My swallow, why do you weep today?
Has spring not yet arrived?
Has the earth not met the deserts?
Or is it because it lost its centuries-old life?
Are the leaves still dead?
Have they not yet come back to life?
And what of you, my swallow?
Have you not donned your white bridal gown?
Mysterious paths await you.
If crying is good for you then why does it make my head hurt? Why does it make
my eyes puff up and my nose run and my face salty? My face is dry and wet all at
the same time now how does that work?
If running is good for you then why does it hurt? Hair and face drenched in a
different salt from before, all sound drowned out by a thunderous roar from
within. Every inch of you screams but you push nonetheless because it’s good
for you, how?
It was easier as a child. I could run for hours and cry for days—in that order
specifically—but now that I’m older everything has its limits. Whether I can
see them or not.
Too much water, too much food, too much love—all of it bad. Too much of
anything is bad for you, the art of indulgence they’ll say.
But why?
English is weird so all of these questions can simply be answered with one
simple word: Because.
I said simple
Not fulfilling.
Sea, swallow me
Crash upon my wading head
Rapture me in heavy tide
Let your water fill my gaping mouth
and the salt eat away my lungs
I lay feeble in your unforgiving waters
Friable as the stone in which you
thrash my eager bones upon
Make your bed and tuck me in
under the abode of blue lit stars
Lull me to sleep
as you cover me,
and drag me out to vast abyss
I'll loan you my own plugged nickel
if you have a red cent I may borrow
but swallow a dollar today
and you'll be passing the buck tomorrow
What if I write you an 8 page sonnet
And when I see you
We talk about the weather
The burdens of bureaucracy, and the colors of fall
You love the orange and I love that the piles of leaves are pillows of the living dead that I plow into
And puddles are piles of recycled tears that I cry into
But I’ll say I love orange
Because neither boys nor teachers like running sentences
Detection of orbs, orbiting my eyes
Perfection absorbs, and I'm paralyzed
Broken and brittle, split in the middle
She spoke without tittle, spit out a riddle
Follow the hollow, to swallow the hollow
Wallow at every turn
Wallow and swallow, or sorrow tomorrow
Follow or ever burn
Baited, deflated, fated not sated
Orbiting eyes would burn
Hated, degraded, fated not mated
Some boys will never learn
Bitter truth descends,
Hard to take, the medicine,
Acceptance dawns slow.
©bfa051725
When the time comes for the earth to swallow me,
do not cover me with just old garments,
but lay upon me a quilt woven from poems,
from the bleeding verses that flowed through my veins,
stitched from the letters that were both witness and burden.
Let not a single word remain.
Let no one ever read them,
let no one knock on my grave,
asking, We found the one with the spoken name,
but it wasn't him—where should we search now?
Burn those pages to ashes.
Scatter them in the wind of forgetfulness,
just as the man who wrote them
was never anything more than a shadow.
For words are merely echoes of a dream
that never caught the light,
and I, the dreamer who wished to be,
was nothing but an echo
in the silent ocean of the unknown universe,
a wave lost in the sea of forgotten time.
Let only silence be my epitaph,
for in its stillness I will live on,
in the memory of those who heard,
not just listened.
And thus, I go to bury myself in the heavens,
to be a cloud that rains memories,
a dream wandering in the eternal sleep
of a world without remembrance.
With our separation in progress,
I feel the need to digress,
And the subject of marriage address,
Before I leave this address.
I think my conclusion sound,
And not out of bound,
With no need to turn around,
When my wife is around.
When one partner becomes a willing slave,
The other half will one day decide it is time to cave,
And do without a slave every time they want to shave,
Or offer to help help clean up the cave,
Or cook a meal by themselves to give their slave time to rave,
As sooner or later the novelty of having a slave,
That is to busy for time to rave,
Will no longer be something they want to brave,
And if someone more equal in the neighborhood,
too decides it is time to be brave?
So, if you think someone is starting to be your slave,
Be brave,
And let your feelings permeate the cave,
Leaving no room for doubt that your marriage you want to save,
And you want them as your equal in the cave,
As sooner or later there will be no room in your life for a slave,
Even a good looking willing slave.
This is the story
in which I die
and come back to life
I thought it was over
I felt powerless,
purposeless
but I of course discovered
the opposite side of the coin
I gave up, almost
from the highest roof
I’ve had in this city
I could have flung myself
I didn’t do it,
I couldn’t be like he was
Instead I was brave
I called a number
told someone
got help
a three day
suspension
from the real world
can be more helpful
than I knew
every cell in my body
heaved
I swallowed my last breath
learned
to sink into the emotion
deeper and deeper
and deeper I sank,
down through the ice cap
miles thick of the trauma I froze in
down, down
into the waters below
I learned every feeling is allowed
and once I learned that,
the process of completion
could begin
Untitled
Swallowed by the waves that birthed me, I shout at the moon as broken winged angels drag me by my bleeding feet.
The scars that mark my skin are all shades of blue. They carry stories I whisper into the angry winds that sweep them back to me.
The sleeping world crumbles under the weight of my tongue, acid words pour
from my blazing chest, my breath sets the skies on fire.
Swollen flesh, aching bone. Kings and queens watch me walk over the line
that goes along their spines and leads nowhere
Kvg
as speaking the truth mostly,
haters encrease in your life secretly.
as some people cannot swallow the truth,
as it can stop them to breath.
Own
my pleasure,
claim it for yourself;
In a million little ways;
Taste
my inhibition falling
like clothes to the floor;
Swallow me
down.
The time had come
For the swallows to leave
Travelling to South Africa
Over the Pyrenees
One chick in particular
Was not ready to go
Despite being urged by its siblings
In a to-and-fro
Into the stable
Its mother flew
“Tswit-tswit,” it sang
There was one thing to do
Using her claws
She picked up her chick
What she was about to commence
Would make it think quick
Over the orchard
This mother carried its chick
As it was time to use
That age-old trick
Down the chick went
As the mother let go
Its new found talent
It was about to show
Out stretched its wings
In the nick of time
Gliding over
The wild mountain thyme
We are alone..
A hard pill to swallow
Perhaps..yet
Alone..ends the lonesome
Separation which will not
Heal without that pill...
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