Poetry

 

  • A warm summer breeze on your toes

    The smell of sunblock and bug spray

    Sticky skin and damp hair

    Gravel imprinting in the palm of your hand, minute one.

    A insatiable crush on the British boy in class

    Cat ears and learning how to play the piano

    Song lyrics written in lipstick on the closet door

    Plotting on how to get the British boy to kiss you, minute two.

    Wishing that airplanes didn’t exist

    Shaking a palm tree’s hand

    Realizing that you can’t play the piano

    Wishing for the winter to the never ending summer, minute three.

    Remembering thunderstorms on the porch

    How the lightning kissed the concrete, minute four.

    Recalling the maple tree, hoping it’s still there, minute five.

    A sunset by the ocean is different from a sunset in the city, minute six.

    A handhold that’s too tight, a kiss that doesn’t feel right, minute seven.

    The bittersweet feeling that things will never be the same, minute eight.

    Discovering that falling in love hurts more than it should

    And maybe you should have just kissed the British boy

    So you could’ve experienced heartbreak sooner, minute nine.

    The dust that floats through the air when you open something old

    Learning how to play a different instrument

    The bittersweet feeling that things will never be the same

    Acceptance, minute ten.

 
 
 
 

  • It’s not just when the breeze enters into the house,

    But when the sun hits the floor just right, creating a perfectly warm spot-

    That's when I know to enjoy my afternoon.

    I let the wind hit my nose, ever so slightly.

    I let the sun marinate me while I think about all the things that I hate

    Like the goddamn mailman.

    Why does he need to deliver mail every day, in rain, sleet or snow?

    Who needs it? Not me.

    And that kid across the street, the one always asking questions.

    You know the one, who had a bouncy castle for his birthday last summer.

    I hate him too. I continue to plot against him.

    You know what, I can’t stand the stairs.

    Everyday they get harder and harder to climb. I’ve noticed that.

    In fact, I can’t remember the last time I climbed them by myself.

    Sometimes when I sit by the window and think about the things I hate,

    I think about how my leg hurts more than usual,

    How my foot barely touches the ground anymore

    Because the pressure will surge through my body and prick me all over.

    I think about my attitude, how I don’t play the dumb guy act

    The tail chasing, the toilet bowl drinking, the howling, no.

    I’m not dumb, but maybe I should have been. Just a little bit.

    I remember once when I stuck my head out the car window

    The wind was blowing and I did the thing that I’m supposed to do-

    Open mouthed, tongue out, fur flying in the wind

    Maybe I should have done that more.

    Because now I can’t do much but sit and think

    And when I look at the little boy across the street

    It hurts more than my leg

    Because being young went by so quickly that I seemed to have missed it.

    But the breeze still feels the same, even though my body doesn’t.

    Belly rubs and compliments still feel the same

    And now I don’t stand by the window but lay down because standing hurts,

    I can’t go up the stairs because it’s harder now, but that’s okay.

    It’s my new trick.

 

  • You tasted like toothpaste when we first kissed

    Blue orbit, straight from that frothy abyss

    Curled around your lips

    Spit rolling into the sink

    Porcelain

    Shiny like porcelain when it’s clean

    Shiny like the way the moonlight shined across the lake during our second year together

    When we went out toward the middle of nowhere because you had claimed the title of ‘guy from the middle of nowhere’, somewhere in the Midwest and I was almost too familiar with the city by the age of 12

    We couldn’t be more opposite

    But that night I felt a calm I had never felt before

    Something that perpetually follows me

    A sweet, slow calm

    As if the world stoped spinning and all that mattered was the moon across the lake

    And the sounds of night critters noisily settling in

    But in our third year you started to taste different

    Bitter lips, salty tongue

    Salty, flavored with your tears

    I fear nothing more than for you to stop existing

    It is my only fear

    The fear that one day you’ll taste like nothing.

    Then one day you tasted like nothing.

    You were empty

    It’s hard to describe the taste of nothing

    But I swear that the spark within you died

    But was it the spark within you

    Or the spark that was us?

    It was clear that we had began collecting dust

    Dust, flying particles gathering over our heads and in our nostrils and on the tips of our noses

    I often wonder if I tasted like nothing too.

    Although it’s odd;

    It’s been far too long

    But sometimes I still taste toothpaste,

    Toothpaste, that blue orbit, that frothy abyss

    Gathered between our lips

    Sometimes I still taste toothpaste, not much but just a bit.

  • I used to fear the Nothing.

    You know the Nothing. I’m sure of it.

    When you go on a particularly long drive,

    and pass by the seemingly endless plains

    of dried up grass or rolling hills.

    Rocks stacked up high,

    nestled between a mountain or two

    waiting to tumble into the vast unknown.

    The Nothing- the in-between of here and there.

    A gray sky that goes on for miles,

    or the soft purple haze of the evening,

    A bit of light that still holds on, but not for long.

    When you’ve spent your whole life in a city

    bustling with people left and right,

    the grime of a subway chair,

    the feeling of being part of something but all alone,

    you never become acquainted with the Nothing,

    because there’s always something.

    So when you see the Nothing for the first time,

    You can’t help but be worried

    that it might swallow you up whole.

    The Nothing haunts you

    when you’ve never seen anything like it before.

    Once you pass by it, you can’t help but think

    Where does the Nothing lead?

    What lies beyond it?

    What happens if you fall in?

    But then-

    The bright golden yolk dripping into the valley below,

    glistening on the land.

    A bright sheen of sticky yellow,

    over the mountain tops and trees

    dripping through the leaves.

    I lap it up as it falls towards me like sap

    and I fall in love with

    the majesty of being on the edge of the world.

    I used to fear the Nothing, but now I breathe.