I am drowning
in all the
time I waste in
walking by
the little things
that make this
place feel so in-
complete. but
maybe it’s just
me— maybe
it’s just that i’m
not whole yet,
so how could I
complete
anything
else?
Posts published in “Poems”
I hold these words
on my lungs,
and, while it hurts,
I still try
to talk, but not
by speaking—
instead, I cower
and type, using
keys to lock
myself away in
this machine;
flat,
cold,
reflective,
but not of me.
there was a fly on the sheer curtain,
its feet and belly facing the world outside.
I stood, finishing my chocolate pieces,
appreciating their want to be there.
they fought the vacuum, but stayed
against the panes, so became exhausted.
I carried them to our porch, opened
the canister, and how does one end a sentence with they?
my eyes have been dry,
these past shy months,
as I sit or stand or lay
in this house, beside
these walls, unmoving
yet crushing, still.
and I try
to see through them,
these dry, now
cloudy eyes.
I haven’t cried.
I need to cry.
I need to emote
and feel something
other than plain.
I love Marge and Candi, my Babes. I love them and they’re not here for 9-10 hours each day, when i’m alone with work or conference calls. I miss Marge saying, “shoulders!,” or, “move up, daddy,” so she can share our chair.
built you towers
in this heart of mine,
hoping you’d want
to stay a while.
but time and I
are bitches, true,
pushing out
those who love us, too.
and then one day
you’ll stumble-in,
look around
at the walls torn down,
smile at the laughs we had,
and go live your life again.
I forgot why we fell out,
only remember
those wants and wails;
hoping you’d come back soon,
but soon moves on
and all’s left is
past to laugh at present
while future bides
its time waiting to be found again.
need a hook,
well how about this:
took note
of your favorite things,
scratched them off
one-by-one,
determined to give you
all you want, not realizin’
i’d been takin’ ’way your
want of me.
bought all our entertainment at a bargain and think it gives us something to do, but it just gives us reasons to avoid the light, avoid ourselves, avoid our life, this life we’ve built on a concrete slab with broken windows and water-stained ceilings, hoping it’d grow with time or we’d grow into it, but instead we find our hands hitting walls and sacrificing expletives for laughter and the clutter of a toddler destined to need space.
tables don’t turn,
we just get up and move over
or play those chairs like
harmonies hummed but not remembered,
so we can remake our own song,
that one we know we knew but
can’t find the hook for.
anyway,
we move and our settings don’t,
so we get restless and selfish and
think the short sentences can’t
hurt each other that much, until we
find eyes swole, chests still, and
the air leaves so it’s just us,
living with what we say and what we mean
and the difference in-between.
so,
sometimes you wake up, rush out the house
and look back to see all you’ve left
unhelped, unchanged– but you said, “love you!”
and she replied the same, though you
know those words are formal now,
the way any repetition becomes less
competition and more a breathless, huddled-over
mess while you watch someone else, or no one, win.
during your sleep,
you wake in me
the need to be
a better man, a
better father,
one you can
depend on, who
you can talk to,
who you can
sit beside
and ask to
rub your back
to take your mind off
pooping.
you have an
irrational fear
of the
garbage disposal,
and I
find myself
cleaning your stacks
and
stacks
of discarded food,
as you put our
princess
down
and get some sleep—
finally, some sleep—
and I know you
do this nightly, before I
unwind
and think
of you.
I watched a fountain today,
as its
droplets
calmed
and rested
and
its waves
rounded
to be
still.