Christmas Bells
have ceased ringing
dampened a day before
festivities broke
like my back, a pack horse
for calculus, chemistry, and dynamic
headaches, spurred
by the underside of a 4.0.
A wreath around
my neck and tinsel in my gut,
a festive anxiety, written finally:
eternally.
But a tone whispers,
in two weeks and tears
spewed into the end of pencils
like lead refills
(I’ll need another yet)
a truncated reprieve looms.
Christmas bells…
will start ringing.
SS
A euphonious life
Bursts somewhere in my chest,
A kaleidoscope of fragrant colours.
Like a quick shot of something warm,
Too chaotic to decipher,
But warm.
SS
When clouds bastardize the sky
Or dirty words seep into my ear like sewage.
When my lips fall flat,
A misaligned crescent moon
Or enough fails it’s proverbial worth,
200, 300, 400 pages
Of somewhere else
Laminated with worse worries
Than those contorting my grimace
Feels like an intoxicated
Summer afternoon, bathed
In non differential sunlight.
An artificial grin.
SS
d
Open the bottle,
Pour it down your drain,
Clogged up throat; boat.
We drown tonight. Titanic
Minus affection. Empty French girls.
His eyes are bright,
Contrasted soul, I sold
Half my weight in vodka,
Weighing my dread
In a solo cup. I’m alone again.
Open the bottle,
Pour it in his eyes.
But who hurts more?
Scars formed by hypocrites.
Don’t try to talk to me.
Get your eyes off the prize;
Your prince was never in this castle
Beer bottle throne, thrown,
Heads crack tonight.
Dread, dead, drunk, drunk, drunk.
Numb.
Open the bottle.
SS.
I have found more therapists
in the sound of my pen scratching
against virgin sheets of paper
than have ever existed
in all the semi-sunny,
appropriately shaded,
clinical living rooms of doctors
with their cryptic note pads
and overly obtuse cushions.
SS
Can I count success?
Coins and money quantify
your worth, they nod.
A luxurious funeral.
I think I swallowed the hornets’ nest.
An aggravated swelling cries
from my intestines, mangling, deforming
a chemically established equilibrium.
My stomach revolts, nausea
as my pores cry, sweaty droplets.
Unsolicited, I negotiate
with the insistent humming,
buzzing,
buzzing
buzzing.
Deaf, they continue to sting,
using their asses as comrades
to my anxiety induced by
twelve more chapters and two more labs and dynamics, statics, equilibrium, chemical and otherwise, GPA’s balanced on finals and stupid boys, clever boys, no friends, too many friends, no time, why am I so bored again, and crushing, demoralizing exhaustion hung below my eyes.
Nature is mad, tonight.
SS
She stands erect,
with marble shined and
summer tinted skin,
a carving from a catalogue.
Long hair, long nails, long legs;
A gem encrusted spider.
They stare, mouths agape
and I stare venomous, quiet.
She speaks and flowers grow,
tall, confident stalks
that smell like morning dew.
Boys, dance, entranced,
grab bouquets,
and bestow them upon
their deities throne.
And I slouched in my puddle,
carved from emerald glares
and hidden ill wishes.
Thinking I’ve drowned.
SS
d
Drinks leaden steam, exhaled
from cold machinery, the owl
refuses to fly, thinking its wings
clipped.
SS
I have lost eighteen; argument is blindness
to the outlines of Sunday evening escapades
illuminated by scattering polarization, unsettling amber,
I fail to design in Pearson’s thirteenth, 500 pages choke,
the dead dimensional artwork thinking it mimics
them, the labels quantified so numbly.
Unaware out casket infrastructure is not addition,
trapped beneath the bridge I calculate but never cross.
Flustered, we haven’t learnt dynamics yet.
Am I the modern age, spoiled virgin?
My insignia, a scarlet red report card,
stained violent rebellion on my white grown?
Innocence prevents the pitchforks no longer,
as Frankenstein is pushed into the basement.
They know what they think I am.
Filling my backpack with dogmatic importance
to counterbalance the weight of solitude.
My fabricated equilibrium.
They warn you, the bricks are hard,
that you’ve lived in cotton so far,
but there is no preparation
for its coyote hunger, the sick predator
mindlessly devouring the youth,
not bothering with sheep skin
once admission is mailed and tuition, drained.
Assignments masked as education
like hammers used as carving tools.
Enough to forget, easily, the love
that entranced your infant mind, you think.
But for once, the solution is wrong, you scribble ink
across number seven, forget marks,
four years is pittance corruption.
SS
In the Present 