On Poetry
I am almost certain that writing has saved me
Taught me to take in all the world’s ugly,
turn its sharpness over in my palms
until the edges are soft and worn
and it resembles something a bit like art
Trading Secrets Beneath the Half-Light
I try to cut the moon into slivers and
pass them to you under the dinner table
It reminds me of when we used to sneak
those fancy almonds, one by one, from the
kintsugi bowl in your grandmother's kitchen
Sparkling, sugared, forbidden,
like everything I want for you
We’ve Always Spoken Better Through Silence
I’ve thought a lot
about love since we last spoke
We push out I Love Yous
between late night laughter and
big belly breaths
We say that we mean it as friends
but you’re just a good a liar as I am
Men are Much Worse Than Spiders
There are moths who like to play sometimes
just outside my bedroom window
Large brown eyes, or wings, maybe
I’ve never been good at picking apart lies
And then there are the spiders, the ones
nesting in my wall sockets, who
only peer out to hunt at night
Stealing away the weakest links
then sinking back into their electric caves
Sidling themselves between the wires, an
eight-legged dance with Death himself
I can’t help but envy the bugs and their
tiny, fucked up food chains where
everything makes sense and enemies wear
lies on their sleeves like brown moths and
black house spiders
Intentions
This will be the year of
shedding skin and outturned pockets
This will be the year we drain
the heaviness from our hearts,
patch the holes poked our bellies back
when we swallowed thorns for fun
This will be the year we
kiss our ghosts goodbye at
the bottoms of our driveways
It is long past time we and our
demons parted ways