Poems

The Other MeI caught him in the hallway mirror looking back at me,wearing all my clothes and all my posture perfectly,but something in the angle of his jawline was not right,something in the spacing of his pupils in the light.I blinked and he was synchronized, I raised my hand, he raised his,I turned my head, […]

The Paper KingHe ruled by rumor and ribbon seals,by borrowed cheers and borrowed breath,wearing a grin like borrowed wealth. He fed on echoes in marble roomswhere flattery drips and conscience starves,and every oath tastes false as felt. He called it order when fear stood guard,called it peace when mouths stayed shut,called it love when hands

The Nightmare Before Spring BreakThe shuttle doors opened and the sun hit them hard,golden and slick as oil on water.Laughter came first—careless, young, theirs—then the resort rising from the sand like somethingthat had always been waiting. Glass and steel stacked to the sky,a mirage dressed in architecture,the ocean behind it blue as a bruise.They didn’t

The Noise Complaint Third one this month, taped to the door in passive-aggressive cursive,She read it, crumpled it, and said coercive,Neighbors don’t get to dictate the volume of my orgasms,She dragged me to the bedroom to close the chasms. Between what they find acceptable and what she finds necessary,She is not quiet and she is

The Night Shift Dad He worked the night shift at the plant for seventeen straight years,He slept from six to two and woke up for the afternoon,He made the pickup and the dinner and the help with homework tunes,He did it without drama and without asking for the boon. The night shift dad who worked

The Night Before the Diet Tomorrow I’m starting the new program, that’s a fact,I’ve got the app downloaded and the plan on track,the grocery list for the week made out with care,the vegetables and the lean proteins sitting there,ready in the refrigerator for the morning clean,start of the eating discipline that I’ve convened,with myself in

The Night Before the Surgery The prep is its own specific ritual of the night before,The nothing-by-mouth from midnight, the hospital floor,Where you arrive at six a.m. with the bag already packed,As if you’re going somewhere with an itinerary tracked. I lay in the dark the night before the first surgery,And took the inventory of

The Motivational SpeakerHe opens with a statistic about your potential going to waste—ninety percent locked in a room you haven’t found the door to yet.The key is what he’s here to give you, and the glowingbackdrop of his personal brand says you’re next, you’re next,you’re next to crack open the thing you’ve been afraid to

The Negative ResultThe fluorescent tubes flicker with a jagged manic bitewhile I sit in the plastic chair and wait through the night.The bleach smell jabs like a needle in the nose—a sterile kind of purgatory that every patient knows. I’ve been a walking tomb for six months and a day,watching muscle after muscle slowly melt

The Monster Was the HouseLooking back with adult eyes,the signs were everywhere.The house was not a house—it was an organism pretending. The walls expanded when we slept.I measured them with tape.Gaining an inch each month.Like lungs inflating in slow motion. The floors were warm in winter,not from the furnace, from below,a warmth that pulsed and