Our well wishes,
Sandgrain in sieve
And we believe
It will come true…
Time tossed will
Yield more
Grains than we know with what to do
Glittering gravel
in handfuls sewn
That suck into the finite swirl;
An hourglass
with piles on the floor.
We hope for levitation,
An inversion
To sift silt slower
Than a fleeting occasion
A reincarnate do over
Whispered into etched glass,
Momentary fragments
All the while
Slipping past.
The echoes murmur back.
The dust and grit
Swallow our dreams
Into worthwhile oblivion.
One might notice
Our fingerprints on the rim,
The fog of breath left
From leaning in,
Ears waiting for it
To touch bottom
And give us
Glorious
Foreverness…
I swore instead
we could defy gravity,
Shatter the walls
And float into eternity,
Hoist bucketfuls of hope
Until it was a storm
That covers all of time,
Free of everything
That requires an end,
Or a vessel
Made uncontained
In the name of
one
more
minute…
On your lips
Hourglass Wishing Well
Over and Over
I think I’m starting over again
You’d think I was Sisyphus’ best friend
And he said we’d have beers after if I give him a hand
And I’m tryna figure out where I stand
Over and over and over and over
If I clean the slate and get rid of the rock
Learn to be lonely, forget how I talk
Maybe I’ll do it right this time, but maybe not
And I figure I may be worth a shot
Over and over and over and over
So here I am idle and in my own head
Rolling round heavy marbles made of lead
The feeling always finds you no matter where you hide
And I figure that livin’ means that at least you tried
Over and over and over and over
You have hope, then slowly watch it go to die
My Shiny Glass Heart
He took a bong rip from my heart
Used the ventrical valve for a carb
With blood to steam
Inhaled to dreams
That would eventually tear him apart
The high wore off and he sighed
And rolled me onto my side
With one last rip
He had the trip
And ravaged my insides
Now my ghost is in his lungs
And my taste is on his tongue
I’ll become a necromancer
A bitch of a cancer
We’ll both die while we’re young
Each memory breath will be hell
Every lie harder to tell
And the wind that took me
Drained me and shook me
Will be the last thing he expels
So Much Timber
Matchstick lips, strike to kiss
A brand to press
“Remember this”
With flesh to burn
And tongues to roast
We sear both sides
And let it rest
And if we stack the kindling high
A pyre of passion
Bursting through sky
A striking rod and
Ready tinder
Will set an inferno
Not to forget
Out of oxygen, panting
I don’t mind
Sifting the ashes for panties
Stoked into rubble
I’ll tell you the trouble:
There is only so much timber
And you have the ax
Blood Drive
Saying goodbye
is like blue balls of the heart
My muscle memories
Reach for your phantom limbs
Veins lead in and out
like the highways that divide us
Hello/Goodbye
Pulsing ‘I love you’ in blood
And how the pressure builds
When you’re aren’t beating back
Each thump and chug,
The faint murmur in the pauses
That seem like perpetual paradigms
Writhing to greet the heat,
Shifting in my seat
Holding back the collide of
Cardiac tides that want to meet
Chambers fill beyond capacity
And I don’t want to test the elasticity.
I swallow the swelling, done
With the telling of salutations
Yearning to come together
Eager to coalesce
And make a mess
Swap DNA and
Maybe someday
put an end to the miles
In our blood drive
Suffering = Sand
Everything happens for a reason
Is Bullshit
But I’m livin it
With my share of regret
I watched the layers of my heart peel off
Feeling lost
My puffy feet getting soft
Take’m to the ocean, get’m washed
I found a path that leaves the grass
And turns to sand
The place my wheezing lungs command
will you Understand
I had no idea the entire time
and I’m still not sure it was worth the price
but the view sure is nice
Fractions
Every step has its own set of steps
A fractal that spirals,
into infinite fractions
And we are the catalyst
That sets off chain reactions
Whether positive or negative
There is a way in which we came
There is a way in which we leave
All these steps,
Footprints in ladders that
Wind into our biological code
Odes in measures and quickening tempo
You remember just the melody, faintly
While you must concurrently play on
every half and quarter note as if you know
dividing time into beats
And with seams in the cement
We lament in our pace
The price we pay
in threatening our DNA
knowing ladders are chains
Each wrung detailed in wood grain
Linked to heavens and hells
Cell division, microaggressions
Descending and ascending…
And I must say,
If you cannot keep up,
If you need to break these steps
into the smallest pieces,
I’m sure the molecules don’t mind being smaller
You’re doing fine
At your pace.
A Mother’s Gift
I’ve got an emptiness
and I don’t know what to do with it
Pulling tears out of sheer void
Somehow still giving
Every last drop
I keep putting things in
that disappear
And I began to realize
That it’s not just space,
it’s a black hole;
Nothing can wander around for long
or even stay –
it’s gone!
A gnawing
a collapsing
Fear folding inwards,
relapsing gravity
A single mother’s paycheck
all spent to the kids
The hint of frame
Left to toothpicks
Bolstered with bullshit and paste
Wasting away
Holding breath for fear
I’ll blow it down myself
And in the vacuous hush
How awfully quiet it gets
When no one wants something from me
And I just wanna know
How the fuck you plug a hole like that
I want my life and my left socks back
6 Feet Apart
An unforgiving mockingbird song
Echoless in the dead of night
The air is stifled and still
Rain clouds, oppressive downy pillows
Weigh down
On our pin-drop silent towns
Folks tucked hard
Breath-holding sanity
Hoard it like TP
I wish I could get these clouds off of me
Tell me I’m a breathing machine
Expose the stars,
Forgive this pause
Exhale into the distancing
Own the space
Where you expel your dirty air
What kind of grounded do you want to be?
Playing in it, laying in it, complaining in it?
Taking a minute?
This stillness is a buzzing whisper
With so much to consider
Veils that muffle the murmur
Unknown trails that lead into summer
The rights you have left
The impatience and doubt set adrift
Unseen currents of atmosphere
Shifting between us
The space that suffocates
The oppression of no embrace
Sparky
I make my own sparks
I don’t want you to go away
Leavin my heart cold,
Without a flame
So I get that burn by looking at the stars
And the flicker starts me up again
Queen of hearts
A king tide
And a jack of all trades
I make my own sparks
Moonlight blue and a cigarette
Hugging trees
Sandy red toes getting wet
And on the times
When our fires meet again
I wanna blaze
Be amazed
Burn some kindlin
I make my own
SPARKS
Crackle happy
Warm and serene
Waves of red and coal
Still lit
not cold
Gold
Full with fuel
And sometimes low and blue
And I still burnnnn
I make my own sparks
Brighter (blow)
Brighter (blow)
Brighter (blow)
Brighter (blow)
Sparkle, let it twinkle,
Sing aloud
Bellow puff (poof)
I am really going now
Stand back
Or singe in sync
I think I wanna
paint the wood
with keroseeeeeene
If ya want a few sparks
I could surely
Lend a few
I hope you can tend
Them, oxygen them,
Let them grow in you
I’ve been smoldered and smothered before
hissing in commingled ashes
But not anymore
I’m the lit pilot
Baking me warm
On in a jiffy
Giving and giving
Predictably heating
Stoked by evvverything I’m seeing
Oh dooooood…
So many sparrrrrrrks!!!
Shelter
Chill has sprung upon us
The space beneath the swing
Becomes shelter
A cradle
Built for asses and happiness
Butt this time,
Stay still.
Dear John
I rewrote the subject line 16 times
I was so nervous I chain-smoked
like sucking on a redneck’s tailpipe
But I think I got it right
Eventually, the nights got quiet
No telltale heart
beating on my mind
No maddening thump when I look behind
And though love can be a mine, feeled,
the dirt below the pine needles
held more life than you
So how does one begin
to craft words to throw upon stone;
to scatter letters into Oblivion;
to clearly type division
so you would know
I’m not getting in the grave with you
And the bed’s been bathed of you
and actually, there’s nothing left worth saying to you
Sincerely,
Nevermind
Upon Leaving my Hometown
I miss you now just as much as I have all the years before I even left
The echo in the space where I wished you were when I was still (t)here
Has lost its reverberation
My voice, a thud into hollow
Too tired and sad to boom through light years
Just to reach some random generation
Who *might* be listening
But are probably also too busy caring about their immediate problems
And it makes one wonder
Why evolution even bothered with
the development of communication, empathy, or ears
And why it didn’t grow me a pouch to stuff all these orphaned cares
How extraterrestrial I could feel when I was Always. Right. There.
Skeleton Key
My mother pushed me out
A bag of bones;
Just an Ikea kit
Still needing to be put together.
And it took forever!
I had to order the missing parts myself.
The directions, foreign.
The illustrations, basic and monochrome.
Slapped together, I always leaned askew,
But did the job I was supposed to do.
And then years of quakes
shook me apart-
Random pieces dismantling on the floor,
Clamoring through the tool box for that “tools included” wrench;
The bitch that tightens up
And erects a structure that functions
Grip and turn till the blisters pop
Don’t stop! …until it stands
Every nut TWISSSTEDDDDDD
I figured it out!
I was worth every damn Krona…
oh sorry- Euro
And I ain’t going anywhere now…
I’m posting up with purpose
Providing a surface, steady
Ready for water rings, scratches
And even dust
Rut
Familiarity can be a trap
and it’s scary
how easily my form has taken shape
wedging snugly in that groove
when all I want
is something healthy, something new
Like rain riding gravity to the lowest point,
I slide into
The cracks I knew
The way my fingers bend around you
Into the soft spot near your elbow, the folds behind your neck,
The valley where your hip meets thigh
When it just seems so snug
Don’t be deceived
Habits also come with
The ease that feels like
A good thing
But you’re just falling
Lulled into another place you thought you know
My synapses have this map
Of his musk
The touch that begs a trail
To the bed
The glacier tracing folds and ravines
Unseen
And I can’t rightly say
That I know the strength
Of finding another way, to
Head up and learn anew
A new route
To forge through and find a peak
That gets me.
I want to dangle off the side
Stay in sight and
Excitedly keep trying and failing
Let my rough edges fray
And dance on slipping tectonic plates
Gaining all the wind, the bewilderment
My mind stretching to see new things
No matter where it goes
Hands searching unfounded territory
Tangling my nails in messes of his hair
With fistfuls of flesh
Grappling to stay on
I will see where it takes me
Erosion
Every piece will be dissolved
Tides lick at the sugary soil
And you know how it feels
To be the cattle worn salt
Licked to grit and fading
I am the etched
Devleoping pinholes that turn into tunnels
Taking a pummel, crumbling
Coming undone
And letting it happen.
Most days, I would rather be the wave
Salivating and slurping
Forcefully back, the specks
Of things that once stood firm
Every lap of liquid lip
Dragging the essence
of every jagged tip
That lies in the way of me
Obsessed, wet
Coming to shred rough edges
And gulp them into oblivion
I’d rather be the sea
Rocking and swaying
Splashing and sucking
Surging, swallowing
Gasping, swirling…
What I wouldn’t do
To wash every bit of everything,
Including you, with my salty juice
And I CAN’T STOP NOW!
The moon made me do it!
This lollipop lullaby,
This metronome motion,
Contracting ocean
Take it down
To it’s very core!
Erosion through
Every gushy explosion
My unstoppable droplets
Conspiring, corrupting
Fragments I meet
Sweet melting into me
More licks in than the owl
One, two, therrrrreeee
Eons of persistence
Smoothing roughness
Eating holes
Through stone
Smashing away pebbles of confidence;
The outline of my boundary
Lined with tiny skulls of earth
My ardent quest
Blasting layers
Fizzy foam slapping
Each morsel that I seize,
Spilling all over
And while at times, I will
lap slow,
Know that I am savoring the minerals
I will rinse its dirt gone
And agitate it in my deepest belly
I’ll ebb and swish and spatter
Collecting, coercing, immersing
With a persistent desire to
Swallow it whole
And I will never be full.
Cured
Wet, gray sludge
Hardened to slab
My experience sucks me dry
Of time for your bullshit
No pacing.
Still.
Holding my space
Matters over Mattress
It’ll be much easier
to lie on a bed of Nails
than the one you made for me
Matters over mattress
Our bodies used to curve;
Two serpents, swerved
And bent into softness
With a slow hiss
But goodness,
Your venom!
Rather, I’ll be spread out
Balancing on 2,000 tips
Simultaneously feeling every
One digging in
Aware, and glad
To know I can feel this happening
That I can just choose to fall asleep
And in my dreams
I don’t worry about you visiting
I can make my own bed
Imagine my own comfort
Outside of your demands
Use my own hands
Context over texture
The rapid squeeze
You don’t understand
Whisper hiss
Buzz and grind
I’ll be making sweet
With feels and dreams
Conjuring fields and streams
And take up whatever space
I want in this bed
Remote
You left me turned on
Neon in the frozen dawn
Static buzzing
You wake
To turn my knob
And leave me alone again
Still a hum
Lingering fuzz
Spark, crackle, fade
Wait wait wait
On, again
You watch me, intently
Silently squint at me
Then I’m ignored,
Your throat roars
You never touched me
Back to static
My electricity:
Pulsing automatic
My dumb white noises:
Background lullabies
Off again,
Staring with my black eye
Is it guilt or laziness that brings you by?
I see you splayed
And that thing in your hand
Scanning disinterestedly through
My content
And you somehow come to me
Nightly, still
Not to touch,
But only see
Until you fall asleep,
Repeat
I just wish
You would touch me
Turn me on
These buttons have not been poked for so long
I swear, I’ll glitch
To get a hard smack
I’d take that
And give you free pay-per-view
Push.
MY..
Buttons…
VOID
I will fill the void you left with something else
Fill the void with merriment and revelry
Merriment and maybe tv, if no one thinks of me
If no one thinks I’m worth a shot
I’m worth a shot right through the heart
Right through the silence in my room
The silence in things we assume
Things we assume about each other go wrong
I’ve got it wrong, dude, I know that song
But I know that songs keep me here
Keep me here and feeling SO much
Feeling so much love with nowhere to go
Nowhere, no one to take my joy inside
Taking my joy and leaving it to rust outside
Leaving it to them, I’d be floundering
I’d be fonder if we were encountering
We were encountering understanding of humanity, I thought
And I understand humanity has a way of getting lost
Getting lost in safeguarding themselves, then will pose as trolls
Safeguarding themselves with gossip for fools
For foolsake I even liked those girls
Like those girls, I’ve been torn down
I’ve been torn between forgiveness and doubt
And I doubt much will change with this poem
Much will change when we don’t have room left in that void
We don’t have room for cruelty and fortresses
Cruelty that forces us to hide from those that hurt us
Hide from the hurt that comes from letting anything in
I’m letting in all the wash of feelings
The wash that fills my void with suds and love
My void is brimming with so much
With so much of what could be
What could be nicer is if we had lunch
If we had time to listen to the hiss of air leaving that empty pit
Leaving that empty pit full, like a fruit basket
Full like a well fed beast who is content to dream
I’m content to dream this space to it’s brim
This space will be served until then
Until then, think about self-preservation,
But be selfless in your reservations
No one should feel empty
Hug somebody soon
Nora Noir 