Author: poetryfest

Cast stones ‘gainst
Dark bedrooms,

“Mother, I’m scared,”
She cries. Eyes wet.

Cast those stones,
Rid the self of demons
And ghosts, and monsters.

Before the switch gets flipped
And he is standing in front of

you.

As a boy You played
The mud
Flapped in it
Freckled
With soil
Warm puddles
Reflected the steep
Ahead

You push the clay,
You will burn it soon,
In a pot of stolen fire,
Burn some stolen clay,
Only a few more steps,
Only if it hardens,
Freezes into rock,

He pushes the Rock
Pushing it for so long
It’s so wrong
How the hill stretches
He’s tired now
The cold bones ache
Hands
Slack and stale
He warms by pushing
Into clay
Burns him in him
But he can’t use his hands
You can’t use them.

My Lady is persistently clothed in beauty, a
vision in her
gowns, a sight
in her trousers,
a woman of
enthralling severity in whatever she may hide
her sharp teeth behind.

My Lady is a queen; if not by
birth, then by
her ruthless ambition,
by the decisive
glint to her
gleaming eyes, by the heavy crown worn upon
her eternally downturned brow.

My Lady is a monster in disguise, her
sharp villainous form
hidden behind those
cunning smiles and
those sly quips
and those close brushes of skin against skin,
of person against monster.

My Lady is of that kind of beauty
which not only
seems to impart
to its possessor
firmness and animosity,
but to strike into others an instinctive recognition
of those qualities within.

My Lady is of a breed of darkness
unseen by the
common eye, unheeded
by those above,
and yet, united
in enjoined darkness, she is wholly understood by
I and I alone

A spoonful of honey and a glass of water
Follows the single gulp of Cyclopam
To put a gag on the gag
“Another month off the life chart”
Strips of bitterness since two thousand-six
Aunt Flo doesn’t give a damn
Just as my OB/GYNs
“You have to live with it”
“Manage with medications”
You aren’t special
This is every woman’s problem
Kindly suffer in silence. Thank you.
Hatred gives purpose
We start all over again, the new gyno & I
First base with speculum and
TVS for the third
“Having a child might probably help”
Emphasis on “probably” here.
“Double Income No Kids?
You deserve this!”,
Society chimes in now and then
My boss is too empowered
“Only the meek ones
seek paid period leaves”, she blasts.
Hormonal pills just pretend
to smooth my frayed nerves
And to boost the will to carry on
“We need more research into this!”,
the Keyboard Warriors fume.
While the laws of the world
are being rewritten
to control a woman’s body,
Inside the bathroom stalls,
tired of combat in
the eternal war that is womanhood,
My helpless self
sobs in silence wondering
Isn’t the present scary?
More than the past or future?

I have nothing against the weather

We have a lot in common

I want to be like the weather
I don’t want to be pretty and put together,
I want to be strong like the storms,
Not worrying if it conforms
the weather perfectly performs

But I hate the weather sometimes.
The way it doesn’t care what others think,
The way it pushes boundaries to the brink
How it’s bold, it’s brave
The weather paves its own way

And I hate how I can’t.
How in this world so big I feel like an ant
All the words I chant
All redacted, retracted because I just can’t

In reality the weather is not bound by morality,
Instead we hide behind our formalities to hide our mortality

But we’re so similar, the weather and I
Called such shallow words that are supposed to make us feel high
But in the end we just say goodbye to the lies as we cry

We have a lot in common: the weather and I.

your neighbour saw you throwing rocks at another house, far away.
but when a rock flew back, you stopped.
the next morning it was so hot you could see smoke on the horizon.
and when it cooled down, you came down with it.

a new flu
had made its way into the house.
you blamed the immigrants across the highway, but
you could have been better by now if you just took care of yourself.

a man suffocated on the sidewalk right under you
but it was just the son you didn’t really like.
then, coughing, you opened your door and saw the entire family glaring back,
behind their heads, the fires on the horizon growing bigger.

just like the one you held in your eyes,
when the yard was still free land.

Outspeak! Burning man
Satan’s biggest advocate
We are never safe

Charges against you
Your child as your lover
Lacking true respect

Amendments to Law.
Gaining ignorant support
You break your own rules

This isn’t the end
It never ends, does it?
Unity is gone.

What a person desires in life
is a properly dim lamp.
One that is easy on the eyes,
still able to illuminate a desk
covered with ruled paper and text
yet without glare rendering lines
of graphite and ink unreadable.
This is not a simple catch.
There must be a seller, whose wares
might be found locally
in a shop of brick and mortar.
More likely, they might be found
on an online marketplace,
riddled with more trackers
than colonial America.

Indeed, take the time to install
an adblocker—modern-day necessity.
A dim lamp requires one to know violence,
and subterfuge, and the willingness
to use both in preparation of
porch pirates and seedy sellers.
As the delivery draws near,
take care to duck. The
driver may be done
with their urine bottle,
no bathroom breaks fostering
a properly dim mood.
Please sign again, they ask,
that signature looks too shoddy
and they might think I drew it.

Ketamine. Lots of it.
Yoga and meditation
until it hurts, a sustained formal apology—
on your knees, forehead heavy
on the earth—to your body. Carefully deplete
your xanax stash.

White powder press
the metallic taste is medicinal
this is the practice.

Remember the hose
that connects the bag
to the tank
to your face.

Apologize and make space.

Empty yourself. Your thoughts
are not your self. Your diagnoses
are not your self. Other people

have better thoughts than you.
Two coyotes in front of a house.
Neighborhood dogs, with neon spikes on their backs.
The coyotes bite, get a mouth full of pain,
and an ear full of yelping, panicked rage.

Must get sleep. Must warn others.
Cobalt, copper, nickel, and aluminum
lithium and wifi waves
the rainbow is an alchemy of distractions
tendon stress, delicate, the gristle is elastic

To my body,
I’m sorry.
I really fucked things up. Even when I was trying
to fix the issues, I think
I just made them worse.
Or added new complications.

aluminum, brass
copper, ash

Take walks
admit the other people, the other thoughts:
hunks of steel, a bell, some tongs,
simple insights, prayers and songs—
miscellany; a pile of impurities to defile and discharge,
anodic coating to prevent corrosion,
stir, simmer, brew the potion. You
are your own thing even if your body is broken.

Breathe in the other thoughts.
Breathe out the inner thoughts.
Advice and concern,
logs, accelerant

burn.
forge
pound
shape and carve
the thoughts
into a glowing
wakizashi sword

drive the point inward

carve open your belly
the wickedness will flow,
and spill into foul curls.

Your body
does not accept
the apology.

Neighbors walk past,
tiptoeing around the blood, fresh pavement mess
saving their pets from the feral dogs
with bleeding gums, eyes oozing hunger and regret.
You have to tell on yourself
before someone else does.

Reach into a bag,
gather your coiled hate,
contain the shame,
pick up the waste,
invert, face
the sun, just over the horizon now
making the blacktop
glimmer and shine. Toss the trash
into the garbage mouth.

The awkward, wounded wolves
follow your scent.
Their instincts leave them
no other choice.
From behind every tree
a wild, helpless dog
could pounce
you have no choice either.

The trees lead by example,
listening
dogs speak
their truths
behind fence posts
to the coyotes, singing

It’s ok to want to die.
To want more time
and connections
with people
is to want
to live,

to buckle under the weight
of time. Disintegrate

the impurities mixing with the metal
into the orange-black molten heat.

Rooftops reflect the sun. Smoke and steam, rising
the haze acceding to the demands
of the sky
as the dogs bark and the coyotes
run back to the hills, with scraps of metal
in their teeth

What’s life without intention?
Living with a dismantled intuition.
What’s true love without conviction?
Co-existing,
With no new inventions.
Not to mention,
Growth in others
Should not be despised.
While your vulnerabilities
Embeds inside.
Boiled envy,
Becomes unintentionally disguised.
Causing a melting pot
Of internal friction,
While limiting your own existence.
Master to challenge thyself,
Through boundaries and restrictions