poetry party in the japanese garden

This is when I don't want summer to come, this is when I want to stay outside drunk under the chicago night sky forever, laughing too loudly and sharing too much of ourselves, stumbling through darkness and new acquaintances, cementing momentary friendships and dancing to the beats we sing for ourselves...

sing along

         a song i know so well it writes itself onto the bottom of my stomach, chords sounding in time with my breath, my heartbeat, i'm so in tune with this tune i could call it my own i could sing it in my sleep. a voice rich and deep and soothing, words almost heavyhanded in their simplicity and honesty, heartbreakingly beautiful as my limbs start moving and i start swirling and tapping and nodding in time. play me a song that's ingrained in my self, i'll sing you the refrain without a thought, i'll do anything for that swell in my chest and that relief in my throat. i swallow the notes like smooth lemon drops, i bury myself in the sound as it whisks me up up and away. a song i know so well it writes itself onto the bottom of my stomach, a song to my heart.

suspended animation

tripping on insomnia, i'm
seeing reflections in the air,
colors on the walls
my face is numb
pounded by waves of would-be sleep
swallowing my words
tracing imaginary outlines
floating on the rhythm of my pulse
tasting promises of REM on my tongue
involuntary shivers and limbs
holding me down
paperweights on my sentience
eyes swirling, lights burning
let my lids drop and
calming darkness soothes
blissful unconsciousness
takes hold

back up

   walking down the sidewalk today felt like it was couples everywhere & i thought to myself
                  i never asked for a happy ending or a saccharine love story; i craved the tragic and the transitory, the fleeting and intense.

my way home from the GSB was strange today somehow - everything triggered way too vivid memories...if this was a movie it would have been misty fadeaways to a montage accompanied by cheesy music and glamorous reenactments. But this is life, so it was me walking a little slower and more thoughtfully, wistful and thinking of a one-night stand with a blurry face and a name that's slipped away, the rest of the scenario remembered - his roommate, her dog, the dinner he cooked me, the sweetest of goodbye kisses. And then moments i do still have, boys i do recall, just tucked away where i'd forgotten they existed...the abandoned church, the walk after class, throwing grass at each other and lying in the park. Winter break semi-romances with us both too cynical, losing the magic with the walk of shame.

it was strange, that's all. A chance overheard word, a street i haven't walked down in a while...sparking sudden startling forays into my head, into the past...getting Clem Snide stuck in my head, singing again and again I don't wanna know me better...

            and then i check my messages and his voice is enough to make me smile and i feel silly in my smitten state.

Shakori Hills Grassroots Fest in NC:

checkerboards

holes in my shoes growing bigger by the day yawning and gaping with every step every flex every adventure i'll dance my way down twisty sidewalks pull off my shoes and stroll languidly barefoot in the grass push my toes into these blue skies this sunny day the cool dirt - slip my feet back in and feel the tears inching wider, creeping to reveal multicolored socks, drawing a raggedly fluid map of my travels - if the whites turn to browns turn to grays are they any less beautiful? picking up pigment from perilous puddles, if you take the road less traveled believe me you will get holes in yr shoes!

vanish

let's run away into a turquoise dream let's vanish in a puff
of patchouli-scented smoke we'll float up and jump from
cloud to cloud we won't fall i promise. let's linger in
archaic daydreams and blow smoke rings through tangled
thoughts and nonsensical conversations that mean the world
when our implausible playground collapses into a pile of
originality then where will we go? let's sail on avocado
seas till we reach a center and bounce between transient
peach-colored tropic isles that imprison our senses. we'll
flit and float and fly and find the unimaginable
unattainable undefined we'll be picturesque and silly we'll
give them the slip and in this blissful somnabulance we'll
never wake up.



last month, for spring break - cleveland, boston, chapel hill, athens:

Calc 132

numbers
symbols
skritch scratch on the
misty blackboard
lines &
dashes
fingers flying
arms flailing
chalk falls to the tray with a monumental
thunk
dust swirls
glazed eyes
calculations filling space
skritch scratch
dit dash
makes a tune, a
song, a
beat to
put me to sleep

transitions

rearranging my expressions
stealing cognizance
undoing my buttons;
it was perfect until i dissolved into stardust
blew through an open pane
in the spun sugar window of obsolescence –
i sang myself dizzy &
kissed life confused full on the lips
sparkles of prisms a mite too blinding
who will i be
when the sequins fade from my dress
falling to slivers of lost glory
in the cracks between the floorboards?
it’s the end of the world as we know it and
i see a light at the end of the tunnel –
let’s chase it down and stuff it in the back pocket
of my water-logged jeans.
i’m losing my insanity
finding a neverland between worlds –
transitions are never easy

osculation

reduce the space between us
draw me impishly into your proximity
if i’m malleable will you mold me into a murmur of myself?

mesmerized, fantasized, cauterized
our open faces, open mouths
open eyes

your lips are unbearably
               there
too far, too close

melt into me & i’ll
stick like cornbread
to an ungreased pan, i'll

move like twilight; your
violet enticement is
                           exhilarating

circus party

           the party last night was outside under the stars, circling around the fire, candles in the grass, music and dancing everywhere

                                 kids breathing fire, spinning fire, juggling fire, eating fire, hammocks and colored lights and cheap wine, hand-rolled cigarettes, pot smoke drifting, and familiar faces i hadn't yet met

                      a singing smiling cop come to disperse us, hugs goodbye and long walks home


& last month, there was a Mardi Gras party:

breathe in, breathe out

all i wanna do is let it be and be with you and watch the winter turn to spring, you make me forget i'm cold when i breathe in yr kisses like smoke, breathe in yr words like powdered sugar, taste the stars on my tongue; i'll write yr thoughts on my heart with a sharpie to amaze a doctor peering into my chest with this aortic tattoo, pictures of lights and nights and love - i wish i could photograph the way you make me feel, instead let's sleep in the grass, build rainbows and cloud constellations, i'll trace a heart on yr forehead and blow you a kiss cuz you color my world beautiful, yr like a whisper of deja vu everytime i fill my lungs with you, exhale a frosty silhouette - if you can see yr breath on my soul it means yr sparkle will never fade.

love poem to coffee

good coffee tastes like dusk
like a song, like
that memory you can't let go of, it
intrigues, entices, pulls you in
glides over yr tongue like
warm moonlight on the water, it
teases with a bitter tinge
tantalizes with tender fullness, smoky
sweet like ghost stories by the campfire
strange in how it lingers like
a whisper in the air, in yr soul
good coffee to drink black pure black
grip the mug steaming
hot between yr hands inhale deeply,
savor on yr breath, analyze &
memorize, close yr eyes &
swallow

insomniac love story

i want
an insomniac love story,
meetings in the dark,
only nighttime activities
never real meals only
midnight snacks and
2 am concoctions made from
whatever we can find, we'll
stay up and watch the sunrise,
seek fortunes in our tea leaves, we'll
tell each other stories in our
gravelly late-night voices, we'll
lie down and stare at the ceiling,
explore empty hallways and alleys,
discover the world hidden by cover of day, we'll
laugh too loudly,
think too deeply,
ignore the exhaustion in our bones.
we'll see everything in that way
brought on only by sleeplessness
holding gazes a little too long
reacting a little too slowly
learning to tiptoe and
whisper and
cover our tracks.
it's a certain kind of love story &
we're a certain kind of people, let's
rendezvous at midnight.

clean pajamas

clean pajamas waiting and i'll sink my teeth into this moment of erasure
washing the weekend off my skin out of my hair down the drain with all the sweat and lust and regret all the remnants of who and what i've done vanishing in a swirl of water at my feet
piling up the laundry burying my nose in a sweatshirt reeking of cigar smoke and sex and cheap vodka, whispers of promises and drunken discussions and the feeling that the world was ours
ready to begin the week so fresh and so clean wiping off layer upon layer of accumulated eyeliner picking scattered shoes off the floor curling up to do some work
clean pajamas and the world is new again a blank slate to sketch an outline of myself a regretful return to reality a reminder that there's more than revelry

snuggling

talking of everything and nothing breathing our words like smoke into each other's mouths lips brushing as we speak moving like almost kisses tasting his thoughts on my tongue faces smushed together lips on lips teasing and taunting inhaling his words like almost kisses in the dark