On the Distribution of One's Heart

On the Distribution of One's Heart

(A Haiku Quintet)

I had given my

heart to someone who didn’t

know how to hold it.

Instead, they cradled

it like an adolescent

with a stranger’s child:

awkward and uneasy,

with a fear of falling

head first and snapping.

I gave my heart to

someone who didn’t quite want

it and was surprised

when they gave it back.

They said to keep it safe, but

their fingers left bruises.

Chennette

I was born like a chennette:

My green mother-

sliced open down the middle,

And me- squeezed out.

 Pink, sticky, sour.

Drowning

Drowning
(A Haiku Pair)

I am drowning. You

have oversaturated

me, but I need it.

You overwhelm me.

I gasp for air but choking

never felt so good.

Going The Distance

Have you ever gone through your personal poetry archives and stumbled upon an old piece that, at the time of writing, you were convinced was absolutely awful, but now that you've given it some space, it turns out it wasn't too bad after all? This piece is one of them. It's almost a year old and no longer personally relevant, but I hope you like it.

Distance pulls heartstrings taut

While memory taunts

Sighs go unanswered

Empty promises fill

Where your touch should be.

Silence breeds disquiet:

I quietly wonder

If it’ll be worth it in the end.

The Sea

The waves sang the same siren song that had lulled me to sleep as a child

and I swore that this time I fathomed them

I tasted the subtle warmth of the salt in the air

And I let the openness of the water trick me into thinking I could grasp her

But as the grey of dusk fell away into night

the dark of the sea stopped revealing the secrets of her depths

It was then that I learned the truth

We never stop fearing the unknown

Anthology

I would write you everyday.

Poems and scribbles and notes,

Until you learned

The unevenness of my hand

The habits of my penmanship

The chaos of my scrawl.

In a world of dying paper and ink

They would save every scrap

Torn from the back of notebooks

Jotted down on well-folded receipts

They would compile anthologies of my sweet nothings

Until children who had long forgotten pens and lined paper

Would press their fingers into the ink and indentations

And know this is what devotion feels like.

For The Moth That Lived and Died In My Bathroom

And his wings, folded

shut in death, concealed that he

had been beautiful