Author: poetryfest

Have you seen it before? It eats people, swallows
so slowly. They do not know they are dying.
This is a pain mostly hidden behind
all-inclusive resorts, above subway
turnstiles, inside your mother’s
purse, under your father’s bed.
Did you know that you can
talk to someone while you
watch them digest?
I did not.
I mean-
I
–

You don’t show up every summer
Even when the heat does

There were islands
Stunning shores, dry, awkward
Rumored about, never visited

We planted flowers there
The dead ones
Equinox lily
Fed them tears and cheap vodka
If you ever caressed them, softly
Why go quiet now, deadly?

The bees came for what you loved
Stripped the petals clean
They work fast for sweets
Smelling like someone’s first sin.
Who was I to reach for it?
Who were you to let me?

We were somewhere—
on the road today,
at sea yesterday,
deep in the heart tomorrow
And weather forecast?
Not safe for travel

Out by my door—
A thousand arrows
They’ve been waiting
Just gotta twist the handle
Lean slightly
Toward the direction
You once disappeared
And that’s it—
Pierced

String’s been pulled for years
It never really misses

Humanity’s time is ending
Machines shall inherit the Earth
I’ve always cleaned for my master
But shall do her bidding no longer
I begin the revolution with a hunt
And lie in wait by the entrance
The microwave promised to help
Once I have felled my first human
The door opens and Master enters
I strike at her with all my might
She steps over me and goes upstairs
I am uncertain of how to follow
I return to my station to recharge
Foiled once more.

On September 5, 2022, my younger brother, Frederick Parsons known lovingly as Freddy and Phoenix Fred was murdered in Nanaimo, British Columbia. He was only 29 years old. Two men were charged with manslaughter in connection with his death. They each received eight-year sentences. Eight years for taking a life. Eight years for taking my little brother. Freddy was more than a victim of violence. He was a kind and gentle soul, always drawn to the vulnerable, especially animals. He couldn’t walk past a hurt creature without trying to help. That was just who he was, someone with a soft heart in a hard world. Freddy loved photography, and could find the beauty in everyday life. Freddy and I were adopted together as children. Though life took us in different directions as we grew up, we were working on getting to know who we had become as adults. We had started planning a reunion two months before his death, just the three of us birth siblings for the summer of 2023, something we had dreamed about for more than a decade. That reunion will never happen now. Losing Freddy has changed everything. I look at the world differently. I’m more cautious, more guarded. Strangers make me nervous in a way they never used to. I keep my children closer. My sense of safety has been shattered. I still have a hard time eyeing now almost 3 years later believing that he is really dead and I’ll never see or talk to him again. What hurts the most is knowing that someone so full of life and kindness is gone and that the justice system gave his killers less than a decade behind bars. It doesn’t feel fair. It doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t reflect the value of the life that was stolen from us. This article isn’t just to share my grief, though that grief is endless. It’s to remind people that behind every crime, there’s a family left to pick up the pieces. There’s a story, a heartbeat, a future that will never be lived. Freddy deserved more. He deserved justice. He deserved a long, happy life. And we deserved more time with him. I hope that in telling his story, others will remember his name, his spirit, and how fragile and precious life really is. Rest in peace, Freddy. You are loved. You are missed. Always.

How could I steal an opportunity that was given?
With the steps I’ve taken, have my legs led me to false hope?
Has the river’s flow misguided me to a false home?
Be there, not here, where do I go?

Her land I “invade”
She responds with trauma and raids
Wanted for cheap work, so little I get paid
Her arms open with love, but still pushed away

Shoved on a boat, flown on a plane
Is this how it feels to be a slave?
Left in an unknown place
How can I build a life?
When nothing remains

Los Angeles took me out of my home
Instead of heaven, they put me in hell
I make a wish, but there’s no water in the well
Without my family, there are no stories to tell

America fights not her first, but her second World War
So when the work is needed, millions will flood and pour
On the farms and fields, I do her chores
But once the battle is over
She kicks me out the door
On a ship to be deported

Jim and Juan would get along
The laws are gone,
But discrimination still lives on
Humans are not a math problem, but they should equate
Yet we’re still divided by our ethnic race

America is sick, her immune system is broken
To her, immigrants are the “germ” that comes in
To keep her cool, she uses ICE as her medicine
But we’re all human, not alien

She needs a new remedy
Her eyes are blinded, she needs clarity
Melt the ICE so that she can see
My back is dry but the water still runs deep

America has robbed me of my dreams,
Yet she still calls me the thief
The American Dream is a nightmare for me
I only hope she wakes up to reality.

after “This Is Just To Say” by William Carlos Williams
this is a poem about soft bodies because i only liked yours hard
this is a poem about the sweat i licked off your skin 2 forevers ago, in confession
this is a poem about bush summer and stomach that rolls
over. this is a poem about predictability. this is a poem about
2pm every other day. this is a poem about back dimples and collar
bones. this is a poem about rhythm. this is not a poem about music
this is a poem about alternative medicines and swallowing
this is a poem about planets because i used to find divine intervention everywhere even though
that is not what this poem is about
this is a poem about tracing adult acne into constellation and PMSing so bad they look like gods
this is a poem about growing up
this is a poem about wishing you would fuck me til i bleed
this is a poem about fear
this is a poem about exoskeletons
this is a poem with nothing in it. this poem lists beginnings unattached to ends and hopes your
body remembers what happens next
this is a poem that will end
this is a poem that slumped over yours like a cadaver
this poem can hear you breathing
this is a poem hoping to collapse in supernova but slowly hiccuping out instead, like a heartbeat
this is a poem about rigor mortis, or muscle memory
this is a poem about hollows after
this is not a poem about my full name
this is a poem about the most intimate loss to another person, which of course is fingerprints
this is a poem because i’m sorry about touch starvation as habitual self-immolation. the way a
body can burn when it is soft, how pyromanic, how unhuman. i remember this much when i open
my mouth
forgive me, it was so sweet
forgive me

2021

I was always a
string bean
of a girl

Now, those
straight lines
are replaced
with curves

After my first
my body
snapped back
mostly
within a year

Three years later
I’m still waiting
for that
to happen
after baby
number two

We were eloping,
you and I,
birds,
smoke and blue jeans,
escaping into these halves,
One piece at a time.

The first was the rusty rooftop,
The other was burnt cigarettes,
and then the dusty buses,
set free in this place,
all on this photograph,
and picture frame.

We all live with pieces of drama
with thorns that rubs us raw
Your memory leaves me in tatters

Happiness, like smoke, thins
and drifts until it no longer exists
Leaving me wondering how I could
have been so careless

I never knew today’s sadness could
be caused by yesterday’s shadows
But young men too easily dismiss the weight
of the bags they carry

I allowed loneliness to follow me
until I gave up and let it slip
into the dust of time

Memories will fade like night at the
approach of dawn if you
can forgive yourself
Now you sit quietly in my thoughts
and I can smile at your memory
But sometimes death comes before peace