in a moscow hotel room
shadow brokers partied
with stolen american
cyberweapons over the
counterintelligence
they wanted public
the americans
drank everything
and partied through
the night
(originally published in Scarlet Leaf Review, Summer 2018)
Broken bottles on the bridge
above the blue Olentangy.
My time in this city is
limited, as is my body,
the future a compromise,
shards from the persistence
of believing in transcendence.
The sweltering sun pummels
my skin, exposed, as I wait for
a sign to cross the river road.
(originally published in indefinite space, Spring 2019)
the raindrop
life (transience
is a home)
loneliness
forms
on clear days
rising out
of reach
& always
when you wake
(originally published in Literary Yard, Summer 2018)
I switched to Apple
after such staticky reception
meaning I’m anxious
for the bite– the teeth-
piercing, tedious call,
tiny wires inside me
moaning your song–
which is to say I never
was an android in search
of blue requiems and
we’ll say I love you
and it’ll still sing.
(originally published in The Los Angeles Review of Los Angeles, Summer 2019)
I process major key as minor,
slink into couches to cry at any
gushy thing on television. Before
bed I write pages to process the
day in journals only I will read.
You say I’m genuine only when
drinking. Love is ambiguous yet
I try to process how to manage
a relationship while singing
lyrics wrong to songs I need
to learn to know you.
(originally published in Fourth & Sycamore, Summer 2018)
11PM and the street is bleak
in this unseasonably cool May
these parking lots are vast
national parks of the suburbs
their Joshua tree streetlights
ubiquitous luminescence
a steady stream of street cars
these wild intractable headlamp
eyes they know where they’re going
that’s what makes it sad everywhere
McDonald’s flags waving half-mast
(originally published in The Tau, Summer 2018)
I have swam your blue eyes enough
to know the color of the ocean.
We rise ethereal with laughter and smoke
below hanging lights which drift through
time, Bulleit in our blood.
Months will pass before
we talk our pasts again.
Until then I am content on
the sun-steel chairs to wait.
(originally published in The Wayward Sword, Summer 2018)
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)
to understand our future
through dreaming the sea
free enough to sleep our
drowned days without ever
breathing the miracle of water
(originally published in Rabid Oak, Spring 2018)
I exhale
into chasm
of beer can
aluminum
lung
bottomless
as I am
(originally published in EgoPHobia, Winter 2018)
