It’s lonely in the
Stillness of a sleeping Earth
Two heartbeats make for
Sweeter dreams than only one
I don’t know
The tingle of lip to lip
And skin to skin
Of locking gaze
Eye to eye
And having the moment
Shoot through you
Right to your toes
I don’t know
How the space between
Two people
Screams silently
To be closed
And I don’t know
How two
Can become one
In heat to heat
And breath to breath
But I do know
How a soul
Calls to another
Across infinite expanses
To meet in the middle
Heart to heart
I try never to say
Never and Always
The words that tie you in
To promises you cannot keep
I try never to say
Never
Because no one’s ever felt
Like an Always
Just a Now
Or a Later
And thinking about Forevers
Breaks a heart better
Than anything
Poetry,
I’m afraid,
is quite silly.
Let’s break up
perfectly good sentences
into
ridiculous
line breaks.And don’t forget you must
bemoan your bleeding poet’s heart.
Be dramatic.
Slit your wrist and
let the paper soak up your emotions.
Hear your sorrow in
a lonely howling wind,
your anger in
the rip-roaring scream of a tornado.
The tweet tweet of a bird
will symbolize your happiness
or maybe your imminent downfall.
Never say anything outright.
Always drown it in metaphors and imagery.
Today you felt like roiling seas and
pulverized shells
and the forlorn calls of seagulls.
Perhaps the smell of sewage in the air.
O your destitute soul!A good rule of thumb,
I always say,
is to assign meaning to things
that are utterly meaningless.
You, the clever poet,
you will always see things in a broader scope.
That vase you knocked off the table
with your elbow while eating Cheetos
is not just the result of carelessness.
No.
That vase is your hopes and dreams
in pieces at your feet.
Your elbow is how your mother pushed you
to be a lawyer of all things
though words sang in your heart.
Misunderstood, you poor thing,
from a tender, early age.
A flower squashed before it’s had the chance to bloom.
A disease cured before it could infect the masses.
I could fill oceans with
the tears I shed for you.Always shun the temptation
to rhyme in alternating lines.
It’s too much aggravation
so it’s best that you decline…s.
You’ll end up saying silly things
for the sake of being catchy
like “All I wanted were some shoestrings
But the man, he was Apache.”
And then you look back and you see
that nothing makes any sense
but it is so cloyingly twee
you’ll come up with some pretense.Oh and don’t neglect your structure.
Because line breaksjust
aren’t
e n o u g h
It’s
///best
to\
make people wonder
why?
Make yourself
hard
to
decipher
Because you are
-=indeed=-
too
c
o
m
p
l
e
x
to write in anything less
than secret codes
that only the
worthy
readers will
even come close
to understanding, right?Above all, know that you are special.
You and you alone are the master of the pen.
Other poets? Hacks.
Prose writers? Please.
They are poets that could never be.
You are the most tortured thing,
like that splinter you got in second grade.
That is true pain
that no one will ever get.
So you live your life in verse,
use your meter and your rhyme
to distinguish you from the crowd
and instead blend in
with everyone else who does that too.
I’m still pretty proud of this.
Best lit assignment ever.
The breaks between kisses
Like the spaces between stars
A breathless pause
A bright burn left behind
And one to come
In the meantime
A seemingly endless stretch
Compressed into a point
A moment
Of waiting
And we fall into it
Forever tumbling
Until we see
The next blaze on the horizon
And then forever is
So quickly forgotten.
He thought she was
Like lemon peels
And strawberry preserves
Brown sugar
And a stick of cinnamon
A hint of cayenne.
Strips of notebook paper
Bits of Bic Cristals
Peppermint patties
Deep, bitter dark chocolate
Driftwood splinters
Worn out hairbands
Lost house keys
And scraps of old lace
Winter moons
And summer suns
And dust clouds plucked
from nebulas
Packed in a mason jar
Tied with twine
A handwritten label
Things he could keep
When she was long gone
They closed their weary eyes
And laid down to rest
Feather lashes
Brushing against tender cheeks
They dreamed to forget
All they had seen that day
Prayed to wake
Blissfully blind
They closed their weary eyes
And laid down to rest
Feather lashes
Brushing against tender cheeks
They dreamed to forget
All they had seen that day
Prayed to wake
Blissfully blind
In dreams, we connect,
A thread stretched across distance.
Don’t wake. You’ll snap it.
When they tell me I look like him…
I don’t see the jaw -
Set hard against the wind
I don’t see the eyes -
Ringed blue like our ocean home
I don’t see the shoulders -
Squared and confident.When they tell me I look like him…
I see him motionless
Flat, unmoving -
Mona Lisa smile
Sewn tight to cut out the air
No blues
No lifeWhen they tell me I look like him…
I see my future set in
Blinding -
Rings of blue
Shutting out the light.
Please
Stretch me out before you
Muscles straining
Limbs aching
Shape me into a line
A curve
Whatever your desire
With your hands
Your demanding fingers
Your harsh palms
I will be patient
Because I am yours
Just
Please…
I have destinations
But no headings
No helm
No anchor
No sails
Just me
Gripping tight to
A raft in the ocean
Please
Let the current
Take me
Where I need to go
Hands full of Earth
Dirty fingernails
Head swimming with
The smell of soil
This is the only way
To feel
Human
Attraction
Drip
drips
From one
Into the
other,
To two pools
Of heat,
A burn
Felt clearly
Acrossdistance.
