Author: poetryfest

O coffee! My coffee! The dreaded morn is here,
The time for sleep is over, make my fatigue disappear!
My duty calls, I cannot fall, and give in to the dark–
With you by my side I shall fight the tide and heed the morning lark.
But o cup! cup! cup!
What a tragedy I see,
Where now that I am fully up,
My cup sits there, empty.
O coffee! My coffee! ‘Tis you I love the most!
Pour over or percolate, just give me that roast.
Instant will do, I’ll take a cold brew,
Nothing will stop me from being with you.
Here potion! Dearest drink!
My cream awaits your heat.
You empower me to think,
Of more than just my sheets…

Give me wine and the ocean, and hyacinth hair
A casket of flotsam and crystalline care.
Speak of the currents in deep fluid blue and bring to the surface a mirror of you
Hers is the wave and quickening tide, touched by the moon I secretly hide.
Give me wine and hyacinth hair, ocean blue eyes and a soul to share
Sing in the night, swell with delight, crash and arouse this siren in fright.
Jetsam spill my heart to hear, the soft response of one so near
Echoes and eddies, visions and seeress, gather the pieces and wash up the fearless
Bring me wine, an ocean to share, the girl with the moon and the hyacinth hair.

I carry nine paper flags
labeled below
scrap paper, dry markers
and a dead hope.
Close I hold the fear they bring.
I cradle it.
I know where to place it
out of sight
so far I barely remember
its necessity. The anonymity
bites me in the ass.

She never knows what she finds
and brings to me like a little girl
with a bouquet of weeds,
of poison ivy.
She cries out
when I smack it from her hands,
skin going red and puffy,
eyes filling.

She doesn’t quite get yet
that some things are not meant for her hands,
that the pretty leaves
are hidden messages, propaganda,
meant to protect but turned sour.

I cleave to my colors –
why can’t she touch, hold, have?
Why am I ever the one to remind her she’s allergic?
Why can’t she just twirl
in her gauzy pink dress
and leave me in jeans,
cuffed at the ankle?

So it’s
1:30pm on a Tuesday and I’m runnin’
For my life
Down Fauntleroy full sprint
Dragging my poor dog behind me
Chased by a man dressed like a pirate
Threatening to beat me up
For no other reason than sometimes
We run out of our perscribed drugs
By the end of the month
And we start takin’ others
When all of a sudden these two
Lesbians swing open the back door of their
Silver subaru yelling
“Get in!” like they’re drivin the fuckin
Getaway car in a heist movie

We look out for each other okay?
The bouncers of the LGBT

Damn girl,
How many keys you got on that carabiner?
I walk around sounding like a goddamn
High school janitor
Got the
Key to the car I abandoned on the hwy
Key to the storage room
Inside of the storage room at work
Key to your straight best
Girlfriend’s heart
Spare key to my best friend’s beat up
‘98 4Runner

We look out for each other
But I look out for me, too

Don’t @ me with those fingernails
It’s Thursday afternoon at the TJs checkout
And you’re sizing me up like you
Think you know what you
Think I’m capable of
Ma’am I’m just bagging your groceries

I look up to see you smile
Tuck your hair behind your ear
Barbie pink acrylics and a
Fistfull of silver rings
Touch my hand n let it linger
As I hand you your receipt
Keep your claws to yourself
You’re not the girl for me

We look out for each other
We look up to each other

It’s 2:45am at an after party
Saturday night circa 2010
Sitting sandwiched between this het couple
The guy talkin bout how he could
Fix me
The girl sayin she’s always wanted to
Try
As if I’m a fuckin suit or something
In need of alterations
When this absolute bull of a dyke sits on the loveseat
Across this ocean of a rug between us
Leans back n pats the cushion next to her
And she talks to me like I fit in somewhere

Just the way I am
She makes me feel
Looked out for

tequila now tastes like salvation,
resting my head on bosom soft as mine,
fingers so frail yet caressing my heart like feathers on lustful flesh, visceral melody
that sends me screaming back into my ears

she’s Salvatore, I’m the worthless whore condemned
to loneliness

creation is rewritten: Eve and Eve
(or maybe Ava?)
living happily in Eden gazing at the sun’s
crescent and stars serenading the chemtrails

there’s no such thing as forbidden,
even in this garden.

the earth is just another jaundiced artwork
another piece of shit
defining love as black and white

ps: i’m rainbow across the dark sky
she’s heaven.

Listen — we’re only so much wrong
until we’re forgiven.

Listen man, I’m sorry I get high on moonshine
only to cry about ripened dandelions

or whatever, really. Gus,
I am the product of a crowded youth.

And we both know we grew up on Boys Don’t Cry
in sunny farm outhouses, shirts wet with sweat.

Tongue wet of ruff and rum and thirsty enough
to get high off dry handholds and nothing else.

We are the residues of 70s soft rock
trying to get the fuck out Germany.

& could you punch out early today
this eye nothing but a shiner —

Waiting to look into yours
& live quickly. Hastened. Minute-hand.

I think it works out in another life —
To be nothing of boys or of skin.

An offhanded comment about summer
and I’ll know it’s you. My hand under your Bauhaus tee.

is there something wrong?
your knowing eyes
lock into mine
shooting daggers
like a pointed finger

queer; queer, queer.

i tense myself
i would tell you the truth
but i’m uncertain
would you still love me
if i said i love you?

my nervousness
stuttering and stumbling
over words
it almost spills out every time
choke back the vomit

it tastes like tar
maybe something is wrong

we shouldn’t be doing this–
i shouldn’t be feeling this
your hand reaches for mine
my trembling frame
you noticed.

what pride is there to be found
in hiding behind my smile
and coughing up wilted flowers

as the moment passes i look to you
and i see a sea of stars
in the spots that dot your face
when you lean in to kiss me

i’m strangely not surprised
it travels through my body
from my lips

burning
in the right ways
for you

nothing is wrong
i am whole,
i am proud,
i am queer,
i am yours

I
I keep wandering,
Somewhere between awake and asleep
Not sure whether I’m haunted
By ghosts or by dreams.

I keep waiting
For the feelings to fade,
To move past the memories,
To stop daring to dream,
To fathom a future without you in it.

II
You wanted to meet me
In that in between place
Where our differences don’t matter–
Our definitions,
Our perspectives,
Our perceptions,
Our realities;
Where the dark doubts don’t doom
All our hopes to shoulds and should-nots.

The place where we can be–
Always together.

Where I get to kiss you each night
And bid you good morning.
Where I get to be the nook you snuggle into
To get away from the world.
Where I get to be the reason your smile
Reaches up to your eyes.
Where I get to hear all your heart has to tell me,
Followed by “I love you.”
Where I get to prove my love again and again.
Where I get to hold you close and never let go.

Where my dreams come true
Because I’m holding you.

III
From morning to night
I always come back
To this place in my mind
Where memories are all I can find.

Guided by my heart
Through time and through space
Through snippets of stories
And the moments that mattered–

An off-handed invite
For a last-second flight
To flirt with fate,
To meet your people,
To camp with wild horses,
To tease you mercilessly–
In the kayak,
In the car,
In the tent,
In the shower stall next to yours.
To the moment I asked,
Can I kiss you?

From taking your parents’ daughter away–
An 18-hour road trip,
With a paw-tistic puppy
And both of us pms-ing
To meet my family on Thanksgiving
Thankful we’d survived.

To learning the joys of cohabitating
And all of the realizations it reveals:
Melding laundry is a new level of intimacy.
There is a wrong way to fold towels.
Some people actually like dusting.
Dishwasher Tetris is an art form.

IV
The person you fell in love with,
Isn’t always the same person who moves in.

That among the books and baggage,
You also have to unpack
The expectations
The insecurities
The past
And the present

V
Yet those times are gone–
With the chance to make changes
When they might have mattered.
So I picked up the pieces
Of every mirror I’d shattered
And began to reflect
On the self that I saw:

My flaws, the furious fissures–
Fault lines that would yawn
And swallow me whole
Were actually just cracks
That allow me to contract
And e x p a n d
To breathe in again
And again…

My pock-marked personas,
That left me vulnerable
Feeling pitted and exposed.
Were in fact, a chain of chinks
That brought light
To a whole new perspective,
Of shimmer and sheen.

Your fingertips would
Find a brand-new body
One with more scars,
But more healing

One with new chapters
One that now lays open
One that knows
Where it wants to be:

Forever free
From your memory.

there’s no cowboy love here
just cowboy hurt & cowboy bile & cowboy
you’re not a real man cowboy
cowboy cowgirl you’re going to regret every
decision you’ve made so far girlboy

no sunday church like the good boys
change your mind you can be my
forever boy
forever girl
forever whatever

not worth more than a smile &
a quick peck unlike the real boys
hold my hand & turn to dust
compost your lungs just like
every other boy

dig your grave
name yourself
drown in mud
& call it home

On our backyard patio,
two white metal-frame chairs,
are lodged into a bed of pebbles.

I watch the ants follow the rusted arteries
to the top before crossing over to the other chair.

It’s funny how a pair of something
Always seemed to make better sense somehow.

Around the violets have begun to sprout.

Their long necks, slumped,
looking for the life of the familiar,
wedged, underground
before they knew

the sun
finishing its final stretch,
toddler-like it makes
itself brilliantly known at its end.

Let the evening find me
not one less second, less wise.

Let me remember the way your knuckles
fold themselves inward when you’re nervous,
the subtle flash of red that graces
the height of your cheek.

Let me remember how much it meant
to mean nothing once.

All the space you’ve left open
for others and never for me.

But tonight, there’s a greenness to the air,
tiny makers of light flicker,

little bodies floating upward,
calling out silently, as only the light can.