Reconciling never ends As the narrow bones Widen into countries And the steps descend Into chaotic drumbeats We churn the gold out Spread it on idols Tarnished repetition Tok tok tok tok tik Developing desperation The bell tolled And landscapes rolled And nobody Was the wiser
I keep looking down To see if my skin is still there It feels like it’s crawling off Trying to leave me exposed No way to hold myself in I keep grinding my teeth So much my fingernails hurt Sympathy pains maybe Spreading throughout my body My muscles are tense Working my joints Warming my…
The faucet drips It’s consistent At first it pained me Made me anxious Made me uncomfortable I tried to fix it It needed something I didn’t have I could have Turned off the water But that wouldn’t fix What was broken So I sat with it Listened to the drip Became one with the drip…
He was full of life Hard to get close to Didn’t need love Or help or care Just did his thing Perfectly resilient He loved the sun Solitary days Listening to the world Dramatic with their flare Always changing colors Demanding attention But not him His name is Leonard Painful when messed with Not really…
Deadfall seasons Come like the night Sneaky and silent Waiting quietly with its Blood red oranges And copper smells A soft wet decay With no words to say Rain without cover Cold without a coat Dark without light This is the last place I’ll see until spring Peeks into my soul again
The shoes were thin and worn The day was windy and rainy The voices demanded volume And the faces… they were blurry They don’t care. They don’t care. They don’t care. They don’t care. And the tears don’t matter They’ve just made it harder Can’t breathe underwater And the blood doesn’t matter It’s just wet…
There are lots of things I hate About trauma Real honest to goodness trauma Like… How it automatically steals Future joy How it cripples effective communication How it makes trenches With one way signs in brains How it dictates patterns Of protection Of avoidance Of self-sabotage Of self- destruction Of hyper-vigilance How it demands boundaries…
The days are too short The minutes too few I wasted so many already On hurt feelings On tears of surrender On disliking myself On anger and frustration On wishes and hopes On sleep… on avoidance On escapism and heartache Precious golden seconds Carelessly spent On too many of the wrong Small things And not…
Green leaves sit Vibrate and valuable Huddled together Inside plastic Waiting They did their job They grew big Got picked And packaged And ended up In my fridge Where good intentions For health and happiness Wilt slowly Eight dollars and change Each week Wasted on Not following through
Everyday For years and years He tells me I am beautiful That he loves me And I believe him Because he’s honest And yet… Some days I need to ask “Do you love me?” And it must be exhausting To reestablish the established To re-utter the uttered To have to tear down walls That have…
HASTYWORDS 