I am
the only thing
that warms
this room, now.
Poetry
Through Mud
I
will
be
down
in the mud,
crawling through
the
dirt,
happy as
can be
at the
cuts
on my palms
because
I know
callouses
can only
grow
through
use,
through mud.
Scale
I saw life on a grand scale
the super novae
thousands of lightyears away, that happened
even though we don’t know about them yet.
To us, they’re still stars winking peacefully,
noted only when we bother to look.
Relics of a time long past.
I can feel inside that
I have exploded already
my outward trajectory will bring the glances of those even many,
many miles away.
Slingshot.
You were the moon.
No, not like that.
This isn’t a poem about the soft guiding light
of a waxing gibbous, reminding me of the silver hair
trailing down Artemis’ back.
No.
You were the moon to me.
NASA’s rockets use the gravity of the moon like a slingshot
so they can head to Mars with the right trajectory and speed.
You were science to me. You had gravity I could use
to get much, much further away from you than I ever was before.
My little rocket ship wasn’t aimed at the light that you gave off –
cheap imitation and faded effort of a star.
No.
I was always headed to a frontier you couldn’t dream of
because honey, you were just a rock.
The Sack.
I carry it with me,
a sack full of stones.
Sometimes it’s on my back, or I drag it behind me, or kick it in front of me
on days I am especially tired.
But it is there, beside my bed each morning.
Once I shake off the stupor of my sleep,
I look over at the sack and feel
the memory of the weight
climb onto my chest before I even
pick it up.
Nostalgia.
At night
when I walk home drunk
I whisper to you.
Its been five years
but I like to talk to you, still.
After the alcohol makes me bold
and as reckless as I used to be,
I stare at Orion’s belt, thinking
of the time I believed
I’d only have 3 loves my whole life,
and that you were
my brightest,
my most sure.
I whisper to you how much I still
love you, how much I loved you then.
The strings of syllables
tumbling indelicately
out of my mouth
without cadence
to lend itself
to immortality –
no one else will hear those endearments.
You never did either.
Below 40 degrees
when air fills my lungs,
the smell and slight burning
reminds me of the nights we had potential,
when I could wander to your room at 3 am
drunk
and even though I never told you
how I felt
at least I could talk to you.
At least my lungs back then
felt that burn as living
and not
nostalgia.
Sand.
That inner peace, that untouchable joy, that unwavering mirth that lies beneath a heart that believes it is loved.
Moments crash like an angry sea upon the shore, but someone in love understands that they are already sand. They cannot be broken, and in being so small have become another force of beauty entirely.
People travel across the world to feel sand beneath their feet.
A person in love feels the warmth radiating up even as they commute home in a blizzard.
Romance Haikus
All Lucas wanted
was for me to come through once.
The flight was cancelled.
***
He made me gin and
tonic for my weary toes –
none for my heart, though.
***
Jonah had red hair –
Only primary color
I have found perfect.
***
Faneuil Hall was loud.
He cut through the noise to say
I was beautiful.
I Can Forget Anything.
I can forget anything.
I have already forgotten his face, his genuine laugh.
I forget what it felt like to be held by him, innocently.
I have destroyed the section of my brain
that used to rationalize my love for him.
I have obliterated the part of me
that used to love him.
He is gone.
I can forget him. I have forgotten. To speak his name
would be to call into existence a time
that I have left so far behind
so quickly
that one wonders just how strong my legs are to carry me
away like that.
Well let me tell you, they are just as strong as my mind –
this mind connecting everything in the world together
except him to my current life. So yes,
I get to rock and roll and jam out to music.
Not a single note is his anymore.
Not a single part of my body is his anymore.
Not a single part of my body ever was.
I can forget anything.
Instead of screaming into the night over
everything that I remember,
I stare up into the spaces between stars and whisper
“yes, I know you too.”
And Another (Pt. 2)
Throw another stone, love.
Try and toss it as hard as you can.
See if you can reach me, now
that I’ve gone out to sea.
Try and burden me now that I am out of your reach.
Where will you put them now, the many stones? I built
an island out of the ones you made me carry before.
It now grows flowers more beautiful than any word
you ever said to me. What will you do with your stones?
Will you carry them yourself?
I see you tossing them into an angry sea, trying to reach me
as I face forward into the deep.
I’m not afraid of anything.
I am light, now, love.
I have never been so free as the day I made that island
and planted those flowers. Beauty born from the agony
of carrying around you insults,
your jealousy,
your other loves.
Metro-Minded 