Author: poetryfest

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

Where love was shunned, its joyous freedoms checked,
this wondrous hope, those vista’s new, I sought
where prison head, its solace lost, lays wrecked.

To sieze my truth, out, queer, glitter bedecked.
This love’s sweet bliss, too cheap, I dearly bought,
where love was shunned, its joyous freedoms checked.

To understand, to rummage, dig, dissect
this ecstasy, within its trap, thus caught,
where prison head, its solace lost, lays wrecked.

To fend off lonely, broken self-respect,
the spirit lost, its sinews tense; strung taught,
where love was shunned, its joyous freedoms checked.

To seek out peace, to find, to not neglect,
This damaged soul, love’s truth amounting nought,
Where prison head, its solace lost, lays wrecked.

To find love’s joy, fill empty life, respect
this safe abode, our costly peace, hard bought,
where love was shunned, its joyous freedoms checked,
where prison head, its solace lost, lay wrecked.

Peel me back, for heaven’s sake!
I didn’t think to look in there
Hiding away deep down are all the
best parts

Is it possible to lie to yourself
Like habitually
The way you lie to someone else
Out of practice?

A spring, fused up, ready to explode
I wonder how many years of repression
The real me can hold

Darling?
You’re as beautiful as the day
and just as gorgeous as the night
My heart aches for you
My love,
You have not but left me for a moment
and I miss you already
How I can feel your gaze upon the most gentlest touch
and your lips,

Well your lips have a burn to them
but my god it only leaves me wanting more
I will not be able to contain myself
so do not ask me to.

How I wish to hold you every night
and kiss you softly as you drift away
How I wish…
I may be the one to have this dance with you
instead of seeing you swept away from me
by him.
And I cannot change that
and I know you may feel indifferently
But that is just how the world is

But I will sway and I will say
I will smile at the way
that are we are dancing together
and yet i’m across the room, as do you
And you are smiling at me too.

But don’t be too careful, love
I want you to myself
I want others to write of our longing looks, one day
Even if it means we are to be caught
Running away?
Hiding in plain sight?
It doesn’t matter to me
As long as we love

Perhaps we are foolish to have fallen so hard
But darling you made it easy to.

My date danced like a mongoose pouncing on a cobra.
The crowd distracted by the fight
between two drunken straights at the side bar
The sound of a bottle breaking over the counter
scared the fem twinks behind the safety of the jocks.

The music’s thumpa thumpa continued
as the rest of the club boogied away
as they did back at Studio 54.
Men and women,
gays and lesbians,
bears, otters, pups, and daddies,
all grooving to “Proud” by Heather Small,
the Peter Presta QAF V Mix

The long queue at the bathroom
due to some queens snorting coke
whiter than snow off the willing twink’s abs
Everyone knows no one actually uses
the bathroom with the locking door

The police arrive, their strobing lights
phased out by those in the club.
Security by now has broken up the fight
the fighters cornered and ready to be removed.
Off they go
Thumpa thumpa..

I pop a couple of ecstasy and
move onto cruising the next guy of the night,
as I lost interest in the twitching herpestidae
Even though his tongue was just down my throat
and hand on my ass.

Off in the corner, I spot him.
His name I’ve heard is Jake,
a perfect one syllable name
to scream later.in the night

With hair like golden threads,
eyes bluer than the ocean,
and a shirt so tight you see his right nipple is pierced,
his biceps, and stacked chest;

He sways to the beat of the song.
Thumpa thumpa.
I float across the floor, as if on a cloud.
Dancing in front of him like a bird in a mating ritual

The flash of lust
He swoops in like a jaguar encroaching on his prey.
“Want a drink?”
He asks firmly in my ear as his hands glide around my waist.
“Yea, double vodka cran,”
I bit my lower lip, “with a lime”
I reply before tasting the menthol cigarettes on his tongue.
Thumpa thumpa

Down the hatch and to the dance floor we go.
Feeling as if we were the only ones in the room,
we move in-sync like the cogs of a clock,
going along with the thumpa thumpa.
My hands around his head
pulling him close as our mouths lock,
his hands caress my body and slip into my pants
feeling the sweat bead down my back and onto my ass
Thumpa thumpa.
Thumpa thumpa.

“Let’s get out of here”
He whispers into my ear
“I was thinking the same thing”
Thumpa thumpa.

He pays his tab and off we go
for a night of passion,
saying goodbye to the glorious
thumpa thumpa

Bitch.
Dear bitch,

Writing a letter
To you is like
Writing a letter to the
Dead, rancheras y corridos de narcos
Blast behind me, & in the garage
My red Jeep roars w/ frustration menstruation penetration
& I still cum back fingering my Android waiting for your reply,
But who the hell knows where your ass is, where you bleed as you are torn open
Like an orange for tongues to devour you, bitch, this much is true:
To me, you are the beaming moon the fluttering monarcas
Who migrate towards the sun towards nirvana,
To me, you are a pink piñata filled w/ sweets
Egg & nopalitos wrapped in a flour tortilla,
To me, you see, you aren’t invisible
Ask me anything & I will
Answer: Above the ceiling
The sound of 100
Black wings, sing.

Dear love,
Amor.

i. three years ago
[a disaster ignited at my fingertips]
the remnants, a trail of winding footprints in snow
each step growing farther farther still
straying from a past that never met its future
Time dwelled beneath a tree that withered
dissected by the cold-averse, transformed into flames

ii. four years ago
quarrels echoed in the Alps for two harsh fortnights
you & me – strangers wandering market stalls
lost from one another
with jangling postcard boxes from last century
birthstones/ butterfly specimens/ & all words that fell short
sleds flying through mud: cold air & hyperventilation
passion stretched across latitudes & longitudes
until, upon arrival, turned to only a dwarf star lit
[diffusion: net movement of particles from an area of high concentration to an area of lower concentration]
will the bell toll for the hearts?
will the waves of my mind stir your tempest?
will barren land turn over?
and lift my scarlet, creviced scabs
then rub in salt and sand

iii. five years ago
one brief encounter, three hours long
five breaths of secondhand smoke
wonton soup spilled on my Uniqlo flannel
our eyes twinkle with fireflies in Helsinki’s aurora glows
darkness often prevailed upon us, dear
but now, our arms fold up and knees buckle
softening Love’s weight, dulling Hate’s blades
but now, people and their literatures call this {ephemera}

iv. Doppelgänger
[you, are every natural disaster caused by the sins from my hands of greed]
Run my Pacifics ablaze
Wrap my insecurities in regrets’ hurricane
Drop down hailstorms on me like cavalry
on my lashes, chopping my boundaries
the quick souls always come unanchored and free
so I try to keep up and sprint. faster, faster
charging forward through my shattered wine bottles
left in your long-abandoned garage fridge on sale for five years
forgetting the pomegranate and its seeds, rotting in it too
forgetting the self-done piercings of each other
the blood trinkling a little down my joints
[Back to reality]
I imagine burning a hole through you by sight. watching you wash your palms, fingertips, front & back,
again & again, rubbing with soap that slips from your grasp, rinsing with pure water at a precise 45
Celsius, over & over, over & over. two arms dancing the waltz. on a trail of matcha green beanbags, our
shadows blurred. Hey, I wish your ears get inflamed and catch you unawares in your midnight slumbers.
See them with my vision attacking your dreams. Them like those shrunk, disheveled violets, nourishing
my stagnant mires.

v. th[(W)e]y are the widows who never won the race of winter solstice.

Thinking back to nights of vodka, fairy lights and lighting your cigarette
And wondering if that last drag was the closest to your lips I’d ever get
You were gunpowder smoke, and yet you leapt away so lightly
To put out the flames of fellow men. Maybe I should have followed you
But I wait at home politely, as I always do, though your sweet fire excites me.
Deep in diatribe and wildflower wine your eyes met mine,
The first time that I loved the color green since seventeen.
We lay on our backs looking for the big dipper, you turned to me.
I stole a glance but couldn’t bear to share your smile.
I think of you each time my flannel hits the floor,
And as I stare into a warmer, kinder, deeper green than yours I wonder
Was it love I had for you, for who I could have been? Or something more?

I’ve proven to myself that I can live with such devotion,
And adore a wildflower across Ozarks and cross oceans.
Even after Amtraks carry beating hearts away
I cannot have a lover who I cannot ask to stay.
I think your cigarette lit one last fiery breath in me
To live my life in earnest, and to love deliberately.
Our souls are not the same, though yours is partial, so is mine.
I couldn’t give my garden for your wildfires and wine.
I couldn’t give my garden for your wildflower wine.