4.25

robert

spider on my ceiling
i should crush you
that's what most would do
i should be disgusted
by how your legs branch out
in all directions
if i was kind i'd
scoop you up gently
and take you outside
instead i leave you
to live in my room
to claim that corner as your own

days pass by and i
come in and out
you never leave your web
just scuttle around
i let you live
and you leave me be
and we pass the days
together peacefully

sometimes i look up
to observe you and think
how your spindly legs are
really quite pretty
and your behavior
quite peculiar
but your nature
now familar
one tiny constant
crawling up the wall
i have you up there
when i have no one at all

and then one night when
you pass your natural end
and you fall from your web
i'll be that kind friend
to scoop you up gently
and take you outside again

12.24

the guest

trying to find home in other families
but you'll always be the guest

your own home existed many homes ago
and you haven't been there since

standing in the backspace or sitting in the corner
there's no place where you felt meant

and every year the holidays come
wielding their double-edged swords
is it worse to be with your family
or to be all alone

it feels easiest to be the guest
half-in, half-out, mostly present-tense

12.24

a minute after a phone call

death, much like grief, never ends.
he called me today to say another one's coming,
like each day itself doesn't tempt it.
but there's a certain irony that this situation lends
that asks me if heaven's real or ever has been.

8.24

a year after a funeral

grief, much like death, is never over.
you watch from my shelf as i keep getting older.
i hope heaven is real just so you have what you lived for.
even if i'd end up on the other end and never see you again,
just knowing you're still somewhere would be good enough for me.

5.24

change as returning

as days turn over
and more time separates
me from me then
pieces of you seem to shed off
as rotten petals on the pavement
as winter gives way to spring
i claim my own new beginning
one less car model i recognize
one more pay-per-view i miss
and more and more of me
fills the gaps between
who i was and where you
bled into me

5.24

all i could do

all i could do seems to be lost on you. lay
me on your bed and i'll sing my song for you.
let me in and never will i stray from you.
my caught devotion

is not one once easily lost. kiss me
and watch me spin sweet poems of you. i've never
met someone as starry-eyed as you. who leaves
me so exposed as

you. all my attention is yours to exhaust. find
me and see how i searched for you. touch me and
feel how my skin smolders for you, a constant
burning set by you.

yet, i'm met with numbing frost. pull me in, let
me warm you. let yourself melt and i'll gather
you. put me on stage and i'll preform for you
a show just for two.

push me away, and see how i'm drawn to you.
silence me, then listen how i call to you.
but leave me, and feel how the loss will be left
with no one but you.

4.24

daily skin

rise from the dying bed, stagnant waif, don't be consumed by your own rot.
dress in your daily skin now; slip on once more this button-on body.
step to the mirror now; swallow the image you see. she looks like you -
like flagellation may look like one's worship - but blind, bloodless as daylight.
you're used to this by now - feeling the sickening grasp of passion devoid.
wearing your borrowed shaped, dragging this carcass another pale day through,
you can only think, "how did I get to now?" drifting between raw ache and veiled apathy.
you should go now - serve him his pound of flesh, once more be consumed.