LOUD-MINDED
Maybe is such a weak word.
Cotton candy is just a phase.
Everyone hoped to be a musician for a day.
How badly I want to grow up it's tragic.
Every child wants to be a doctor at some point.
I need to stop drinking but I feel like a king.
Clothing is just a barrier waiting to be crossed.
We can’t reflect if we have no past.
Bubblegum is just a short-term fix.
Forgiveness is always good in theory.
BLUEBERRY NAILS
Window-shopping outside diners on wet-streeted, late nights I go to see some sort of life.
You carry old train tickets in your
purse like currency
and use roman numerals
to express your phone number.
I look through your
ceramic eye-whites
like empty, cream-colored
coffee mugs.
You talk with your hands
but I bet your voice
sounds like an organ
keys uncovering
before they play
notes of maturity.
You’d have a limp
pathetic handshake
weak enough to forget
names.
Gloves on your hands
cover your face from
laughing when I tell you
we’ve met before.
Like blueberries
you tap violet
blue nails in and
out of your mouth.
SUBLIMINAL LUNCHROOM
I’ve been to the darkest
corners of minds & I’m
past finding someone
in deeper than I am.
To get to the bottom of your being,
you have to understand this shade
of translucence.
Stop worrying about the content of
your poems, and be happy that you
have created poems.
I sing out of key
and talk out of motion
so I write poems instead.
I think deeper than my brain
and curl my toes under sheets
so I keep quiet instead.
Drinking coffee at 1am to
stay up and write just to sleep
poetry.
I’m better with words
in my head, so I fold them up
in the attic to collectively pattern.
I promised myself a page of
poetry and I was forced
to be martyr of whatever
the fuck I was thinking.
I hope my sassiness can be tuned
so I don’t sound like a total bitch.
Thank god I’m still inspired
or else I don’t know who’d I talk
to in the corner of
the lunchroom.
After the coffee and right before the
sleeping pill hits, there’s a burst of creativity energy
Sometimes it’s better to quit while ahead.
CHILD TALK; EVAPORATED
Grey highlighted his hair
and he wore only patterned
skintight cotton briefs and sang
to Mary Poppins with
the captions on.
He was a holder of riddles
and bit his nails as he told them,
asking the universe to
slow down a little bit.
She was seven years younger
under bat-winged eyelashes
and an aged heart, peeling
herself to ingenuity,
straight-seasoned romance.
They laid sideways on beds
and pushed their faces to the ground
promising each other clean,
unbubbling love to lift them
from soiled corners of minds
with limited capacity
we slide wrinkle-less
skin without worry.
THE INSOMNIAC
She laid her hand
fanned over his face
as he looked through
pink-petal painted fingernails,
He slung her naked body over his
she was orchid-skinned
and he cringed
for the next ten minutes
when he’d have to wake her.
Her legs crossed
like wheat stalks and poked
out blanket ends,
Her wrists fold through
golden jewelry jingling
with every move.
Asleep, is when he understood her.
OUTLYING GOOD AND EVIL
A stranger I confused you for today as you spoke slantly.
I spent the day
naked in skin
soaking in rays from
lights you’ve replaced
with rubicund bulbs
& thoughts so loud you
can’t unthink them.
There are rooms too loud
you can’t speak in them;
I wore leather combat boots
in the heat of summer,
drank champagne through
mandarin-glossed lips
perched on plastic cups
and noticed you
your side pony and floral backpack, yet calming masculinity
I felt your warmness,
inside out.
Faith is a word I hate to use
but for you I feel it.
Does it feel better to have a poem written
about you, or to write it?
I stretched the latitude of my collarbones
as you told me poets have poor posture
like the bananas on the counter
I left in the sun.
RITUAL COURTSHIP
I exhale into
your black strands and
watch it whisp outwards
twirlandbend
like spider-legs.
You say the bruise on my thigh
looks like a wishbone
and I wish we could get closer
than these bones
but it’s a birthmark.
So I scrape the freckles from your back,
and press my heart in
between your shoulder blades
let it spin
into your chest-skin.
WATCHING
The train stop at Damen was the
last time I decided
your eyes were dark
green moss
like the kind that tickles
your bedroom window.
You folded your legs over another seat,
pronounced ohs as oohs and said “fudge”
instead of fuck.
It was a long day,
said your wrinkled purple scrubs and
loose ponytail as they hugged
you asleep.
The alleyways
and telephone poles
pass through your window
and I envy how easily
you sleep.
I could see my reflection in
your pearl earrings as I got off
your stop.
TABLE GRACE
You always want to leave
right before my midnight feeding
like you feel my
sweat glands grow heavy
or see the butter knives
I set aside to operate you.
I looked for the letters
to keep you but never talk
while chewing.
It’s a hunger that has no
feeling, a paralysis with no meaning
just a skinned linen napkin
draped tightly over table scraps.