Spelunking

Spelunking

for J

This whole city

is big enough for us to walk

until I’ve got blood

in my shoes,

and empty pockets.

We map these streets

with stitches

connecting places we go in

step, in hand.

We wade together

through this swamp-wet air

holding on so we won’t

get lost.

We bring home peaches

and second-hand jeans

and we sweat under cover

in dark private places.

Your eyes run black

with love-smudged mascara

and we sleep just barely

touching.

Her Majesty

I wrote this a few weeks ago. One of the few things I've written recently that has not been heartbroken and melodramatic.

Her Majesty

Swans are vicious creatures

she says and there’s blood

under her over-long fingernails

in little brown crescents.

You write them like

they’re beautiful but

you know you’re not supposed to feed them.

She sits

with her back arched away

from the chair

and her neck white.

I can’t say

swans are sometimes royalty,

that in London parks

they belong to the Queen.

The only majesty in this room

is hers and so I say

Because they mate for life.

Derecho

Derecho

 

I sleep

between the wall and a barricade

of pillows

because she liked me

helpless.

In the thunder, she put my

naked body

in the other girl’s clothing,

set the rules

with silk scarves and not-yets,

told me her vices but not

the reasons.

Won’t you let me in tonight?

Lock the gate,

not to keep me

but to bar the rain.

In your satin,

sleep in my hands

like I’m the protector for once.

No secrets tonight,

just shelter.

Charlie Challenge: Beautiful Girls

Well, I took a day off and now I'm onto the You, Me & Charlie 30 day challenge. This is open to all forms of art, so maybe I'll get into some prose, but for now I have a poem.

Charlie Challenge, day 1: Write your personal manifesto. Mine is inspired by this quote from Sarah Dessen's "Keeping the Moon," a quote that I've loved since high school and yet keep forgetting.

"It's like the hidden secret that no one tells you. We can all be beautiful girls, Colie. It's so easy. It's like Dorothy clicking her heels to go home. You could do it all along."



Beautiful Girls

We are all beautiful girls,
a hint of
magick
all we need
to peel back the hurt.
You are my sorceress tonight,
take me
in your hands, your eyes
and free the girl beneath
this bruised skin.
We were born swans
so cut these ties and soar
beside me.

April

NaPoWriMo Day 29, poem 31/30: I was thinking today about everything that's happened this April. The last few weeks of March were some of the worst days I've had in a long time, but as I've written these poems and carried on things have gotten better and better. I owe NaPoWriMo a lot. Here's the last poem, barring some stroke of inspiration.



April

April, born
in baffling cruelty,
sleeps soft tonight.
She waited locked
in her room while March,
that bitch sister,
lingered vicious.
She wrapped her cracked
skin in poetry,
stanzas like bandaids,
stitching the wounds with
long strings of words,
crawled into the open
of spring.
Born a fragment, she is now
some sort of sonnet,
a little unconventional,
her eyes to the future.
Her room is unempty
when she returns,
not retreats.

space

NaPoWriMo Day 28, poem 30/30: I feel like it's a cop-out to use a haiku as poem 30, but I felt like there was no better form for a poem about small spaces. Regardless, I'm probably going to aim to write poems for the last 2 days!


space

small, I don't take much
invade and see me up close
no space left between

Perfect Perfect

NaPoWriMo Day 27, poem 29/30: Today's prompt was a nursery rhyme. While I didn't want to follow that literally, I did take inspiration from the description: "Most nursery rhymes have strong rhythms, use rhyme and repetition extensively, and aren't overly concerned with making sense." That really spoke to my feelings this week - things don't make sense but I'm not concerned, and every day is full of rhythm, rhyme, and repetition.


Perfect Perfect

if we're looking for
nonsensical
here it is-
I don't know when
I stopped
believing but it's been long
enough to forget-
now after years cowered in the dark
anonymous
can I trust in this
rom-com princess story
this instant's connection
a pair of perfect
perfect strangers-
flesh bone and hair
realer than God
too substantial for dreams-
I don't take much
convincing
to close my eyes and leap