Poems

Nobody’s Watchinghow I love herin the middle of the week—nobody’s watching when we’re doingthe ordinary thing,the regular life in the houseon the regular street.nobody’s watchingwhen the love is most complete. nobody’s watching the weeknight dinner I made,the argument we had, the tiradethat burned for twenty minutesand the sorry and the return.nobody’s watching the repair. nobody’s […]

Not Yet (Pink Floyd Style) Not yet, the morning holds its breath in placeNot yet, I haven’t crossed that final spaceNot yet, the distance still exists betweenThe wanting and the wanted, in betweenNot yet, and yet the not-yet is aliveMore alive than anything I’ve known to thrive Not yet, not yet, the world is still

No Cooling System (Redux)I wake with my jaw already tight,teeth grinding on words I haven’t spoken aloud in years.Pulse riding high before the first ugly headline loads.Coffee tastes like battery acid.Tongue raw from the comebacks I swallowed yesterdaywhile idiots rehearsed clean excuses and called it growth. I lace my boots like I’m wrapping handsfor a

No Escape The walls have the geometry of everything I’ve been avoiding since the start,The heat is just the pressure of the engineering closing in on the heart,Strapped to the inventory of every choice that couldn’t be walked back,The voices aren’t external — they’re the sound of my own internal attack. I built this room

No Alarm Inside The panic used to inhabit the space behind my teethA jagged blade that I kept hidden in a leather sheathI’ve spent a decade bracing for a ceiling made of leadWith a predatory static screaming inside of my headI repaired the broken hinges on the heavy oak doorAnd I scrubbed the old adrenaline

New Beginning Nerves The boxes are packed and the lease is signed in ink,the old address already starting to unhingefrom the tongue like a word you said so longit lost its meaning — standing at the edgeof everything familiar, right and wrongswapped places on the shelf, and the dreadand the wanting are the same sensation

New Shoes In HallThere’s a pair of sneakers by the door too small to fit my hand insidevelcro straps instead of laces bright with colors I’d have never triedback when shoes were just for walking not declarations of arrivalnot announcements that the house has changed that silence isn’t survival’sonly option anymore that mornings come with

MyceliumThe mushrooms in the basement appeared overnight—white umbrellas pushing through concrete,growing in a pattern too preciseto blame on moisture and neglect. I pulled them out at the roots,but the roots went deeper than the slab,threadlike filaments disappearinginto the foundation of the house. By morning there were more.Different species now, with gills and sporesthat caught the

MummificationThe desert took the moisture first, the skin contracting tightaround the scaffold of the bone, leather-brown and light,the body drying in the alkaline of the high-desert floor,a natural mummification that needed nothing morethan heat and wind and the patience of the sand.Mummified, the water driven from the flesh.Mummified, the body in its final meshof dried-out

My Body Overruled the VoteThe committee of my better selfconvened at half past nine,reviewed the evidence,the risk,the bottom line— voted unanimouslyto leave,to walk,to be the manwho finally holds the discipline,who finally ran. Then she crossed the roomand settled onto my lap,and the chamber emptied out,gavel unused,no second for the motion,no time for the gapbetween resolutionand