ever burned chocolate in the microwave?  ever not paid attention to the beginning of the end? i’ve tried to pull the skies to their knees because i wanted to melt them down to something spreadable and thin. disinclined valley slopes that don’t roll for me, they hold me back from what can be seen.  be genuine, be intentional, think about why things are the way they are. i can’t assimilate into a congregation of feelers.  predictable noise, squeaks of molars place-setting for incisors. not hungry, just aching. i killed eight flies today with just my hand. a weapon of soft power. motion-controlled delivery is key. place a palm directly over the cringing mediocrity, gradually pace down and then suddenly —

oh god. how she manipulates. how she keeps me coming back to her.

a molten wonder with abraded tongue. scrapes the bridge of noses and shaves the bow of cheekbones. a paleness that lights grass fields at angles magnified, scorches them as flame set to sheet linen. pliant, clumsily dotting eyes, she is featureless, and of this she complains. seizes days by the handful, cradles months in between rays. she unzips her flight jacket to a solar cavity heaving smoke. a non-violent yet innate hinge to time. her memories impress into skin, leave shoulders and arms flecked with this ruin.

i grow thicker skin, i keep within the shade, i perceive her with filters at every opportunity. but whence arises the risk of no longer being missed, the biggest star again sneaks along these of my oft-deserted rifts. thaws the broken need in me. asserts that burning is what i do. not for her, for me.

#unrequited #sun #burning #toxic

the cross-stitch pattern needles back and forth and over and under the rip in my denim knee. this seems courtesy of a steady hand, the slip and slide of one, blood red thread that tidies what i split. but the edges are still fairly frayed. cut on an unwrapped fence link wire-end, it dragged a gaping mouth that took to yawning across my skin. you and i were fools before repairs could begin. what will catch me next time, when i run again.

the lower jaw of my articulate skeleton

doesn’t quit producing echoes,

the softest and blackest of which

become faraway heroes, shapeshifters.

my blotwork methods

give voices to bruises

and glory down visor helmets

for all that seems

common and unremarkable.

#writing

lowborn. black chipped grit. how far into the chlorine can i get, before it all goes? i keep begging. the label is blurry. take a break from the feed. write for yourself. words are all made up, so where’s the fault in aligning them in whichever ways and whims you wish. upon. grace. there is no standard of perfection, is there. it’s an expression. a gesture, of oneself. which couldn’t be preconceived. my hunger is the ordained. are you? what you eat? running dry, running rampant, hindsight is a throat that makes itself noticeable. i’m coming to the high end of the climax, of the octave, of this, the song that downpours.

i hereby declare

i love the implication

of a

lean menace, with hands of

teeming cloud,

who smells of dried apricot

and sings songs of the forlorn.

if drive could be concentrated and canned,

if tattoos could tell the time,

that would be the world my menace lives in.

but here

no image tells the future,

because it only knows the past.

i am an asp who follows the linen folds of unmade beds

and I am open-ended as the bay

awaiting a storm to cradle.

the hardest metal

is a woman trapped by loyalties.

honest soil and moon rock, 

hands held between.

by screendoor sieve 

edges out gravel and debris.

kneads fault lines

one hemisphere at a time.

she ambitions the earth 

unfinished, 

intimates the act 

of digging, 

kindles fine, 

chars indurate.

#poetry #freeverse