I Quelled an Ache

I quelled an ache

I made it warm

Little questioned

A hug

I relied on a hug

I was myself

You, the same

Wild Berry Zyn

Wild berry Zyn

Because that’s all they had

And that’s fine

I got an aftermath peppermint patty in my pocket

Shit, I’d suck a toe nail dry

If it means I’ll get a buzz

I’ll suck the polish off the pinky

Let the top coat leave and the pink go warped

Like the growth between her legs

I’ll suck that dry too

Take back the juice I bottled

I’ll suck my babies right out of this world

Do them right

I do right by my kids

Let them never see the light

Or the next president

And their saliva dripping combover

Just be bald

It’s brave

Not bold

But brave

Like the man who orders branzino on the bone

Not because he likes it, but because he’s Sicilian

And ain’t about to punk out his people

This wild berry Zyn taste like codeine

Spidering down my system

The fastest way for a drug to hit,

Besides blowing out a vein

And while I prefer the intravenous way

I’ll take it between the gums—

Let the gout go dry

Benevolent Instrument

Benevolent instrument

Play the beneficiary to my bond

I’ll pay, I’ll slip out of my duster

My fingers will drag

They will plant where it hurts

You will lay, legs crossed

Eyes fixed on my blooded clot

Where the heart fills, forms, forgets

All that came before

Matters very little now

I ain’t practicing perfection

I am perfect

Exactly as intended

Decidedly so

If all is, I am the all that is

I don’t need to practice perfection

I ain’t near it

I am it

The fucked up sum of my parts

Couldn’t derail this equation

The algorithm is all that I want

Wouldn’t matter

If you hated it

Because

I am perfect

Exactly as intended

Decidedly so

I Ain’t Practicing Perfection

Come With? To the Brink.

Come with?

To the brink.

Sprig the pump.

Quench my dry.

Spoon the honey.

Coat me raw.

Stoke the log.

Warm my spine.

Suck my shiver.

Knead these balmy thighs.

My extremities are waiting,

And this damp is of your making.

My fantasy unfolding…

My skin so very stuck…

Lichen on the basalt rock.

My Soul Sought Yours

My soul sought yours

I, in need of salvation

Your chest, the holy grail

I, in need of rest

I have a need now—may it never go away

Before Bed, a Poem Came

Before bed, a poem came

Decidedly mine

Written, slipped

beneath the silk cover

Unable to close my eyes again,

I dug myself out of the weighted wool

to peak out the window,

To see the summit laying snowside to my sleepless endure

By the Time You Said Hello

By the time you said hello,

I was gone.

Mucking my way through,

a fruit fly not far behind

the narrowing of my eye.

My love held between

a fly mask,

And as I travelled

the moon met me,

over the washed meadow

where weeds sat unplucked.

I turned around knowing

you’d still be there

waiting, wishing my heart was indifferent,

negotiable, shapeless

to the same truth that led me here.

I feared the trail,

the going so alone,

but the alternative felt

like a greater abandoning—

the horseshoe left behind.

Liberation is Subjective

Falconry

Plushing

Untenured

Ladle lipped soft

Hardening felt

Despondant

Taxonomy

Pirouette

Frock

Slips

From my collars

My boned vacancy

Truancy of soul

Abandonment beckoning

Pardoned condoled

Summer

Is

almost here

Yet I am unwarmed by the idea

I Go to the Andes

I go to the Andes

To seek my reprisal

Over God

Yama-no-Kami

Primordial of truths

Many

Seek

All

Die

Along

The plains

A Poem Only Comes it is Never Asked for

A poem only comes, it is never asked for

But I’ve thought of you, indiscriminately

Without a rulebook

In purity, my heart on palm

Releasing a clench, finding an openness to niceties

I think first of being in the truck bed

Playing songs I always hoped to use,

Relate to, and not cancel out

Laying on top of your bones,

All over, in, under

I think of the way our eyes met

As if it wasn’t a meeting, but a merging,

Not a maybe in mind,

But a yes guaranteed

I think of the way I felt when you walked away

For gas, food, must of been something for me

I was like a dog awaiting your return

It was fulfillment,

You coming home,

like the Pringles in the hitchhiker’s belly

I think of us, again, in the truck,

You and I, unfolding flowers

No pretense, worry, or escape design

Just stillness, in the pelting of rain on tarp

You hit soft

like the water that took your legs and not mine,

piggybacking me across the stream.

I think of how you put the pot on the stove

in the dead of night

despite the biting cold.

I think of how you remember

My distaste for candy watermelon,

My goings, comings, and all that I bring.

I think of how the wood split in two, when you thought the same of us

Still the fire was built by your hand,

maybe even your heart.

Seeing,

that me

in it makes it warm.