Category: Poetry

It’s hard to separate the glowing,
fiery explosions
From the images of:

gaunt face
stretching

Paper skin,
Mouth open

close
open

A last inhale

a firework.

It’s six’o’clock in the morning
the sky is a dark pink
crows scream their caws to the early light

and I still have not slept.

The air is cold and brisk and
I know rain
will be coming.
I yearn for crisp cloudburst:
somber grey and light wind,
washing streets and air
clearing the day with cool condensation.
But for now,
I watch the smoke float
mimic the silver clouds
against a mauve colored sky.

I didn’t mean
to be the strongman in your traveling circus,
but the way your eyes lit up:
carnival-style,
spun me up in a web of joy.

You used to tell me that cowboys still exist
and I
wanted so badly to believe you but
I have too much going on
to fantasize
about old-west dreams.

You cut the sleeves off every
t-shirt you own.
I yell at you every single time.
It’s become a joke of ours.

When it snows
you open your mouth
to try and catch the snowflakes.
I bite your tongue
to keep you from screaming.
You scream all the time
and I can’t understand why.

It’s hard these days to make new friends,
but two years,
three weeks
and five days
has taught me that I
am the ocean
and you are the shore,
if only in this poem.

In a corner,
I’d like to take up the least space possible.
I’d disappear if I could:
turn my skin the color of paint
sink backwards into plaster
mimic shadows over my face.

There are days I wish I didn’t have a voice
and a conscience
to be responsible for
voices in my head that I can’t ignore for too long.

There are days I stare in the mirror
for hours
asking myself
Why it hurts so much to be human.

We must have been made for more
than pain.