Colour My Words.

Ocean.

She was an ocean*

and he

a young boy who

made sand castles by the rising tides.

She had yet to understand 

there was danger in beautiful things.

And he was as dark as an oil spill,

as suffocating as

an empty soda bottle,

as collateral as fear.

 

 

 

*Borrowed from Christopher Poindexter

An Ode To Your Ears.

I like the curvature of your ears,

for what their swerve reflect about

the rest of your character,

the promise of ply in the rest of

your scenery,

and the varied trajectories I could

take down your body.

Because I like the thought of

losing grasp of the helix, and

slipping down the lobe, and

crashing against faintly murmured words, into

the middle of nowhere

with you. 

 

Originally written Feb. 23, 2014

Leaving The Door Wide Open.

I am receding tides.

I kill whales.

I flake out on turtles.

And neatly folded laundry.

Terrifying, disaster-on-the-brink

perfection.

I am the the house you grew up in,

a cold, distant memory,

a lasting inflection.

And spilled coffee on white cloth

precipitous, uninvited

impression.

 

I am all the times 

I said too much,

loved too much,

left too much.

All the times I held my heart out

like kindling,

willing the smallest spark

to kill me,

to be done with me

and all the letters I swore 

I'd never send.

 

For the most part,

I'm a train ride home.

A baseball bat to the nose.

I'm pulled teeth.

Darling, I know

I'm hard to love,

but whatever I am

you can be the rest

of me.

The First Humans Words.

Apologies don't make good bandages,

they say.

I say

let's step on each other's shoulders

on our way to heaven.

You pull my hair.

I pull yours.

My nails like 

birthmarks

on your forearms.

Your name like shrapnel 

on my tongue.

 

And when we part ways

you'll say

"I'm not sorry".

I'll say

"Me neither".

 

And we'll let that hang

in the air

like gunpowder

before you ruin me.

 

And we'll let that sink

to the ground slowly

like salt

on boiling water

 

And we'll let that feel like

no brakes

on highland

 

And we'll let those be

the very first

human words. 

 

*Me and my bestie, Adrian from Words We Walk decided to write poems with the same last line. Check hers out here!

He(art).

I’d weave my hands through your hair,

unless

you can think of something better,

but I

like to approach the tower of your body like a

needle through a thread

and then

lay in surrender along

cloths of regrets we’ve made.

I’d also sharpen my nails

to feel keen across your back

but I

kind of like the blunt circles

I’m drawing on your blades from scratch

that lack

all the clarity, and sincerity

that only carefully pointed words can pack.

I like to think of you as my failed “clair de lune”,

and my foggy “starry night”.

And I’ve just realized

that what’s bad for your heart

is good for your art. 

 

*Originally written April 16, 2014

Adjectives.

Originally written Jul. 11, 2014

 

Beware of adjectives, my little bird.

Don’t collect stray letters on your shoulders.

God forbid,

you don’t want to be

an enigma amidst certainties ,

a stumper amongst answers,

a cliffhanger amidst other cliffs

that don’t mind whether 

the tides erode, or the drops of water whet.

Don’t collect stray letters on your shoulders,

my little bird.

Short words aren’t mulled over;

they are well-defined. 

I don't write poems.

I don't write poems,

I usually awaken in the middle of

the scuffle.

Tangled limbs,

ruffled hair of

raging whims (that)

beg to declare

of your glare

the exact angle,

of your heart,

the distinct pace.

And in the middle

I am shaken,

I'm awakened,

filled to the brim, 

perhaps mistaken,

the fact is I am bursting

at the seams.

And in this rupture

they write

me.

Yes.

I vow to teach her to say "yes".

Whoever she decides to become, to say 

"yes".

To the prom dates, yes

to the little pinky dancing with hers, yes

to going barefoot in asphalt, yes

to sticking her tongue out, yes

to bleeding knees,

to the mess,

the crooked noses,

to the aliveness of it all.

 

Yes to leaving the husks of her, yes

to jumping outside her own body, yes

to shedding her skin.

 

But also "no."

You can't enjoy bike rides without brakes, no

you can't drink Pepsi, no

to sometimes yes, no

you must last me many more mornings.

 

But mostly yes.

I know the hollow space

of every place lived

without

the shadow you wanted

cast

next to yours, so yes.

Mostly yes. 

 

I vow to kiss

the inside of her palm and whisper,

"You must live to a thousand horizons."

You mustn't love gently.

You must

love 

the wholeness

and the tragedy

in all of it. 

Slow-Paced.

I wanted to

love grey instead of brown,

at first.

To love

the grooves before the scratches,

the fire before lighting matches.

To read the middle of sentences.

 

And you remind me

to take the lid off before the pour,

that resistance to that gravity is futile.

To want this before wanting more,

and that the best touch is done with the

pupils.

 

Until all tales are told,

and our coffee grown cold,

until

what was supple is brittle,

we'll be dancing 

in the kitchen 'til morning.

 

Slow-paced. 

Flying Bones.

             

I think I'll stay right here

with the watch, and the shadows,

loving the tick of grey matter.

I'll attempt

to befriend

a thousand lonelinesses.

 

I think I'll sit right here.

 

Lest things fall from the sky.

Lest their collision summons me.

Unless

bones are thrown.

Unless

one hits my head.

And then.

 The seat might hit the wall

in wake of my flight

instead. 

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