Poem Spot - [ on the spot ]

I wish to transform my stormy mind into light,
I wish to lift dark clouds with words so bright,
I wish to weave hope through every somber day,
I wish to write my truth in a shining, positive way.

this sun, everything bloomed.

the forests got so dense
they obscured paths and openings,
sprouted lungs and limbs,
grew a head of hair so full
that rainfall never kissed the dirt.

this blessed season, a saint returned to me.
i was higher for months and months.
i awoke each day like i hadn’t seen sunlight,
or you, in years.

i see your face in running creeks,
all shades of green swaying,
sunlight shooting through the treetops
and sparkling off of the water,
off of your blonde hair.

this was when i became part of it;
i grew roots deeper than the tallest tree
and spread my seed as far as it would reach.
i was so, so cool. you could smell it
coming off me like a fever.

once a month, i decide to come home.
our skin is dewy, so i lay in the dirt.
i can feel the singing birds
and the sounds of your movements
and the song playing from your phone.

if you saw me like this,
you’d remind me i'm stunting my growth;
i make angels in the grass and beg
for a new beginning.

i have been waiting
for a day when the world turns red
and love exceeds all.
when the sky bleeds dusk into dawn,
and every heartbeat pumps in unison--
in this fantasy,
our hands no longer tremble when they touch.

i have been waiting for the sun to rise
so i can paint my world in crimson
until the last star fades
and the blues disintegrate.

she writes about how fingerprints rest,
​​now sweet, joyous even, on the collarbone.
​my name sits softly also on her mouth.
​​i'll leave her to it, hear back from me
​​in a time.

​my email reply pretends ghosts
​send their regards too, sincerely.

the want for space is alive in me;
​ancestors, holes in the carpet, fruit rot turned
​mold green, ​ground worn ​thin and close together.
she has me on ​her lockscreen
​and tells me i was cursed to be a poet.

i say, it is only a matter of time
​before these words do something beautiful;
​her mouse-paws pitter patter
​when i leave the room.

anchor-tying

Every version of our story
begins with the rain,
and the flood,
and the drowning
these things we both agree -

but for some reason,
the way you tell it;
the tide was inevitable,
and you were only drifting

but I seem to remember
you tying an anchor
tight around my ankle
and the fish warning me
that you were sawing a hole
into our boat,
whenever I wasn't watching

but then again,
maybe I'm imagining things
with all my sea-logged memories
it's hard to remember why
and I think you would say
it was all my fault anyways
for letting your siren song
lull me to sleep
in the middle of a hurricane.

i look seawards for a friend
i know her boat is sturdy
mine is broken or vanished
but i pack things here for a friend
warn her of the oceans torment
tell her to bring fresh water and
a store of food so she can escape
the earthquake even though i can't
i look seawards for a friend because
i want her to see another sunset
she doesn't want to set sail yet
but i tell her this is her chance

at the edge of the orchard,
she cracks the plum open with her teeth,
lets the skin cling
to the soft of her wrist.

no one teaches a girl how to carry ache —
only how to braid it
into her spine
and keep walking.

a glitch
was the moon
[error]
tongue-taste: static
bloom // blooming

if one day
he finds his hands around a girl's neck
I will bury myself next to her
and stop asking where all the mothers were

in a box in my attic
when he finds the hair clippings from his first hair cut
and paint handprints and young stories
and long nights for a beloved teacher,
maybe he will stop blaming me, too.

twist the roots from the treetop
penthouse bombing the ground floor
Earth in clumps
torn or shaken loose
lose it all
become nothing.

excavate the undergrowth
the palaces crush fertile farmland
soil dried out
no flowers
for the graves
of earthworms.

this erosion tempting fate
brings hungry waters to the homestead;
drive out everyone who lives there
fill the rooms
with bone-white marble.

the sky is quick to tell you
what you'd like to hear,

and lie through her teeth
as she hurls hailstorms at your car

summer's coming soon dear,
you don't have anything to worry about

but you'd rather believe her lies
than carry an umbrella.

the last time we spoke
my dad was still alive
and so perhaps I will never speak to you again
to hold in this world a version of me
where the smile still fills my face
and I haven't met true grief just yet

to you, then, I will always be the carefree little weirdo
with her forehead pressed against yours,
room in her lap for your head...

and I guess this is goodbye,
so we can keep that girl alive
and hold the echoes of her shoes
on the cobblestones in Prague

she still eats jellybeans
and cuts sandwiches into triangles

believing in red velvet cake
while the big mechanised drums
slosh sugar mixture without identity

tomorrow she bakes boysenberry pie
maybe this time, to share.

i want to go to a natural cemetery, no graves -
the earth will be soft. all that will be left is nature,
overgrown. this is how things feel
with you: secret glances,
uncanny and delirious coincidences;
a long drive, strange and twilit, all right turns;
we should not be holding hands, but we are.
in my head, i am naming my corpse.
this, like many things, i will never tell you.

Wooden floor, countertop, pizza.
Oven door, clicking valve, heat.
Baking sheet, cabinet, pantry.
Kitchen door, broken hinge, improvisation.
Flatmate, broken knee, broken lease.
Smoke alarm, burned pizza, burned bridges.