Poems

Hustle Culture EulogyWe gather here to mourn a man who slept four hours a night,Who called sleep laziness, who called productivity his right.His morning ritual began at four—ice bath, a podcast’s drone,Green juice, a gratitude journal, and a customized blend combo. He wrote three thousand words before the rest of us woke up.His heart gave […]

Holiday Cookie Situation My wife makes the cookies every year in the holiday run,she starts at eight in the morning and she’s barely done,by the time the sun goes down and the kitchen’s a wreck,of flour and the sprinkles and the cooling rack’s check,of seventeen different varieties on four trays wide,the snickerdoodle and the gingerbread

Heat Before The ThunderThe air before a storm goes thick and still and electric to the skin,and that’s the kind of summer afternoon we’ve been living in,not the storm itself — the held breath of the hour just before it breaks,that specific sweet humidity that everything around you makes. You’re on the other end of

Hide and Seek in the Condemned WingThe elementary school had a condemned wingSealed off with plywood and padlocksBut children found their way inThrough a window that never stayed locked We played there after schoolHide and seek in the ruined classroomsWhere the desks were still arrangedAnd the chalkboard still showed lessons from 1974 The rule was

Hard to Love I’m going to be honest about the hard to love part —because every honest love song should include it.I am not the easiest person to live with full time —I have my systems, my silences, my specific speed,I can go internal in a way that leaves no window,I can be wrong and

Headboard Percussion Bang.Bang.Bang.The drywall has a dent shaped like a headboard corner. She likes it hard and hard makes the bed move and the bed,Moving makes the headboard hit the wall, widespread,Knowledge in this apartment building that when the banging starts,We are at it again and the fine arts. Headboard percussion, she keeps the rhythm

Hand on the SwitchYou never asked what I wanted.You just asked what I’d trade for it. A kiss like a contract.A smile with the fine print. You learned my hunger quick—then rationed it slow. Not love. Not lust.Just leverage in the undertow. I’d come home stressed and you’d circle the room.Soft voice. Sharp eyes. Reading

—Hands Red With The Letters Under the ashtray moon, pages curl like tongues—I wrote you secrets in blood, my pulse my crime.Nails split, skin gritted raw, paper tearingas if the script itself recoils. Each word stings, each rhyme bites—no forgiveness, just the color of want,of old wounds.You read me like an autopsy, slow and brutal,fingers

Halfway to AnywhereWe used to talk about the places we were going to get to,the plans spread out like maps across the table, how we’d let youin on all the details of the life we’d build when we got there —halfway to anywhere, nobody told us anywhere was there. The twenties burned with all the

Hand Mirrors The floor was packed on a Saturday night,every surface lacquered, every surface bright,the kind of crowd that came to be seen being seen,each body a performance and the dance floor a screenreflecting back exactly what it was asked to show –a room full of mirrors putting on a show.The beat dropped and the