toadstool (oneword)

walking in the summer
i saw a toadstool
next to a dim rock
its little red cap
breathing out years of
fairy tales
it looked so beautiful
yet so poisonous
idyllic
as if you touched it
you would perish
for the scene could not be
disturbed

what an odd thing
to sit and touch your skin
in the darkness
to unravel you slowly
with my fingertips
and feel the warmth creep up my bones
every pore in my skin
is open
and my toes
they wiggle

we are not speaking
and it makes me so happy
to not have to hear
your grating words in my ears

we are not speaking
because i do not want your delirious drama
and i will not cave
at the breath emanating from your liar's lips

we are not speaking
because i will not release for you
because i breathe better
when you are not near

To Sing For You

i have sung for you
and you have not heard
the words i chain together
carefully

how can i capture you in a rhythm
in a line of lyrics?

i have sung for you
and now you have heard
silly words rhymed together
carelessly
slip effortlessly off our
tongues

when i realize,

i am both so ecstatic
and so sad
and i want to cry
but i do not know if it is from
happiness
(that i have found you)
or
despair
(that i will lose you)

maybe
both.

centerpiece (oneword)

the centerpiece glistened
under the stares darting across the table.

She opened her mouth to speak. But the words would
not come. Like a leaky faucet she dripped
incomprehensive syllables that were
not understood.

across the table
someone rustled
in their chair

Domino's

across the water
the building's roof is jagged
i had not noticed this before
the waves hurry by heads down and the
people jog left and right
and i am struck by how much the blocks
have disappeared
worn away slowly

sweet sugar factory
was it today that you ate too much of your
own stock? and like a tooth you wasted away?
chewed down by your tenants?
a cavity to be filled with
cement?

trails (one word)

i leave trails of hot breath on the windows
and when you take a shower the steam illuminates
them as they become
a shade
lighter

i trace my spirals on your skin
and you say i leave marks
that the paths
my fingertips have wandered
tingle

as you watch me walk away
your eyes etch zigzags on my back
and i can feel your pupils
traversing the
distance
wandering for
hours

oldoldold poem but i kinda like it

Let the cold erase me

blot out my imperfections

mute my murmurs

with the

steady fall of

safety-scissor cutouts

I’ll disappear

As the minutes twirl

like snowflakes

cover me

in sheets of white

in empty silence

I’m going,

but no one will know I’ve gone

(not completely polished yet)

when i was born
i did not know what to say

the world
jolts
and jostles
and the wheels turn
and the eyes roll
and the cash register dings
when it opens
and the parks do not close until dusk
and you can sit on the benches
and dream in dark green
and sometimes pale snow falls from the sky
and you can erase all the awful the dirty
and for one day everything is pure

my body
is growing
i was once so small
and now i can slip through the city
in rattling cars holding myself
close so i won't escape
i was once so quiet
and now i can fill a page with words and ramblings
can speak with my eyes my noes my hands
i was once so soft
but now if you touch me you can feel the resistance
the measure of what i let under my skin

the world
is not
known
with its hundreds of faces
waking up and brushing their teeth
in their mirrors, looking into sleep covered eyes
and its rainstorms coating our faces with
water that rushes as if it cannot wait to reach the ground
and its music
swirling around in smoke tendrils
wrapping our torsos tenderly

when i die
i will not know what to say

(oneword)

sweet and sticky
you drip off my limbs
like caramel
encasing my arms
in sickly sugar armor
giving me
cavities

jealousy

so much nervous energy
built up in the tips of my fingers
i need to check
and check
and check
and recheck
i cannot be happy
and angry simultaneously
but i want what they have
and they are so lucky
and they are so good
ugh
they are so good
so much nervous energy
my fingers are bounding bounding
and stumbling and jumping and i can't change
my mind because its going in circles and only
a second has passed and i want i want i want

sympathy (oneword)

i am sorry
dear sir
but i cannot find it
i am looking under the folds
of your skin
and behind the sockets of your eyes
but in the purplish blue gray greens
i am just losing myself and i cannot find your
sorrow
though it lurks around your ears
dank musty moist
i cannot find it in-between your toes
or amid your teeth

Decay

your fingers

touch my skin

and with each breath

it withers

lightly

carefully

it wastes away

when I was five

the idea of compost

fascinated me

that something so solid

could

break down to

earth

I wore
that sweater
and
threw it off
when I heard
what had
happened because
I just couldn't bear having
you under and
over my skin

slowly she slips out sultry
her long lips lengthy and
releases regulatory
word wisps willowy
and taut and tired

i don't like
this distance
it doesn't exist
anywhere but in my mind
and in my fingers
and i want it gone
because you feel like a stranger
and yet you are not
because i know you
and yet you are not
because i know you

Morning Commute 9.17.14

Under the manhattan bridge
there lives a girl.
No one ever sees her
as she crawls on the underside
the unsteady sweep of car tires
her metronome as she sings
but
sometimes
if you look down in the crack,
right where the water becomes
the park on the bank
right before the highway with its whizzing engines
(pumping pumping pumping
turning turning turning)
you will see her sea glass
eyes peering up at you
and they will grasp you
lock you
so that
when your Q train
pushes forward
you will let out a gasp
and wonder what has
given you
such silly
ideas

she'll shatter if you
touch her
please don't drop her
she is fragile
and your fingerprints
are smudging
her
tainting
her
her clear surface has grown
dark
with all these ringed identities
she'll shatter if you
touch her
please don't drop her
she is
fragile
she is
agile
she is
fr ag men t e d

the wind whispers in my ears
tales of another time
in which i could exist

there is something romantic in the solitary
way we can weave our own vortexes
in pockets of white noise
envelop our sound

we all have our own worlds
and yet we glide past each other
so peacefully on the streets

we are black holes
spinning
with dark emptiness
beneath our feet

sometimes i feel so close
i don't know what
to say to you

like loose words hold no meaning
in comparison
to what i feel