Bloodletting (I’m sorry)

poetry

So it was a cold dark January in Michigan
as they often are and we
would pull together for warmth every
now and then and I would consider you
and I think you would consider me, also

While the cars screamed down the avenues
and gangs of howling young-adults roved
to and fro before your otherwise relatively
peaceful abode I tried to steel myself
from the knives you would find

The lacerations always sting a bit but
they usually heal quickly enough with
a lot of pressure and
a little bit of time but they cut
somewhat deeper than they look sometimes,
those knives of yours

Sometimes while nursing a particularly
gruesome slice I would be speechless,
though I never mean to keep you waiting
and I want you to know that I won’t bleed out
and I need you to know that I’m sorry

Sometimes during these long cold Januarys
I know you have your own wounds to clean
because it’s still cold and dark here in Michigan
and I find plenty of my own knives, too.

when i ran away, rachel robinson

poetry

if i could live
16 again
i would meet you
in the open field
with your boys
at 2 or 3 am
and knowing then
what i know now
i would close my
laptop lid
and walk miles
in the cold country
darkness and
fight you with
everything i had

even if your boys
came in, as i
had feared
and stomped me
to pulp
i would lie my
bloodied face
on the thick,
dew covered grass
of my hometown
and laugh a crazy laugh
and spit the blood
out and laugh

and if you didn’t
kill me,
i would be better
for that

maybe better, some
how
than i am today

maybe i wouldn’t shake
or worry so much
maybe i’d be a better
man.

pining for the 424

poetry

swimming in a man-made lake
on my plastic factory break
“oh god!” i say feeling like a snake
after i intake the toxic rape
of the buildings cutting in
to the sky’s real estate

oh the m t p streets covered
in feces and empty seeds
all signs hiding an awful
deceit, promising weight
behind the word compete
feeding an off-tempo beat
to the hungry and weak

but the whistle blows and
i suppose i should put on
my clothes and be composed
for my home groans for the
oil and bones and keeping it
fed is part of a human being’s
growth (or a human being a ghost).

the zoo

poetry

all those mirrors
i’ve left them for dead
my eyesight’s improving
despite what they said
and the fireworks were just
flares we shot before we drowned
that july fourth that
i can’t remember much of now
all the smoke i inhaled
we followed the trail
it lead back to home
or somewhere close i suppose
all our idols strum guitars
and we headbang again and again
running from
the places we’ve been