Poem Spot - [ on the spot ]

Roof of cold air
supported by
a row of coffee cans,
the lamplight gleam
paints the metal pillars
up and down
all around.

i wonder why leaves are most beautiful,
right before they fall -
when the air is sharp with the promise of change
and everything is flashing gold and deep red and crisp
and everything is achingly temporary -

is it part of life's perfect design
that we are made with creases on our hands
and hollowed lungs and ears and mouths
like we are born wounded-incomplete and wanting -

is it strange or sweet that grief,
always seems to clutch love's hand
a little too tight.

if we were to divide the world into a half so we both can cope with our separated souls, what would you want? the city we lived in for five years, the town we stopped by one night where we whispered our secrets, or the library where our eyes crossed over our favorite novel and we met.

if that is not enough for you, must i give you my favorite memories? you can keep the pictures, of you meeting a stray cat and your eyes twinkle in the sunlight, the fountain we fell into and were soaked in water but were in love, or when we asked a stranger to photograph us only to realize we had been smiling so wide looking at each other.

don't think i don't follow what you say now, what you post, who you write, like we were not the ones sitting on the same chair together and drawing the same breath. we are not the same people we were then, comparing the sun to each other's eyes, reading romantic poetry lines to start our morning alongside cups of tea, falling asleep lying next to each other on our old couch.

i miss you. do you miss me?

A red, purple, orange scramble,
springtime cuffing the street with one hand,
as the sun slides past the apartments.

I am dandelion fuzz
because I am allowed to be
and he collects my tears in a small teal bowl.

Drops full of cortisol
turn into fertilizer
and the most beautiful weed
has taken shape in my body

i am floating ice
intricate water crystals
i melt and die, rain

I am supposed o write a poem here
I am not a poet, I think to myself
I am not a poet, I sceam to phone
Write a poem, topic says
so here I am, with my poem.
Unperfect and without rhyme
eyes would hurt my literature teacher
if she saw this ugly poem.
At least, I can tell to myself,
I had some fun writing it.

Green starlight billows
in the vast black vault
the universe cups its treasures
with all the hands it has to spare.

If only it could do the same
with living things --
a desperate sapling
harried by breeze.

God I will die
With a corner of my heart
Dedicated to the alternate reality
Where I still did not kiss him that night

Instead I went home and broke up with
The one who was not meant to be anyway
And found him the next day
And asked to walk with him along the lakeshore


So that maybe in a little while
We would be drunk again
And I could kiss him without guilt

And we could sit the next day on the lakeshore
Holding hands and wrapped in worn fleece and flannel
And my life would always be filled with stained glass and poetry
Prose would be trimmed and hodgepodged into wallpaper,
And I would circle my favorite lines of his in bright green pen
And he would highlight his favorite of mine

I will die with many things in my heart
The smell of opening my dad's front door just one more time
The light in my mother's living room when a fire is going
The weight of my son's hand against my cheek for the first time
And in a small corner, the way he lay his head on my lap,
Offering a life as an artist and offering a life as loved.

This is the broken, unfurling edge of time,
that I wish I could re-forget;
the unknowingness of tomorrow
and everything after;
like an unfurling wing of a new sparrow
deciding whether flight is a right of birds
or only a dream - and she leaps;
absolutely unknowing which is true.
but you can't hold on to yesterday forever,
you can't teeter on this edge and only stretch
one day you simply must believe
flight is possible.

i (transitionally)-- shed this mortal husk to
break into the new light(life), where i will be
so much more than myself.

for there are moments in life
in which memories are formed from,
are fondly thought about later,
sitting on a couch, reminiscing.

yet, there will always be times in which
those memories cannot be found
or recalled or remembered, since
there was only one of you present.

a girl and a boy on a hill
sat on the ground perfectly still.
then the girl ran away
while the boy chose to stay
listening to a small whip-poor-will.

the boy sat perfectly still
while the girl dashed away from the hill;
she liked the boy there,
but she just couldn't bear
the bird's tune, so sour and shrill!

put on my headstone
chosen for a nap
held sleeping baby safely
and smelled his precious head

what is the difference between robots
and humans
what are neurons except organic wires
and what is electricity but artificial brain waves
and what are humans but complex machines of
poorly made fragile parts
and chemical balances too easily disrupted
i am robot in all the ways that matter
and human in all the ways that don’t