Author: poetryfest

I bargained with Death from my doorstep
It was a summer’s afternoon
It was too nice a day, I said, to waste away
Six feet under the ground
Death straightened their suit and tie, and said with a sigh,
that they’d already taken the long way round.
Then, there’s a storm coming on. Something in the breeze.
A whisper in the wind that puts a soul ill at ease.
I need to go get my lover, my kids, my dog.
I’ll tarry just enough
That the old specter loses the scent
Their carrion hounds will twist and turn
But won’t get the best of me.
So I plead with death, for just an hour or more
For the sake of those I hold dear, the world’ll bat down their doors,
And leave them shaken, cold,
Without my loving arms to welcome them home.
So, Death,
O’ Death.
You Solitary Sower of Sorrow!
How can I go and leave them behind? How can they ever move on?
“They can and they will” Death said without much ado. “Life is a good seamstress. She’ll take their time, and mend their broken hearts. The ache will dull and life will grow. Like flowers rising out of the snow.”
Next, I tried to keep Death from the appointed hour.
To whittle away their precious day
With glasses of cool drink to ward off the heat,
Potions of the vine so sweet, surely they could even make Death feel alive.
And stories and songs tried and true, that not even gods could resist.
The poets had done it before
Scherazade and Orfeo,
Delaying Death in their quest night after night
Line after line,
Perhaps I would be the next in that ancient tradition
Slowing Death’s fateful hand.
Alas. They were a clever old crow, so sure they’d know, the mortal mind and all its schemes.
Yes. Death didn’t mince words. Didn’t waste time.
Never once hanging up their hat and sitting for a spell,
Jabbering on like jays porchside till the sun came down.
And train to Judgement only lead one way.
Death waits for no man
The debt always came due,
Death–as constant and tranquil, and immune to my cries,
as a cool shade, on a summer afternoon.
Who was Death anyway,
With their wandering soles, collecting souls
That wail and mourn,
Offering wealth, power, fame,
For a for an hour, a day,
More and more of the sweet elixir of life
“Please! All my wealth for my life–!
If I can’t take it with me, then I’ll leave it all behind!”
But never a kind word.
A thankless job. A lonely road.
Just one more foresaken mile.

What happens when we die? Is it just darkness and no thoughts? Will I cease to exist? Terrifying. They say it’s like before you’re born, and why worry, it’s inevitable. Yet I lay awake at night, spiraling in fear. How can I live forever? Perhaps with modern medicine, immortality can be reached in my lifetime. But what if everyone can live forever? Will there still be meaning? What if it’ll only be accessible by the rich and power hungry, and I’ll end up trapped endlessly, just an exhausted cog in the machine. Isn’t that more terrifying than resting in the dark? What happens when we die? What happens when we live? Perhaps death is the more welcomed end.

Taking from the bottle was simple
It was always there for me, ready for me
It was there for me when I was happy, sad, angry, helpless, crying
Like a therapist

I would walk down to the store to get it
But not because I had a choice
Everyone has a choice, but I didn’t
I didn’t because my brain had felt like it was being used by someone else
Where’s the controller?

I was being controlled by hands that were not my own
A brain not my own
A person not my own

It was so simple getting a bottle too
Nothing was in my way
Myself was the only obstacle in this battle

Twisting and turning my legs would attempt to walk
It would go the other way home

I always end up not being me
I was the obstacle
It was me

Her mom called the hospital.
They let her in, although it was past full.
But they would find a way to get her inside.
They told her it would be nice (they lied.)

Why would this place be filled to the brim?
When not everyone is here on a whim?
Her mom had called ahead.
She needed help, but got the shot instead.

She couldn’t have left at any time.
Even when every thought is becoming like slime.
The clock on the wall makes her crazy.
But when they took it down, the words got even more hazy…

You get an injection on day one.
There is a fenced in yard, but no room to run.
Yet, she found a path to trace the halls.
While they denied her phone calls.

Day three comes around.
Without a sound.
Except her troubled grumblings.
And the floor rumblings.

She thought the shots were no good.
But now she wants to go back to her own neighborhood.
Without an injection on this horrible day.
There is nothing to keep them at bay.

Day ten.
Feeling lost in this play pen.
The fence is not as scary as it used to be.
The vending machine yells at me.

The hospital let her in 12 days before.
Group therapy is a bit of a chore.
But now the tension is no longer there.
She sleeps sometimes, and her roommate does care.

The roommate left two days ago.
There’s nothing out there in the snow.
Her parents left her a while back.
She laughed as she chewed on a generic snack.

Do my parents love me anymore?
I like to sleep on the floor.
Three weeks ago…
I think those memories will be the last to go.

Fiery crash.
Bombs detonating—
how did we get here?

Shrapnel in my hair.
Nothing’s fair in hate and war,
your finger poised on the trigger.

Take me back
to when I was in love with thoughts of you,
and you were lost in my eyes.

Gasps pool out of my chest,
‘sorry’ dying on my lips.
We silently vowed to always ruin each other.

Distance closed.
Your timing has never been worse.
Forgiving you died in the desert.

Chest compressions and yelling codes.
Our gazes locked—
the first one to break the silence loses.

My vulnerabilities scattered across the floor for you,
again and again and again.
I just wanted you to love me.

Too fucking late.
Your back turns away from me—
the cord between us snaps.

I crash.

Our whole relationship screamed the landlord special
Stained tubs, mold decorated ceiling
foolishly disguised with caulking and well-placed lighting.

Ignorance and neglect hidden beneath the adjacent crooked fixtures
Underneath the paint on paint on paint
Conflict avoidant
-C h e a p s k a t e-.

Not sure if I’m talking about the apartment
Or your retained love;
They both looked the same
A revolving door of “for rent” signs
Without proper abatement

Cleaned, scrubbed and furnished twice
But it never made this patriarchy redeeming
Divorcing the Freudian sense
Women aren’t meant to be buildings
Housing, and healing

The exploitation superseding
a clause of symbiotic exchange
surreptitiously written in the cracks of
the linoleum peeling

You no longer have the desire to copulate with your building
you’d rather manipulate her into modern slavery
because fucking her is a lot less enticing
attraction lost with heritage mislabeling this dynamic
as traditional work ethic.

Who’s really the one fleeing?

Hope was built on the notice to terminate
Desperately scribbled through dissent
the only constant
-v a c a n c y-
Left in every one of your sentiments

Terminating a lease has never been so easy
When your foundation is unsafe
And was nothing but frustration and poor heating
It’s easy to escape-
A building that crumbled so long ago

The pattern is already repeating
And I just hope that;
Those in line
To become your passive income
Don’t sign the lease without reading
And become your new found
Condemned building.

When the ground cracks beneath us, when
Ruthless tides tear us limb from limb,
Would you scour the great unknown in
Search of a familiar face? Would you
Find my open arms and take
Shelter in them once more?

In this barren eternity, with no one
Left to hurt and nothing
Left to break, would you
Scrub me clean of any
Trace of sin? Would you bathe me
In forgiveness and kiss my lying lips?

Once I am free and you are pure
In death, would you love me again?

She spewed love like a geyser,
But she licked the baby’s food
So I pushed her away.
She pawed at her ball, eager
Puppy dog eyes in old age,
But my exhaustion won.
We’ll play tomorrow, I thought,
But her eyes never opened.
And now I’d give anything
To go back to that night.

One hundred or so starling
Carrying one hundred or so stars
Upon their thick black bodies-

Each its own dark and starry milky way-

Appear to be having some serious
Yet harmonious squabble
In the grapple of a tree

Like Congress claims to do, moreover

Like they ought to, though
Clearly here, being far more glorious
And worthy of praise

It is as if I am floating,
maybe in a small boat
meandering past banyan roots
and floating rocks,
or like a kite in the sky,
evading zapping bolts.
Sometimes there are huge bumps,
heart stopping drops,
long periods of ennui or
maybe sleep. Time is
real or not, mostly, I think, not.
I look ahead on the road
and try to peer beyond
the fog, the signs, bright
red neon say
Today, Tomorrow,
and Maybe just as
the fog closes in.
I walk, wondering how
I got here, and had there
been a boat, or a kite?