Untitled, Shauna Ubersox
if there is one thing that i am, i am books. i am
ink, gushing black out of aisles of time, i am ache, brushing
past protagonists in purple and girls spun from gold.
i am tall and heavy, standing in grasses so thick light never
touches the dirt; i am a couch on rainy sunday, springs
sticking out and reaching for freedom from musty confines.
if there is one thing that i am, i am heart. i am
constellations stretched out before myself like an angry map,
i am bound at the stake, i have stood in the sun and not gotten
burned. i am consumed with passion, green with envy, red with
rage; i am wax dripping from antique chandeliers onto battle plans
over and over again.
if there is one thing that i am, i am the semicolon. i am
always held at half past half, continuing to both stop and go at once.
i am sleep on a summer afternoon, dreaming about creativity and
angry for heartbreak. i am back in the past looking ahead through
rose colored lenses tinted slightly too pink. i am never in the present
or the future, i am always wax, i am always ink, ache, i am always
books.
-enderrocket.tumblr.com
The Widower Speaks, Kate Horowitz
Appoint not the silence
as thy messenger:
One cannot predict
how much it will say.
dec 08, Brittany Jones
You don’t have to say you love me..
Say, “I’ve noticed darling,
I can’t breathe if you’re not around.
And I’m going to try and make this forever
But, I know there are no guarantees.
And I’m not sure we’ll always understand each other
But, you’ll always be
The first person I look for when I enter a room
And I’ll always want to share my coffee with you
And I promise to keep your name safe
So that no one else in the whole world can say it
The way that I do.”
Four Minute Poem, Chris Vivion
During takeoff, after the young girl
Crossed herself three times,
Kissing her fingers before touching the air
I remembered how my parents
Would take me on airplanes as a child.
Back then, people smoked on planes,
The cabin smelling of polyester and dusty
Smoke. A stillness would overtake the back
Of the plane, a flannel blanket settling
Into the dull, staring faces. I remembered
My mother was so nervous, crossing herself
As we hit a patch of bad air, her face
Smoothed soft by a sliver of sun and hidden
Slightly by a finger of smoke, resting for a minute,
Along her cheekbone.
Untitled, Kelsey Hennon
I wish I could breathe you out
As quickly and completely as I
Inhaled
You into my heart, my lungs, my soul.
No matter the decongestant or the
Wind behind my coughs,
bits of you still remain,
Expanding within me over time.
And like a toxin,
though I hate to compare you,
the remnants can never be
Ultimately cleared.
There will always be scar tissue
Waiting to be discovered by the
next debris that drift through
These airways.
So I wish I could breathe you out
and have my contented sigh returned
to me in full ownership.
Ever since you ripped yourself from
my lungs, leaving just the right
Amount of goodness behind,
I cannot own my own sighs
Because the thought of you always
creeps in to block the passage of
A dandelion breeze or a swell
of warm firefly air.
I know you didn’t mean for it to
happen this way
But you’re inflaming my heart,
Closing my throat and
constantly pumping these
Tear ducts to their capacity.
And eventually, I’m going to break down
Again.
But I wish I could breathe you out.
These short shallow gasps are doing me no justice
Except personal sabotage
And I often hold my breath hoping to
pass out and require a pure mask of
you to keep me going.
I don’t reach for the inhaler
And I ignore the doctor’s orders.
The only person I can blame for this
black lung and failing heart
is myself and the fact that
I wish I didn’t have to breathe you
out.
Stealing Beauty, Dan Bristol
It was a cool October dusk, the sun gasping for its last breath,
When the light hit my face with a youthful request,
And after a moment of pause and reflection,
I saw you standing there with awe and affection.
You spoke to me in a language not of this land,
And still to this day I don’t know how I could understand,
For you never moved your mouth, or made sounds from your lips.
Your eyes spoke the words your feelings had built.
They whispered longings and a hope of romance delayed,
For life always seemed to get in our way.
But a crease in your brow, and a quiver of your lip,
A tear down your cheek replayed our first kiss.
So, I wiped away the memory in hopes of creating something new:
A simple smile across your face, or a whole life spent loving you.
7 seconds OR the good fight, Frankih Kay (for 11/27)
one.
we repeat
the same fight
about the
Reckoning and how
you think i don’t
care
about anything
at all.
two.
i met a boy once.
we drank red
wine in a music hall and
he took me to his house
and played me
a tape
he’d made, a
7 second
loop of millisecond sounds
and it went on
all night.
one.
we repeat
the same fight.
i cry;
you cry harder.
three.
i met a girl once.
she had dark
eyes, olive skin and
she held a sunflower at
a train station and she
held my hand at
the harbour and
i slept on her couch, her
feet touching my feet
and i wish that i had kissed her.
one.
we repeat the
same
fight
and i think about
clocks,
telephones.
four.
i met a man once.
he called me a
whore
but he fucked me
better than
most.
one.
we repeat the same fight
and on the way
home i find
your hat and half
a cigarette;
i smoke it.
five.
i met a woman once.
she was my ma and
i wish i knew
what i couldn’t
forgive her
for.
one.
we repeat the same
fight
like seven seconds
of tape loop,
clicking,
whirring.
six.
i am trying to
fight
the good fight
i feel like i am
losing
and
we repeat
the same fight
we repeat
Fornicating Fenêtres, Kira Hesser (for 11/26)
I want to make love to open windows
That way I can draw whatever you that you happen to be behind the curtain
I’ll draw the curtain back and then draw you against the windowpane
My finger twirling your braided rope, tracing your outline, crossing your chest
Like a priest, I am crossing you, now I am double-crossing you
Sweat dances faint against the glass
I summon ghosts, figmented reflections of all the yous
I see, while riding on the top of double-decker buses, looking down at the
Tirelessly grey streets littered with pubs, men men men, growling at each other
Over piss-yellow pints, finding burgundy solutions, slurping and burping
Their way through opaque foam
What are you wearing, What are you taking off?
Below your hips is a latticework of lace
I am seducing you, I am seducing you,
I repeat this to myself until I believe it.
I cannot take myself seriously enough to believe in seduction
It is a cinematic moment, I am preening in front of my flickering reflection
I am inconsolable
I want you to be dressed in Edwardian clothes, slowly unbuttoning your waistcoat
There has to be a pocket watch, and I want you to finger it, I want you to grasp
The metal links of your fob with two digits, with purpose
On the stroke of midnight, I’m ticking and
Goosebumps crawl all over me in one quick advance of porcupinal armor
Phantoms and shadows cannot argue,
Or take up all the covers
I’m naked in front of this window, I blow on it now and draw
A heart, which vanishes quickly, before I can even finish
Shoe Man, Carolyn Sams (for 11/25)
It’s the finest you’ll ever see.
Ever wear.
Warmest one when it rains.
Quite a miracle, that hide.
Even when it pours.
Now you seem to be looking for
Something to support you. Something
To hold your balance right straight.
Don’t we all.
And I’ve found it, and I’m here to
Share that little secret.
It’s top of the line.
Made to perfection. You can run
A marathon and think you’re flying
Through marshmallow clouds.
Try them out.
Let me see you walk in them.
Real nice, huh. Now they’ll break in
Soon. Should only hurt for a little while.
People say that same thing -
They hurt right there, the middle of the sole.
But they’ll come back in six months,
Crying for the same pair.
(submitted by a friend)
your name, Molly Looze (for 11/24)
the silhouette of your name across my lips
is an outlined sweet, a slick of honey sticking
like shadows in the corners of an empty room.
it stains my mouth in pomegranate red, a joy
built in my hands when they ripped the seeds
from the thick husk.
it’s garlic three days later, a taste that infiltrates
all the backbeats and feedback of my mouth,
like the wind breathing into a microphone.
i want to spend more time with your name,
swallow shots of it so it burns my throat
long into the night, so when i wake up
the hangover is an excuse for me to
think of you.
the vowels and syllables coalesce
between teeth and tongue, between roof of mouth
and cheeks to create one sweet harmony,
a homogeneous anatomy that
should be more than just a flavor; it
should be a part of me.
