When I am lonely,
it helps to not think
of the universe. I imagine
Earth buried in the darkest
cemetery, a headstone
with some space separating
it from the next.
I know there must be a
tenderness quotient
in the cosmos, a rose
on some crimson planet
blooming tall to wave
at me, its petals drifting
aimlessly through
a garden of light-
years. This distance
is more collective
than we know.
(originally published in South Florida Poetry Journal, Fall 2020)
I exist in a perpetual state of thirst
and cold. I think I live in winter
and I don’t even like Christmas.
And I don’t like Christ, the dead
man left hanging. Were he to have
magic, that would be a good time.
And his rich Daddy. Abandonment
issues, for sure. My dad wasn’t
rich and he only abandoned me
when he was dead. Then was
the void of the voice. All
appliances in the house breaking.
My mother and I don’t know
shit about plumbing. Dad patched
pipes while I cast Raise on my
fallen Final Fantasy fellows.
It’s been ten years and there is
still everything to learn. That’s
ten years more of everything
I haven’t learned.
(originally published in Toasted Cheese, Fall 2019)
art began as a war against walls
everything in a painting was in danger of being lost
every object that has been moved each
that has been smoothed every piece
outlined was once a living breathing being
water can dissolve rocks
paint on a canvas can bruise
an audience can be traumatized by art that is not lost
intertwining history with the present
is the divide between
good times things
and bad times things
good times being the sky painted with eyes
and bad times the sleepless nights we want
a different kind of archive
art being our act of evasion
(originally published in RASPUTIN, Winter 2020)
I want my mouth
over anywhere
your mouth has been
there is a frozen
chocolate milkshake
in the freezer
with your straw
stuck in it like
a lit cigarette
I burn for you
but the cup is an
icicle a block
of crystal pellets
melting on the purple
island of my palm
(originally published in Perceptions Magazine, Summer 2022)
at our local bar
you put my finger
in your mouth
and suck
in view of
your partner
this now lingers
in my mind
takes a field day
in my dreams
because
I had a crush
and this kind of touch
will lead me
into a palm
that will close
on itself
(originally published in EgoPHobia, Summer 2021)
The sound of fascism is for a small
while less intrusive than the work
in progress on your neighbor’s wall,
which is also yours. 7 A.M. drills,
hammers infiltrating space.
Sun crystals shining through
bathroom window might say fall,
could say end. Dracaena sitting
in darkness on a different sill
amidst loud nearby noises.
Gonna see my family for the first
time in months. Whose side are they
on? I squeeze the lavender
satchel handed down from not-
my-grandma. All was passed
down from stars, but that is
a different story. Eternal light
in dust. What disgusting precedent.
The disturbed mornings
in which simply drinking
coffee hurts the backside
of my lower lip. Fish flesh.
I don’t know why the liquid
slashes me. That’s why
I drink so quickly.
(originally published in mutiny! magazine, Summer 2022)
An apple a day keeps the doctor at bay–
OK. OK. This is becoming a problem.
I consume my only fruits on
an ABV chart and my whole life
is a waiting room, waiting waiting
waiting for the bad to come of this but
no DUI for me, I drink cheap ciders
and call for Ubers. Recently
a roommate said a keg he bought
was in his budget. I got a ledger
myself, lists of places my friends
go when they want to get wasted
so I budget my time for that despite
the knowing knowing knowing
to keep this up means I’ll
need to budget the liver.
(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Fall 2020)
Years later you emerge to say– oh,
you were marginalia in the stampede
of time. Fine. Where
are the footprints? Developing
the rock we once said was us.
That’s the Earth. I’m garbage.
The erosion of memory
started with aluminum beneath
your feet. The sand–
such an ordeal
to remember the origin
of recyclables. I am a
weather system forming
my own thoughts about
the worth of a tornado,
how it whips the air
in circles to salt
the crust of distance.
(originally published in Plato’s Caves, Summer 2020)
on mornings of annoyances 20-degree cold
sneaks through windows between my teeth
ices milk with each spoonful of Cheerios
& lukewarm coffee you study flipping
quickly the notebook flicking several gales
then scrawl in red pen what I assume curses
so I respond with this handful of nothing words
recyclables inside non-recyclable plastic I know
if I communicated better you wouldn’t be
ripping out perforated pages wanting to move
on but the cat watches winter leaves whisk
by the window & tonight it will snow
(originally published in The Seventh Quarry, Summer 2023)
can’t risk having you fall in
it’s the same blue blood buzzing everywhere
a spider’s on my face and all I see is dusk
and lavender cornfields
you would tell me if (I made your) birthday a ruin, right?
you’d come out of (your hole in) the ground,
help me navigate through pink-spiked weeds?
every step I take close bullfrog leaping into moss
to escape me I get it I don’t know if it’s my intention
misplaced or if my body’s just unable to execute
the further I walk from the house a little more it rains
moths displaced little insects winging away
each further step I take toward the lake
(originally published in Ginosko Literary Review, Fall 2021)