A very lonely songbird
Slow and darkening hours
Tears like liquid thread
Heart beats in a shell
Earth hurts like hell
You’ve stolen the kite I fly
You own the bicycle I claimed
Friends know us by one name
Now I’m the shape of concern
With a love I can’t unlearn
A very lovely songbird
Hours that blacken and blur
Eyes that scour skies for you
Thoughts that hurt of you
Words that burn of you
She left her voice in the air
a sound as light as a feather
spiraling and silken
She left her feet on the floor
slowly back and forward
awake walking noises
She left her kiss on my cheek
quick in the morning, slower later
warm and unsettling, true
And the mess she left in my ribcage
colder mornings, blood runs thin
bones breaking, heart askew.
I lay it in the palm of my hand
And it clashes like a hundred hammers
Dancing noisily across an ice tray
(Dare me to scream until 8 AM
Slice my fingernails and pluck my irises
String up animals in place of arms)
I let it crawl across my skin like a ladybug
The familiarity has a softness like love
But it catches my breath and crumbles
(Don’t wake me up once I’ve fallen
Don’t untie my hands from the decanter
Or empty my mouth of paper and seeds)
Sometimes when no one is watching
I lie down like a plank placed beside it
And let it scratch its wings along my face
(There is a siren that starts every morning
An expected entry from cold and night
To bones and burnt hair and returning)
When she flies her whole body is a paper project
in the hands of the sky. molecules mould her
and her skin is silky, airborne, important.
Anxious birds make way as she spirals and skyrockets
her wings shimmy against stubborn growling clouds
raindrops are constant, stringing through her pores
Her eyes are pearls, almost white but also blue
the awfulness of unspoken worlds live there
and the shapes of them are cold.
When she lands, the stars quieten down
there are beaks, claws, watermarks on her arms
also remaining is the suggestion of her smile.
He held my hands tight over his chest
the beast living under his skin, he said
all uneven cells and threads, he sighed
explaining how he was put together.
He introduced me to his bruises and scars
like kittens growling in a messy litter
all at once I understood his head
the madness and the shivers.
A careful gaze into his eyes, I meant
to repair but instead became an intruder
a visitor on this unstable bridge
too big for a small rate of survival.
He pulled my face into his cotton shirt
the smell of something rotten lingered
just below the most reassuring blend
of love and a case of death closely shed.
We ended that moment the usual way
He went to bed and there I stayed
Completely overwhelmed by half affection
and an underlying tone of goodbye.
It churns in the teacup, separating
it folds into paper like un-kept confetti
it creases up in bed like thin cotton
leaving a growing warmth
I don’t know where to put this love.
I don’t know who to show it to
when I wear it on the tips on my fingers
or present it on the afternoon news
artists fail to derive from it
nothing captures it truly
I don’t beg that it remains, in prayer
or convince myself of it in the bath
when I am drowning from the boredom of normalcy
I don’t force it to be cleaner or brighter
I am sure it is an eternal thing.
I am so sure it belongs to me
from the way I tackled it out of the sky
and laid in down in my home, on my floor
and scrawled an untidy confession
on its back bones while it was sleeping.
I woke up with trail marks on my arms
rats that littered over my warm skin
And scurried home after my dreaming of them.
My eyelashes are a mess
There is a soft frizzy one
right near the iris
I can feel it reddening my eye
If I cry now I can blame it
on this, or on the empty wine
glass sleeping nearby
Hours have past, and I can still smell
their decay and (i think) loneliness
flung over my arm hairs like
a damp rug or moldy bread.
I imagine rats that way
though I don’t know them from anywhere
but my dreaming.
I wonder what they saw in me
Something short of a human girl
fascinated by the headache that
never stops living above my eyes
crookedly asleep in my brows
every time I blame it for my frowning.
My skin felt foreign for days after that
I kept circling around the backyard of my brain
I weighed myself in search of extra life
Sleeping becomes undone by things
squeaking, angular, rotting.
I look for you as I’ve always done
On surfaces, floors, wallpaper, my nose denting the top skin of the dust as I scour the edges
Of a small world
I’m certain you are close by
I feel it like a strain of horrible
Pins and needles that connect
All the dots and then scatter them over me like a dare
I brush my hair and you are announcing yourself in the static
I climb stairs and I don’t look behind me for the way it looks when no one follows
I cook and make a gorgeous chicken and I’m not proud
I rearrange furniture out of boredom and the kettle gets cold in the fridge
I forget to lock doors. I forget where I am when I change out of my clothes.
I knock myself out before I can fall asleep for real. A smack in the gut that burns me.
I put off all the lights when I go to bed and maybe you on your way in. Cold toed and blurry eyed
The clouds detail and depth are not ever a subject anymore
I touch my cheeks and the softness is enough to derail me so I’ve stopped washing my face
I take Myself off at night and might have left myself in the laundry basket weeks ago
If you were here you’d be here
If you were here I’d be
I’m not particular about seasons, anymore
In the past, my ears withered in winter and I miss
they way it worsened my hearing, miss
having an excuse to look away
And the tacit redirecting of the wind
the charcoal sunset diluted
and muddy on the wall.
It has been spring for weeks now
pivoting and shedding light
while I remain dormant
I have overslept in this rehearsal
time the enormous mollusk,
croaking and collapsible.
ten fingers
ten toes
lights on
life song
orange peels
dusty drawers
curtain grease
rotting floors
eyes lids up
eye lids down
sheets damp
legs cramp
steps stretching
hand sketching
nails breaks
asleep. awake.
strange smelling
bitter air
breathing out,
staying there
stuck inside
hands printing
palms wetting
eyes sweating
hours pass
grass grows
flies fall
dreams drawl.
lunawordsmash 