I know we need to decompress because
there’s a multitude of zeroes airplaning
from our mouths while a jet drones above
and my heart is 01001010010 you tell me
your dad had a heart attack at 30 I hear
murmuring between my valves throat
clenched I want to kiss you but the
world is on fire and I want to turn
you off and on and off and on again
(originally published in Picaroon Poetry, Winter 2019)
& she celebrates among the drunken dead at the Horseshoe
how ball-missiles fly through air and land cradled in young idols’ arms
I remember this,
fear of missing out– no: just missing
fumbling
no want to pull winter hat over my ears
I drink spiked cider reminding me the summer river
no breathing fire into my palms into
the frigid heart of Columbus. No,
I am waiting for the pedestrians to pass my house. Mostly decked in red, some
in opposing green, almost like Christmas, but without–
family knows the apples I douse in vodka.
family knows my unwell.
family knows my eye toward the wind I find too cold
& blow against
been awhile since Kylie & I were breathing the same air
& I’ve got a kind of sixth sense for it
(I see dead people)
but not in a ghost way more like everyone I pass has ghosted
(the phantom passes in public)
& it’s true we both head home for the Christian holidays.
Xmas, xgiving.
Cars passing the same routes
to different destinations.
Desolate highway.
Kylie’s down the street & I’m drowning here
making a scene
her silhouette at the surface joyous
but occupied
(originally published in Qwerty, Spring 2018)
my mother logs in
watches lives unfold and bend
others offer words of glass
water droplets
like there used to be something there
something that refreshed and renewed
(originally published in The Stray Branch, Spring 2018)
(originally published Spring 2017 in Belletrist, with a reprint in Wizards in Space)
Often I find myself wanting to move
from the dust like a lost, small dog,
fur a summertime shackle.
Those dark winter days
we were our own light.
Lapped the water in from a trough.
We didn’t have to dip (not deeply)
and we’d share our sips freely.
Then Valentine’s Day
came and went.
Meanwhile we sat alone
at our computers,
waiting to press send.
(originally published in The Legendary)
Sometimes I say what I don’t mean.
There is an algorithm which can make me forget;
the others remind me to remember.
Your action has been undone. As if my actions
needed a separate undoing– I did not expect you,
with your raven hair, to perch our thousand
miles, thousand days to bottle time
and cast to sea, a folded note to be read
by a stranger at shore. Here, I am a knot
bound to be undone, tethered to a battered shoe,
and in the sprint, wind coarsens your hair.
In the cold we move closer and closer until the breathing
is stale and fogs my car’s windows, the outside world
turned gray. Confusing a fluorescent lightbulb for the moon,
I would risk one more rejection to bring you even nearer,
past the point of no return.
(Originally published in Corium Magazine, Spring 2016)
