coffee grounds

its autumn now, leaves falling to the earth

creating the next name for a season,

its fall,

falling.

…

an angel, unnamed.

ink dipped feathers shedding from the bubbles

that formed when you fell.

falling.

i’ve always wondered what it’d be like to fall,

to plummet.

…

air resistance resists the death of a human mind.

a mind already dead. dying. 

rot creeping up the lines.

falling.

bedtime at 8:30, it becomes 9

dont tell.

the kitchen is dirty.

dont tell.

the dog is still outside.

dont-

dont lie to her.

ive already torn that apart.

repetition

of the same mistakes

now ive buried my brain in the back yard

in a jar.

sealed with my secrets,

decomposing like coffee grounds.

…

theres still a song stuck in the throat 

of my skeleton.

decaying on war ground.

lost.

moral of the story: nothing good comes from falling.

You told me that I cannot love.

You told me that I was a bird without wings, 

That love was an illusion to dash me to the ground. 

You tell me that there is only pain, and that

Pain is a tiger, pulling my wings out of my back

While I writhe in agony.

You tell me that love is false, and I believed you.

I stood so close – so close to a black abyss 

That would take the agony away. 

And I felt like a bird without wings –

A bird that would never fly.

It was easy for a wingless dove to never feel the tiger’s claws.

But if love is fake, then what is it I feel?

What is it I feel when 

I watch the waves crash over red rocks,

For every grain of sand I can run through my fingers.

I will never get that sand back.

What is it I feel for a girl who I will never see, 

But holds my hand while I stare out over the abyss, 

Beckoning me home.

Love is an illusion, you say.

It will bind me for the tiger to catch, you say.

I can see that the tiger has caught you already.

Mauled you with its teeth and claws

But then what is it I still see in your eyes?

Eyes that are as cold as blood leaking from open wounds,

Scars that will never fade, from the tiger’s claws.

Did you save me from her, or are you her?

If love is fake, why do you tell me not to love?

Why do you scream for me to grow wings I can never grow,

White wings, not brown wings, not yellow wings. 

I can never grow white wings, and never can you.

If love is fake, why do I weep at night when her words

Bring me further away from the edge. 

If love is fake, why didn’t you leap into the abyss?

No, I think it is real.

Hit me if you want, you lied.

Love is why I did not step into that abyss.

I will never step into it willingly.

I will not let my eyes grow cold like yours.

Why did I want to stay, if pain will catch me?

Why did you stay?

I will not let the tiger tear my wings out so that they are the color it wants,

I grow my own wings. 

I will not let you tell me I cannot love.

I will let love wash over me in the form of her presence. 

I will see the love in your cold eyes.

Look, I can fly.

“Closet”

There is nothing

On the other side

We both know this

I am just a figment of

Their imagination

And they are mine

When they knock on the door

I pretend I cannot hear it

They walk around in the blackness

And I walk in the sun

I meet a girl at school

She tells me she remembers

What the darkness feels like

I tell her I do not

I have only ever been in

The Sun

We are friends in a way

That I have never been 

Friends before

Mom tells me that

Girls are not supposed 

To be friends like this

I tell her it feels natural

My Sun fades and

My world grows a little

Darker

I tell my Mom that

My world is dim

She tells me that

Everyone’s world is dim

I don’t want to believe her

I want to show her

The door in my room

That closes off the dark

She does not follow me there

I stand in front of the door

And I feel the girl stand beside me

I reach for the handle and

The Sun in my room flickers

The door swings open and

I see myself

He is scared and he is young

And he is me

My Sun flickers out.

———————–

Santo Domingo In Pictures

Picture:
The world as a postcard.
Picturesque palms line the sandy beaches
The sky-blue waves lazily roll in and out
And the sun beats down hard on three gradient backs.

Picture:
The typical atomic family
sans an electron by the standards of one
one who knows that’s just out of his control at this point
So he merely grimaces and poses uncomfortably in the familial embrace he’s grown used to.

Picture:
A bare-legged gaggle of legs
each of a varying, beautiful shade
all of them loving
loving each other

Picture:
The immortal bareness of skin

kissed by Sol’s immortal rays
God might’ve made immortals of us
Had we been any less perfect

Picture:
a single moment in time
frozen in cardstock and printer ink
Now, the sun’s rays
Never seem as bright without us three together.

Cheesecake

sitting on the table next to my little red chair

vines cover the wall of the backyard that now lives in my memory

kids in bright-colored tee shirts stand beside me

 waiting for the cheesecake to be served

sunlight dapples the fence behind mama 

i keep this memory in the taste of sugar 

i keep this memory tucked in my subconscious

in a little teal box with sparkles that i have tied 

with a piece of my soul 

mama is glowing in this memory 

this moment will be replaying in the corner of my mind forever

and maybe this moment is always happening 

floating in the ripples of time. 

one year on the earth 

one candle in the center of the cheesecake

eyes that were bigger than the universe take in 

the first sight of a flickering flame 

little hands reach out to touch the golden glowing thing 

one chubby finger touches the flame and pulls away 

big eyes turn into glossy marbles,

tears dripping down puffy cheeks

mama’s hands hold onto the tender little arm 

she whispers words that I couldn’t yet understand 

words that talked to my heart instead: 

It’s gonna be okay

Violently Sterilizing the Growing Tree

I massaged the beach
from my scalp
with hotter water
then the split tips of my hair are used to.
And out of fear,
they coiled in tight spirals
that haloed my head.

I rinsed my night
of missed-busses
and tear-covered phones
from my burning cheeks.
And rigid lungs.

From my static breath grew
a stronger sob,
whose rain I rinsed
gone, once again.

I scrubbed my chest

with steel wool and clawing nails,
and from the etches in my untouched
skin, tissue lumped together
forming breasts that I learned
to hide.

I scraped bone from my nose and chin
and from a raw skull
calcified features that I learned
to graze under my fingers.

From picked lips
words spat
whose sound I began to sculpt
and worship.

I became myself
in the bathroom
where I deconstructed a premature body.
Sprouting from the nubs
of cut branches,
grew a person whose sound
I worship.

You learn to feel love in hate.

Their blades may pierce you,

twist and mangle themselves

into pretty words,

hollow promises,

but bloodstains still peek through clothes

and claw up your throat.

They watch you swallow,

pretend the rings and slashes

on your skin are illusions,

and they leave you frigid, numb,

laughing at yourself

soaked in red and pink.

You copy empty smiles

and plaster them on your face,

a splintered mirror

forcing shards together

into cracking smiles.

You learn to find love in hate,

as a broken toy,

longing for playmates

to give you value.