[x]

Happy Birthday"This evening, Michelle and I will do what I know every parent in America will do, which is hug our children a little tighter, and we'll tell them that we love them, and we'll remind each other how deeply we love one another. But there are families in Connecticut who cannot do that tonight..." ~ Barack Obama

Next year I will wrap you presents
and you will not understand the need for bows,
but will reach towards them for days
in anticipation.

I will fret my wardrobe decision: do I dress you
for photographs or in a pattern that will hide
your smudgy fingerprints? Or maybe the floral one
your grandmother, your father's mother,
will su

Antarctic ToesToes,
Antarctic and trapped
under layers of winter,
beg to be taken
between knobby knees
and sweaty thighs,
warmed like your breath
on my neck in the night.

Breathe on me once more;
the fear shaking your soul
is fleeting
and I promise that altar
will look less like a monster
from the other side of our vows
and the exchanging
of rings.

like a golden calf, like a splintering altar1

for so long, i mistake the pindrop
ricochets of the sadness inside me
for the vastness of me and come to

find out that what i think are the small
brittle crumbs of my body are really the
unbrave unsung unsage echoes of the
cowardice stringing me, jilted, along;

the evergreened thought, split open and
splayed wide, that the sound is scared
of its brutish toothsome tiny stature

in comparison to my untotaled uncounted
formidable infinity.

2

my wrists, not twiglike, not readytoserve
porcelaincup-curved conspirators. and they
do not bend easily, and so why should they

cringe

for you?

3

that the throbbing in my chest is not the
so

straddled stung strokedkissing you like being swallowed
kissing you like swallowing like
wanting to get at your throat

but caught transfixed by your mouth;
the obscene jut of your adam's
apple and realizing i can bite at

your slick lips your slick tongue
your stubble your jawline and you

will let me. my stomach stretching
taut with bewildered bewitched obedience
at the upward slide of your dry hot

hand. my ribs, introverted as bones
come, begging for mouths to use to
beg for your palm at their peaks;

you take as graciously as the grind
of my hips against yours, quiet

and secondnature. i give as openly & as
desperately as i can manage, inviting you
in as

deconstructionthere's an astral penance
in
being that body.

birth is the greatest failure.

that suns set fire to the globules
and smoothed their scar collective
to your saturday pelt
you wheel about,
the broken arbor of a clock

that spacetime folds
for the pulse
beneath the colour of your cheeks

that you slide your thin veneer
between the panes,
pushing out your nervous bulb
six dozen springs

that you know it is a room
that makes a door,
a house that makes a room
and mountains
flake
into your eyes

that we’ll pile upon each other,
soon,
layers and then layers,
we'll become petroleum

and impenetrable god particles
simpering for a sc

(Dis)SolutionYou,
water-bodied and tongue
iridescent,
would spill cider as a solvent
on sobriety;

I'd be a clumsy counterpart
licking salt from the rim
without drinking

trying to imagine, here and now,
then and there
and getting lost in the parallels
between.

far southhere,
death comes with a swoop and a howl,
and glaciers pour their life blood
to the unfeeling ocean.
here, the space is deep
a deadfall--
the sea flat black
and frost-choked,
gasping in hisses and rattlebreaths.
swollen tides will
roam.
the breakers are hungry.

suckleyou pry me open
like a blood orange:
a scrape of sugar on my tongue,
a taste like sunrise.

you take in
the salt and slick and
split
of my thighs,
the pulped tomato
of my heart,

the fabric and
steel bones
of an artificial ribcage

as you unknot
them all.

I draw my first
deep breath
and it smells of citrus
and coitus and
you

lightsdon't be fooled--
the sky is not static.
there is an infinity between any
two points,
infinite hex codes
between the bounds of the spectrum--
infinite blues.
this is the great secret of the universe, this
cosmic light show
we can't detect--
the changes too small for our
wondering
wandering eyes.
perhaps there is someone out there--someone else
who notices
even if he cannot see.
and perhaps
his blue
is not my blue--perhaps it all comes down
to perception,
to the chemicals
electrical impulses
the spin of individual molecules that all add up to become
blue.
our own blue.
maybe it's all on us.
maybe
the cosmos isn't trying because, really--
if i were the cosmos
i would have better things to do.
maybe there is something
beautiful
in that.
in us.
in our ability to overanalyze
and oversimplify--our ability
to realize we know nothing
and forget
and try again, anyway.

SuffocatingAnd babe, the truth is,
I'm just the landfill you dump
your bad days into.

Husks of the PastYellow Jacket flannel hangs
in the back of my closet,
an active memory hive.

I put it on sometimes,
deep pockets engulfing me
and buttons pressed to my skin
like a threat.

A trace of your cologne
still lingers,
the promise of spring
snatched away too soon.

I dream of being suffocated;
it always smells like you.

the beauty's in the leavingRead aloud here.
sweetheart, let's head out. let's
drink up the desert asphalt and that last bottle
of johnny walker blue--
one last toast to the copper sunsets,
to the good earth. a pair of
tailgate stargazers, you and i:
roaming curves across the glove compartment map, until
every foldline is worn flannel-soft
and it'd rather stay open
than closed.
let's forget route sixty-six. let's forget
the numbers
and pick up terra cotta dust--
breathe in the mojave. let's pretend
that the world's already ended
and it's just us.
let's leave the door unlocked
and go
west.

flowerstoo long
i’ve held watch
over slovens in my chrysalis
rooting in my diaries,
in toilets
and in traffic.

i dream of razing their genitals.
if not for this ugly sycophant . . .

no,

if not for limestone
swept
into mud
how would i know
what instincts have been rewarded?

if i hadn’t made things
sacrosanct,
tree lines as noble architects,
a face, some godly panic

then i’d just see a headless corpse
some cat had torn
from shallow burrows
instead of this:

an Algernon

as still
and as holy
as
the flowers
that you left.

The Growing Seasoni.
we slipped between each other's flesh,
intoxicated on the nectar—
never careful enough
to avoid the bitter seeds
of a previous commitment.

ii.
each night the pregnant ache coaxes
wicked acts to replay
along my nerve endings and synapses;
each night, the gardener's
tending hands
rooting deep.

iii.
were I to untether myself,
to prune the growing stillborn
from my chest,
you'd have no secrets
conceived of sin;
no reason to carry my face,
my voice, my touch,
in a painful miscarriage
of our unprotected actions—

were I
less than a weed.

iv.
each morning my stomach rejects
the early hour
into my utilitarian b

UnlayeringThere are words queuing in line
 for the page, simple words, trite
 words, words of circumstance, words
 the world could have never gone on
 without their repeating; as day and night and fear,
 the kind of words you never wanted from me,
 void of Eutony, a simple psalm
 of sound rhythm, but—

  they cannot go unspoken any longer:

  My heart unfolds like an infinite peel,
 an onion pulled fresh from damp earth
 that has forgotten it was once fertile.
 You wash away packed dirt and tear
 roots with your fingernails. The inside
 of y

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More from *staphysagria

spleenone:

we kissed while watching propaganda
you never spoke to me again

two:

it wasn't really fun,
just confused

you know that

three:

I loved you so much,
and still do

but there was nothing there

four:

I still think of you,
no-one ever fit me so well

I tell myself it couldn't work
but maybe it's because you're older

it never bothered me

five:

I don't know why I thought
it would be a good idea
to fuck a man
who left condoms around the room
and prayed to three different gods

one day I will visit you in prison

six:

please,
be more like four than three

lymphoid.I went for a run before midnight
passed a dancing class for old friends
and a school with mannequins

the bus stop was covered in blood
but I could barely see for crying

I've worn this shirt four days in a row
mother only wore it once;
wringing it around my thumbs

I wondered why I was so upset

Glass.I will not write
about wanting the world to stop
so I can build
a bridge; mend
that little sore
on the back of your neck

I am not broken and
words and words in circles
on pictures mean nothing
to me

but the other night
when I curled into a ball
and forgot to fight - as always-

when you said:
"I'm not sure I can keep doing this"

my response was:
"is there something wrong
with me?"

Tickets.he watches that show
every night,

about film and films and how the
world is just about beauty and stories

I do not know how I feel.

Neapolitan.tonight I am going to write,

with copper in my belly and
a monsoon outside my window

about how I will be forever
not-quite-myself, because I never was
in the first place

i.
you said you wanted dialogue, dialogue
without madness or brooding

'I freeze'

nothing to say,
nothing to think,
empty empty

ii.

'one thinks best in the shower'

so I tried
and thought just
about how I cannot think

what is wrong with me

iii.

and I need to talk
to someone;

I cannot drive miles in
this car
without someone
to revive me

iv.

maybe I cannot think
about things the way you do

I curl into a ball
and shut myself out
in the garden

v.

I can neither spea

Blueberries.today I was a sailor
like how you were on the night
you loved me then fucked me in the car

we won an award
for being lovely.

and you are living in the house
I left to become free

I wonder if you'll find my letters --
there are pictures of us
in the top drawer.

today I thought about
the boy I loved for a day,
the girls who don't know
and the girl I wanted there

I hope she's okay,
I know she's not.

and I have feelings,
but no thoughts;
they dampen my heart

and now myself is
dull, muddy.

"what's the best thing?"
"sex."
"it's better than sex. better than crack:

all-encompassing love."

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[x]

Copper.

by *staphysagria, Jan 20, 2013, 7:53:20 PM
Literature / Poetry / Romantic / General / Free Verse

I tried to find a poem for you
but all I found
were words that spoke about
flowers, and growing old
and nothing that suited
you

one spoke
about a lighthouse and a dog
dying
and one described your eyes
blue-silk like moonlight

and there were those in languages
I couldn't speak

except for
one, that said
as well as I ever could

I love you.

Copper.by *staphysagria

Literature / Poetry / Romantic / General / Free Verse

<Insert love poem here.>

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*archelyxs Jan 31, 2013

This touched my stone-cold heart.

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=Sammur-amat Jan 28, 2013 General Artist

this piece is beautiful crystal saccharine

Reply

~MeineSehnsucht Jan 24, 2013 Writer

Great to see new poetry from you. Where you been, dearie? Anyway, I really, really love that idea of finding a poem.

Reply

~craazhy Jan 23, 2013 Professional Writer

Titanic.

Reply

~DamagedHomewrecker Jan 22, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

absolutely gorgeous

Reply

*glossolalias Jan 21, 2013

mmm, beautiful.

Reply

~Is-lnds Jan 21, 2013

she's baaack.

Reply

`FuzzyHoser Jan 21, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Mmm....I love how your poems are so light and airy, completely gorgeous and without the nonsense that's so very unnecessary.

Reply

*scatteredwords Jan 21, 2013

Hey, it's nice to see you back.

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~Karinta Jan 21, 2013 Student General Artist

I like it.

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