Ode to Being Absorbed

I think I would like to be
part of a trunk
that extends back to three or four years ago,
or a distant past that I will
partly connect with
the next tree over,
the shingle on a dilapitated roof,
somewhere on a coastline
that I’ve never walked on.

There,
a man in a long grey overcoat
will extend his fingery hand
to hold me,
and I am met alongside a book with an unhinged spine,
floppy like the ears of a soft dog,
and grey green like moss in winter.

He has no smile,
but his eyes betray lost happiness.
There is a wilderness behind him,
but he has only ever known the ocean.

I tell him
to go back to the treeline
instead of the foam that he so adores,
but only single syllables can
exit his mouth:

yes,
left,
go,
stay,
light.

The name of the sea is petunia,
and he spells this out with me on the sand,
but says “pet”,
and so we play with her like a dog;
flickering her wave tails and trying to catch her as she grabs me,
fetches us back conches and seaweeds.

I did not dissolve again
into the tree,
but I wanted to so much.
then again—
so would the day,
and he wasn’t complaining.

Copyright 2017 Golden Star Poetry

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Cornucopia Family Ties

brimming white blankets and you a centerfold in it
angel,
stuck with the two axes of your arms and legs
pointing like gods own fingers towards the sun,
and the heavens,
and a cotton-candy world that was made
for you
to live in,
for planting heart shaped petal kisses
and palms of pink paint, spelling your name and
the name of a certain strain of
butterfly.
(anti social(,at times negligeble for what we’d call “ambi social))
spilled words and i’m sorries that
didn’t mean much to you,
or perhaps it was just a
missed connection through the
english channel
that made me think
you didn’t really love me anymore
and my fire was too hot,
and your fire was so small.

pro tector of all that is holy,
please be merciful (i said)
on that holy day when day is night in the
middle of the day,
and the birds stop their singing
and the crickets stop their cricketing
and money is of no value,
i seep into your translucent skin,
finding nutrients that no one could concieve of
and that minds could not listen,
forged myself into you
and my new family,
my mother (a soft-ripened peach)
my father (a tough, calloused mellon)
and you,
my brother
my yellow apple brother,
not yet browned and crisped with dewdrops.

i live while you laugh,
and this family is riddled with too many
that cover up for the sound of cries
because i was the only fruit in the basket
who didn’t like lies.

Copyright 2017 Golden Star Poetry

An Unhinged Door

so much has been changing, rearranging,
i hardly feel like myself anymore.
i live day by day,
unamazed, unfazed,
not dazed and
yet to be hazed,
jaded in ways i never knew were possible.
Of course i had pictured the days a bit harrowing,
but i can’t understand how my world view has been narrowing narrowing narrowing,
a green lawn
and a yawn
and a grey-brown-white sparrow wing,
nostalgia for the Worst City in the World in spurts and shudders,
like a spuddering car in need of an oil change.

My only sign of trust was the flirtation at the supermarket ((where am I what am i so much to do so much to prioritize)), i just want to live my life, get away from this Tie to me, this one Tie that won’t leave me alone. it would be so much easier if i was On My Own.

Copyright 2017 Golden Star Poetry

A Death in the Family

i was on the bus and it hit me like a bullet that he could never love me back

in the way i loved him

and i cried like i was mourning;

not  in the bittersweet way or in the melancholy way that

yearns and lusts after and has room for hope.

it was the kind of crying that realized all hope was lost, and there was no coming back.

a death.

a hole inside me that would never be filled again.

for once in a blue moon i did not enjoy crying.

Copyright 2017 Golden Star Poetry

Things you Need to Become Invisible:

note: I swear on my sock drawer I’m 100% fine. this is a character.

x x x x x x

a knife (but be sure a poisonous tip)
a mallet (to play rhythms with up like your heart too hard too scared to do this,)
a tangerine (to counteract the taste of blood)
murky water (filled with soap. you’ll want to sterilize yourself first.)
old photos (the ones you almost burned before)
a lighter (to burn the photos. chickening out isn’t an option anymore.
they need to know you don’t care about them. let them rot from your temporal lobe)
a mirror
(to see what you’ve done.)

I’ve done it;
now you
reach into the pool,
and pull out dead bodies.
which one is yours?
nobody is born with the same face,
but yet they all look just like you.

turn over your shoulder:
you’ve got company tonight.

Copyright 2016 Golden Star Poetry

Left, Right, Left?

“Good writers touch life often. Mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies”– Ray Bradbury, Farenheight 451

(the spring blooming light was approaching.)

I hear hoofbeats, now.

thats the sound of her arterial valve, crackling on the oven

and thats her left aorta ,keeping time.

She is afraid she has it all mixed up

left aorta, right

right aorta, left; (?!?!)

touching life most often

is a hard guess.

(at best, mine is at work.)

a calculation, interpretation,

statement accusation.

thats my cervical cortex springing back, at the centrifuge

and thats my left cortex ,analyzing you.

I am afraid I have it all mixed up

left cortex, right.

right cortex, left; (?!?!)

giving life a run down

might be a bearable mess,

(but he is on the wheel)

making a turn to the station

faster faster FAST

relax

take a look back

that is the sound of the oil tank, up in flames,

the left turn signal, clicking.

He is afraid he has it all mixed up

left turn, right

right turn left; (?!?!)

raping the soul out of life (I assure you)

is your best bet.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry