At the poetry slam
the mics were popping The slightest whimper was thunder volleyed back and forth between the trampoline walls so they switched their hearing aids off Rogue frequencies mess with poems rattling around heads so easily The molecules in the air parted with a soft bow for them hands sharp minds clasped The mics popped and they yelled, "Do you know the fracture the unbelonging the abandonment the robbery?" The survivors in the crowd hissed back, Yes. The actors did not hear them.
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Keep her warm, love
It doesn't matter that you are small or string or only an anklet She doesn't require from you more than what you already are Beneath every thread, love bury a little sunshine pack it up for later She doesn't like to say it aloud these days, but she's still afraid of the dark When she was five, back in Bayside her nightlight cast long shadows But you, love can help the constellations eat the dark can remind her that only a few hours from dusk the sun comes up again She's a shell-shocked soldier, love She won't tell you if she is needing That's why you should know when it's dark when she's shivering even if you are fraying into nothing even if you are only an anklet wind yourself around her pulse and love her "Votes just pacify
If they could change anything they'd be illegal" - Mia Willis, CUPSI 2016 Head to Head Haiku Slam Champion Love, if it melts your skin and knocks your teeth, is not who he says he is A writer who stops writing can only see stories
Tips of them, tails of them crouching in dripping alleys She has given up the pen to live among mortals but stares baldly at the world, still like a fallen god A writer who stops writing is not a writer at all but a stone no longer a tool to build watchtowers or light fires but a pale, pink thing floated down a fast-moving stream its pocketmarks and humps smoothed over by insistent, wily tides such a pretty, useless substance such a weary, wishing prize Inside, the stone yearns for a warning jolt, scream of demise, sudden bump over an edge the entire way down spent falling and praying then, a solid impact a crack. maybe two. maybe a dozen yield uneven leg-stumps to hobble on, perhaps but preferably—hopefully—hands hands that grasp hands that try The cotton in my throat is growing
A synthetic polyp making a home in the vacuum of my voice-box; one week in, I can't even say, "the hell is this." Samson drew from his seven locks what I lost in seven days, but without the worming body of this parasite inflammation I could make the pagan rafters shiver and more, make the people listen This situation is especially grim in a being that is otherwise unremarkable: short in stature slanted in eyes When you give an ant a roar more terrifying than the growl of thunder or the end of times, you lean in. you listen. But a mute ant is only an ant or only a splatter under your boot, barely anything at all i like the idea of being in some stranger's photo
a snapshot of someone's birthday, barmitzvah, anniversary... then there's me. in the background. mid-laugh. Forgiveness?
Mine? What is forgiveness and why do you want it from me? Forgive? Forgive what? You mean, look past your wrongs and see only the bright, laughing parts of your soul - forgiveness? Or, do you want me to dust your wrongs on a philosophical balance, strip your wrongs bare to the bone redress the hurt you dealt me so recklessly and clothe it with fake gold? Or, forgiveness look your wrongs straight in the face straight at the smokey eye, rouged cheeks, toupée Laugh at myself, "I thought you were somebody else it was stupid of me, I'm sorry" This kind of forgiveness? I don't know what you mean by it besides, you've given me no evidence for why I shouldn't just forget - what? who? Violence is no requirement for meaning
Building does not beg breaking Feeding entails no bleeding Art can stand without the beating, yet writers are known for their drunkenness for their sullen tempers and gray dispositions all for their craft or because of it This method acting is by the accident of habit of the imperfect science of birthing without breathing of pretending to be authentic Pain is intoxicating Maybe that's why scabs itch so much they heal us, yet we like to touch and grab and scratch and pull and bleed but I want my blood to dance inside my body I don't have need for red ink anymore Death scenes can do without Stanislavski I can write in watercolor I step onto the crumbly black tar,
parting the secretive fog Leaves and other green, growing things whisper their welcome against my lips Coolness slips in through holes in my heels by capillary action they tickle my feet Sapling arms wind around fingers of sunshine Feathery elms bow with apologetic weight of a dozen hundred drops aching for the mulchy bed of petals prematurely dead below Grass bend their bodies too willingly; I sink deeper into the muscle and sinew of the hill There is everything and nothing to smile about: it rained this morning Escape
is the only wish I have in Great Neck Mistakes are all there are in Great Neck Hate took home out of my house in Great Neck I don’t want to be from anywhere anymore. Funny, here, I’m out-of-state but never homesick Always in the gray state between breathing and heaving Come spring break, all my classmates have left but in Great Neck, there are no people left only ghosts and they come with me everywhere, anyway My edges are rags of themselves tickling scabs from the stories they tell Like medals they hang, like nooses, I mean medals, they hanker for necks for something to commemorate or, at least, to regret But I don’t want this pedestal I want an incomplete puzzle to crave my chafed edges to make space for my creaky bones not like a grave parts its legs to repeal me, but to create something, if not happy, then beautiful Until then, I’ll plant sunshine under my skin and hope that they’ll find me soon ask, “Where have you been all this time? We’ve been needing you over here.” and take me home take me home |
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