Filed under: Uncategorized
There’s something odd about a bright blue sky at 8am in January
Expectations of 80 today.
I bought new shoes last night,
went to yoga, went to a show.
Saw my friend Ben play sad songs, all rock and violence
I wondered about catharsis.
Talked about how beautiful my friend’s girlfriend was.
She’s got these eyes that just zing, you know?
Saw some friends, saw people I didn’t know.
Got protective of the ones I did know.
Stood there, wondering about catharsis and why my shoulders never
seem to relax anymore.
Felt my phone buzz, ignored the texts until Ben was offstage.
Felt my phone ring. Took a call, hunched over on the back patio
chilly, hearing a voice over the buzz of people talking about nothing.
Heard a voice 3 hours ahead.
Strange how phones are like time travel.
Missed the body attached to the voice. Missed that body next to mine and the hands
attached to the mind attached to the voice 3 hours ahead.
Walked to my car alone. Didn’t listen to anything well
listened to whatever was on the radio. Didn’t hear.
Debated getting a taco or a burrito. Didn’t.
Got home. Ate leftover sticky rice. I think I showered.
Last night I dreamed about feeling relaxed. In my hands were
a million strings.
I was making something.
Woke up at 5:45am. Got out of bed at 6:13am. Got to my car at 6:30am.
Got to work at 7:30am. The radio droned about republicans and South Carolina.
Traffic wasn’t as bad as usual.
The sky is completely clear.
Expect highs of 80.
My beauties.
Gentle loves, those that I’ve not yet met:
all I want in the world is a wood floored empty room
our voices and the late night and maybe a guitar
I want us to be together
in that empty room with it’s wide cool planks and
I would hope we’d be barefoot
we’d talk about the things we loved
as kids, when we hadn’t met yet and didn’t know
About the sweetness of whiskey and
red wine fumbling fingers
the slow fade of painkillers
My darling, you lived so far from me forever
maybe I won’t recognize you when we meet
But I can hope that I will and
you will know about these nights sitting on wooden floors
and the songs I can’t write
the words that drop from wine-bruised lips
that melody in my head unrealized
until we held hands
I’d like to fall in love with you with my feet
in the Pacific and my head in the autumn sunset
my mind stalled
everything spinning
My beauties,
I’ll think about you in the years to come:
I’ll hope that we have these infinite nights together
Whether I can see your eyes or not
And that these songs don’t stop and they play into the darkness
Orion will forget his burdens and dance
red wine on his lips.
there is something about it that is cancerous
there is something about it
it eats away
wraps and burns
something sinister
something perfect
something that even if I wanted to let it go, I couldn’t
something like
cutting off a pinky finger
the aestetic of keeping it outweighs the loss
among other things
and so it continues
for years
the pain becomes friendly
the pain becomes a friend
best friends
the one who is always there
the one you miss the most
this is how the past swirls from dust into
monstrous ghosts
this is how the past insidiously creeps into marrow
this is the lukemia of life
the living and healthy die of the photographs
and lint-lined pockets.
Filed under: Esme Writes, Poetry | Tags: Drunk, Echo Park, Esme Writes, Poetry, Silverlake, writing
there is no worship in this
there is no worship in
temples of slick bodies
the dependence all
but
gone
there are empty jars empty
tupperware telling me
your ghost is here
has been here
one thousand meals I’d
like to cook for you
reprisals of barefoot
dreams, thunder rolling
just so
you can’t tell it’s from hips
or ominous spearhead clouds
on the horizon
I’d love you til eternity
if you’d kiss my forehead before I sleep
I promised one night
he said he loved me over
the 4th beer
words that flap helplessly
in the din
the spell was broken
spacecraft explosions
shooting stars mistaken for satellites
mistaken for comets
jealous Orion’s left leg
swollen thick exaggerated swords
the skies always seem empty anyway
I fell in love that night after laughing off
drunken slurs.
there is no worship in this
there is no worship in all of this
it can be stuffed into empty jars
on my shelves.
Filed under: Uncategorized
new york people’s hearts busting
west coast forgetting the sun sets outside our doors.
She’s sending me 5am postcards talking about passing out on couches and as she slips into dreams knowing that hers is thinking of her as he lights his cigarette and absently strokes her hair.
Her last thought for the day is of hers. His of his.
new york people’s hearts going mad
west coast slithering on concrete grids.
I was in new york when people started letting their hearts go wild.
I danced on a rusting fire escape alone in the rain daring the bolts to snap the same as my neck would on the curb below.
My last thought of mine. My last thought of mine…
the hudson sighed.
the pacific reminded me that I am a fool.
Oh my lord. I am a fool.
new york people are letting their hearts go where they may without a second thought
west coast eating another taco and swallowing wine like so much medicine.
Oh my sweet anesthesia. I love the fools best.
She’s sending me words I barely recognize but I know about passing out on couches with thoughts of mine. I know about the lingering sunlight mornings of cigarettes and long hair.
Oh my lord I was a fool.
new york people flinging their hearts from 8th floor walkup windows and watching them fall breakneck speed shock of the pedestrians.
new york littering sidewalks with broken hearts and the echoes of splattering.
west coast shrugging our shoulders into bars
Oh my lord you fools.
you see. July took far too long to end.
July lasted for 14 years this month.
My hands are not steady enough to catch thread with a needle’s eye.
Goddamn I am a fool.
Filed under: Esme Writes, Poetry | Tags: Esme Writes, Michigan Love Lost, Poetry, summer
(We never want to grow up.)
The wishes of children
falling through slanted sunlight
all spirals
summer snow
flaking
dead dandelions.
His eyes
catching branches
my lips
just too close to his lashes
beneath aching trees
a brow filled kiss
friendship in token
but
found
in those mighty spaces
between black and white
lips love filled
desperate.
Love thrown
from bobbing beams
of flashlights leading
to
midnight
drying pond
dock ceremony
the crowned
king and queen
of fireflies.
Found objects
in thin moth wings
the sacred powder
dusting pockets
frayed holes
where things were lost.
Fingers rubbed
threadbare
bruises
wishing.
(We never grew up.)
Filed under: Esme Writes, Poetry | Tags: Bones, Ode to an '89 Beater, Poetry, ugly
I don’t think your bones are pretty.
Something like thorns in a dream I had
that hurt.
It was not in color or at least I cannot think back to any colors that were memorable.
Babe, I’m saying you’re forgettable,
with those awful sharp clavicles.
I don’t think your bones are pretty.
We can’t dance on your shattering toes.
The music’s too much and the best’s been gone for too long.
It’s dust in the bin, Babe.
You, them bones and the faded paper in the backseat plush of a ‘89 something or other, banged up white and rust.
Like them ugly bones. Those ugly, ugly bones.
–
Posted originally as a half-thought on my Tumblr: esme-a-day
Filed under: 30 Poems in 30 Days, Esme Writes, Poetry | Tags: 30 Poems in 30 Days, email poem, Esme Writes, National Poetry Month
I know that color of sky well.
(8 of 30)
Filed under: 30 Poems in 30 Days, Esme Writes, Poetry | Tags: Esme Writes, failure, National Poetry Month
everything always started with such a
rushing gush a swooping sweep
that sort of lovely excitement
and then it all slowed to a trickle and
the days have passed already where I have not
written a single word
and I hate myself for it.
(7 0f 30)
Filed under: 30 Poems in 30 Days, Esme Writes, Poetry | Tags: Echo Park, Esme Writes, Love, National Poetry Month, Poetry
If you wanted something
you should have spoken up
you should have taken one of those million opportunities I tossed to you
like so many pennies into dirty street corner hands
As a matter of fact, you should have just taken my hand.
You should have taken it on one of those violent dark drunk nights when
we stood next to each other, touching a lot too much.
There were sparks you should have tossed the tinder to.
Or rather you tossed the tinder to the wind, playing with probability
and slim chances.
You tried to predict where flint and steel shot their spawn.
It was such an impossible game.
So these moments that may have burned as a goddamn forrest fire
burned so brightly in their one second lifespans
and faded like alcohol soaked promises.
I would have loved you. Once.
I did love you. Once.
But now it’s been two years since we first crouched on concrete, danced long into the night
and yelled just to hear it echo over rooftops.
All these echoes.
All this echoing.
Maybe I wanted to make you hurt.
Maybe I want you to hurt.
Maybe I wanted
Maybe I want
Maybe I
Maybe…
(6 of 30 in 30)
