Things I've Lost:

 A stuffed rabbit at the mall,

            I cried, screaming until my mother

            found it oozing puffy white stuffing

            in the women’s dressing room.

 

My first boyfriend—Kyle—when he

didn’t come back for second grade.

I can’t remember missing him.

 

A library book once in the third grade: I recall

            scrambling on hands and knees, searching behind

            my hamster’s dirty cage,

            while I mumbled through my Catechism, praying

            for a miracle.

 

My brother’s favorite mitt—purposely (of course),

            until he threatened to break my nose.

 

The chance to be “Daddy’s girl,” thanks in part to

a few too many beers, a couple of crisp

joints, and his “disease.”

 

An old flame’s first name, as he fought through

            crowds yesterday to say hello. Suffered through

            pained silence while I ransacked old wounds.

Such a Pretty House

Burning, burning—everything is burning.

You walk backwards down the stairs, smoke

flies past into hallways. Paint, leaden and melting

in the air, falls from singed walls. Drapes explode

in purples and golds and you’re trapped on the floor by the front door,

grasping a handle that’s hot enough to melt flesh

from your eyes. Black snow falls from the ceilings

as children sing Ring Around the Rosie on your front lawn.

They are blind, their black fogged glasses cling to expressionless faces.

Adults in perfect houses bake muffins while ashes

fall off of your walls. They bury you.

You are up to your chin in soot now, and the sweat

your face creates leaves gray pools around your neck. You hear

the children as they sing, cracking voices through cracking window

glass, and you wonder if their parents ever burn as the

creaking, clacking, flaming beams crush you where you lay.

Silly Games

I’ve never gotten how

you bite your lip when

you smoke your cigarettes,

your cancer sticks.

Or how the tongue I’d like to take from

you enjoys mocking me daily.

I sit here, sobbing, while your outline 

traces our sheets and our last

fight screams in my head.

You smiled even as I gave you the last

of me. She called again last week.

Whispered your name before the click

of the dial tone leapt at my ear.

You should have seen the heat on my face,

and in my thoughts, and in my eyes.

p.s. This is an revision of an earlier attempt I had made at a sonnet. Here's the first one: My Poor Attempt At a Sonnet

Get On With the Show

New year began at yesterday’s sundown.

Atonement day came and went, some found it

sweet, but regret the bitter aftertaste.

In the 1960s he crouched with iron red

in his mouth, as the children stood away.

Innocence watched a crimson smile, eyes wide,

tiny fingers curled in defensive balls.

A Maryland man, with blood on his hands.

The sentence was less than death.

He wished finality into existence, willing

a release of electricity through veins hard-wired

to humanity. He lurched once, gasped. 

Boogeyman

The man with no arms.

The man with no legs, no face.

The man that comes at night with one eye open.

The catch-you-in-your-sleep man.

The hidden man.

The man in shadows.

The man with blood in his eyes.

The man with finger nails like kitchen knives.

The man mother said didn’t exist.

The man father scolded you for believing in.

The unseen-scratches-on-the-window man.

The sack man.

The shrieking man.

The melting face man.

The man with purple lips.

The man with dripping feet.

The man with a lisp and broken teeth.

The find-you-in-your closet man.

The man you shredded sheets for.

The man with razors in his mouth.

The man who comes in green fog.

The man who comes through ceiling holes.

The man with the strength of bulls.

The man with fire in his mouth.

The reason you sing your children to sleep.

Aubade

Call yourself in with a case

of the Mondays and come back to

the universe in my sheets.

We’ll be bag people, hop trains to California

tomorrow, tomorrow.

I’d be homeless with you in a

heartbeat – if only I’m able to keep

the pillows you’ve littered with your hairs,

my little souvenirs of our nights together. 

A Wish

You gave me a card for my fifth birthday,

with a two dollar bill pressed inside.

I have no idea where the bill is now, but I can still see

its imprint on this card, smell its scent on this paper.

 

I can only imagine you now with a cigarette at your lips,

smoke mountains clouding my view of you. Your fingertips

clicking through your Bicycle deck, lining up cards with a dealer’s

precision, preparing for another round of solitaire.

 

Closing my eyes, I grasp for any image of the two

of us baking cookies, or taking walks.  Instead, I see you in your backyard, wearing only

a bra and shorts, my red face buried in my small hands.

 

I hadn’t seen you in nearly three years when my mother

whispered your passing. I didn’t cry at the time,

only hugged, awkwardly offered condolences,

tried to remember you.  

 

This card is a wish reaching over fifteen years.

I imagine that you sat at your reading lamp,

flitting a pen across cardstock and carefully choosing your greetings,

though I know the reality must have been different. 

 

You must have sat at the living room table, the same that holds

your solitaire games, and scrawled out a quick hello, between

cigarettes and shuffles. The two dollar bill was snatched from a musty

wallet, tucked in the card, and pushed to the side.

 

I put this card aside now, making space for its yellowed edges

in an old shoebox I’ll easily forget. I wish that things

would have been different before you died – that years of silence

had not stopped us cooking muffins in your kitchen. 

I'm Back....I think?

So, I'm updating this. Finally. It's been four months in the making, so hopefully what follows is worth everyone's time. 

The mass surge of poems I'm about to upload is the result of a creative writing poetry class I took last semester. The class was absolutely amazing. It taught me so much about myself as a writer, and helped me develop skills I didn't even know I had. I loved the professor, and I loved writing. I still love writing, but of course my output's basically stopped since I'm not being forced to churn out poems for anyone at this point. Hopefully that changes soon, but only time will tell....

As for now, enjoy!