- empty space (02/04/25)
- energy drinks (03/04/25)

PreNapo 1:

space girl pt 1(?)

space girl, star child,
daughter of the void.
her love is ravenous; all consuming.
she eats black holes for breakfast and astronauts for dinner.
my space girl, the star child,
a daughter of the void
won't you blow me a kiss?

PreNapo 2:

black hole hearts

i hold your heart in icy fingers,
watching with morbid fascination
as life light love is sucked in.

you hold my heart in warm hands,
plucking strands of love like a harpsichord
and feeding it to the black hole we like to call home.

PreNapo 3:

stargazing with strangers
CW: alcohol

champagne in doses of cases,
chugging sweet cherry wine.
not enough to forget you,
but just enough to forget me.

pluck dandelions at their roots,
staining my lips and teeth yellow
with fervor, with anger, with longing.
spit out a mouthful of fluff and bitter weed.

late night party,
lying on the beach
of our imagination. it's barren,
nothing but me and tumbleweeds.

i'm stargazing with strangers,
i don't know their names, but i don't need to.
our hearts beat the same, as if they're bleeding.
we spell our desires out in constellations.

philosophy spills out of our lips,
like cheap champagne and orange juice
in mimosas we can't quite bring ourselves to like.
theoretical improbabilities, followed by giggles.

we're a little too high,
a little too drunk on wine and teenage spirits
to really understand the fact that
we're stargazing with strangers.

hands clasped over thumping hearts,
fingers twined with another
we lay on the grassy hill,
gazes lifted defiantly to the skies.

we are brazen confidence,
molded into small bodies
and secretive glances.
family who doesn't know each other's names.

PreNapo 4:

home
CW: blood, gore? (i have a very weird sense of the word gore so idk)

you crack open my chest cavity,
crawling in and settling
against my rib cage. you fit
snugly between my lungs,
until we begin to share the same air.
lips painted pretty cherry press
against my heart, stemming the flow
of crimson blood from my mitral valve.
you smile and label this place home.

PreNapo 5:

missouri misery

misery girl, missouri girl
curled up in the back seat
under starless skies
on the bank of the mississippi river.

she’s all miniskirts and skinned knees
while i’m all baggy hoodies and bruises
lying in the back of her 1987 ford pick-up truck
in midday 90 degree heat.

PreNapo 6:

our secret language is flowers
you give me butterfly weed and i give you cyclamen,
resignation and goodbyes; i'll see you in another life.
i rest at the foot of your grave with a bouquet of heliotropes,
and pink carnations, the colors clash but it's the thought that counts anyways.

salvia red and salvia blue against your gravestone,
bright, bold, entirely you while rosemary grows at my doorstep.
the very next day, a dozen red roses sit in my mailbox.

i am old now, tired with weary bones.
silent upon my death bed, you leave a gift
of sweet peas, white hyacinths, and morning glories.
i'll see you in another life;
to continue our secret language of flowers.

Spoiler

Flower Meanings:

Butterfly Weed ~ "Let me go."
Cyclamen ~ resignation, diffidence, goodbye
Heliotropes ~ eternal love and devotion
Pink Carnations ~ "I'll never forget you."
Salvia Red ~ "I think of you."
Salvia Blue ~ "Forever mine."
Rosemary ~ remembrance
Red Roses ~ "I love you."
Sweet Peas ~ blissful pleasures, goodbye, "Thank you for a lovely time."
White Hyacinth ~ loveliness, prayers for someone
Morning Glory ~ affection

raining on the first day of april

i think it’s fitting that it rained on the first day of april,
shower leaving streaks on my glasses and wetting my hair.
it’s the first day of april and i’m disoriented,
tossed out in the storm of lightning and thunder.
could you tell me what i’m missing?
it’s raining on the first day of april,
now i’m wondering when may flowers.
i miss bright blooms and sunny days,
not particularly looking forward to the rain.
the sun is not shining, i really shouldn’t be crying.
rain on the first day of april,
smashing into my skin and leaving welts.
the sky is overcast, a vicious gray and blue.
i am curves and circles and squiggly lines against
the straight jagged edges of the weather.
boom. bang. crash.
cower under the tree’s soaring branches, peering up at
thunder bolts and lightning flashes.
it’s raining on the first day of april
and i’m curled up in the mud,
beatened and cowed.
could you tell me what i'm missing,
what does the light feel like
warm against honeyed skin
in the hot californian sun?
it's raining on the first day of april,
please take me away
to warm california soil.

empty space (02/04/25)

you’ve decided to leave me in pieces,

now i’m reeling. not even sure i’m still breathing.

tell me how i can be okay in this empty space

(when the best part of me was always you?)

energy drinks (03/04/25)
CW: passive suicidal thoughts



Text Version:

Spoiler

414mg of caffeine to drown out my thoughts

(if i sink in the process, it’s okay.)

puckered lips, stinging mouth. (downing

liquid energy ‘ til everything is gone.)

stepping into the liminal space that is my head

(left right, right left. spinning in circles.)

jitterbug fingers, hummingbird heart.

(sweaty palms swipe across my thighs.)

black spots all fuzz sticks to the corners of my vision

(blood pools in my mouth, too thick to spit out.)

empty stomach convulses with want, with need

(i ignore it. the monster in my body feasts.)

iron star (04/04/25)

hypothetical, theoretical.
immoral magnetic circulation
deep out in space
even the future can't catch up.

sky and stars and the very fabric of the universe
masquerades as muscle and skin and bones.
futuristic, more metallic than not
and craving more than this.

quiescent prominence,
expanding slower than the past can run
and iron stars stay out of reach,
far enough into beyond.

twelve billion light years
it subsides and ebbs and the rippling tide
of a broken iron star
whisks all that time away.

people are just stars with human names,
and iron stars are just the universe
pretending it is omnipotent. it likes to think it knows all.
improbable. not quite real.

Hey NaPo Buddy!! <3333 You've got such a strong start already, I'm enjoying your poetry!

I like how in a few of these you have some clever ways of playing with sound-devices and words that sound alike ... misery / Missouri, Quiescent / prominence, masquerades / as muscles etc. the last poem especially is fun to read aloud.

Your poem on energy drinks is a really well done stream of consciousness poem and I enjoyed that you played with formatting a bit there too, it fit the sort of interior focused voice of the poem to take place within these tilting parenthesis asides.

Looking forward to reading more! Are you going for "Poem A Day"? If so you've got a great start!