#36 (first draft)

When I was eight years old, you said
from the garage,
"Come watch this storm with me."
And so we set up two lawn chairs barely pieced together;
their frayed plastic weave intact only
for the words we
faintly whispered so as not
to disturb the lightening.

When the rain fell it looked more like bullets
releasing their arsenal upon
pretty
flowers of
petty
gardeners. The thunder cut holes in my chest and
replaced my heart.
Maybe that's why the doctors don't understand
the beat of my life.
It's vulnerable like the energy that shook our house,
unpredictable and startling.
I still faint at the storms of my making.

My bones crack like the split tree that continues
to lean above the church steeple
because
we all know that it's better to test God and be failed
than to live a quiet lie.
My soul explodes the way the transformer's shrapnel glistened
in my eight year old irises.
It destroys, self destructs under the pressure and melancholy
that a sudden jolt to the head
can often cause.

And maybe I'm wrong.
This all-
this all may not have ever happened. Who's to say
we aren't all just
dreaming?
Who are we but a collection of eyes unaware of what we are really seeing?
The hand of the universe tries to jolt
us awake with a blast of
soupy air and
tentacles of desire
but we've always told that to go out is to combust.
To believe is devil's play.
But humanity is the devil's playground.

When I was eight years old you
wanted to watch the rain with me but you couldn't have
known it would always
haunt
me, that my teeth would break at the word.
"Come inside," my mother screams,
unafraid of waking the thunder.
I'm not afraid of disturbing the lightening; it's never been wary of disturbing me.

I bow as an equal
retreat from humanity
smile at the inferno.

Looking at the storm
is
looking
through a well-maintained
mirror,
straight through the skeptical eyes of
God.

An Excerpt From "Souls Carrying Corpses"

I'm thinking of you tonight, Nana.

The following is an excerpt from a paper I am writing for a Creative Writing class on the existence of the human soul and the power it has in our beings.

[...]It was August 29th, 2012. Life happens suddenly. One second, you are just a thought, an imaginary, a potential. The next, you have arrived. One second, you are thinking, imagining, achieving. The next, you are gone. On August 29th, 2012, I felt the unmistakable pain of breaking from the inside out. To this day, when I think about that night, I feel a little bit of the cracking. I remember my aunt holding the phone to my grandmother’s ear as she was held alive by life support without warning. I remember being asked if I had anything to say to her, anything I wanted her to know before she officially left this earth. I babbled on and on, not letting myself cry. In case she could hear me, I didn’t want her last thought of me to be me upset. When she first saw me, I was smiling. When she last heard my voice, I was determined for it to be the same. I tried.

This time, I remember everything. “I’ll be okay. Mom will be okay. I promise I’ll take care of everyone. I promise we will be okay. You’re gonna be okay too. I promise. I promise that God has a place for you up there. I know he’s made space for you because you’re one of his angels. He sent you here, so he knows you’ll need a place to come home. It’s going to be beautiful there so don’t be afraid. Everyone you miss will be there, waiting for you. I bet they’re waving you in right now. I love you so much. I love you. I love you and I’ll always love you. You’re going to be okay. You’ll be okay and I will too. I promise I’ll see you again. I’m not saying goodbye. I’m saying goodnight. I love you Nana. Goodnight,” I managed to choke out.

I don’t believe I’ve ever thanked someone very special for saving me. He came over in the morning. He picked me up, whisked me off from the painful reality I was forcibly thrown into. In the first morning that my guardian angel was watching from above, I figured I’d feel alone knowing I was one family member short from being complete on Earth. I didn’t feel alone as he held me while I screamed and cried. I felt safe although it felt as if my life was hurtling off of a cliff. I felt loved although I felt as if God had turned away. He cried with me without shame. I felt the breaking attempting to mend, just a little bit. I turns out healing hurts just as badly.

On August 29th, 2012 I felt the way a soul breaks. On August 29th, 2012 I felt the way a soul is made complete.

Recalling feelings like this affirm my belief that yes, our souls do exist and only certain actions, situations, people, places, and ideas can make them come out of their shells and become as human as we are; sometimes breaking under the flaws of this life, but always getting up and healing.

I haven’t always believed it was possible that a soul existed. The concept baffled me to the point that, instead of confronting the challenge, I chose to ignore the idea. However, it seems to me that our soul is as integral to our beings as our limbs. The soul is the one place you cannot protect with words, clothes, or eyes turned to the ground. Our most organic feelings are the feelings our soul shares with us because our souls absorb everything in this universe. It is affected by different stimuli differently. They sing and break individually. To me, an idea has become quite clear. This idea causes my soul to shiver and send the shivers right up my spine. We are just souls carrying around corpses. Without our souls, we fail to be human because we cannot be inspired, broken, hopeful, passionate, or completed. Without our souls, we are dead. Our souls are the alive part. We are physically only along for the ride.

Vulnerability

It starts softly as a whisper streaming like a graceful

melody off the tongue of the most faithful,

the most graceful.

The way it climbs and swirls, if you placed a paintbrush between

its dashing fingertips you could create a work of art;

the kind the common man can view,

the kind the usual see.

This art could build a castle if you let it;

It would block out the world of tyranny and

broken spirits and I,

I would rather be a held prisoner behind the fortress walls,

seal out the smoke clouds from my nostrils with concrete

and artistry.

I would rather be surrounded forevermore by the energy

escaping in tendrils from picture frames and half-written lines

constructed out of pure emotion with the

scaffolding of hearts stretched too thinly.

My bones crack under the pressure of the atmosphere and the humidity

that has been instilled in us all,

installed, step by step, by

a system that claims to prepare,

by a society that claims to accept.

My veins bleed under the knife of normalcy and

the postwar photograph eyes that follow me wherever I go,

the purse-lipped mouths who are impenetrable to

the songs floating around us;

they look as if they couldn’t let light in if they tried.

Behind my eyes and underneath my skin I can

feel you.

I can feel your words and your glares and the

grip around my intestines of your rejection, your forcible

conformation;

“what’s not you is wrong.”

I know. I’ve heard it before.

But I would like to challenge; if millions of you’s have created wars,

if millions of you’s have helped children find solace in the barrel of a gun,

if millions of you’s have created so much wrong

why,

why,

why on Earth,

would I ever choose to be like you?

Forgive me if I’m incorrect or out of line or maybe too brutally honest

for your paper-thin ears,

but what you are is wrong.

What you’ve become these last few years is wrong.

Your words speak to me out of ledges that try to entice me

and blades that call my name;

falling into your trap is like skipping off the edge of a cliff,

what you don’t say feels like a knife.

Tell me how that’s NOT wrong.

How many others have you taken today,

How many others have you hurt today?

I was always warned to use the buddy system and self defense but who ever thought

that high school words would be the ones to kill us?

I was always taught that diseases and mistakes would take me.

Who ever thought that you could die from a word?

You cut us down. You break our bones. And why?

Oh right.

Because we’re not you.

I’ll choose to start wars of a different sort,

the kind of war that can end the inner turmoil ever present in

the lungs of people like me.

And these bones? Yeah they crack but that’s so flowers

can take root.

With the blood that you spill from me

they are nourished fuller and fuller until from the base of

my soul they burst out of my mouth to

speak the truth.

So thank you very much for your uncalculated,

unbridled evil,

your irresponsible use of power.

Your ugly jokes, smart jokes, “loner” jokes, and the shoves to the ground.

Just so you know,

I still choose love.

It starts softly as a whisper streaming like a graceful

melody off the tongue of the most faithful,

the most graceful.

The way it climbs and swirls, if you placed a paintbrush between

its dashing fingertips you could create a work of art;

the kind the unusual judge fully,

the kind only the true can appreciate.

Imperfections

Writing is hard when you can't find the words
to stir your soul
and when you want to shift the subject,
but the same thing is always on your mind,
and when you find yourself going back in cirlces
and when your poision is your antecdote.

Midnight

The air I breathe feels cold as the dead of night despite
the space heater conveniently placed at the foot of my
bed.

No amount of comforters and comforting takes away
the faulty impulses ironically crying but causing their own
doom.

It's nights like these when I can't remember the way
your voice clinked like fine china used on a
Monday morning breakfast in the middle of summer.
It hits me like a freight train that I can no longer feel your hands; my
biggest fear is
forgetting.

The place around me feels dead as the grass outside
my window and no matter how much I water it it won't
grow.

No amount of music and musicians can keep my symphony
churning with the melodramatic swaying chorus of the
universe.

It's nights like these when I can't imagine life without you
then I remember I've been doing it for almost seven
months now it started in August.
Over and over again the ocean crashes into me; I should be
over this by
now.

The phones cease to work at midnight because the people without
a care and with their heart whole are already asleep or partying or
something.

No amount of memories heals my bones from the irreparable damage
they are enduring; Nothing feels right. Nothing feels
right.

It's nights like these when I wish
more than anything
more
than
anything
more than fucking
anything at
fucking
all
that you'll come home.
that this will end.
that I could talk.
that my rib cage wouldn't burst with each moment without you.
that I could just hear your voice.
that. Just once.
that I'd know I wasn't alone.
that my room wouldn't be so cold.


At midnight it's the coldest and the phone doesn't ring and there's nobody here but the stale wasteland that is my memory.

Last Night

Last night I lay awake restless as a summer storm,
twisted as the tornado it produces.
My sheets entwined around my healthy body and enshrouded
my broken spirit with some
odd warmth
of a cool hand swept from this earth like
snow falling from a honda sedan.

I lay awake restless as a summer storm,
pouring rain from my windows and cried to you
and felt as though
your lips pressed to my cheek and
your hands rubbed my back
and your lips sang a song
of a summer when
you weren't gone.

#35: Medley

One day can bend your existence and alter the way that you

eat Lay's chips out of the bag--

All the little things change and

nothing is the

same.

So I remember when I’d get straight A’s and you’d tell

me that I was great and

I was going to go far

and you were

proud.

Well now I don’t hear these things so

I slip on my bathrobe--

Hibernate for a few thousand years,

lost in in the sound of your voice.

Suffocated by a sea of regret.

Wishing means nothing if nobody can

hear and these ships have

anchors that bind us to

the shores of our

subconscious.

The bottom of this ship--

It scrapes the sand where our souls

once stood and where

you once were and where we

once laughed.

Nothing is the same when you're gone

and to be honest,

I think I may be somewhere between

sick of holding on and happy

you haven't let go.

I Promise You You're Not Just A Waitress

I promise you you're not just a waitress.

And-

I'm not just a man at a bar.

How many breaths did you take today?

How many dreams do you dream tonight?

I promise you you're not just a waitress.

How many words did you sing today?

How many things will you think tonight?

I promise you you're not just a waitress.

I sing too loudly. 

I think too much.

I'm not just a man at a bar. 

I snore too heavily.

I dream too steadily. 

I'm not just a man at a bar.

Make this day worth something, powder blue cat woman black pants polo shirt,

make this day yours.

Show them what I see, blonde hair beauty queen small smile big soul,

make this day yours.

Take what I'm telling you, hopeless hopeful idiotic thoughtful sharp bulb dull knife,

You're not just a waitress.

No.

I promise you you're not just a waitress.

And-

I'm not just a man at a bar. 

-M