Author: poetryfest

You could ask me anything
And I would say yes
Just to see your eyes glow
And light up my world
To see your teeth glisten in the sunlight
As your lips turn upwards into a smile
Nothing would be too much for me
To make you happy
Ask me to cook dinner, and I will stand
In the kitchen for hours
Want me to fold your laundry? I’ll say…
Yes honey

But all of the enthusiastic servitude
Has spoiled you
Has broken me

You wish for me to be a quiet girl
So I stop sharing my opinion
Want me to dye my hair?
I know you’ve always liked blondes more than brunettes
If you need a hand, I will remove my dominant
When you feel alone, I can reach into
My chest to hand you my heart so
You feel loved, anything you
Desire until I am half
Of a human
Half of a
woman

Before
The early October evening
when cool air stirs whispers
from the tops of the still green trees.
Flowers hold on to bloom
vibrantly refusing retirement.

I drink in the cool starry skies
my core still warm
from furnaced summer air,
and I deny what is to come.

After
The weeping red oak in my front lawn
sheds tears of orange that become
mottled brown and mixed with ashen dirt.

My dog’s weathered paws no longer
pad the beaten trail to the lake
and the wind hisses with an icy sting.

We buried her in the backyard
with promises to plant a lilac in the spring.

The nights are long.
The cold has set into my bones.

Twice, I see you up there, perched on the lamppost.
I know the omen said in folklores,
yet I feel nothing but liberation wash over me in the prairie evening breeze—
as though freedom might arrive with the morning light.

In the breeze, I hear the indigenous songs and howling—
the stomping and drumming pounding the earth beneath.
The omens foretold, and the ceremonial dancing to stave them off—
a crow to witness from above all that humans know of divine worship.

From a distance, I vicariously surrender to higher commands.
The messages were clear as they cried,
the expectations unmistakable as they sought deliverance.
No man shall suffer alone in disgrace.

You tried to rule the gods’ land, and fell hard into the caverns of deep truth.
You vowed vengeance against those who wronged you,
only to find the soulless act void of levity.
You cannot soar with the weighted morals of an iron anvil.

No human escapes the sentence of a biological origin.
An expiration is stamped, with no alterations to extend—only to shorten.
No more robust than God’s will for your protection.
A final end — will we return to the womb of the earth?

The crow knows.”

I choke on the finger I gnawed off my hand.
I took my false, gap toothed smile
and put my teeth to use
breaking my dry-ass skin
blending the fresh blood with my mucus and tears
and letting it drool from my lips like the rabies infected mutt you could’ve bred me to be
I pierced my muscle with my canines as she massaged your collar
and ground through the bone as your tongue slid down her throat.
I suctioned my lips round my index,
red sputtering from my traumatic amputation
before enclosing it within my trap.
My tongue fondled it like your hands on her breasts
and my nail skinned the roof of my mouth but I didn’t speak a fuckin’ word.
As you plotted your next outing to my ringing inner ears
I attempted to swallow my digit and countdown the days until your betrayal was drawn in
caricature
alas, it lodged in my windpipe
and I choke on my pointer to prevent from pointing out the traitor
because God forbid I hurt you,
God forbid I face you and let the blood beckon your tears.
I once would sooner stifle my gasps and die to baby your self-concept
than let you waste words on my pathetic pain you inflicted.
No More
let me shove my gut against the back of a kitchen chair
to heimlich up my finger and recover my speech.
Now face me,
and let my blood and spit sputter from my lips
as I say
Congratulations.

The bugs don’t care that you’ve died.
They still crawl over rocks.
The birds still sing.
The butterflies still fly.
The bees still buzz.
The fish still swim.
The moth still flutters.
Water still moves.
The moon still glows.
Leaves still fall.
The snow still comes.
Flowers still grow.
Trees still know
what once was ….

Throughout my childhood,
I looked up to strong women,
hoping to be just like them.
I feel a sense of despair when I realize
that I will never fill that role.
All those years of wanting
people to stare in awe at “how
strong that young woman is”;
knowing now that I will never be that woman.

I am just another man.
Man.
One syllable that carries so much weight.
As if being a man makes me toxic.
Makes me angry.
Makes me passionless.
Makes me temperamental and heartless.

But when I lay in my bed at night,
hidden by the cover of darkness,
I think how I want more than anything to look like one.
To be tall and muscular.
To have a chiseled jaw dusted with
The beginnings of a beard.
To speak in a voice with a
Timbre I can recognize as my own.

And more than that,
I want people to look at me and see
the softness of my heart, and
kindness in my eyes, and
love pouring out of my skin when I bleed.

I will never be a strong woman,
but I will be a decent man.

Alas, in happenstance, what I should see
But the bluest moon that shines for thee

No deeper tearful sorrow’s call
Can dull the waning evenfall

Hanging gently pon’ the stars
A lonely sight so ever far

Speaks to broken promise kiss
Paints the moonbeams gloomy bliss

Yet, hear the lies we lovers’ tell
Upon a hopeful wishing well

The love we give is ours alone
Can turn a broken heart to stone……

after Robert Frost

Whose woods those are I used to know.
Not gonna stop to see them, though.
No way we could pull over here.
See, freeway, kid, you gotta go

and go. Ol’ Smokey’d think it queer
we tried to stop. Oh, he’d appear
like magic, like—oh look, a lake!
You missed it, kid. Things disappear

real quick at eighty-five! Don’t take
it personal. I mean, Christ’s sake,
we could be in a buggy, creepin
by . . . See, kid, you gotta make

some—compromises so’s to sweep
the old out for the new. Can’t weep
for what’s gone by, can’t fall asleep—
God!—at the wheel! Got dates to keep! ❖

2002

I don’t remember exactly when the killing stopped feeling like a choice. But I know when it started to feel like something else—a need. A hunger that gnawed at me from the inside, made me crave the rush of power, the silence of a life slipping away in my hands. The first time, I thought I’d be sick. I wasn’t. I was alive in a way I hadn’t been before, alive in a way I couldn’t explain, like I had tapped into something beyond me. Something primal.

It’s been years since I put down the knife. I don’t miss it. Not really. It doesn’t haunt me the way the faces of the ones I took still do. Sometimes, I can feel them, hovering just out of sight, like shadows pressing in from every angle, waiting for me to remember the way I used to be. The bottle’s my friend now. Or maybe it’s my enemy. Hell, I don’t know. I just know it’s there when the memories come back, when the ghosts start knocking.

My hands shake, and I reach for the whiskey bottle on the counter. It’s become automatic—pouring, swallowing, numbing. I don’t need to think about it anymore. At first, I had to remind myself. “Just one,”
I’d tell myself. But that was a lie. I never kept it to one. One turned into three, three into ten, until the
empty bottles piled up around me like the bodies I used to leave behind. They’re not in the woods anymore, but they’re still here. Inside me. Always.

I sit back on the couch, leaning into the cushions like they’re the only thing holding me up, my head spinning from the latest round. I used to think I could outrun it. But you don’t outrun your own mind. You just drown it.

Clink.

That’s the sound of the glass hitting the table, the cold bite of it sinking into my skin. I look down at the
amber liquid, watching it swirl like it’s a tiny world of its own, like if I stare at it long enough, it’ll swallow me whole. I don’t mind that idea. Hell, I’d welcome it at this point.

There was a time—God, I don’t even know how long ago it was—when I thought I could stop. That I could walk away from it all. But the thing about killing, the thing about taking a life, is that it changes you. It leaves a mark. And marks, they don’t fade. No matter how many years go by, no matter how many bottles you drink, they’re still there. The marks are always there.

I push the thought away as I take another drink. A deep one. The burn is familiar, comforting in its owntwisted way. It dulls the edge. It slows my thoughts. When I’m drunk enough, I can forget. Forget the
faces, forget the screams that still echo in my head when I wake up in the middle of the night, drenched
in sweat.

Sometimes, I wonder if it was worth it. The killing, I mean. Sometimes, when the booze is doing its job, I convince myself it was. It made me feel alive. In a world full of people who were just… existing, I had the
power to take it all away. The control. It was intoxicating. But now, years later, I’m just… here. Alone.
There’s no more thrill. There’s no more power. Just the endless cycle of emptiness, of pouring another drink, and then another, trying to fill the hollow where something used to be. I can’t even remember what it was. Maybe it was a soul. Maybe it was the person I used to be before I did all those things. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. The clock ticks in the background, every second another reminder of how long I’ve been running from myself. Of how long I’ve been hiding from the person I became, the monster I forged out of my own need for something… more.

The whiskey starts to wear off, and the shadows come back, the faces creeping in at the edge of my vision. I close my eyes, trying to block them out. But they won’t go away. They never do. I pick up the bottle again, feeling the cool glass in my hand like it’s the only thing keeping me tethered to something real. It’s too much to bear sober. So, I drink. One more time. Maybe this time will be the one where I finally forget. But who am I kidding?I’ve been drinking to forget for years. And I’m still the same man I was when I started. A killer.A coward. And no matter how much I pour, I can never wash that away.

Missing someone you love is hard, but never being able
to see them again is harder.
Anonymous

She died with a fever in her bones and a death in her womb. Tomorrow, the light will be dark and the hours long, and her husband will linger in a hollow of loss.

He will have pixeled memories, memories of what was and what will never be again, so there will be no solace, only absence. The pain will be like a blade through his heart, with shards of regret and sorrow and emptiness.

But tonight he will slumber in a benzo twilight and implore the Deities that he never awake.