yellow

Yellow takes my hand in its own shaking grasp

In reassurance that she doesn’t know why

We’re so afraid, either:

Trapped in a state of tension

And our hearts slap loudly in our chests

At the reverberance in our ears

Of its throbbing

She says that she understands

And that is a greater strength

Than I could ask for from any more solid color.

Sometimes

When they criticize you how do you

Hold your wings?

I hold mine put

And down, descend a little, then more.

Cool air comes. Nobody cares how low

I descend, and the way my eyes close

Makes me disappear. They have their sky again.

So then a life I have, scribbling dust

When I turn, trailing as if to follow

Something inside the earth, something beyond

This place.

If I accept what comes,

Another sky is there. My serious face

Bends to the ground, the dust, the lowered wings.

William Stafford

It was already gone

Before they took away our plates

Before I lingered in the doorway

So I’ll explain myself:

It wasn’t you who turned away,

The shaking body sobs were when I said goodbye,

And I’m sorry.

A drunken excuse for sadness,

It was you in those tears,

And I gave them back before you could take them.

A regurgitation of the alms I think are deserving,

Because everything I do is mechanical,

And it makes me fucking sick

To ignore my modesty

And be an honest lover,

Giving every last drop

Because I’m tired of being discarded

Without a say

And living as the victim of a blur

Of misinterpretations, that follows me in every pile of rubble

In small pieces of the self I destroyed

A display of dramatics

So that you miss the point

And you won’t be tempted

To try and follow me,

Carrying particles that don’t fit back into place.

You created a void

And its emptiness started to fill:

But they lied to you

when they said you couldn’t breathe underwater.

And you can learn how to swim when you’re drowning

And since then, I’ve grown a thicker skin

So your icy waters can’t freeze me.

And every bridge you’ve bludgeoned can be repaired

Or we can just start over,

And let me stand

Because one day you’ll be too tired

To push me down, or grow thirsty

And drink it back

And either way, I’ve grown to love

Your frequent mood swings

And make light with the flames that fall from you,

A showy orange and red

That only burns itself out

And like a dead star, you hold fast to your own waning light

To make a colorful end

But charred: you quickly extinguish yourself

And slink away in embarrassment;

A sad kind without a crown

And you’ll get sucked into that black hole of your own defeat

And disappear.

But now, I won’t look for you,

Not even on the blackest nights.

The sound of crushing cans

Tickles the back of my neck

And every bitter evening

Reflects on the torn cavity of a silver can

Pushed against veins

Vomiting its blood like a poison

It heaves,

Praying for the strength to be set free

And let go the aluminum sound of home

Still ringing in my head.

When I lose you, I win a battle with myself

And my teeth attack a vulgar tongue

Slinging slurs at my indiscretion;

For feigning no dowry,

No reason for you to stay

Filling my glass of self-contempt

And guzzling its thick, sweet sedation

A victorious stab

Against the bleeding heart

I would be nursing

If its lethargic pulsing

Didn’t stand so strongly

As the trophy that I hold

For smothering my hopes for you

And for my own well-being

That I’ve chosen to forget.

Love Poem 137

Clocked on the last missed call

A late night: I forced myself to feign sleep

And ignore my waxing wanting

To hear the voice that sings me songs

And out life to it

Avoiding an obvious mistake

Tying a bow around my neck

To hag myself in front of you: a gift.

My very last self-sacrifice

That you can’t ignore.

.

I feel like I've wanted so badly to get out of here for so long. And I still do. There are a lot of things that I am ready to leave behind here. But the most important things are the ones that I'm not ready to leave behind. I found some of the best things I could ever imagine here. I have made the best friends, and gained such a great deal of support that I've never had from anywhere. I can't repay that, all I can hope is that I've done the same for those people. And I'm so sorry for ever cursing this place. I have gained so much more than I have lost.

new

I am digging you a hole inside

for you to leave your things- books

and photos we share

for when we reappear

in the blinking red darkness

that swarms like flies on leaking meat

too anxious to sleep,

but too afraid to peel ourselves apart

hasty when morning stretches out its transparent hands

and bedroom breath leaves our lungs

I'm keeping it here  for when you learn to love

sitting like an ulcered colon

a thick skin grown around it

encased in a shell of scars

waiting to be scratched at and crack open

oozing with the things you leave for me to feed on

that I nibble delicately in your presense

and ravage with snarling teeth when you're away

I wish you wouldn't go away

for the sake of the heaviness of your stretching

my cavity where life used to stay

tubes sucking nutrients through tethered straws

but now only you, and the bricks you lay there

If I could send a message to any ten year old girl on the planet, it would sound like this (prompt)

It's ok to be shy

and sometimes I think

it would have been better that way

to hide yourself until you understand

hold the shaking hands of vulnerability behind your back

because no one is fearless

in the face of discovery

I was brave: rock in hand

ready to shatter the sky

but you should bring an umbrella-

shadow yourself from crumbling pieces

or stay inside

listen to mom and dad's sweet story words

while you're still small enough for them to fall into your ears

new

I smooth your scent away that clings with morning

mimicking my steady clasp on your hand

neither one drains away even with the heaviest waters

my secret reassurance

that you are here to stay

hoping that you'll ask me not to leave

and wrap me between your legs

my skin, a stronger vice than blankets

that lay down in vulnerability

since I would flee the dull orange of morning

if I didn't know brown eyes would still hold my stare

and smile back

I edited this and I can't find the revisions

The Consequence of Character

I'm only really home when that whiskey-stained smile and smoking eyes both squint hello:

A taunting expression of familiarity, and yet distance

Since that face doesn't know who I am

When it's raw with cigarettes and sweat

Splattered from an oozing liver laughing with a mouth wide open

Struggling not to burst

From the pounding burning stress shamelessly trickling in

and taking over.

And when it leaves, glossy eyelids say goodnight,

And beg to be tucked in;

Forgiven when morning comes.

Despite my own stinging eyes and clenched chest,

I feign the ignorance of what she favorably forgets.

I tie knots to hold the last beads of dignity together.

poetic correspondence

Alex Adams

(With Hayden Vann)

Passion isn't always glamorous

We argue over a slim table

Bolted to swivel chairs

In checkered t-shirts

When eyes grasp each other

And a warm hand reaches across

Soothing my cheek and neck

I thought you meant goodbye but

What came out was I love you.

I thought it was confusion

A lie, a joke- kidding myself

Laughing, saying “Take it back”

Only realizing the reality of our word

When you said “I can't”

And locked me up in your heart

In your lips

And clutched between your knuckles

A captive

Is goodbye ever really goodbye?

How many times have you tried to grasp

the true meaning of goodbye, of someone being truly gone from your life,

and failed?

Even when your thoughts

are still captivated by that person,

they are still lingering with you,

not saying a truthful goodbye.

I can feel you waiver

when your hands quiver

with the graze of mine

Letting go of the resistance

Lay me down

Don't be afraid to stay after you say goodnight

And leave me a trail

I won't come running after

Lay down, and study his hands,

Study your hands.

Clasp them gracefully

and know how they fit together.

Hands travel with you everywhere,

Stories waiting to be told,

The lines are paths waiting to be crossed.

I thinkkkk this was a rough draft

Fragile

Warped with age and creaky and bumpy

And menacing to scare away the birds

that try to make a home with her

But also aching like a tree in the wind

Stretching knuckled fingers out

to keep from being pushed around

She is more the hardened oak with the soft skeleton

of the moss coated willow

A weeping inside trying to hold out against a prideful shell

that will soon become barren

and the whole tree will fall

A victim of her dignified outside

whose roots were ripped out

too heavy for what dwelled lurking underneath

It’s in my Skin and in my Mouth

Silently speaking words to a page.

You can’t hear it, but it’s screaming;

not moving but shaking on the inside:

calm like a bomb.

Ready to take off without a word,

shameless in an elaborate annihilation--

Exploding with pride,

lighting the room with a rogue yellow light;

bright and deafening,

but whispering insecurity,

shouting in defense,

with both arms pressed over its face.

The last defense to save itself.

from identity unit

Rodion

(From Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

Dripping like icicles in the heat of wet summer,

sweating in fever,

but like blood oozing from raw meat,

He carried a slow, steady stench,

reaking like superiority ,

But sulking like death.

The sour skins of heavy guilt and paranoia

lay flat and yellow in the sallows hanging under his eyes,

staring clearly into what is to come; glazed in guilt

crying to be set free from sin.