“Texts I never sent”

“I wish I could fix you so you’d be a better friend”

“I’m afraid to love you”

“I really wonder if you’d even talk to me if you weren’t desperate for someone to talk to in this town”

“Why don’t you love you like I love you? Are you that broken to see how beautiful you are?”

“I don’t want to talk to you anymore, but I feel like I have to because we were in the band together”

“I love watching you get fat. Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it? :)”

“I’m never letting go of you. Even if I wanted to.”

“I didn’t even intend to respond to your text, but I’m being polite.”

“I feel entirely incapable of dealing with your shit.”

“He’s literally losing his mind and no one will stop him.”

“What on this earth compels you to act like such a tool? Especially when your daughter is on the line.”

“I’m not the least bit sorry for you. You deserve everything that has happened to you. I hope your sons forget you.”

 

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Four Poems on April 4

1. St. Pete’s Dragon

Five hundred feet from the bus stop

when no one was around

we would pretend we were dragons.

Five hundred miles from where I was then

your fiery breath still haunts me,

and your scorch marks still burn my thighs.

 

2. Full Heart

When the moon and I talk about you

The sky lights up so brightly that

the wolves in my chest howl your name.

They keep watch over my heart

protect me like a newborn pup

knowing all too well that someday

My heart will be wild again

when it’s ready.

 

3. Mass Media

Lines blur between science

and fiction. The news

I read pulls our arms

apart when we should be pulling

together. Our experiences

are louder, larger

than any size printed font.

 

4. Geriatric Avoidance

Your hands shake like hers

Your mind breaks like hers

Your wrinkles swim across your face

like hers

I will miss you as much as I miss

her.

National Poetry Month

Okay, so April is National Poetry Month in the US (and other countries, perhaps?), so many writers are trying to write a new poem every day for the month of April.

Holy shit. That’s… huge.

I just finished reading “Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert, and I feel like maybe I could take on the challenge. Or at least write every day and perhaps something good will come out of those 30 days. Here’s hoping.

That being said, I’ll be writing three poems today (holy fuck what am I doing?!) to catch up.

 

 

Thoughts and Prayers

When I hear,

“Our thoughts and prayers are with you”

it reminds me of how alone I am

we are

with your thoughts and prayers

drifting above in the air

like pollutants and biochemical babble.

 

Your “thoughts and prayers”

are toxic, lethal silence at a time

when your voice should be shaking with mine

hands shaking like mine

fists clenched, raised high in the air like mine

anger spewing past your lips like mine

but all we get are your thoughts and prayers.

 

And in those thoughts and prayers are, what?

Hope for change? Prayers for peace?

Or quiet servitude to a parsimonious monster?

Self-indulgence in the name of the Father

and our forgotten sons

and the Holy Dollar.

Your thoughts and prayers move no mountains.

Even God sees your silent subterfuge.

 

In the midst of thoughts and prayers,

anger, hatred, and unfairness ring

louder than your convictions.

God is a woman

When you died, your breath was

heavy for the longest time

but when we started talking

about God

and her big arms and beautiful hair,

you were calm.

And we knew, between

the echoes of the empty walls

and the solitude of that winter night,

God is a woman.

She came to you, picked you up

in her big arms and beautiful hair

and carried you home with her.