I play too much
in this ruin. Wing-
dings over profits,
always, despite ancient
language bleating over
the human market.
For what it is worth,
self-worth is not defined
by worth. The milk
is not transferable
to white. When
projecting nonsense,
be sure to include
my name in the credits.
(originally published in Eunoia Review, Fall 2021)
is this how you spend your days? laundry
filthy as furniture.
the room cold between two
worlds. I am awash in
transition: upbringing /
nirvana
give me a place to call home
I am stuck in the wedge
of
wanting nothing
but your long arms around
the circumference of
my body. here is
the ticking clock
a timepiece
countenance
allowing sea change
along the equator
indecision
east of my brain sees desire in
a sleeping blanket. I am trying
to wrap my mind around
the absence
of the life it
leaves.
(originally published in Bindweed Magazine, Winter 2020)
is what kailee says after
our boss says bang! dead
he asks who wouldn’t have
shot a dog that’s clearly at
its end and she walks out
of his office sits down by me
and says he was showing
me grotesque pictures
and I said I know
I overheard half his
ear is gone
I still have two
full ears
though sometimes
selectively choose
what I perceive as
in their conversation
as in yes I know
I hung the wifi
password sign
in his office
slightly slanted
and I have
a diagonal view
of it from the
wooden table
I call my desk and
it irks me to see
slight
imperfection
I would not
could not
invest in the
thought of
owning a gun
but I
will tear down
that sign
at first
opportunity
(originally published in Jokes Review, Summer 2020)
What simulation’s numb you ask
if I want children this time
definitive we boil Kraft mac
and cheese. I toss our meager sweet
potatoes in oil and ramble about financial
self-worth the oven nearly at four hundred
degrees. I can’t stop petting your shoulder
the ashy cat roams in the loam of our love
our newly swept hardwood the house
our home for now so limited already
steam from the inside a pressure
cooker of different timelines. What river
these converging lives to seek meaning
in the biological job postings some of us
are born to call. My dad was sixty-one
when I was born my grandfather clock
ticks nonexistent. We have gorged in all
our broken cabinets to rustle the blue
plastic grocery bag pile. I can’t stand
to live another day preoccupied.
(originally published in Flights, Summer 2021)
It is eighty-two degrees in Pittsburgh and my trunk
is crammed so your DQ cake sits in the passenger seat,
moves the same speed I do in my car in this orbit
in this galaxy. There is so much matter to keep cool
in the universe, but there’s sunshine through my wind-
shield and you– I know– thaw as a passenger beside
me. I’m doing what I can: aiming all the frigid vents
that way, holding a folder to shade you. I drive fifty-
five in a thirty-five to avoid my mind entertaining a
milky flood mixed with dust, dog hair, cookie crumbs,
and lust pooling where you are, your name in icing
illegible– it’s fine, for now. Don’t freak out. I am
floating over a bridge, the sun forever taunting,
and soon I know you’ll go, in one way or another,
into the mouth of a thankful person– whether me,
trying to save you from this heat, or you, radiant
as the sun, seeing celestial bodies who– for at
least this rotation– you know revolve around you.
(originally published in Dodging the Rain, Spring 2020)
My olfactory nerve already overflooded with Acqua di Gio
on business cards beneath fluorescents, I did not expect
to run into my first love in the wilderness of Black Friday,
where hard rain was people. I sought a higher ground– escalator
to the bathroom to text my crush on my TracFone, until the arms
on my watch contorted a certain way. But my tarot cards flipped
when I recognized Kristen from afar, both of us unsure,
unlike in fifth grade, on the bus to Mohican, she slept
beside me, her hair fire on my shoulder, strobe lights of a confused
adolescence that entire week. Camp ended when everyone
contracted poison ivy. How to scratch the mind until snapping
back into self– in that present, years later, I thought she might be
fate and, thus, planned a coffee date, but because I did not
carve the path I wanted to take, winter came. And went.
(originally published in Tipton Poetry Journal, Winter 2021)
Worth inextricably tied to the throttle
I am unable to press forever and
ever, amen, where to lie
down and get some rest? Hallelujah,
livin’ by the bottle without drinking
anything alcoholic, not tonight
at least, not before the long drive
to work, paved highways, praise,
hell on the range is to pay
all your bills at once
and wait a month.
(originally published in Los Angeles Review of Los Angeles, Summer 2022)
Dog through the window– charcoal snow
and peanut-speckle brushstrokes– I watch you
served by our server on the patio under
Azorean’s white umbrella. If only I could be
of service to a creature so brown-eyed and sacred.
I want to be good, too, and melt the heart of people
I encounter. But I am out of it– I still feel new here
and spend my workweeks isolated and curious
for the world I miss around me, its strangers
a wild pack wandering the streets, searching
for any scent that spells joy. How mine smells of cinnamon
blocked by endless windows overlooking a sea of blue
recycling trucks inside a sharp metal fence, and– even now–
I peer through glass, smelting, as our server rubs your head,
as passers-by smile as they go wherever they must go.
I want to be unleashed, too– to put both knees on
concrete, pet the fur between your ears, and
inhale, together, Saturday’s shared freedom.
(originally published in Hello America, Fall 2019)
January, so–
renewal, no, just
soaking in the sunrise,
the year– not NEW
year, same shit
as last, endless weeks
of overtime, begging
the sun
please change
your sleep pattern,
stay up all night
for me!
(originally published in bluepepper, Winter 2021)
Nicole walked out of Aladdin’s yesterday
which is why The Exterminator is working
12-8. He claims to have trained himself
to have a perfect, photographic memory.
He has Kool-Aid hair and anime eyes.
After the shift a group of us and
The Exterminator go to Brubaker’s
for drinks and we smoke in his car.
He is no different outside of work.
Constant buzzing, endless movement,
dead wings everywhere. He says
he learned his dancing from night
walks at 3 AM, and we all picture
his headphones in the darkness:
sudden hand movements, a quiet flying
his neighbors would never notice.
(originally published in Children, Churches, & Daddies, Fall 2021)