Last October I attempted a 30 poetry challenge. I didn’t get very far, but I’ll be posting a few of the poems I didn’t hate here.
Back Home
(Lyrics from Back Home by Andre Tanker) i went away / i leave an i come back home / i come back to stay / i must see meh way It feels as though every time I leave, it takes longer to come back. first six months, then nine, now ten– as if they have been grooming me to leave forever. I ask myself how people could leave for years and years and never look back? not even once? But the truth is, it gets easier. What is one year more when you’ve been gone for five? or ten?…
Alphabet Love Song
Alphabet Love Song (For PC 37, 38, 39) A B C D E F G H… H… H… H has become too heavy a letter for me. Home, heart, hurt… Heavy because home is where the heart is And being here has halved my heart hundreds of times So each of you can take it home with you. And with your heart in over 80 countries, There can only be hurt. A B C D E F G H I J K L Hurt and longing. Longing for those you may never see again And for those whom seeing everyday…
Sins of the Flesh
Flesh only begets more flesh And this flesh of mine -formed in sin and shapened in iniquity- knows only lust and I dance between longings. Flesh begets more flesh.
Passions
i can’t keep twistingmy ankles to dance orbreaking my heart to write
Tensions
–> I am beginning to name my knots. Let one in my neck be Wanting from every time I clenched my jaw after breathing in her scent. Let the tightness in my shoulder be Disappointment who is also called Shame a product of still wanting him to touch me even though we both know he shouldn’t and being caught between recoiling and not. Finally, the chronic ache in my back will be Distance from consistently loving people that are too far away. In the same way one muscle contracts as the other relaxes these pains are interconnected and I know…
Requiem
I only love those slender boys with slight frames when they remind me of you.
Moonshine
Moonlight pours through my window and reminds me that while the days are too dark the nights can still be bright.
Bedtime Stories
I read to you because my mother read to me. And in those moments I felt as loved and as safe as a strangely paranoid and anxious child could feel -Certainly more safe than the rote prayers that my grandmother made me parrot back to her made me feel- And for years -long after I’d stopped remembering to pray- I couldn’t fall asleep without reading.
Public Transit
Laughing at a stranger’s jokes is equal parts relief and mania.