Tag: relationships

A Birthday Present

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Yes, it is
one of those kind
of boxes
that comes together
out of a deep curiosity
for what turns people on
about boxes
and flowers.

Dissonance is

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a lack of agreement or consistency,
in music, the mingling of discordant sounds.
the counterpart to consonance: harsh,
intentionally unstable.
an unconventional combination
of notes, in Latin, “to sound apart.”
the absence of assonance, cacophony
(unpleasantness) in phonaesthetics.
with cognitive, a condition
of conflict, of divergent ideas
held simultaneously.
an unsettled chord, or two
in need of completion.
you and I.
the upset of constant, consonant
harmony.
the key to complex
interactions.

The First

.Reading time 2 minutes.

We finger-fucked in Latin class,
and got away with it
by playing make-believe.

You were a concert pianist,
plucking the Bumblebee
in my panties.

I was an airline pilot,
preparing your cockpit
for the ascension.

We wasted our ripest years
playing bride and groom,
feeding off each other’s

Daddy issues, and
sharing everything but
the wet dreams.

You dreamt of MKs and
premeditated revenge
on mustaches, bottlecaps,
and Camel packs.

I dreamt of reading banned
books beneath streetlamps,
and lapping lattes at 9pm.

We thumbed rides off I-89
and hurdled over state lines
to bod-mod joints
in Vermont,
where they’d ink a kid
without permission.

You marked your body
♥ ab imo pectore ♥
in my name.

I marked your words
and hoped to die, survived
by warm-hearted man.

We begged consent of our parents,
and mine named you Hamartia:
the downfall, the bad boy phase.

We begged consent of our parents,
and yours named me Femme Fatale:
the one who plants ideas

of education, insurrection,
and riding two-wheelers
without protection.

lovers are lunatics
who speak with tongues and teeth,
in a language of promises

too big to keep,
in a language of lies
they dare call poetry.

We turned eighteen
with the leaves, and
dropped our love in embers.

You enlisted your body
with one hand, and tied
the other for safekeeping.

I enlisted the help
of my better judgment
to find an exit worth making,

and made it.
ab imo pectore, ego contristo
for leaving you.

A Love Poem

.Reading time 1 minute.

Reading her poetry stirred me up:                                                                                                   eye of newt, wing of dove — whatever.                                                                                           It did not matter. I would have fallen                                                                                               in love all the same.                                                                                                                               Yet, modest, she remained.                                                                                                                 She said: “In your presence, I can never                                                                               remember what to do with my letters;                                                                                           I connect consonant to vowel and                                                                                           vowel to consonant, but what comes out                                                                                   is not a language that I can recognize.                                                                                       Emily colored in her lips                                                                                                       with pencil-crayons, but always kept                                                                                           inside the lines; she was a “sometimes red,                                                                         sometimes deep magenta” kind of girl.                                                                                   She wore collared dresses and thimbles                                                                                   on her thumbs, with flushed cheeks that                                                                            seemed to say: “I know more of hugging                                                                               and kissing than I care to admit.”                                                                                                In her embrace, I was enveloped with                                                                                        the strength of a nightcap (fit snugly to                                                                                  my crown) and could never remember                                                                                    what to do with my Body.