I made you a card
like when I was 5
I burned it
like they burned
your body

nothing left
but
ashes

she dug her nails
into my back
like a gardner’s
spade
in the soil

the greeks would call it stasis

I am absolutely sprung by the shell of my interior. I have drowned myself in my self and have kept my self shut in, tight, grasping towards light — civilization — prosperity. Strangled in desire of fidelity towards the barometer of who I am. Consistently thinking dialectically has proven itself fatal. I am sure this is necessary in growth — intellectually and emotionally but it is so difficult to conceive what my emotions currently are and jotting absolution onto paper is naught. I have become a martyr of suppressed emotion. How do you articulate yourself when you cannot dictate on the reality of a reality? I have not divulged myself in enough possibilities to breathe properly and I cannot come afloat when I am stuck in this self-made chaos. Once again, this is necessary in growth of mind — wide open, variable and vulnerable. 

I long for certainty of self even in limitless, uncontrollable explosions of life that spring from the fertile depths of early adulthood. After harboring carefulness and worry, I have concluded that often times, certainty comes from naiveté. I want to scream to the universe, in broken words, black circles encasing my eyes — “i have thrown myself into the fire, i have opened the void, cut me some slack, I am at your door, crying sanctuary,” but that talk will ensue silence and I will realize I am giving up/giving in. How do I live beautifully, calmly and serenely, in uncertainty? Am I too young to know certainty? What is this maddening duality that is constantly repeating in my head? Betrayal of myself, violation of my own foundation. Frustrated, reduced, helpless, lost, attempting to reconfigure my atoms and the calcium inside my bones.

I should sit down and talk with myself.

I just want to lick the scent of
almonds and bourbon
off your neck.

Let it linger,
infused on the
goblet of my tongue.

Provoking
carnal
thoughts.

I know you a tenfold in these peril verses
the voices begging and benign for hunger and thirst
quenched by a broken hand, a broken thumb, a broken heart
bludgeoned by your own axe, by your own hand
that ceased to reach toward salvation
left there to mold like unbuttered toast
on a cool spring morning

and with the Feminine in Chaos
you famished, rotted, and wilted by the
extraordinary power that exuded even remotely
close to the sun’s aura
reconcile
in the face without words

I know darling, I may
sit sing cry dance crawl and pray
and hope you might have known me, too
as I know you ; my Beloved
as I know you a tenfold
in any verse.

i sat beneath an old maple tree
counting flames in scratch marks
of ancient lovers
both
hidden beneath shade
and lit up like
candles
in the sun

and I tried to count
the sheep roaming
the Iceland plains
only to see their reflection
doused in blood
by the hand of
a wolf

and the venom
of a snake

I stick my blankets in the drier
to mimic the warmth of you
between the sheets

Dust collects on the shelves, and
you roll over sheepishly
sinking into a bed of aged liquor

drowning, drowning
(and blind)

Like a chain around your throat,
I lick your wounds
created
by what you torn apart

There’s a sharp bolt of lightning
to replace your heart
and I lay like a fly on the bottom of
a garbage can

Slowly, silently we gaze towards the coast
eleven novels, cigarette boxes, and whimpers
filling pillow cases

But we can’t stop the fever
and the juniper’s are frosting over
It’ll be gone soon

But wait with me
In this hollow grave
and this glazed fog
will fade

There’s a certain sort of absurdity that’s been placed here on Earth (which may in fact be the cosmic joke for the universe). If you think about it, people strive to become politicians. Power hunger. Republicans. Democrats. Corruption. In a way, people strive to become inhumane people. Purposely ignorant. Sexism. Racism. Oppression. Disease. Pneumonia. Broken Promises. From the perception, let’s say of a crow perched above, this is humorous. Nonsense. Wasteful. They don’t question our actions, they just sit there and smirk yet we gaze at them like they’re the monsters.

The house I grew up in
smelled of bourbon
and antique dressers
that knew more stories
more secrets
than Aesop alone

The house I grew up in
was crooked
one marble on one side
rolled straight to the other
and cried
the whole way there

The house I grew up in
had stairs that creaked
and broken floorboards
Don’t get stuck,
Don’t get stuck
dad would say

I carried that phrase
in my pocket
for years (decades)

The house I grew up in
were the calloused arms
of men I’d never meet
all because of the
cracks and
the creaks and
the crooks of
the floorboards

i wrote
to your fingernails,
call me

but they thought
I said,
claw me