Again my despair drapes over, the wedding veil settling just so, clouding my vision entirely. It's truly a courtship of sorts and I enter this agreement allowing it to puppeteer my steps-- dictating where I look, how I appear, forcing me to greet others with a reserved manner as to not get too far away from its hold and cause envy. I hear it lock the door behind us and I make certain to not turn and stare, plowing through the housework and rushing to bed before it can grow angry and pull my hair at the kitchen sink. It's outdated in nature, stripping my autonomy to the steel bones that prop up my previously donned androgynous demeanor. But at the altar I give myself away every time. I believe it's easier to let it guide you, walk arm-in-arm through the pews while the rice scratches and scatters about. Closing your eyes and stepping one-two-one-two is a simpler way to the end where the double doors meet you with ambiguous blinding light. I do, I do, I do.
Sickness has become me once more. Slow movements, muffled ears, 0 steps. While laying in bed with the window cracked to circulate the virus, the slight breeze brings a stench into my room, disrupting the stale one that was already lingering. A stuffy nose taints the vibrant sensory experience that is day-to-day living; an apple smells like carpet and rice tastes like shoe. But I'm aware of the cytoplasmic-like substance that a person shot down with illness is suspended in. Comforting at best and prison-like if a sufferer of FOMO. I take it in stride and take big noisy gulps of hot tea in a house emptied out by obligations.
I sit and collect used tissues on a makeshift nightstand and hope a little bit that I stay sick just a little longer.
World's Best Excuse.
please leave a voicemail when you call me
it’s much better to think that you
couldn’t wait to get the words out
and hear my hello
before you had to spill your contents
to a beep
and an empty silence
while you thought of
what i could possibly say to you.
and the news
good or bad
or maybe like
the mail truck didn’t come today,
but there’s always tomorrow
and then you end your sentence with a
call me back
and i do
and it’s beautiful just to know
that you cared enough to leave words to space
and believed that i'd hear them
maybe something new is happening
somethings changed and maybe i’ve been forgotten
i think maybe they never cared to remember
and these old cement blocks melt while minutes pass and my two
previously plucked gray hairs spring from my scalp to remind me that
no one knows each other anymore
and i think maybe its pivotal and pointed and painful and poignant and
Potentially Prosperous
that they don’t need to
watching my skin pale with each passing day growing towards my bed as the nights lengthen i'm not supposed to survive this way my scars become visible again and the last hours of summer fade from my skin the isolation the flip of my appearance i find myself doing the exact same things standing at the mirror examining the shape i take in each pair of underwear touching my chest staring into my features the season of inspection and introspection is upon us and i will overanalyze every step and every glance and every door held open until i break.
What do you have left?
A weight of thought and ill admitted hope
The only thing propelling you
is the squeak of a shoe and
the static in yours.
Crossed limbs pushing joints wayward
Wrapped into yourself
Guarded
An Armadillo.
Skin mucus tears saliva.
A trailing conversation and upward glares
Grey linoleum and artificial lighting
God this can’t be it.
Please don’t be it.
In silence it quickens
Your pace
A smile spreads across your eyes
Sharing with no one
You alone.
Loops in time.
Apple acidity burning a hole in my stomach.
Melting through falling slowly
Nod off
A slow touch
Bile rises to
A head wavers in tune
Wishuwerehere
Red heart balloon lost helium in due time.