Poetry

deep
breath
she breathes
and you lay your head upon her chest
to find her heart beat       beat
                                                      beating

you look up just in time to see the life
draining from her eyes
but you still hear the rhythm of her heart
                                                                         pounding
under each bruise left upon her skin

all you can do is watch
                                                      and wait

in here
she is safe (loved)
the rumble of the engine drones out
dangers waiting for her

these four wheels are only a haven
warmed by the smoldering anger inside you
and her body gently
withered in your arms

there’s a stench in the air
so devastatingly palpable
it burns your throat and every
nerve
as it travels through your body
you begin to wonder
if it’s your heart
that’s
stopped

frost like opaque glass covers the windows
and her hand burns memories in yours
yet you can do nothing to
stop
the hands of
the one who bore her from
smothering her smile

still the fire rages inside of you
it’s been doused in gasoline
leaving a bitter taste in your mouth
and you feel

bottomless

the depth of your thoughts
has no limits
because you demand                       retribution

demands fall empty on the soulless mind
whose words have brutally destroyed the person
she could have been
yet they still aren’t satisfied                                         oh

how they hunger
for utter
annihilation
no semblance of hope

you wish the fire inside of you would burn
so
                    far and                         wide
that it would obliterate them
where they stand
and as your feet brush through the ashes
then she would be able to

Rise.

When my mother asked me how I can stand all the noise that comes with living in the city, I said simply,
“I prefer noise.”

Her expression was akin to a young child’s after being scolded for eating the last biscuit.
“Noise?” she said. “How can you prefer noise when silence is so calming?”

I smiled (it was a patient little thing), and explained,

“I prefer noise.
I prefer thunderous, ear-shattering music and
bafflingly loud drum solos and
deafening guitar shredding

over the tick-tock of the second hand in a quiet room.

I prefer the discordant chorus of canned laughter on the television and
a taxi driver’s horn blaring outside my window as some asshole cuts him off and
the shrill, outraged yells of the school children across the street

over the low chirping of birds in a tranquil garden.

Yes, mother; I prefer the explosion of speech and music and life
over the quietude of polite air.

Because while the silence of still life can bring my wildly beating heart
to a whopping sixty beats-per-minute,

the boisterousness of city life can raise it until I fear I am tachycardic
and lower it until I am almost convinced it has taken a long-earned rest;
it can take my heart from that sixty beats-per-minute to one-hundred-seventy-four and back again
until it matches the rapid pulse of the city.”

Justice contracts, ebbs and recedes in wake
of a tar-feathered crow. grease slicked, its attempts
to take flight are hampered as if by broken
wingtip – its violent talons are cut on sandstone
and fireclay. descendant of Beelzebub
with abalone sight, malignant and desiring…
its shrill speech communicates lustful claims
for grisly pounds of flesh and liver to peck at.

I do not wear my own friendship bracelets.
I do not parade my work against my blonded wrist.
It is as a shadow that I reveal my craftsmanship;
only existing in a second-hand account sort of way.

I give myself away in these bracelets.
I do it again – if only for a brief glimpse of gratitude.
My most recent gift was to a bright, lonely girl;
her face lifted by the delight of unanticipated glee.
The bracelet was intended for her; the reaction, for me.

I make mistakes in the string, who doesn’t?
I imagine that her gaze washes over it
like a forgiving laundry soap that forgoes the stains.
or, (and perhaps this is more stirring,)
I imagine that my accidental knots
add character to these little trinkets I devise
so I try to ignore the placement of her eyes.

These mistakes reveal me; I revel in these mistakes
an accidental mash of colors that somehow create
something beautiful, or, if that proves unattainable,
something appreciated, something worn.