when i saw him there feathers spread in a fan of royal blue & emerald green , i almost thought he was flying away ; but then i noticed her standing alone looking towards the sky , that azure sea & i knew he would never take flight, be free without her by his side.
I am writing When my mother whirrs up the washing machine It is around this time That I hurl my bad poetry at mother’s Hands; but she is careful not to spill the spoiled words unfurling Latching like bleach. It is also this hour when mother cries lavender detergent Dried in bleeding indigo. It is time to rummage my fingers inside anger’s belly– Tossing big words out the laundry bag. whose shirtsleeves are Stained with pasta. So yucky. It is now when I dump out the poetic phra
The line snaked around the block. Mostly silent, except for the occasional gravel crunching under worn shoes. People stood close but didn’t speak. The sun was still low, and the buildings’ shadows stretched like prison bars across the pavement. Jo had gotten there early. She always did. You had to if you wanted RealFood™ before it sold out. And it always sold out. Next to her, Nate picked at the yellowed frays on his company jacket; the logo was scraped off. “You think i
You can always see your nose but your eyes ignore it Because it’s always there— Kind of like the monotonous hum of the AC in the jammed room. The walls are yellowing, a crack split across the wall behind the officiate. The ceilings are low. A light flickers. The AC is too loud. Grief. An ominous tension hangs heavy over the bowed heads. A lingering rain cloud. The storm will pass. The storm always passes. But this, This storm cannot pass. How can you move passed from some
I watched a man spend two days in the river. His body was thick with muscle, his skin browned and weathered by sun, his arms a canvas of tattoos that told stories no one asked him to explain. He stood waist-deep in the current, shoulders straining as he bent again and again to lift heavy stones. Each rock he pulled free left a swirl of clear water behind, a path smoothed for others. His hands were raw, his back slick with sweat, but he never stopped. Around him, the children
“‘Pain is productive. I look back at the things I wrote in the deepest valleys of my life and marvel. I doubt I could replicate that now, and I grieve this perceived loss of skill. I know my pain has changed. But it is still imminent. I still isolate. I still feel the urge to die, but have not yet taken action, like so many others. The stigma that comes with an idea or a belief is far more potent than the reality itself.’” I pause at the close of the passage then ask, “What d
Water. Give me water. My hand reaches for the pristine trickle of cool, my tongue burns with lust for a freezing mouthful, a lust hotter than the flames that carve my crimes into my skin. Get me out. Get me OUT OF HERE— Gehenna. What Jesus called a burning trash dump. What Christians call Hell. What I call my tomb. I repent. The flesh on my knuckles tear as it scrapes against the stone, unraveling blood and skin. Unraveling the rotten tape of my life, the winding record of si
10/5/25 Five years later, we take the old route to the park again. It’s dark. The moon lags a bit behind our steps, as do I. Our conversation is sparse. In those gaps only fallen leaves sputter, the last breaths of firecrackers under our feet. I try once for every few they take. Can’t ever make a shot still; we laugh. Some rounds I hang about under the net mindlessly slapping my palm against the hoop’s metal pole clanging like funeral bells like funeral bells.
