Tag: idk

i found you
three days after you died.
i walked into your office and
found you hunched over your desk,
your face deteriorating
into your coffee mug.

i picked you up and threw you
over my shoulder.
your knuckles dragged on the sidewalk
the entire walk home.

we wrapped you
in all your favorite scarves and
put you in a coffin
filled with salt-water taffy.
while they sang ‘der voghormia,’ i growled,
and the sky echoed me.

i growled
at your scarves and your
salt-water taffy and your
face. for the first time
in years, you looked peaceful.
i growled and growled until they
started shoveling the dirt in.

the sky boomed on the drive home.
i saw your face in the windshield,
contorted into a sneer, your eyes
glazed over, your nostrils flared.

your face in the ground,
so pale, so silent, so peaceful.
so peaceful.

der voghormia // a.s.m

you find the ingredients 
to lose yourself 
in the kitchen cabinets. 
in twelve hours with coconut oil, 
a chopstick and a fork, 
you unkink your hair and
lose a piece of yourself in 
the air that blows between the doorways
of the only home you’ve ever known. 

you’re down a limb, and you can 
feel its phantom 
brushing up against your body, 
trapped
within these same walls. 

you shut the door quickly
when you leave so
that it cannot escape. 
it has to stay inside. 
you want to visit sometime
soon.

phantom limb // a.s.m

you were eleven
pounds of limbs when
i scooped you into my arms
beneath the flickering
yellow lights that reflected
off urine-stained linoleum.
i thought i was rescuing you. 

that night as you walked
into the apartment
for the first time, i wasn’t
thinking about paris or
the lust in my veins
(the lust pumping out of
my heart). you cried,
scurrying into a corner
when i accidentally stepped
on your paw. i feared you
wouldn’t let me near you again.
you were so slow to let
the hair on your back go
down. 

the days are getting longer,
the skies bluer, and i am
dreaming of paris
again. you follow me
to the bathroom, waiting
patiently outside the door.
you follow me throughout
the house. wherever i am,
your eyes are there. brown 
and gold nebulas. 

we fall asleep
and i feel your heartbeat against
my feet. i want to squeeze you
so hard sometimes. 
twenty five pounds, 
you are an anchor following
me around. i can hear
london calling me now.

where do i go 
to escape your eyes, 
little lamb?
what have i done, falling
in love long before
i have seen the world; 
making home in twenty five
pounds of limbs and
pawprints in the snow?

will your eyes follow me
to london and paris? to cobblestone
cities and languages 
i have yet to learn? 

your small heart an anchor
at my feet, mine is filled 
with a lust to see every inch
of the Earth’s skin.

little lamb // a.s.m

it’s so cold out here,
my bones are vibrating.
my thumb seems to have forgotten 
how to flick a lighter, 
but i don’t feel the icy tongue
of the wind on my skin. 
i am half-cooked: well done
on the outside, but raw
in the core. perhaps
all i need is a cigarette
to light me. but i know fires
never last on the coldest nights;
even the brightest flames
eventually die.
i can’t hold this
damn bogie still enough
for it to
kiss the flame; the moons
of my fingers are turning purple
and the rawness is
creeping to the surface.

i am still raw in the center // a.s.m

they put my
heart on a gold platter 
for you to hang 
next to the deer and moose
heads on your walls. 
my tongue, my lungs
severed and garnished with
flowers and herbs 
for you to consume,
your stomach acids slowly
breaking down the only 
cells in my body that
allowed me to sing.

you took my voice away // a.s.m

hands grab hearts
only when they are ready
to be touched;
a middle ground where
nonsense forms beautiful truths. 
i am speeding down
the road to
eternal madness, and
all i can see is poetry
on the horizon.

too weird to live, too rare to die  // a.s.m

where have i slipped
between these cracks
that god intended for us
to sink into?
where have i gone to?
a place between my body and the sky. 
safe. 
soft. 

i can still hear
them, though.
laughing right
outside my window.
and my stomach against
this mattress is pulling me back
before i am ready to go.

i am never ready to go from here; 
where poetry flows in the streams,
where a mind is at ease,
where raw hands find peace.
you won’t cry in the night anymore here,
i promise.

there is a place of stillness within // a.s.m

his hands made me drunk.
his hands made me really fucking
drunk
and his lips
his lips made me drunk,
too.
but i’ve never been
one for alcohol, really, 
because wine makes me cry
and beer makes me angry.

hangovers suck and sobering up is a bitch so be careful who you let get you drunk // a.s.m 

I’ll Still Think of You When I Smell Cigarette Smoke

I’m sinking into the air again.
I reach out to grab your hand
but all I get is smoke. 

You aren’t anywhere to be found.
I’m getting used to turning around
and not seeing you there. 

You said you’d always be there for me. 
I found it easy to believe– 
it’s what I needed to hear. 

You made that promise long ago.
It’s my fault, I should have known
you don’t keep them so well.

And I know life swept you off your feet,
took you places you’d never dreamed.
I just thought you’d take me, too. 

So I’ve learned at the end of the day
everybody goes their own way.
I guess I should let go.