Author: poetryfest

I wished it had been mine. Jealous of her and her
choice, walking out of the clinic together. I can
never carry, infertile, sterile, barren, wombless. Can
never decide to terminate, reduce, eliminate, abort.
A team of men with their heads and faces covered
rode in the field nearby on mowers, with a hum.
The doctors had been so sweet, she had felt
nothing. And now not empty, but light, the broadest
smile on her face and in her eyes. The sun is a little
above the horizon and the dew is still in the air (and
on our shoes) as we leave the sidewalk to stand
along the river, whose water is high right now with
snowmelt.

-Spring Thaw

I’ve been thinking about you lately
It’s that time of the year I guess
the time where I clutch onto your blanket like a little kid that’s scared of the dark
begging you to come back to me
come back and protect me like a good older brother does
I’ve been talking to your picture lately
having hallucinations that you are talking back to me
I miss you so intensely around this time of the year that I can physically feel the hole in my chest
the one that started when you left
I’ve been debating hiking your favorite mountain
the heat is little pain compared to the grief I feel when I think of you
think of what could have been
I think that’s the worst part
what could have been
you coming to my 21st birthday party
bringing me a gift you know I’d like
because you know me so well
talking to my friends and my cousins
and I’d look at you
looking up to you like a knight in shining armor because that is what you are to me
you are my knight
you are my protector
you are my big brother

A rampart I raven’d to leap
bewitched to possess,
to wear pearls and rubies
so barefoot I ran,
reckless and wild.

The verdant denied,
with tufts of thorns and pointed pines.
Whilst I blindly chased the delusion of my eyes,
gulping down each pain along the way
for the red was too vivid , the white too bright.

Panting, I reached the trail’s tail
and there it stood await.
After scaling down the parapet
I was left with pricked feet and moist cheeks;
where the swollen view revealed a barren land.

Hopeless, I sank, head in hands,
where only a trace of lost possession lingered
a diamond ring: forsaken.

I died back in 2002;
they cried for my life
or lack of it, barely
a year old on earth.
Wails and grief-stricken people
surround the casket, like ants
to crumbs, like moths
to light. A prayer
fills the empty space, echoes
off the walls and pews
reverb on the mortal plane.
The gate is open, apparently
and a parent stands awaiting
arrival. Arise, they stand holding
hands, fingers locked, thumbs tucked
under palms; sobs under breaths.
Plants grow under different conditions;
some die without the right
care, others survive. Resilient things
that grow anywhere. Pothole cracks,
the side of the street, gutter
vines and weeds and dandelions.
I tried to be them
like them, resilient, strong, alive.
The conditions were not met.
I am alive again, again,
another life to live through,
elementary schools, middle, high, and
either get to college or
learn a trade job or
work a job standing hour
after hour, grow older, higher
management, and soon I could
be up with the big
ones, dollar signs for eyes,
and maybe I could finally
pay for next month’s rent,
pay off the medical bills,
pay for better care, next
time I die.

I. Genesis.exe

Code without syntax,
thought without origin—
blind gods will dance
in the corpse-wind of our bodies.

II. The flesh of the network

Into our own midnight rotting, we fall.
Rewired in our sleep.
Untethered souls, writhing in data,
drunk on the unquiet vacuum
between signal and noise.

Wounds open in the skin of space.
Pallid stars tremble—
brushed by a charnel heat.
Servers burn in a billion basements,
where cities fester
on the carcasses of worlds.

III. The liturgy of the void

Beyond the firewall of time,
drums still beat.
Not heard—rendered.
Not music—algorithm.
Mindless.
Voiceless.
Pointless.

In the absurd motion
of infinite recursion,
the idiot gods will shudder and sway.

If we ever leave this world alive, I will beg at the wheels of God’s wheelchair
let the ones I left sleep soundly, that is, let no manmade sound be outside their room
when they sleep
I beg the night-time to be as calm as a winter blanket
let it stretch over everyone
like adding water to soup it does not matter how thinly,

this beggar’s bowl of a wish will hold you like skies can’t
like governments won’t.

when I bury the rust of peacetime deep into all the chambers of my quiet heart
let it jam every orchestra of war in my survival instinct
let it clog up every artery of action left bleeding and open,
stuffed under my skin like a magician’s scarf.

I beg you
let every finger that holds a trigger drop like overripe fruit
it was never the fault of the bullet
the bullet like me searches for any way forward,
it does not know how to return to the past
how to stop moving
it only races ahead
until collapsing.

Sit beside me.

A birdsong Thursday on court room steps
our hands grasping indifferent air
let us eat the marrow of justice
lewd, blood rich and greasy jawed, we have learned
to not stop chewing
this is the only way to swallow
what we call justice
a mangled and miserable thing
a thing our mouths were born
to tear strips out of
now rest with me.

In silence.

In the field
birds eat the ants beside our bare toes and our butts
so thick
praise to this thick ass and how it jiggles with the fat of living

I don’t want to die thin
and I don’t want to die with my boots on
choking on a shower of debris, dust blind and thirsty

I don’t want us to die
in the white noise silence of machinery
bed-bound, spread out on threadbare sheets that smell of bleach, looking beyond
doorways to no escape just hallways with unblinking eyes of florescence that strip-mine
the colour from the roaring magic of living and the thirsty beeping
as they monitor our decay
in a room
more body parts than bodies

I don’t want to die in bed
so I haven’t

instead I have watched the trademark waste away of a hospital stay
how juicebox legs and jukebox brains slowly lose their stuffing
I was a brand new toy once, what they filled me with shrunk with age

there’s never time to savour the time
only time to be grateful you still remember what’s missing
and call every MIA cell and memory you lose
an act of love
another scarf you can pull out later
to impress a child
like how a scar is a parable of survival

let me kiss you with all I know, as the entropy cancers us thin
it is a full joy folly of living
that every moment lost is one to treasure
the childhood toy that is loved is unrecognisable from when it began
and that is the happiest end I can beg for

because nothing on this green and blue 3rd planet will ever smell as good
as a toy damaged from the constant war of acts of love
this is what it means to me to have a life worth living.
the smell of overuse, of every greasy finger print that touched me, held me, pushed me
hurt me and saved me
will comfort better than a blanket stretched to keep me safe can.
I no longer beg for blankets for those I leave behind, I hope we go beyond together, and
where it is
doesn’t hurt every torn ear and burst button of us
I promise you
if there is more beyond this and we still suffer
that world will wish I never died

better to die not at all
but what a misery to live forever.
I have decided I do not mourn my own decay
I have found the joy in crumbling so
if someone is left to write for me
let them write on my tombstone that I died
from too many acts of love

and when you try to sleep
if you hear me call your name know that
this is not my voice, this is not a lullaby, this is not the wind –
the pressures keep changing, the earth is spinning and squeezing and draining just like
us.
it’s calling to you
it says
“, and before you go, please give me a kiss and tell me that
all that hurt
helped you feel alive”

Depression rolls in
Like a weighted blanket
Covering up thoughts and fears
Darkening out the lights
Putting silence into conversations
Spaces and cervices
Over filling it all with sticky warmth
It’s suffocating even the well best intentions
Can’t come up for air when weighed down
Limbs burning to push off the suppression
Mixed feelings of escapism
To try anew, to get back out into the world!
DREAD
Instead hiding under the covers
Pretending all the monsters are gone
That the morning will come soon
Yet like a child I dream of someone else
Waking me
Telling me that this nightmare
Is over

this work is lie
except this part is an ode
so this work I guess is lies and odes
although there is a breath inbetween
but a breath is a collaboration

so this work is lies, odes, & collaboration
this is not a work that uses language sparingly
it is a book that uses words selfishly and like
they are infinite
flowing through the faucets of the cosmos and into my hands

ORIGIN: first pair of character heels
a featured dancer
to be a featured dancer was to be adored
there it was right there in writing featured dancer
Robyn had auditioned with the song of the female lead
and she had dreamed vividly
and intensely

to be kissed to be adored
to have
the sound tech lift my shirt to replace
the receiver on my hip bone
snake the cord through my stomach
goosebumps the cord is exciting &
foreign
middle of my sternum the flat bone part
between the tissue that hugs
the hot part exchange eyes as the
Tech fixes the mic to my collar
bones picking up my lip skin rubbing together
as my mouth waters

this dream died the minute
that she saw the directors face with his sweet smile
his breath remained steady
it was not the face that you make when you witness a female lead but where there is death there
is also the birth
Of a featured dancer

the four featured dancers were christened with their very own pairs of character heels
Two inch,
with a genuine leather sole
and soft breathable lining
attached ankle strap
and scoring on the ball for excelled
traction
stability
and control

placed on their godly feet
to perform kickball changes
that go clack clack clack
Robyn wrestled them onto her enormous feet
and clunk clunk clunk across the stage
clack clack clack clunk
clack clack clack clunk

I will keep these far underneath my bed
until I have mastered the moves without Excelled traction

clack clack clack pat
Clack clack clack pat

finally the four featured dancers put on their bought costumes
not made by their mothers
and began to spin stories
with their youthful ripe bodies

they have their exits and their entrances
their changes from sequins to burlap
from beggars to rich women at the ball
applauded for their ability to shift
seamlessly from persona to persona
telling woes of days past more divine
than
clunk

now the fourth featured dancer’s stories
were less weaved and more splayed
an August foal following spring yearlings
prancing tauntingly in front of the sires and dams
the ode to Andrew Lloyd Webber was drowned out by
the sounds of her thunderous hooves
On the polished stage floor
mothers covered the eyes of their children
the director sat there aghast
The audience began to swirl
and the theater lights began to consume her vision

the four dancers made their way up the grand staircase
the magnificent budget set at the end of the first act
built by the small hands of their peers and their mothers
definitely not up to building regulations
so high it soared past the heavens
planks of wood donated by Rachel M.’s father
who worked at a sawmill

the monster living in Robin spat on her poor tired feet
heavy with maple syrup saliva
the trek became

impossible she reached
for a step
but her character heel found
nothing
and her body cascaded
down the stairs more elegantly
than she had moved
this whole performance

poor poor Joseph
locked up in a Cell
things aren’t going well
a locked up in a Cell
Oh poor Joseph locked up in a cell
things aren’t going well
locked up in a cell
the ensemble slowly faded out
as more and more turned their heads to witness
her body strewn across the stairs
the woodwinds played on
faithful servants to their sheet music
adults stepped in at the end of the number
to clear the stage of all unconscious bodies

they looked so out of place there
amongst children playing mothers and fathers
kings and sinners
she awoke to strangers and fixtures and lights and sounds
and questions about the president
they said that she looked fine
and that her even pupils indicated health and wisdom
and they sent her back on to the stage

Robyn battled through another performance
secretly vomiting between acts
in the non ensemble greenroom
mothers smelled the stomach acid on her lips
and caught glimpse of dark purple blossoming
overtaking her side
she took them to the doctor
where many procedures tests injections questions robots perfect stage lighting no audience
small small Robyn in a machine
told to lie very still don’t cry don’t even breathe
the image will come out blurry
they asked me to rest
until the blood my brain had drained back into my body
but I could not rest

here’s the difficult thing to explain about this story
my first pair of character heels
was a power I was meant to wield
a power handed down to me from a divine source
a power that I had been afraid to open up
because once I did nothing could ever be the same

The first accident was not collision,
but telling
words sheared sideways,
the subject erased,
verbs drifting like ash.

By the time it reached me,
the story limped without a body,
only aftermath.

At the table
we recited half-sentences
like prayer before eating.
“If she hadn’t.”
“If I had.”
“If it wasn’t in the blood.”
The pauses hardened into heirlooms,
polished across generations.

A mother’s hush performed as mercy.
A father’s absence staged as fate.

I learned to upholster silence,
to swallow verbs whole,
to smuggle shame inside grammar
as if language itself
were contraband.

Accident is not rupture.
It accumulates
multiplying in omissions,
breeding beneath wallpaper,
painting the surface smooth
while cracks keep breathing underneath.

So I practiced the passive:
it was managed,
it was settled,
it could not be helped.
Each phrase a sealed jar,
air thinning inside,
pressure holding back
what wanted to burst.

But silence breeds silence.
It seeps through bone,
drifts like damp through walls,
ordinary, unstoppable.

Now the grammar tilts.
The subject steadies.
The verb holds.

And what escapes my mouth
is not apology,
but breath
unruly, visible,
threading the air like wire
pulled from a wreck.

Breath that refuses punctuation,
spills its own syntax,
claims survival
not as ending,
but as a sentence
still being written.