“All you ever wanted was my cigarettes”
All I wanted was
To touch where your lips touched
To share in the intimacy of vice
And through vice humanity
“All you ever wanted was sex”
All I wanted was
To lie beside you
And stare at how beautiful the sides of your eyeballs were as you gazed at the ceiling and laughed.
Before you took my silence
As uncomfortable
And you shoved your hand down my pants
Two Minutes to Midnight
The night you died
I joked that it would happen.
Your breathing was so heavy
So labored
So slow
We were playing games
And the rhythm of it changed
Grew more sparse
Gasping
Painful
Mom climbed into the hospital bed
And cradled you
Whispering comfort
Tearfully
Lovingly
A pardon and a parting.
I don't know if you heard her.
I watched a while as you gasped
Each breath a battle
Each battle barely won
And it was not peaceful.
I let myself stop watching.
Sat back a moment
Felt my breath
The ease and lack of pain.
And
You must have felt it too.
I know what I am—
a house after the fire,
walls still standing
because nobody thought
to tell them they could fall.
There are rooms inside me
I keep locked,
not because they are empty,
but because too much
is still bleeding in them.
So if you can't love me,
I understand.
Your heart has no room
for mine,
I won't ask you to make one.
Just—
don't let me hope
You're already leaving.
Don't put your hand
against these broken places
just to learn where they hurt.
I'm already carrying
more ghosts than I can name,
more scars than I know how to hide.
I can't survive another goodbye
wearing the face
of something I believed in.
So please,
if I am only ever going
to be your almost—
be gentle.
I've had enough
of being the place
where beautiful things
come to die.
​
My eyes fixated on that fleck,
seen clearly though just a speck,
falling slowly with no flare
through the night’s crisp cold air.
~
Everything surrounding seems so still
as I lean in against my window sill.
Echoing sound from the rockabilly ball,
hardly heard by me at all.
~
There’s no control as it falls,
allowing the air to push and pull,
changing shape, new from old,
as it floats in that night so cold.
~
Then my mind jolts up, forward,
leaving me a thought that’s quite horrid:
Am I a snowflake? Can that be true?
Do I allow the outside to change me too?
To my daughter, May you always be bold Except when it's bedtime please Don't forget that I'm old.
Fire and gold.
Thou you are small Spirited so grand Guide you I might If you'll take my hand
So give me a goal! Not water to pour. I would not extinguish But have you soar. Daughter I'm sorry
Just give me this try I would have you know me To have been by your side.
Together we'll build We'll break the mold I know that we will Because you're fire and gold.
This is a throwaway account to stay anonymous as she isn’t totally ready to put herself out there yet, but I DID get permission to post it here for judgment lol
Let me (her) know what you think!
My Mother
My mother,
once a daughter herself,
likely had her hair combed,
her teeth brushed,
her small, sleepy body
tucked beneath blankets at bedtime.
My mother,
once a wife herself,
likely had her hands held,
her cheeks kissed tenderly,
her pregnant belly caressed.
My mother,
my children's grandmother,
wakes each morning
with no other body in her bed.
She returns her toothbrush
to the drawer
where it sits in solitary,
and she shares no meals,
She will likely never again
lie in another person's lap
and feel gentle fingers
push her hair from her face.
Not even mine.
empty habits pulling me closer
If I cannot have you
then when is this over
waiting for the cue
turning the handle
the shower’s warm shoulder
feels like a scandal
I’ll leave when I’m older
every penny I see is tails side up
take off my glasses
now it’s just luck
hungry for the passes
empty plates, no dirty dishes
coming home late
No signs of my kisses
My blue heart misses the red of your fate
My purple plates are some of the best
keeping them safe back in their case
waiting to be blessed
how does it taste?
my starving routine
watching you chew
I now know what it means
I’ve been waiting for you
Teri yaadon mein raat kati hai,
Din ka humein andaaza na raha,
Jo dekh loon tujhe ek dafa,
Phir is duniya ka andaaza na raha.
Your affection; it doesn’t
have to be my reason to breathe.
It wouldn’t save my life,
It would be better than the solitude
that I’ve gotten used to.
.
I wish I could haunt someone who wasn't so boring.
All she does, day by day, is the same:
Watch TV, read books, video games,
Microwave meals, takeaways, salads.
It's all incredibly dull.
And I'm the unlucky spirit
who has to watch.
.
She's always in her pajamas,
She rarely has anyone over.
Doesn't she realise she has a life?
She's not using it.
.
She's not even afraid of me.
I’m not sure she knows I’m here.
I tried the usual tricks,
Moving things around, nightmares,
Cold chills, whispers in the dark.
.
But she’s so forgetful she doesn't remember
Where she put her stuff in the first place,
And when she finally goes to sleep at 3am
Her dreams are so weird
mine don't stick out much.
She runs hot, like a furnace,
so the chills are welcome.
My whispers barely make a dent
In the swirling whirling mess of thoughts
Always humming in her head.
There's too many to count.
.
I thought about murder,
But the trouble is I can't take the chance.
With a gruesome or early death,
It’s likely that she'd return as a ghost,
Like me. I wouldn't be rid of her,
I'd be stuck with her for all eternity
In spectral togetherness.
.
All in all, I’m thoroughly dissatisfied.
Ghosting isn't glamorous,
Or fun, or fulfilling.
It's tedious, and annoying.
In fact, if anything,
She's haunting me,
Completely unawares.
.
All this to say,
I’m looking into human exorcism,
If such a thing exists.
And if this is a service you offer.
.
If not, I beg you to come
And banish me instead.
Cleanse this space of my essence
And free me from this tedium.
I would gladly face the unknown
of the great beyond -
Hell can't be much worse than this.
.
Yours in ernest,
And desperation,
I have forgotten
what my name once was,
so I shall sign this simply as
HELP
A stale scent of gas stoves
In country clapboard houses.
Framed photographs of long gone relatives
Above dusty deteriorated furniture.
Biscuit brown yards,
Free of flowers or ornaments.
Abandoned echoing storefronts.
In West Texas towns.
Deep down, we all just want love. Somebody to wake up next to, an extra glass loaded in the dishwasher—somebody to think of when you see their favourite colour on the bus. A growing lump of laundry while they cut your grass.
We are simple creatures who smile at flowers and blush at little compliments—infatuated with the tiny gestures and small mental notes. Love isn't a grand gesture; it’s somebody by your side. Sharing your woes while you lay your head on their shoulder and let them take the weight for a while. Because you have spent so long waiting for your grand love that when it comes, it’s a slice of heaven you can't afford to let go.
Living in harmony with somebody you’re breathing for now. Completing tax forms in our house with a wrap-around porch. The clock is ticking like music to our ears, but darling, you savour the moment and ask me to dance. This is what I’ve been longing for: eternal contentment and blissful vulnerability. Because deep down we all just want love.
I am four years old
looking to adults to teach me
what happiness feels like
& they are all telling me I’m great
because I’m reading at a 10 year old level
& this makes me feel loved
& great becomes an oversized coat
I’ll seek desperately to grow into.
I am 13 & my best friend and I
are hiding cheese-itz around her house
& trying on her mother’s business suits
& laughing so hard that our sides ache
& the kids in the hallway are calling each other a word
that means
whatever else you do, don't be this
& I learn that a part of me is bad
& I bury it deep so that people are proud of me.
Then I am fifteen
& winning first place
which is great
except for my asthma
which for days afterward
seizes my lungs
& the phlegm I hack up
carries out with it
the pride I earned being great
& I learn that great is something that can make you sick.
And I am 19
& my friends and I are on a bus
& a man shouts to us
Y’all the most beautiful women in this nation’s county
& we laugh so hard that one of us pees.
And I am 21
& I look great
& men confirm this
with entitled eyes and hands
& I like it
& I am great
at making men feel great
& then a beautiful woman
is making me feel great
in a way that men never have.
Then I am 28
dizzy on stale smoke and synthetic perfume,
my loved ones hungrily pulling slot machine levers,
& I escape into the smoggy air outside
& share a cigarette with a man
who calls himself the caretaker of the unhoused
& he walks me his route, his rounds,
his good evening, you eat today?,
here is a blanket or a free meal ticket
& he is met with gratitude
He has gathered stories
& he wants them to live
somewhere other than his small legal pad
so he gives me an email address
but when I wander back to the hotel
everyone is angry
& how dare I put myself at risk
with this stranger
& in my shame I don’t email.
I recall later
how safe I felt
with the kind man in Las Vegas
when a friend holds me down
and leaves bruises when I say
I don’t want him to touch me that way.
At 30 years old,
I am a “doctor”
in a room of people saying great, great,
& someone pops a bottle of champagne
& I have the sense that I’m supposed to feel proud
but I feel only relief
& I am looking around wondering
what does happiness feel like again?
& I am asking my therapist how to be happy
& she is asking me
why is it important to you to be a good person?
Then I am 32
& at my wedding reception
my father says
you have great friends, never lose them
& I hold it tenderly,
the rare occurrence of kind words from my father
& my friend Ben is telling me
my joy is contagious
& my energy brings calm
& this makes me glow.
I am an aunt
watching small people copy
the sounds and movements I make
& my nephew announces
his house is bigger than mine
& I want to say
please, don't go looking for it in square footage
but I say, instead wow, It sure is.
Then I am 34,
& leaving my career
& I am a student again
learning to sit across from strangers
& help them find happiness, peace, healing
& my stepfather says a psychiatrist makes more money
but I have traded in the coat of greatness
& my cohort says I carry an energy
that makes others feel held
& I am glowing again.
Now I am 35
& on the couch with Jack
who is three,
who will next week put on a fashion show
& whose mom is getting a divorce
& finding happiness again,
& he is learning about emotions
from small wooden figurines
he can hold in his hands
& he picks one up from the cushion between us
& asks me
What does happy feel like?
& I am laughing
because it's a simple question
that I feel wildly unqualified to answer
& I want to protect him
from the oversized parka of greatness
& I I want to say that happiness is in love,
& kindness,
in community,
& receiving all the universe gives
& I want to say it’s something you go looking for on purpose
& you never stop looking in new places
& I want to say the best way to keep it
is the way you are doing it right now,
holding it out to others
& asking what it feels like for them too.
But Jack is three
so I tell him that happiness feels like seeing a friend
for the first time in a while
& he says like you coming over today
& then I laugh harder
because it's so simply true
& he laughs because I laugh
& nothing else matters at this moment.
Bring me comfort
But that which never reared
its yearning head in solace
Only to appear to placate and promise
of hopes unspoken
and broken resignations
in honest temptation
I fear the burden of dawn
breaking clarity
Gifting false sense of security
and filtered air to breathe
in the wake of prosperity
Thank you, tobacco, for being my hope.
My head so full of people arguing,
united solely through self-hate.
I went back to your words,
my chest tightened as my jaw relaxed.
The noise was so constant, a choir,
singing of my innate inadequacy.
I went back to your words,
smoke disappeared; the promises remained.
When I could see the joy around me.
Smiling faces, laughing, not mine.
I went back to your words,
fingers stained but the noise eased.
My mind travelled to a silent land.
Another number on a page, a warning, an example.
Tears, flowers, hugs, decay,
“Those damn cigarettes” they would say.
A noble story, a rehearsed prayer
Please, let those words be true.
Thank you, tobacco, for not living up to your promises.
A scent of dahlia
in coffee-clouded air.
A blow-dryer hums its windy song,
through dampened, messy hair.
She brushes Her colors on worn stone walls,
that have longed to bear Her hues.
And I, the stone, became Her home—
A shelter She can splatter and stain.
Until we are Waked, to a quiet tune.
When Her paints fade
and walls crumble,
beneath the Wake of that stilled tune.
I’ll embrace the One who Hums.
Then, I'll remember Her in that morning hue—
She dries Her hair,
and isn’t even aware.
The beauty of a dahlia's bloom.
https://www.reddit.com/r/poetry_critics/comments/1vntl5m/comment/p3p7tjj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I am a galaxy
Fraught with dark matter
bound with more stars than you can count
I don a stellar halo
while a black hole lurks at my center.
Its pull evolves me
and holds the fragments in place
Supernova
But I am not afraid
I will endure
For in the arms of my spiral
the dust and the cold compress
A star is born
and I learn how vast I truly am
I rose through vicious slums,
Brush the dirt off my petals/
Street soldiers turn to ghosts who still roam through the ghettos/
Internal conflict depicted, words written with rage/
Memories conceived on a blank page/
I’m like a mouse in a maze/ a rat race, been running backwards for days/
Why do you hide from me, my love?
Your love, so fickle and sheen, I peer in and nothing but void peers back.
You are like a lost whisper in the wind, fading at the touch of my ear.
Why do you hide from me my love?
Is it the scars and pointed back horns, or the cruelly cackled soul? Or perhaps, the shadow of longing that hangs in my wake?
Are you so odious as to never grant me but the slightest of glimpses? Would you torment me so?
Why do you hide from me, my love?
Like the fairy from the child, or a father and his empty, sown promises. You too just beyond the senses, for comfort.
The blind man that I am, would you not grant me sight? Would it burden you so to lacken me with but the touch of a forefinger, like God and his Atom?
Sky as bright as stars can be,
I reach out to pick one for me,
Weeds crawl all over my clothes
Insects embedded in my bones
The one and only painless prize
Yet stars looked better with watery eyes.