Author: poetryfest

her stomach was soft,
if you slid a butter knife across it
the skin would melt golden.
she is calm in a way
my stomach is not.
i need the steak knife to slice against the grain
of the meat screaming,
‘this way, this is the only way.’
the red that dribbles from a cut piece of meat
isn’t always blood.
it keeps the muscles ready to be made
a beautiful vermilion portrait.

I can feel my feelings—
just as you feel yours.
But I want to wear yours,
to see the world through your eyes.

I want to know your mind
as if we were one thought, one breath,
two souls unspooled in a silent embrace,
wandering the forests of your becoming—
where light and shadow are the same language.

Let me walk with you
through groves of remembered joy,
through thickets where sorrow took root.
I will trim back the dead branches,
until the past no longer claws at your present.

Let me find every river you’ve cried,
turn their currents to whispers.
Let me warm the hollows where shadows nest,
plant seeds where love still hesitates.

I want to know the storms
that shaped your cliffs,
the scars that even time forgot.
Only then can I hold you truly—
with hands that understand their weight.

So take my hand.
Lead me into your fractures.
Let me be both anchor and tide—
the stillness where your chaos
finally rests.

When you finally arrive she will not be happy to see you.
She’ll stay seated on the shade mottled bank of a heavenly
stream. She’ll continue

splashing stones into the stream with her back turned
hard to you while you cry out,
“Mom! Mom!” She no longer wants you.

The connection lost in afterlife. And she might still be hurt
by all the sleepless nights you gave her. Alone in her bedroom
reading library books and trying

not to imagine the worst. You’d gladly let her slap the shit out of you
if it meant she had to hold your gaze and reckon with the sadness.
“I stayed there,” your eyes would accuse,

“You’re the one who abandoned me!” Black clouds will roll in and
darken the hill-scape of Heaven. Her laser-red eyes will crease
your face. She’ll shout how you’re the one who took her pain

pills and never returned. Derisively she’ll question you,
“Where were you, when I was suffering and dying? Out wandering
the darkness, using your drugs and drinking instead of

huddled by my bed, tending to the small fire dwindling in me, almost dead.
Standing outside pressing your head against my death-room door
while I suffered on the

other side. Too small and scared to come inside and comfort me,
to say goodbye.” Her pointing finger will impale me. “It was your choice
that I die without you, not mine.”

She’ll make an awful commotion. Androgynous winged beings
will come to calm her and to consider you coldly while their
magnificent white wings beat you to the opposite bank.

They know sixteen-years-old is no excuse. She will retake her
seat by the stream. She’ll consider the ripples her small stones create.
She’ll smile and begin unremembering the boy who once abandoned her.
And you’ll watch her. Forever from the other side.

She had carried the baby in her body
Held it close as a secret
And I had thought of responsibility
And quavered at the thought of it
Wondering why God would
Make me
Give up me
To care for another
To wipe their little ass
My fingers wet with shit
Towel off their vomit
Stay up with them nights
Not playing my insipid video games
Postpone my failing novel
How dare this baby ask for that?
I resented the life that it wanted.
But how could I know
What it would not get?

I smiled at the ultrasound. There
Was a gaping void, a missing
Star, a pearl-less pearl. And I
Smiled into the emptiness. And
My wife did not understand why.
I had to smile
Because if I didn’t I would have
Been swept away. I was
Swimming and would have been
Devoured, drowned, dashed and done
and sometimes you smile
To the executioner not because
You are smart, kind, sly, or strong
But because it is the wrong thing
To do in a situation
That will never be
Right.

It only feels like yesterday
I sat on the fourth row
As your coffin lay
Frank Sinatra played
Nobody wanted to say
How much they loved you
So I wrote a paragraph or two
On a scrunched up piece of paper
That I later, left in the room
Next to you
It was full of flowers
From some people you knew.

I don’t think you would have liked
The way things went about.

I was brought to you
In a blacked limousine
Sat inbetween
Your daughters
You raised me the same
Since my mum had me
So young.

It was fun.

Fun feels like yesterday
Seeing your face
As I sat behind you
In the crusty leather
The car never weathered
Neither did you.

My love burned as vaporous flame of an unfading autumn,
How we tossed in the golden leaves so solemn,
My passion a roaring blaze beckoning away the misted night,
In utter ecstasy of halcyonian space and light,
Our heated scent the lingering perfume of wildflowers,
And the winter winds bearing down to end our loving hours.

In memory I see you smile in the golden sunshine of the valley land,
Oblivious, secluded, you take my hand to wander tranquilly,
Forgetting the fragrance of the primrose of this quiet valley-land,
Where vine to sanguine-colored vine led us to dance in Nature’s soliloquy.

Ancient woods and gilded mountains folded us within,
I laughed watching you coyly peer on pools of lucid bronze,
I wiped my brow watching you study streams of opal–
On vast vistas of the climbing white pine,
Across fluorescent willows burning emerald gems,
Across fluorescent willows burning emerald gems.

Against the dreamful mauve of mountains floating vaguely,
We rested underneath a sky of bluest sea so succinctly,
How long we lay entwined I cannot say,
But I remember the chill as violet twilight awoke me with a shiver,
Within the faint skies’ faint fringes, we drifted as ghosts far away.

Now I lie here where we once drifted to dream,
How we tossed in the golden leaves a lifetime ago it seems,
My passion cooled to ice welcoming the killing misted night,
Death will be a new ecstasy of halcyonian space and light.

When I fell from my bike, Dad said he had stopped
holding on. Once I knew it was the magic of him
that kept me upright, my gut collided with my reason,
and I hit the hot blacktop. But I got up, brushed off
the blood and the grit from torn skin, and told him
I didn’t need his hand. I balanced on the mailbox
instead, pushed off the curb, connected feet
to machine and wobbled my way through the speed.
My old man yelled at me not to cross the street,
but I was gone into the dusk, knowing damn well
the trouble would be worth it. Now, with that same
exhilaration to brace the wind—free from the bind
of passive dependence—I cast his lost spell on me.

The storm had finally arrived after brewing in a silent sea of delusion for far too long. The wind of truth blew fiercely against us all and the rain that fell endlessly were indeed our tears. The clouds drifted across an amber sky of clustered thoughts that hid the sunlight that day. Yet I held her to me. I spoke of angels and good Soul food, whispered love and affirmations in her ear, and kissed her lips. Memories like morning dew covered and saturated my heart. Yet I held her to me. Not knowing that she felt me or even knew who I was any longer because the time was at hand. Her breathing was shallow and yet the life she had lived spoke volumes throughout her transitioning. There was no more time for abandonment issues or thoughts of
past transgressions; no space for generational strongholds to reinforce trauma bonding. For soon she would be gone, embraced by the light and Angels she adored. “Thank you” she had told me a mere few days ago as I cared for her, cleaning her and playing her favorite music. “I love you” she had said words that I thought I would never hear her say again after our estrangement. Yet I held her to me. The embrace gave us both the closure that we needed and sought from each other. This day the hospice nurse comes to pull us out of the dark room “Give her space to transition” she said, “often loved ones won’t transition when being watched.” At the time, and in my grief, I thought that was odd of her to say. However when we went back into the room, I touched my mommy’s cooling skin and her stillness almost frightens me, yet it was then that I knew she was gone. Still I held her to me.

Emotions too deep to express escaped us as we gathered around the shell that once housed her spirit. She had joined the ancestors that now danced in the wind beyond this realm. And as the years and time attempt to comfort us all in her absence. As she comes to visit us in dreams to hold dear with our memories, when moments too big for explanation are captured and the catalyst of our deepest regrets enslaves our hearts, my thoughts are of our last hug, when still I held her to me.

Absolutely stunning,
and she walks as if she knows it.
She’s got white fur, icy blue eyes,
And a freckled pink nose.
She walks sorta funny,
Because her back left leg is janky.

I trust her with my life,
And in turn she trusts me with hers.
When she yawns, I always
Stick my finger in her mouth.
It bothers her, but she lets me do it.
I like to think she lets me
just because she loves me.

She hates the bath, but loves
When I brush her.
She blows her coat twice a year,
Almost to the exact week every time.

She always knows when I’m upset,
Sometimes before I know,
And she’ll lay right on my legs
Or she’ll shove her nose into my hand.
Just to let me know she’s still here.

She’ll check on me every so often,
Just to make sure I’m still there too.
When I get home from work
She’ll get so excited
she can’t even stand up.

Eve wasn’t supposed to be my dog.
My parents got her when I was 13
As a family pet,
but she never cared about anyone
As much as she cared for me.

Wherever I went, she wanted to be there.
We used to go walk across the soybean field
behind my parents’ house,
And we’d sit for hours near a little creak.
I’d read and she’d sunbathe, or hunt mice.
She’s a husky,
but she doesn’t mind sitting
so long as I’m right there.
Even if she’d rather be
doing something else.

She loves brussel sprouts,
And hates cats.
Especially grey ones.
She’s terrified of water,
But she loves to kayak with me.

She’s my protector.
One time we kayaked on lake Ore-Be-Gone,
And I got out of the kayak
To cliff dive with my dad.
She got so scared when I jumped,
That despite her fear of water
She jumped right in to go get me.

She’s the perfect dog,
And I know everyone says it
But she’s my best friend.
No one will ever compare to her.
She has my soul and my heart,
And she fills both to the brim.

Eve, my beloved dog,
Has a brain tumor at just seven years old, And
though she’s protected me from gophers,
coyotes, and people she don’t like,
I can’t do a single thing to help her now.

So I pet her head, and we watch TV.
And she’ll see I’m upset, and comfort me
Just the way she always has.
She’ll lay on my legs,
and shove her nose into my hand.
Her way of saying she’ll always be there.
And for the next month or two, she will be.

They said don’t suppress your emotions
It causes your memory to render
Or I think that was what they said,
I can’t really remember
She was speaking,
but I had an airpod in
I was feeling,
but my music was blasting
I think we fought last night
I don’t remember what was said
Maybe it was the day before,
but I left that all behind in bed
I scrolled and slept it off
Did I put that coin in that jar?
Anyways, I feel good now
Is that a new scar?
Actually now that I think about it
Hold on, this is my favorite song
Anyways, I don’t remember why I was crying,
but I don’t think about it for long
No point in pondering over the past
It’s better to just move on
I was sobbing last night
My pillow has water marks
I have a test first period,
but something’s weighing on my heart
It gets heavier every day,
like my memory is in debt
I swear I meant to search it up
I just tend to forget