Yearly Archives: 2021

Faithless Grief

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I’m faithless and unashamed 
For God did not give us grief. 
Love manipulated our trust 
So that chance could gamble 
With the futility of our existence, 
Ripping the tense velcro bonds 
Of hearts grown together. 

I applaud it’s gamesmanship, 
For it doesn’t laude it in our faces 
By any means other than simply 
Gathering the grim and gaunt 
In coats of greyed gaberdine. 
Long coats hanging as if empty, 
Made black from the heart’s rain. 

I am faithless and entirely alone, 
But still gesticulating to the air: 
An open chested final demand 
To give back the gift of grief 
That greeted me at this graveside. 
Need I be a god-fearing glossolalist 
To return this heartbreak?

Pencil Case

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Momma told me not to run with scissors
Lest I pluck out my own eyes
With the rounded tip of the blade.
But she needn’t have feared impaling
For the glittered edge could split reality
Into newer categories of felt or unfelt,
Processed or compartmentalized in boxes
That are to be continuously mislabelled
And indexed under different triggers.

Momma told me not to run with scissors
Lest I pluck out my own eyes
With the rounded tip of the blade.
But she needn’t have feared impaling
For the glittered edge was a siren
That promised to multiple your mark
By severing the ties to reality a little more.
Knowing the hook was catching enough
To long for a longer, deeper verse.

Momma told me not to run with scissors
Lest I pluck out my own eyes
With the rounded tip of the blade.
But she needn’t have feared impaling
For the glittered edge was a safety blanket
Bound in bumps of gentle grip polypropylene.
Soon substituted for safe preschool variety
In the same clear polyvinyl therapy pencil case
As the steel screw fit pencil sharpener.

75ml Measures

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We got plastered on the mezzanine.
Giving even less shits than before
With cheap shots that burnt like kerosene

Splitting prescription amphetamine
Into servings of six, eight or four,
We got plastered on the mezzanine.

Supplementing lacking dopamine
Pretending we wanted to feel more
With cheap shots that burnt like kerosene

On the childlike side of something-teen
With store rooms of baggage to ignore
We got plastered on the mezzanine.

Steadily making more of a scene
Baiting ourselves to even the score
With cheap shots that burnt like kerosene

These moments dipped light in sertraline
Revisited in flashbacks galore
We got plastered on the mezzanine.
With cheap shots that burnt like kerosene

Buried Under the Rose Bush

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We never mastered houseplants.
Above and beyond, but a foot to the left.
A green thumb was never our best asset.
If you didn't shoot, the leaves would be green.

The potted plants thrived on the terrace:
In the house they just repeatedly cried uncle,
Their roots wiggling like an old b-movie.
Do all new killers go blank in the stare?

Gardening was worse than getting an instrument:
Another substandard, low average hobby
Intended to expand the pointless talking points.
Maybe your urge is due to seasonal pollen?

The effort level of the cactus was minimal.
Yet in a humidity it was still kindling to burn.
Should never have made them my central focus.
The hardware store had a shovel clearance.

I have to straighten literally anything out
So I don't pace 'til the hour of judgement!
You think I could pretend I wasn't here and hide?
If you go down, will you bargain for my pardon?