I Would Leave Me If I Could: A Collection of Poetry(9)
Peach clean
on a silver screen He goes lime green at the thought of me He’s got big dreams like you can’t believe Been mean
since 23
Dark blue
like a deep lagoon 3 girls
in a hotel room Missed calls
ringing to the tune of dark tones
in your attitude Soft gold
like a centerfold He’s got
no taste for the rock and roll He’s so
uptight and I’m no control No reason to let it grow Chartreuse like an aging bruise He speaks
soft words but it’s still abuse I forget
when you sweet-seduce We’re in love but it’s no excuse Tell me nothing changes when you leave me But I been making changes, please believe me.
TELLTALE
I think it’s for the best
if I should open up my chest
and mail the contents to your hotel room
to wake you while you rest.
BAD DAY: 2
I’m sorry
I’m having another bad day.
I’ll yell and scream and tell you things like “I hate you.”
My mind is the only place where I can take you on.
I’m stuck in the middle of the ring, but I can’t fight today.
These things they come and go and I mean half of everything I tell you.
I’m half of everything I hate, and half of anything I create is you too.
So I start to hate the painting when I hate you.
TORNADO
I can feel it burn in my nose.
I can feel the tears swell like raindrops in the corners of my eyes until they get so fat they threaten to slide down my face.
My fingers graze your arm and I can feel little electric volts wrapping up and around my wrists like a spiral staircase like a static handcuff holding my hand hostage to your skin.
I can feel my heart climb into my throat and curl up on the carpet with its head between its knees, to hide from the
beat
Beat
beating loud
like a thunderstorm outside.
I can taste the salt of your sweat on the roof of my mouth.
I can remember the taste like it’s still on my lips even when I am 3,000 miles away.
In my head,
I replay a mixtape of your laughter sounding off from my phone and I call you every 20 minutes.
I will hold your hand till my fingers are cold and bluer than a Picasso till the blood has left them.
I will kiss your head and rub your shoulders and bring you ease and ecstasy till your foggy head stops ringing like a car alarm.
I will wipe every tear.
(I like everything about you, even the things you give away.
Like tears
and laughs
and yawns
and lost eyelashes.)
I will be there when the sun comes up, curled in your lap
shivering
rubbing my eyes and smiling softly.
I will listen to the same sad songs over
and over
and over again
till they vibrate in my skull when the volume ceases.
I love the sun for shining on your skin, I love the wind for blowing through your hair, I love the coffee for staining your teeth and warming your palms in the morning.
I would protect you till the end of time.
I would lie down
in the middle of a tornado and cover you.
LIGHTHOUSE
He was almost 7 feet tall, with black oily hair
that stuck to his forehead in patches like a Rorschach test when he’d sweat.
His bedroom was a dark, cavernous prison at the bottom level of the house, separate from the rest.
This granted him,
at first, privacy.
And, at the end, protection.
I used to love
being far away from everyone else in the house, because it meant I could keep him to myself longer.
Keep him from being distracted.
But by the final days, I cursed the distance and would silently pray that the earth would cave beneath us and the bedroom addition would grow closer to the main house in a tangle of excavated tree roots and tectonic plates.
I silently prayed for an earthquake so our guests could hear him scream.
He would stuff his nose with cocaine for days on end
until the rims of his nostrils were caked with white, like cement,
and bleeding sores
leaking yellow-orange pus, from him reopening the wounds he had burnt into his airways.
He would pace the room in circles, with his T-shirt sticking to him in a cold sweat,
and cry.
A cry full of pain and loathing that twisted his face like pottery on an unmanned wheel.
He would punch himself in the head, banging his fist
against his forehead
and temple
until his fingers
full of rings
left pictures on his skin, and his knuckles burst open.
He would put his bleeding hand around my neck and press me against the wall.
His eyes would flicker back to life like a film projector malfunctioning in a pitch-black cinema, and before the title card ran, he would stare
at the space between my eyebrows, too cowardly to make eye contact, and say,
“I’m going to fucking kill you.”
And I would believe him.
So I would take his hand off of my neck gently, and wrap my arms around his head like I was cradling a newborn and stroke his hair