Genuine Leather
She talks about you like you could lasso the sun
And keep it cerulean-center all summer long
With shiny tin campers dotting the highway
Just like the lilt of your very own song.
All Entries
The Art of Throwing Spaghetti
You throw so much spaghetti at the wall, you could open a restaurant above the window
And you did.
You ran a red because it was something new
And puffed “We’ll figure it out” through a cigarette
Thirsty
I miss bleeding out all over a page
The sparkle of the ink
Like a beetle’s backside
Or the soft silk from a mink
My thoughts were tied to my hands
Lucid
I woke up with the smell of you in my head
My knee still frosty from the unthawed Earth
I woke up shivering warm
Wrapped up in lovesick red
I laid in bed, puzzling over You
Tapestry
Everything happens for a reason and that’s what’s so funny.
Your gift to me was the extinguisher before you set my house on fire
You gave me the lifeboat before you crashed our ship
You bought me a spare before slashing my tires.
And now I’m not sure if this makes you a hero.
Growing Pain
I think of piles of abandoned clothes at the laundromat
or a scab that won’t heal because it keeps getting picked off
when I think of what she’s going through.
And I relate too. I’ve walked that path.
Youth
Weave while the yarn is wet
before the red turns black and crusted like my grandfather’s truck
before the fibers stiffen and hold your work in it’s place
(regardless of completion)
Birdcage
Talking to him is like handing someone my day-old baby.
It’s like that first meal you cook for someone. Or that first time you get on stage, quivering.
No sense in reiterating—babies have been dropped before. People have been laughed off stage, and others have caught fake smiles from their dry chicken parmesan.
And I know his heart is likely as scratched, brusied, scraped, and used as mine but who is to know how this stranger protects his own.
Human Nature
The weight of the world lifted away and I was left with its skin
and much like my own
I see the scars left by fellow humans on its fragile, and most mighty layers because the hands of a creator are delicate with their intentions while human eyes are built to see beauty but only manage to see problems
And this is a problem, you see. Despite my ironic consequence, trust me, I’ve breathed a toxic status quo.