Tag: poem

oh, god.
i’m lost
inside myself again
 
trapped between the walls 
of this flesh
and the implications of what
this means

if you ever let go, because
if i can be lost inside something
as small as myself
if you let me go,

if you let me go
i will never find my way 
back.

lost // a.s.m

dust constantly collected
on the windowsills 
and in the corners 
of the room, but
i liked that because 
i always knew where to find it. 


a firm
mattress was my muse, 
pulling words like taffy


pulling poetry that left
a sweetness on my tongue


and a purpose almost as
defined,
as solid, as sturdy
as the walls.


this was home home until


i grew too big and my limbs
tore down the frame.


all that remains:
my body, full of splinters 
and a yearning


for the way
the sleepy sun shone
through the windows.

Coventry // a.s.m 

the sky was bruised and blooming
above us, deep
purple and black

the pool lights darted
by our feet 
distorted and refracted.
scattered. 
moving with the water

i lay floating 
on my back, and

for the first time since
calling you mine, i felt
weightless. 

you wrapped your arms around
my waist

for the first time 
since calling me yours, 

you carried
me. 

when the weight returned 
to my body
we ran home

our wet footprints left
to dry 
beneath the winking moon.

night swimming // a.s.m 

i see you, limp
 
on the ground
in every room of this house
and sometimes on sidewalks
and in darkly lit places. 

i’ve been sleeping with the lights
on lately, but
they don’t protect me
from the darkness
that’s entered my mind 

they leave,
constantly illuminated,
the inescapable end
i discovered in your eyes 
as they rolled back
into your head
on the hardwood floors
where we used to build
empires.

your civil war // a.s.m

there is peace, 
too much peace. 

these walls are saturated,
dripping, and sickly sweet with
the stillness of avoidance – 
nauseatingly daunting. 

there
is always movement underneath
a still surface, there is always
something
eager to erupt.

Krakatau // a.s.m

they’ll start from your roots, baby
while you’re still waiting 
to come out head first
it will enter your veins
and you won’t know
the poison you hold within you.

and with every touch of your
bare feet on the soil,
it will grow, it will spread
from the outside in.

how were you to know
you’d be born with death
inside you, and that with every breath
it would continue to grow?

pesticides // a.s.m 

The Seance

we drove
with the windows down
even though it wasn’t quite warm 
because it wasn’t cold, either.

and the boy with the curly hair
played Meat Loaf with the volume
at 37: 
And I would do anything for love
I’d run right into hell and back… 

i see your phantom whoosh
past on the side of the road
and wonder if i ever truly
felt your love, or
if it was just a ghost, 
too. 

we lock eyes. 
i laugh a laugh i thought 
i’d lost after i met you 

and watch you dissolve 
in the rearview mirror. 

i reside in
what i don’t own
what isn’t home
what isn’t mine anymore. 

i reach for hands
i once found shelter in,
i slip on my feet and
scrape the bottom of this
circulating stream.

i once sought structure
in the scattered.

i’m carried off
to go somewhere
i do not know
that isn’t mine
that isn’t home.

planktonic // a.s.m