december, week 2 1. cherry tree 2. beheaded 3. an early morning chill 4. hungry 5. absent mind

december, week 1

1. shapelessness  2. jesus on the dashboard  3. a death in the snow   4. warm hands 5. make it holy

i. boy feeds on light — a hasty poem i wrote last night for a bps prompt.

challenge #02

Write a poem from the POV of a fictional character. This could be your favorite character from a book, film or TV series, one of your OCs, a character from a play or a classic.

april

1. eucharist 
 2. dead ends  3. where is your ghost?  4. starry-eyed 
 5. forgiveness  6. black cat crossing

1. He whispered down my throat, “what is sin?” His hands were so hot, & his teeth knew what they were doing. He offered me up like sacrifice to his narcissism; broke my back on the rocks & poured me into a demitasse. He drank my blood & ate my body like this was a eucharist.

2. my smile leads nowhere & doubles back on itself; a snake, frantic- eating it’s own tail because it is starving, it doesn’t know where predator ends & prey begins. it is wilted rose, it is blackened rot hiding behind clean teeth; curtains, but no window to speak of, like the sound of wings beating against a lifeless body.

3. I thought I would feel you around me. I miss having heat stroke; the way you rocked me in your chair the whole day. I can’t touch the colour grey anymore. The smell of hard toffee is on the inside of my skull, dove-tying my tongue to the roof of my mouth. When your chest didn’t rise against the side of my face, the moon put her hands in my hair & told me to cry- but I haven’t.

4. Why does it smell like peonies? Where is the hair on the back of your neck, why isn’t it standing? Mine is. Our buttery skin like August days- melting into each other; where the popsicle is hot before it hits your lips. My thighs are numb & you haven’t even touched me

yet.

But you will, won’t you? You’ll put your hands in the places that your mouth will follow, I’ll drop my cigarette into my hair & won’t even notice.

5. A lot of things are hard to swallow: pills, regret, lost chances, dreams, the ego, death. The bottom of your eyes wasn’t nearly as far down as I had thought, & you were always half a breath away from becoming thundercloud.

I planted wisterias in the bags under my eyes & I left (four years too late). You taste like umeboshi, but I don’t blame you for that. You dug canyons through the softness of my amygdala, but I had forgiven you before I’d even finished filling them in.

6. I saw a cat once widen himself into a tree & break his own neck. I prayed for myself, & looked at the name on the tree overnight as it steadily became part of the sky. They blended sfumato. Chiaroscuro. The ground heaved its intemperate chest, sang paradox to the fawn, & she took the wolf in her mouth.

april

1. eucharist 
 2. dead ends  3. where is your ghost?  4. starry-eyed 
 5. forgiveness  6. black cat crossing

one : eucharist  ///  last supper ceremonial knife curves down, dull silver blade a fogged-out mirror — and as he cuts into his thigh he says, lo and behold, this is my flesh, the very body of heaven. how raw it is, this absolution; how tar-dark, how honeyed-sweet. we feast on it in silence, tongue and teeth all an aching, tearing into the paradise of him with singed, burning throats, fingers a forest of bloodied shadows.

two : dead ends  ///  not that the start is ever living in the beginning, there is always god and a graveyard and the same old coin tied to your left hand, proof of an unbroken marriage to the earth. pick one, the divine samsar says, and gestures to the holt of stone, his smile too full of jagged teeth — for both of you already know the path.

three : where is your ghost?  ///  last seen 07 | 07 it glimmers on the walls, effervescent and saline, flickering for only a moment at a time — a map of phantom stars, faithfully trying to guide you, if only you’d have eyes. it leaves its’ breathy kisses on the bathroom mirror, on the pane of broken glass above the kitchen sink, all in vain hope you’ll someday notice, yet you only ever see your scarred feet.

four : starry-eyed  ///  oh, to be young and what is adoration, if not the open-mouthed hunger for one’s lost, forbidden god? is veneration not the ardent wish to be the lone one chosen in a crowd?

five : forgiveness  ///  eat it! it roots on the tongue, too insincere to even fester. it doesn’t smolder, the hate you still do harbor — it isn’t even ash, a mere long, scarred line of smoke running discreet the length of your sternum. moving on, you see, is only kindness for the self.

six : black cat crossing  ///  felis felix and the proscribed nativity of her hipline has you thinking that perhaps selling your soul for a night of tainted love cannot be that bad a luck.

march

1. rabbit anthem  2. you are light & i’m a wasteland 3. coming of age 4. roman candles 5. switzerland   6. false realities 

march

1. rabbit anthem  2. you are light & i’m a wasteland 3. coming of age 4. roman candles 5. switzerland   6. false realities 

1. rabbit anthem

A contradiction of a cynic. A non believer who believed in luck, the beating of an answer. A cold heart gone warm with the rebelieving in fate. A boy sighs, cuts off his own foot like it’s a souvenir, the ending of his running, ties it to a keyring, lets it jingle down his spine until it grows back. The winner of the race isn’t the fastest, it’s the one who finally takes himself out of the running. The lucky one who hears a heartbeat over his own feet striking the earth.


2. you are light & i’m a wasteland

Put yourself here. I’m not sure if I’m connected to the ground anymore or if I’m sinking into it. Would you show me again what it’s like to not be on my knees? I’m just a girl gone still, an asking gone unasked. Maybe the reason I can never feel my hands anymore is because of all the stretching. It’s cold in a place made of longing. The year I found your eyes was the one I learnt to live in. What if nothing ever feels like love again after you?


3. coming of age

Tell me how it feels, to lose and gain at the same time. Tell me how it feels to feel new, to change and look at yourself and know that things are never going to be like this again. Tell me how it feels to live. I want to know how you can miss something you never had, how you can love so good that it hurts. I want to know what it’s like to run so fast it feels like you’re not moving, to stay still and feel the earth hurtle around the sun at a million miles an hour. Tell me how it feels to gain more and more on the inside and lose pieces of yourself on the outside. Tell me how it feels to live and die at the very same time.


4. Roman candles

There’s an old myth, one that starts with eyes, or maybe that’s wrong, one that starts with flames, with lights, with warmth, with her. We call the soft ones gods, sacrifice to them, pray, get the attention of the sky. There’s an old myth that everyone forgot the meaning to and made up their own instead. It ends in fire.


5. switzerland

The black keys of a sonnet, the inbetween the lines kind of poem. The gap between a misplay and doing it again on purpose. Standing in the middle of the alone, the sea one side, the sky the other. Neither of them are looking.


6. false realities

I don’t want just anyone. I deserve more than that, don’t I? And yeah maybe I thought you looked a lot like it. But I don’t want to just sit on your shelf. How do I unbecome from the “sweet child?” I’ve grown all this inside of me but you still laugh at it. You don’t think it’s real. Look at me. I don’t know where to put it. Can you see it yet? I’m a black hole personified. My hands are full with all the ashes from things I’ve burnt up. There’s no one to give it to. I have so much to give, take it, please just take it. And if you can’t, just let me give it to someone with a replica of your hands.

march

1. rabbit anthem  2. you are light & i’m a wasteland 3. coming of age 4. roman candles 5. switzerland   6. false realities 

i. you are prey behind benevolent eyes, head ablaze with the sound that rings out when their imagined fists meet your damaged ear, you perch under a thin, grassy blade of moon and stare down the angels that litter your backyard. the rabbits with their many faces, their ancient wonderland roots. there’s a music note trapped in your chest, stained with the tune of a promise you’d thought you’d forgotten. hands woven into sundials. uninterrupted trill.

ii. he doesn’t know what it’s like to love what cannot be touched, my fingers dancing in aimless want, his lips like palm trees fused together in refusal. he is summer-haunted, mercurial; tempted by his own slain shadow. i stand and watch at the pulse point of the universe, flesh picked clean of flowers, all my oceans dried up, and your name, like star-drip from my mouth. 

iii. it isn’t the early 2000′s anymore, my favorite dress from when i was fourteen doesn’t quite fit, you wear your hair shorter now & i barely hear maroon 5 playing on the radio. the last time i called my best friend up for pizza & a movie she asked me to grow the fuck up & the peaches in your mum’s back garden don’t taste quite as sweet. your mum who told us about fairies hanging out beneath your tire swing & sunsets made out of honey in the evening. you listen to sufjan stevens now & i cry to true crime podcasts at 2 in the morning & every time i take the car out i forget to notice the warning of stoplights. there’s no longer a chance i’ll ever get my hogwarts letter & even though you wanted to be a pilot when you were five you gave up the dream for a office where they teach you the importance of bloodless walls & a stable job. the sky feels off & i’m starting to miss people i don’t even remember being. 

iv. they carry old gods & whisper to you of all the possibilities you buried beneath the altar of a pop idol you listened to back in the day. you steal the limn of their flames and wear them in your eyes. on tuesday, your brother confuses you for firelight & you laugh at the irony.

v. the last time it snowed europe came to us in a dream and we got lost in the geometry of your hands in mine in the pale light, how they became ghosts in their own right, lightning lit up the morning & the coffee-maker sang happily of spring’s demise, our half-young bodies hot in mid-winter. 

vi. It’s 2 AM. Go back to sleep. Can’t you see it? See what? You’re hallucinating. I’m not. (the cars line the streets like doused matchsticks, their hoods washed a familiar blood orange) I think the world’s ending. The world ended last weekend, now go back to sleep. I’m serious. Yeah, me too. (a weight on my neck, in my mouth, beneath a kingdom of escaped sighs) Do you ever feel like you’re dreaming, even when you’re awake? (i want to feel like a cathedral, unhinge the moon and drink the blood) Every night with you. 

march

1. rabbit anthem  2. you are light & i’m a wasteland 3. coming of age 4. roman candles 5. switzerland   6. false realities 

i. patched up, got all patched up they say. running like a jack rabbit ready to go. because here comes spring! here it comes! gotta get patched up and ready. hammering around my rib cage, my hearts running like a jack rabbit ready to go. it rattles so loud the underground can hear. way down under they hammer away and put patches in place so we can all be running like jack rabbits ready to go.

ii. you are dry sun. boring and unrelenting. it’s almost a shame that you’re barely around as navy winds tie knots where daylight remains and i come alive. humming and droning, ive got potential.

iii. theres a crack, then a whimper. ears ring from a recoil. just like in the movies.

iv. i remember a road trip. humid heavy heat that shook hands with the air conditioning. palms and roman candles, willows and sparklers. eager little things. i was eager too but only in my mind. the rest of me drooped against leather and baked in the sun.

v. switzerland. SWITZERLAND. SWITZ-ER-LAND. my brother says its not a real place. but i can point to it on a map. he says you can point anywhere, that doesnt make it real. mom and dad have been there, though. and they have pictures. of SWITZERLAND.

vi. march has a funny way, doesn’t it? of trying to dissect you. not yet able to lift your skin up and look underneath, it settles for aching gums. march recreates whatever comes before it. march declares itself titled in a way that seems to say, “yes, this is the way things ought to be.” its an hourglass repositioned, its an unending grey to unstitch you. march waits until you’re peeled back and spilled. pinprick bruises from the inside out. it waits for you to say, “god, what have i done?” before turning your backyard to mud. march is real because it says so.

march

1. rabbit anthem  2. you are light & i’m a wasteland 3. coming of age 4. roman candles 5. switzerland   6. false realities 

1. the faster your heart flutters, the quicker the dust fills it

my teeth are open-rooted, so you can’t tell how much I gnaw (on the past) on how your hands on my throat felt like salvation

2. you are hydrogen and helium; hot enough to rip the colour from my eyes

& I am cold, crumbling rock; pock-marked and hiding my face from the world

your soul tastes like burning, and my mouth is full of holes from the embers

3. My cheeks flushed with hot, thick blood, and oh my god, I didn’t know-

I didn’t know it would feel like this, like I’m sinking into my own skin, about to implode and become nothing-

become nothing and take your hands with me across the expanse of a hundred empty skies-

a hundred empty skies casting shadows over cities full of radiant girls who hate themselves, they hate themselves-

they hate themselves, and I want to show you what you’ve done

4. I was jarred by the shock of it,

felt all of my ribs touch each other

I looked at you with blood in my mouth and

laughed so hard I felt

the acid

come up out of my stomach

every hair on my body

stood on end, and you put

my heart in your mouth and whispered,

“you can’t love this world if you don’t

love destruction”

5. the hands of the clock

pressed to the floor, and the tiles

wet

from the sink I let overflow

I ran out of the house and

screamed until the snow

freight-trained

down the piebald mountainside, and

swallowed everything I knew

I won’t cry when the snow fills my

lungs

and I won’t reach for you;

I am not just a small mouth and a

soft

heart, I will back my own revolution,

and my name will be

mine

to reinvent

6. I slide between the walls and melt like candle, in my mind I am running my sagacious hands along the spine of each season. I can feel them, like if colours had their own texture.

the weather turned inside out, and found the sky, the rain caught in my throat, and the summer died in my arms