Category: Poetry

• Call it Homesick

  A “golden shovel” poem, using Christopher Tapp’s poem:

  i am homesick
  for a home that
  I have yet to create

  Abundance is just a stuck accelerator and I
  am all tire squeal, burnouts, heart race, I am
  legend; that hole in my chest, I call it homesick

  call them nightmares, waking or not, if not for
  the pinch you could be asleep, but you know a
  real terror when it arrives – know when you’re home
  (you can see it in the eyes) but, you know all of that

  you know the tiptoe, you’ve tested those edges, I
  can see it in your eyes. It took all that I have
  not to mention it, give a knowing nod, and yet
  it’s written across our faces, the sun reaching to
  the corner of the bed, a peace I’ll never recreate

  May 28, 2024

  2024 in poems, Poetry

  ---

• Seashells

  I should have been made of paper, instead
  I’m just the paleness and fragility, cut corners
  and folds – couldn’t I be unscrolled tapestry?
  Or uncovered, a new Rosetta Stone, wrap wise
  words around my body like ivy – then, maybe
  someday I could be found, too, desired for
  being the long-sought answer, storyteller –
  this constellation of freckles and scars
  could be holy, powerful, a new Zodiac –
  I’ll tell you everything you want to hear, just
  hold me close to you – read me to find those
  apocrypha, give me all the terrors you hold –
  I could have been ready. I should have known,
  I could have moved the stars, the very fate
  written into my skin. Could’ve written better
  stories, some happier endings – did you know
  there are safe footfalls across grief? I clung
  chest-heaving on each one while I swam blind
  across the chasm, I could have shown the way
  so nobody else has to fall in – I’ve mapped these
  dead-still waters, like when I was younger –
  I collected shells, dug up treasures to dry out
  in the sun, desperate to prove how hidden things
  can be beautiful, too ashamed to drag out any
  treasures inside me, hiding an opalescent underbelly
  of oil slick rainbow scales underneath secrets and
  shame – I should have been a hermit crab, instead.
  I should have been an oracle – shackle me and
  let me breathe in the smoke, I’ll face madness,
  my jaw is clenched, anyway, I’ll bear the grin –
  I should be given one shot to defy the fates
  and stare down the gods; I could burn –
  ignite the tapestry, fuel for the final push,
  one last hearty bellow into the furnace and
  I am brilliance, I am the first day, I am the last,
  I am alchemy, transmuting blistering light
  into memory – I’d be gone
  but I’d win.

  May 21, 2024

  2024 in poems, healing, identity, Poetry, trauma

  ---

• Eulogy for the Living

  Always, your smile was always springtime warm.
  Taught yourself French with dozens of cassettes
  borrowed from the library – you dreamed of Paris,
  painted wide landscapes of deserts, adobo domes,
  oceans, beaches; read Louis L’Amour and escaped
  any chance you could – taught me shapes of words
  too, you took me with you, for a while – all of those
  memories glow sepia tone, they’re almost a home.

  I hope I don’t haunt you. Always I’ve wanted you
  happy – how long I’ve sobbed for all of the love I
  sent; hoping for ripples to echo their way back,
  even as I child I could see you were riddled with
  holes, gaps I thought I could fill – I’m sorry, mom.
  I tried, and how long I’ve cried, self hatred flared
  because I could not burn bright enough for you,
  because I’m sure you sob, too – your sun has left

  May 12, 2024

  2024 in poems, estrangement, Poetry, trauma

  ---

• Counting Footsteps

  To be loved is to be seen, and
  I’ll never let them look closely –
  that’s when the shot is fired, I’m
  a deer in crosshairs, rabbit running,
  all tall ears counting footsteps until
  I’m safe, I’m safe, I’m safe, I’m safe,
  the pulse of my heart pleading, please
  this time please let it be true – I wonder
  what soft prayers do prey whisper while
  waiting for the danger to pass overhead –
  the tall grass listens, the wind carries to
  mother god, cosmos, whatever cares to
  listen, and if I must be your eyes then
  witness this suffering, you gave me this
  paper skin, crooked, bird-hollow limbs –
  you made my heart pound and plead as
  I cower in the dark hollows of my chest –
  if that final, fatal stroke isn’t coming now,
  then when?

  May 7, 2024

  2024 in poems, Poetry, trauma

  ---

• The Seventh Day

  The priests were convinced – told us it was god
  who built this world bespoke, bare hands and all –
  six days to decide that yes, our hearts should beat
  loudly enough at night for lovers to hear, breaths a
  perfect fragile rhythm – it was god who made it so?
  And as I whisper my prayers into that silent dark
  I know the real miracle is that I can stitch myself
  to this moment; surely you feel my fingertips as I
  sew myself into your warmth, my hands weaving
  back and forth, our breaths in and out, that soft
  ocean crash of our embrace; every tear a blessing
  as I weep for the impossible gift of each next beat –
  if you listened to my shaking prayers, I’m thankful –
  thanking god, thanking the quiet corners of a hotel,
  thankful this happened at all, this happened at all

  May 1, 2024

  2024 in poems, healing, love, Poetry

  ---

• Promises

  In my mind I carry a worn Polaroid,
  a scene, blue skies, my inner child and I
  sharing a shady park bench, quiet and
  watching the world go by, together.

  I’d be the one to break the silence,
  but damn, kid, what can I say?
  We persist, endure, yes, it hurts –
  each waking, each brief dream –

  yes, Cameron. I am sorry. That
  our name slides hot on our tongues
  electric sour like licking a 9-volt,
  and I am trying to turn it sweeter.

  We don’t become less afraid. I’m sorry,
  the breadth of grief will only grow
  deeper, wide and fathomless choking seas
  of it, and we’ll tread water, kiddo –

  we’re good at it. Now comes the part where
  I wish this wasn’t a worn photo, sad poem,
  that we were past strained metaphor so
  I could lean in close to you on the bench –

  whisper promises into your shoulder that
  yes, we still sob for the violent wonder
  of it all – just to be here, to lick the battery –
  we persist. They never beat that out of us.

  I could tell you that yes! Yes, we cried
  when the children danced in the aisles
  while the fiddle played at church – trees
  blossomed outside, as if listening, too –

  I would lean into you, Cameron –
  our name sweet on my lips as I swear
  that we are in this together – show you
  how our softness was never a mistake.

  April 22, 2024

  2024 in poems, healing, hope, identity, Poetry, trauma

  ---

• Loud

  The self-help book said that shame and silence
  are quiet companions – the corollary point being
  you can fight shame by fighting the silence; but
  I’m bad at reading rooms, and when I’m loudest –
  well, people get scared.

  I’m the price for the joy, the longing and lonely
  which comes after, the ringing in your ears and
  not warm like fresh sheets, not a gentle breeze
  I’m all hard ground, thin clothes, freezing wind,
  the reckoning in the recollecting; it’s loud, but

  not loud like singing, not loud
  like contagious, sleepy laughter,
  not loud like sunlight breaking through
  morning blinds piercing the black,
  I’m loud like heartbreak,
  loud like a burn ward,
  I’m loud like a bruise
  but that just means
  you’re stuck with me
  a while, I linger, but
  at least I am loud,
  can’t ignore me, now

  April 17, 2024

  2024 in poems, healing, identity, Poetry, trauma

  ---

• Witch Burning

  I know you’re still here.
  This is the only way I’ve
  ever kept captive audiences –

  everyone gawks at car crashes.
  I’m written out naked, a diary left open,
  so take all you need, here are my confessions:

  the pride of accepting you’re a piece
  that will never fit – it takes you, whole, a
  maniacal ecstatic joy burning at the stake,

  poems should be public square executions
  so here are mine – I build my own guillotines,
  and I adore demonstrating each deadly corner

  because I’ve lost my taste for this life; slaked, gone
  when I first found the words for it, unholy text
  eclipsing dawn, a ten year old learning

  you could leave it?
  you could leave it –
  you haven’t left it, yet

  the fire is taking you
  whole, you’re laughing, loud,
  and you haven’t left it, yet

  April 9, 2024

  2024 in poems, Poetry, SI, trauma

  ---

• Breath

  Heart beats like a rabbit, but not a good one –
  doc says I’m skipping beats, so I’m the rabbit
  that gets caught. Sometimes I feel those fangs,
  the sharp pangs digging in, just under my lungs –
  I’m sitting still but my body is running a race, and
  life is the predator stalking, circling in, circling in –
  howling, and hungry. You can see it in the breath.

  April 8, 2024

  2024 in poems, Poetry, trauma

  ---

• Wisteria

  For once, let me be the springtime blooms
  and not desperate vines; let me flower –
  all softness, a curtain of petals and
  not those long grasping fingers
  of gnarled woody branches
  choking all the trees

  April 2, 2024

  2024 in poems, Poetry

  ---

• Overstayed Welcomes

  The solitary answer that comes
  listening to the silent streets
  outside your window at night,
  quiet broken by the gentle whir
  of car tires, each set a promise –
  anywhere but here

  March 27, 2024

  2024 in poems, Poetry

  ---

• And I Was Left

  What was taken, when the house was razed:
  The better parts of my childhood, daydreaming
  fantasizing feral, figuring out how to be human
  and jumping fences, strolling backyard beaches,
  watching storms looming across the bay, those
  thunderheads nightmares are born from, awful
  and bountiful as the sun that would come after –
  hiding places under beds, broom closets, even
  behind that hedge where I’d smoke cigarettes –
  no more grass, no more tire swing that gave me
  my first concussion, no more fence out front
  that chipped my eyebrow, no kitchen cupboard
  that scarred my nose – I knew which of those stairs
  creaked, how to pry the back door’s deadbolt free,
  and every single shadow and quiet place knew me –
  we would sit together in the silent dark, like praying.

  March 26, 2024

  2024 in poems, healing, identity, Poetry, trauma

  ---

• Salt

  It was deliberate.
  I burned the ships –
  cut off my retreat back to your dementia,
  before I chose contorting into that chasm
  inside your heart where the love belonged –
  was it always me? Is that why you miss me?
  If ever I turned on the light, in there,
  would any of you still faintly glow?
  Still I turned back! I turned back,
  I stranded you on the shore – the
  chasm in my heart ached for you
  so I turned, because fuck salvation –
  I am the proud pillar of salt you see
  blowing away; did the wind carry
  my voice? You are loved, forever –
  were you running from this ache?
  Did you see me turn?

  March 23, 2024

  2024 in poems, estrangement, healing, Poetry

  ---

• String Theory

  I’ve read string theory – there’s enough that makes sense,
  like how my waveform also collapses when I am observed –
  don’t perceive me; then I’ll be everything, just possibilities,
  because heartbreak’s all hard edges that cut – you can’t harm
  ideas, and you can’t touch me when I never was, don’t worry –
  maybe I’m invisible but I’m everywhere, you’re a part of me,
  I am in everything, do you feel me in the air when you dream?
  I am your breath, I am a thought, I am a wave, I am long gone –
  I never was, I am a part of you, I’m with you always always always

  March 21, 2024

  2024 in poems, hope, identity, Poetry

  ---

• Treading

  Whenever hands reach out
  they’ve only pulled me down –
  it’s like how my mom and dad
  would drive to visit with boxes
  full of garbage, broken tools and
  old mementos – oh, they’ve always
  written such devastating poems;
  all the ways they couldn’t love me,
  the gestures they could have just
  written down, ideally, but instead
  here’s your junk mail, that broken
  trophy from high school – do you
  remember? Do you remember us?
  floodwater already up to my nostrils,
  I’m gasping, spluttering back to shore,
  catcher in the rye shouting stay out,
  save yourselves; I will be fine –
  all I know is treading water

  March 18, 2024

  2024 in poems, estrangement, healing, Poetry, trauma

  ---

• Stained Glass

  It’s not as complicated as we’re making it.
  I think it always was supposed to be
  all accidents, that we’re just spilled milk
  and the sum of the tears that came after.

  These arms can hold so much, you know –
  each failure fuck-up fracture frailty falter,
  fingers gently, carefully carrying each piece,
  I’ll hold every single one patiently in place.

  Tell me every way that you’ve broken; show me
  your scars, bruises – I’ll reveal all of mine, the
  cigarette burns, the scar raked across my nose
  I got when I was three; all the ways I’ve bled –

  it’s sacred, you know. We’re mosaics, queens
  and kings of kintsugi, cracks shining golden
  bright; each time we shattered is a sunburst.
  You were never broken. We’re all stained glass.

  March 13, 2024

  2024 in poems, healing, hope, Poetry, trauma

  ---

• Linger

  Please –
  linger like the ache in my bones,
  stay with me through the night –
  keep me restless, ecstatic, whole.

  Your hand is still in my hair, your
  fingers making indelible marks –
  you’re still with me, today, I know –

  you are the wind at my back, steady
  and gentle, pulling my sweater taut –
  an embrace, wrapping around my waist.

  Please –
  let me linger with you, too – let me
  be all the sweetness across your lips
  keeping you contended and whole.

  My arms are around you, still –
  can you feel the warmth when
  you’re alone? I am with you, then.

  I am the music filling your home –
  the gentle weight of your blankets
  pressing into you, naming you mine.

  March 12, 2024

  2024 in poems, hope, love, Poetry

  ---

• Missed Calls (1)

  Hey, mom, I missed your call
  because you’ve been blocked
  since the pandemic, because
  talking to you is like sparring
  with angry bulls, all terror and rage
  and mom, I’m fucking tired.
  If you want the updates then
  everybody is still alive, but
  you wouldn’t recognize anyone –
  we’ve all grown so much while
  you’ve been storytelling, fables
  of your victimhood you’ll spin
  for anybody you can corner,
  because I’m going to keep
  missing your calls – every one.
  If it helps you to sleep I hesitate
  over that [Call back] each time,
  like daring myself to reach out –
  snatch a hot pan from the oven,
  because, mom, it’s true, damn it,
  I’ll burn myself for love, add scars
  to say hey, mom, I wanted to call back
  and I’m sorry I missed your call
  and mean it

  March 6, 2024

  2024 in poems, estrangement, healing, Poetry, trauma

  ---

• White Noise

  I’m not here. I’m all whispers and no will –
  the groans of floorboards settling, creaking
  sweet nothings to you three in the morning;
  I speak the most freely when I feel alone.

  Pay me no mind. Call me white noise –
  and nobody invites cobwebs to brunch,
  I don’t need those riches; I’m not real –
  pretending to eat like feeding a broken doll.

  I’m best regarded as a trick of the light,
  no one should see this empty birdcage
  of a skeleton, a gray tired face aching
  from holding this rictus grin –

  just let whatever you’ve pictured of me
  win, instead. Picture me whole and happy.
  I’m a better friend when imaginary –
  picture me close to you, always; or far –

  whichever you’d prefer

  March 5, 2024

  2024 in poems, Poetry, SI, trauma

  ---

• Double Binds

  Take these hands, I’ll show you
  the safe places to hold on, how
  to work the door handles quietly,
  I’ll tell you where to step, and when;
  which floorboards won’t creak.

  There’s no surefire way to disappear but
  I can show you the next best thing –
  how you can make yourself so small
  that soon, you’ll lose yourself, too –
  vanish into the very carpet fibers,
  dissolve into dusty HVAC air,
  crashing through the vents –
  Don’t you wish you could be those plumes
  of exhaust steam floating over rooftops?
  I’ve never made anybody much warmer,
  have you?

  Take me by the shoulders. Shake some sense
  into me. Strike this face, snap me out of it –
  beat my chest and start this heart again,
  hard enough to break the ribs – while you
  hum some song to keep the right rhythm
  whisper all the notes into my ears – help me
  learn how to slip away
  without being alone.
  First me,
  then you,
  I promise –

  I’ll come back for you

  March 1, 2024

  2024 in poems, Poetry, SI, trauma

  ---

• Interrogations

  Tell me, wasn’t this love?
  My hand on yours, those songs
  on our lips back in your dorm room
  when you first thought that maybe
  I could sing with you, forever

  And who will know you, now –
  steady your shoulders when the grey comes,
  steal your blankets at night and encroach
  upon your pillows? Which side of the bed
  is yours, as we stare up at separate ceilings?

  Tell me, didn’t you feel it too –
  how we jig-sawed together, at times,
  when your ear could rest against
  my racing heart – isn’t that love?
  Were you frightened of what you heard?

  Was I like trying to love a storm cloud
  that vanishes once all the rain pours out,
  or fragile like an ice sculpture, hissing and
  cracking under the heat of your sun –
  and what is left for us, now we’re done?

  If love was enough we’d be lounging, fanned by fronds
  fed the ripest fruits, basking in the warmth of all of it –
  singing in your Volvo, the steering wheel always shook
  and I’d hold your free hand steady; wasn’t that love?
  You’ve seeped into my marrow; I carry you with me
  always – isn’t that love?

  February 23, 2024

  2024 in poems, love, Poetry, trauma

  ---

• Snowballs

  My son asked me how I can pack snowballs
  without gloves; aren’t you cold? Doesn’t it hurt?
  So many unspeakable answers for him, like –

  Because soon life will hurt you in ways
  that make cold hands just spilled milk –

  Because after the needlestabs it all goes numb,
  maybe into that same gray my mind sinks, at night –

  Or because pain is feeling, kiddo, and I’m desperate
  for buoys and life rafts while I’m treading water –

  Instead, I pass the snowball into his gloved hands
  and reach back into the bank, stinging rosy fingers
  scooping snow to pack another, and I tell him –

  It’s okay, I can take it – I don’t want you to be cold.

  February 16, 2024

  2024 in poems, healing, parenting, Poetry, trauma

  ---

• Drafts

  A text I’ll never send:

  How I wish this body of mine
  wasn’t a challenge to you,
  or how I wish I could call
  and tell you just who I am
  now, without you worrying
  what you’re owed, instead –

  I’d share so much
  if you’d let me, if I
  didn’t dread how
  you’d talk right over me,
  look right through me,
  no matter how much
  I’ve pled and tried to
  even send a text, just
  something simple as:

  You hurt me
  I miss you, anyway

  February 7, 2024

  2024 in poems, estrangement, healing, Poetry

  ---

• John 10:10

  because my birthmom decided I should be here,
  because there was teenaged love, once –
  because she was living a life worth living
  and wanted one for me,
  because she thought I could
  make something beautiful

  but then

  because my mother couldn’t have a child,
  because they thought my brother could fix it,
  that nauseous need to pour yourself out until
  nothing is left but then how do you fill the hole?
  because she couldn’t pour herself fast enough
  because my brother couldn’t fill that hole, no,
  because maybe my sweetness could color
  all of our lives, because my joy could become
  theirs but I couldn’t pour myself out fast enough,

  and then

  because she saw me skipping home from class, once
  because we liked the same showtunes
  because she smiled at me like
  sunshine blossoming springtime flowers, and
  because I had poured myself out already but
  she liked the empty pitcher that was left

  and now

  because I’m too scared to jump and my hands always shake
  because we made something beautiful and maybe
  I think he could make something of it, and
  because I’m realizing I was always beautiful, too
  and it’s not too late to make something of it –
  I poured myself out but I never broke;
  you can fill an empty pitcher
  with something sweet

  January 30, 2024

  2024 in poems, healing, hope, identity, Poetry, trauma

  ---

• Glass Body

  Maybe my body echoes my soul,
  transparent, made of glass – but
  don’t treat me gently. Grip me –
  I want your fingerprints, your touch
  smeared over my curves, carry that
  smoothness of my body – all my fragility
  cradled in your hands. Break me, if you
  have to, if you want to. Hold my pieces.
  Pour me out through your fingertips.

  January 21, 2024

  2024 in poems, identity, love, Poetry

  ---