Author: poetryfest

Red light, black Suburban, camo cap
I twined our lines in destiny’s plaid
Waiting for the traffic to glow green
She talks ahead as I watch unseen

I can not hear her music out of her open window
But I can see her sing
Her left hand waves a cigarette
Wearing a shattered ring

The intersection started slowing down
Till all were standing still
But it was her who edged ahead
Tapping ash against her sill

I went down the north ramp
And she went down the south
Speeding at the entrance
Blowing smoke out of her mouth

Four steel posts through a tender lobe
One for each year of innocence
Four is a tender age
For your whole world to shatter
In sticky fragments on the kitchen floor
An explosion of glass and jam
That my mother couldn’t hear
It’s a tender age
To hold your mother’s crying face
Between your own small hands
As you chant ‘it will be okay’
And the baby cries from the other room

Three more scar my cartilage
One for each year of service
It’s a tender age
To pretend to be the secretary again
She says it’s a game
But your stomach twists and knots anyway

Seven barbs of metal nestled into flesh
One for each year of childhood
Seven is a tender age
To hide the bubbling fear
At seeing your mother’s scars
They snake across a hairless scalp
Angry mad-scientist stitches
Radiating out from her left ear
You bury your horror because
She can hear again
As the magnets do their work
Sort of, from the left side, for the most part

Seven years’ apprenticeship
Now a master hand
My adorned and studded ear
Armouring a soft seashell of sound

Thumping music blares.
My heart constricts to its bass.
My hair falls freely, wildly, down my back.
My skin is pale and smooth.
I smell like burnt almonds and cherry—
Sweet, but dark.

Bending at the waist,
My elbow pressed against a scuffed vanity,
I concentrate—
Then retreat.

I need a sharpener.
I pull open the acrylic drawer,
Once clear, now veiled in dusty dew.
The music flows—primitively, desolate.

I grab the sharpener, pink residue clinging to it,
And I turn.
The eye kohl whittled to a point.
I concentrate again.

I line my eye—
Black.
My pupils dilate,
Round, infinite holes.
I stare.
A fridge smile cracks—
One that could crumble at any second.

I crank the pencil again.
Line my left eye—stabbed.
I flinch, drop everything.
Black smudge spills down my cheek.

In the mirror: bloodshot eyes,
Morose makeup smeared.
The corners of my mouth pull back—
Teeth bare, sneering,
A wicked smile.

Then I laugh—
A cold cackle.
Then heat.
Then tears.

I laugh and laugh and laugh—
A crow and a roar.
A poisonous wail.
Into hysteria.
Sweet impassion.

I surrender.
Crumble—like the pencil on the floor.
My face, a wreckage.

I am painting a picture
Of what I should be—
Carnal.
Coy.
Curious.

Crushed.

Glitter dances in shards and fragments.
The watery chatter inside my veins.
The music skips—
A solitary cadence.

My heart is smeared across my glossy face.
Charcoal.

At work, I sit with people as they sign
their Last Wills and Testament. Part of my job
is to smile at them, make them feel comfortable
while they contemplate their mortality. I talk
to them about their summer plans, and
enthusiastically say yes when they are instructed
to ask me to be their witness.
If they tell me that they no longer speak with
their daughter, I simply acknowledge how
families are not all the same.

I find Wills to be strange poems, a collection
of moments. Some time after my brother-in-law
passed away, I found a small bottle of Cherry Coke Zero
he left in my fridge, and I was not able to dispose of it. My son
asked if I could leave it to him in my Will,
and I imagined all the wonderful things I could
specifically bequest to him:
the bottle of Cherry Coke Zero from Uncle Joey,
my beaded bracelets he already steals,
the incense he always asks me to burn that’s kept
in the strange armoire in the living room
which was left there by the previous owners–

but I wouldn’t need to, as he is my one and only,
and everything will fall to him anyway.
All I need to leave for him is
permission to throw it all away.

Counting the days lost to grief. Counting the teeth
falling from my face. Disgraced
for what they couldn’t clench, disgusted
by the stench of the rot in the sockets underneath.
Disappointments dig in deep.
Roots rummaging through nerves
unnerved by uprooting
constantly shooting this catch-22 pain
through my veins from one end to the other,
only stopping to hover my heart. Only stopping
to distort my sight. Figments hold light
but mirages are known for misadvising,
disguising truth in fantasy, still,
sometimes I let them lie to me, sometimes
it’s the only life that seems to be living.
Sometimes
I have to stop swallowing
doses of indifference, for just a few minutes.
For just a few minutes,
I have to forget the days
lost to grief before I lose my belief
in the possibility of days without it.

I wonder if ghosts get older. If they get a glimpse of a life that waited for them if they kept breathing a little longer. & I try to picture that life as they visit us on those long winter nights when the furnace struggles to heat this hundred & twenty year old house & we remember all we’ve lost that once was as real as the dog laying on my lap right now.

In sixth grade I hung out with my friend Matt when he was able & never spoke of his hairless head or the time he had left. & I tried to find an answer, a satisfying explanation, for what I knew, even at eleven years old, was not fair. & it wasn’t fair when I went to his funeral—divine providence couldn’t assuage the numbness in my chest. I think I knew then that this is all there is.

But on my best days I hope a place beyond this one exists for the sake of reunions
to see Matt again & tell him the story of the life that could have been
to see my Grandmother again & tell her that I tried to make her proud
to see Dia again & let her know that so many of us are better because of her
to see Kelly hug Josh again & laugh about those near misses we’ve all had
to see Schiz again & tell him he deserved better than what we had to give
to see Mr. Davis again & thank him for giving us a safe place to grow
to see Paula & Cindy & Nanna & Robert & Paul B. & Gene & Jannette & Chris & even Ken &
Zach H. & Zach T. & Laura & Stephanie & Jessica & Jack & Aubrey & Scott M. & Matt E. &
Amanda & Ian & Mark & Joseph & Bonnie Jean & Ed & Donna & Sue & Regina &

& I never planned to live this long so I hope the ghosts of my loved ones haunt me as I remember all the reasons I’m not dead yet. & today I am thankful I’ve survived myself for as long as I have, to build them a monument to a world worth living in.

I fear I might know it,
Before my cold fingers even touch the parchment.
Long before my ink pens were the only
portal to contentment as an outlet to get through
these idyllic cycles.

even in euphoric guilt-ridden sleep,
It is your face I see
And all the unanswered questions come back to me.
I feel like a child,
Sitting on my assigned carpet tile
Hand reaching for the ceiling as if
that will help you to pick my vile smile.

You found me in the midst of
Rebuilding my humble home.
Shattered brick and
Fresh catacombs.
You taught me how to heal,
Just so you could be the one to give the finishing blow.

Shaking hands and catching breaths.
old paint water and blank canvases.
Sacred texts filled with metaphorical deaths.
Crediting your faithless name in works cited,
For research papers about a time I was so close to getting everything I wanted.

So close,
But never quite there.

My hopeless ghost
Stood on shaking bones
And walked to the mic,
The screech of the speaker,
The cringe of the viewers.
The words died like our souls did,
Lips forgot about every poem
I ever directed.

Immortal insanity,
Sentenced to a life without the living.
The worst curse is the trap of not knowing,
And being labeled as forgiving.

learning to play piano,
But always being off key.
You being the star of my scenes,
But knowing you never think of me.

This disappointment,
These cruel and time-consuming cycles,
The grudge i hold with a grip as tight as vices

Halfway to heartbreak,
But then you took the wheel,
The aftermath of the crash
Is my reality here.

the credits have been rolling for a year now
“Foolish girl” is what I lose my nomination for
But you, low-down respectable guy
Win the Oscar and don’t mention me in the speech.

Pages of scratch paper,
Filled with nonsense diction
Of the things I waste time reminiscing.
Perhaps if I wasn’t addicted to fiction-
Perhaps I wouldn’t miss him.

Struck by the curse at birth,
Searching for true loves kiss
That doesn’t exist
I’m a realist stuck in the body of a hopeless romantic.

As the professor reads my conclusion,
My aching bones begin to sway
And the hill I climb begins to look like an illusion,
I wonder if anyone will ever stay?

Park bench on the storm’s edge, one foot in the rain. Washing these filthy boots clean of everywhere they’ve walked so far. I breathe in the downpour. Breathe deeply. I’ve always felt you closer in a shower. Maybe because I feel cleaner, or because I need the reminder that you weep too. And I need to be near you.

And I’m not thinking about my wet clothes, or how cold the car’s AC will feel later. I’m not thinking about the growing dark, or the receding shadows. The glow of the lights; ours and yours. Ours strung across the trees; yours strung across the sky. The soft glimmer we imitate; the divine clash you speak through the heavens. And the bridge between the two awash in glow.

The pink of hidden dusk. The grey-blue of a steady trickle. The green of growing earth. The yellow of holiday lights. The white of thunder bellow. The colors of kindred spirits.

December feels like
June. And June feels like change.
And change feels like You.

I cast all hope away, swore never again,
Happy to feel love amongst family and friends.
Romance wasn’t meant for me, I’m better off alone,
I’ll never feel again, my heart as hard as stone.

Along you came with those big brown eyes,
Swept me off my feet, took me by surprise.
The protective wall I forged crumbled into dust,
Allowing me to shine again, teaching me to trust.

You pulled me out of solitude, disturbed my sad slumber,
Restored my faith, gave me hope and it truly is a wonder.
Only God knows the future and what we may come to be,
How beautiful to dream in colour of all the possibilities.

I have no regrets, try as my overthinking might,
Your very presence has taken me from darkness to light.
No matter if we fall in love or this has no potential,
You made me feel alive again, I am forever grateful.

The last day he felt like himself,
he asked me to get coffee.
Just the two of us.

I chose a boy
whose name
still burns like static
at the back of my throat.

While he sat in a coffee shop
quiet in that hollow way
only the dying get
thinking the kind of things
no one says
until there’s no one left to hear,

I was somewhere else,
wasting time
on someone
already erased.

He wanted to spend
what little time he had left
with me
his daughter.

I didn’t know
it would be the last time.
That it would echo
louder in silence
than it ever did in sound.

I wish I had known
the kind of goodbye
that doesn’t come back.

I don’t know
if I’ll ever
forgive myself
for mistaking a ghost
for something worth keeping.

For answering my father
with silence.
For letting his last request
rot next to a name
I won’t even speak.