Dark and Stormies

Frost

Pour a drink of dark and stormy
Climb over the rim
Slide your back down the cool glass
And slip into the bottom to rest with ice

You position your lips over his
And you suck the black flurries
Out from the cavity

You hold your breath
And make his dark
Part of your constitution
You plant kisses
Like fingers tapping rhythm
Supple spines curled around the other
Helix of bare thin thread
String snapping,
He blows away in the wind

You spit the hurt back at him,
No longer wanting to swallow and hold,
A wall of cold, dark flurries
To run him, scared,
Back into the night where he came from.

Chasing Happiness

It tries to bubble up, break the surface, boiling

Bursting with enthusiasm

Pinching the heavy veil

Plucking moments caught in suspended viscous weight

A girl, fearful of her shadow

Reaching for the chord

To pull the light on

And cast away the dark lurking behind her shoulder

Wondering if she is chasing happiness

Or running from shadows.

February Sunday

Eyes still closed, heavy with my lead slumber,

Suspended in twilight sleep,

Unsure if the tiger perched on the end of my bed

Is real or a part of my dreamland jungle.

I refuse to peel my eyes open and welcome the light in.

I lay in quiet.

My ears tune to the sizzle of the bacon as it hits the pan

And your cursing as you burn your hand on the coffee

That is percolating on the stove.

I don’t want to break the magic of quiet observation,

Hesitant to stir,

Lest you discover my semi-consciousness.

Let me be my quiet star body,

Laying here,

With no words to paint me,

And no roles to cloak me.

Let me have this last moment of peace,

For leaving this bed would mean rising up into our tears and tension,

Inviting our fucked up world in.

It would mean pulling my armor over my body,

In preparation for your assault.

It would mean me having to flex my resolve,

Set my jaw,

Pretend forced complacency.

I just want to be weak,

To lay here melted, soft, innocent

In myself, warm body and sacred thoughts.

Six years of Sundays.

Three hundred and twelve mornings of

Bacon, pancakes, cigarettes, records, oil paints, pajamas.

Most spent in paused anticipation,

Remembering the steps for this complicated dance

Around your fury.

This is our last Sunday.

My heart is hot, melted flesh,

Oozing out of my pores.

My eyes burning,

Breathing becomes heavy,

Lifting the bricks laid on my chest.

The first time we shared a kiss and a shy smile,

We begged the sky,

Asked if it was possible,

To suspend our breath in a snow globe,

To revisit our wonderland of love,

Over and over again.

Now I ask the sky to suspend this moment -

Not to revisit with pleasure,

Not to chew over,

Suck out the beauty,

Feel those flurries in my belly -

But to suspend this moment, to contain the burning,

The hot crackling, searing, burning,

That stretches over my skin,

That makes me writhe and sweat in the night,

The fire of anger and hurt and wretched pain,

That consumes me,

Leaving me blackened and charred.

I want to walk away from this moment

And leave it walled-off,

And me, reborn, cleaned and new.

Maybe if I stay here in this suspension,

Eyes closed,

Immune to the world’s eyes and expectations,

We won’t say our goodbyes.

Starbucks

I want to kill the barrista

Fire engine red string hair

Brown doe eyes

Sticky laugh

Mouth spewing charisma vomit

As she flirts with the delivery guy.

An old man stares at me skeptically

Mind your own business gramps.

Have you never seen a poet at work before?

A girl strung out on caffeine,

Whose brain is wading through haze from last night?

A girl who fears her own shadow?

Black hair hunched over pen and paper in the corner?

Two old ladies bicker over the bathroom.

“I’d rather see you go here because you know where it is.”

I have coffee with my lover’s grandfather,

His crooked, mysterious smile stares at me from way up there on the wall.





Mixed

Soft pink palms hold pebbles that fall though fingers
Girls with black-rimmed glasses sashay down wet sidewalks
Boys turn their heads, look with sly abandon
Wanting to taste the peach but not slip the pit in their pockets

You call me a saint
Straddling, one leg on either side of the void
Wondering where I fit, and how I fit, and whom I fit
Warm December days grow havoc in my head
I burn in my skin, reaching for water to wash the grime away
Grasping and pulling in
Hanging uncomfortable
Begging not to be seen
By eyes that strip me down bare